New!Welcome to the new mericlese.com. I've revamped and redesigned the whole site from scratch. One of my friends turned me on to the Twitter bootstrap and I have to say, I like what its done with the place. I hope you do too. So, take a look around, kick the tires and enjoy yourself. It'll be a little sparse on content for the time being, but the website is here to grow and I hope that you'll be here for the duration.

S.O.P.A. As a fair amount of the internet is aware, Congress is currently considering a piece of legistlation known as the Stop Online Piracy Act. To say this is a bad piece of legislation is a gross understatement. It gives disturbing abilities to the government and to large media corporations. While I agree that protecting the intellectual property of copyright owners is important, S.O.P.A. is not the answer.

Under S.O.P.A. a copyright owner will have the ability to essentially shut down a website if any infringing content is found, including user submitted content. For example, someone posts a video that uses a song on youtube, the song's owner would be send notice and shut down the entire site through the host and through financial means. Further, the government would have the ability to shut down foreign websites deemed as "rogue" such as Pirate Bay. While the goals of the bill may be laudible, the legislation as it stands has far, far too much potential for abuse.

My old host goDaddy had posted its support for S.O.P.A. and thought they've since retracted that support, they haven't really come out against it; leaving me with doubts. My current host, hostGator is actively opposed to both S.O.P.A. and its sister bill in the Senate P.I.P.A. I've contacted my Congressman and Senators, and you should as well, if you value the internet as the free and vital entity that it is. Join me and others in opposing it, through the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.