A friendly warning against SOPA, or H.R.3261

If you don't know what SOPA is, you should. SOPA, or the "Stop Online Piracy Act", is a corporately-funded law that could be passed unless you act, now.

The title of H.R.3261 is very deceiving - While yes, it would defend certain companies against piracy of their product - The most profound effect of the bill would be your internet, censored. Many major companies such as (just a quick list): GoDaddy, Nintendo, Motion Picture Association of America (big surprise), Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Xerox, Walmart, Dow, Walt Disney, CBS, NBA, NFL, Adidas, Bose, Burberry, and Philip Morris. There are many more. These companies are paying your senators & representatives lots of money to pass this law. American politics at it's typical day-to-day business.
(List of companies that support and reject SOPA)

The internet is one of the last great free tools we have to interact, learn, teach, preach, defile, or even become famous by showing off your talents. Ever heard of the 'Great Firewall of China'? Well, imagine you are a Chinese citizen, and you search for 'Tiananmen Square'. Instead of getting the powerful, striking image of the anonymous man in front of the tank, you get 'random' image of pots & pans, and families sitting down for dinner. Imagine that.

Imagine not getting what you searched for - But getting what someone, or your government, showing you what they want you to see when you search for something. Imagine me. Imagine this: I control what you see when you search. If you are pro-choice & I disagree, I would serve you propaganda search results based on what I think is prudent, correct, or 'right'.

Imagine a world where SOPA, combined with NDAA, you could be jailed in a military detention center indefinitely, just because you posted a comment that someone disagreed with. No trial, no judge, no peers. Imagine being stuck in high school forever, and the bully was too big for anyone to face, unless every student agreed to pile on that bully. It's a scary possibility.

This needs to stop - Keep the internet free.

The internet is ours.

Information is freedom.

He who controls the information controls the mindset of a generation - Discourse creates ideas, opens minds, and is the standard of freedom - The US may become one of the least free countries in the world, only under the guise of 'stopping piracy'.

Hurricane Bawbag causes wind turbine to explode (Scotland)

US forces withdrawing from Iraq into Kuwait - Dec. 7th, 2011

Adolph Hitler moves to North Dakota

Hot girls in bikinis sliding downhill (possibly NSFW)

Unbelievable Paper Airplane at Baseball game from 3rd to last row

Mythbusters news conference 12-7-11 about the cannonball incident

Alec Baldwin's Tracy Morgan Impersonation 12/05/11

No title needed

Australian Open - reaction from Andy Murray's local

TRAMPOLINE! TRAMPOLINE! OMG

Amazing Jellyfish Lake (check out other pictures from the link)

Check out the rest of the article here: Jellyfish Lake

Sweet Daft Punk Poster Prints (HUGE)

You can find this Daft Punk poster art on eBay by searching for 'daft punk poster art'.

Milky Way galaxy seen from Ontario, CA

Amazon's Warehouses (wow)

Last Years Beer = This Years Christmas Tree

Battlefield Moments: Epic Jet Flyby!

Battlefield 3 - Myth Busting Episode 6

Blonde on an escalator....that is all.

This does not concern you, close the door and walk away

Cable car ride from hell

6 week year old little kitten plays

Russel Peter goes clubbing in Lebanon

Liam Neeson get full-blown AIDS

Most Awkward Interviewer - Interview with the San Fran Giants vs. Dodgers

Iron Mike does Herman Cain Again

Herman Cain’s Campaign Promises with Mike Tyson from Mike Tyson

Best Herman Cain Impression Ever. Iron Mike sings the pizza song

Herman Cain Sings 'Imagine There's No Pizza' from Mike Tyson

The real Mexico War on Drugs: what the media won't post

If you stare at this picture, it will disappear (not a gif)

This is the proper way to close a tailgate.

Amazon Prime gets even better

First, Amazon Prime (@ $80/year) was a great deal, with free 2-day shipping on all Prime-eligible items, and $3.99 overnight shipping. Then they added a Netflix-like feature, which allows you to view many movies & TV shows to Prime. But now, they allow you to add some books to your kindle for free. It just keeps getting better.

Bolivian salt flats after some rain

For you pasta lovers

The budget for Seal Team 6 is more than that of the entire marine core

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEVGRU#history

Henry Rollins - Punk Bands Selling Out?

TIL The USS San Francisco collided with an undersea mountain in 2005, almost sinking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_San_Francisco_%28SSN-711%29

I don't know how to use photoshop.

Ignution

Before wax became widely available and at a relatively inexpensive price, many candles were made of tallow — rendered fat from beef and lamb. Tallow worked as a fuel for candles because of a simple rule: fat burns. Which is why you should not pack raw pistachios too tightly when shipping them.

If you do, they may spontaneously combust.

Pistachios contain very little water and need to be kept that way. In shipping, the nuts need to be kept free of moisture, in order to prevent them from getting moldy or rancid. So they need to be stored, so to speak, in a cool, dry place.

Unfortunately, there’s a not-so-great problem caused by this. Pistachio oil, due to the nut’s high fat content — 45% of the nut, by mass, is fat — is highly flammable. If packed densely enough, the pistachio oils can self-heat, causing spontaneous combustion. As the German Marine Insurer’s handbook notes, this can happen without an external heat input — and certainly, without a flame to kindle the fire. Similarly, the German Transport Information Service advises that pistachios “not be stowed together with fibers/fibrous materials as oil-soaked fibers may promote self-heating/spontaneous combustion of the cargo,” and for that matter, the fibrous materials may act as a wick.

To prevent this outcome, pistachios have to be shipped in specific conditions — not too dry, not too hot, not too densely packed — and monitored throughout transit. With a large percentage of pistachio production in the Middle East (Iran is the largest grower of the nut, followed by the US, but Turkey and Syria round out the top four), transit typically requires a cargo ship. Thankfully, to date, no such ships have been deep-sixed by an errant pistachio fire.

Bonus fact: Extinguish a candle and bring a new flame slowly into the smoke of the extinguished one. Get close to, but do not touch, the wick of the extinguished candle. What will happen? If you do it right, the smoke will catch fire and re-ignite the wick, as seen here. This happens because the smoke contains wax from the recently extinguished candle; the wax is highly flammable, and creates a pathway back to the wick upon which the new flame may travel.

From the Archives: Mystery Food: This food isn’t explosive, but it also is not what you think it is.