Substandard Book Report: The United States of Americana

Have you ever felt like you were living in a wrong time period? Ever feel that you knew that you were into music, art, style that was more rustic, but needed to know more so you could understand what it all meant? Well, here is a great book for you!

United States of Americana:
Backyard Chickens, Burlesque Beauties, and Handmade Bitters: A Field Guide to the New American Roots Movement.
by Kurt B. Reighley 

Are you a crafter? Do you can your own food, or want to? Do you pine for the days where you knew that every stitch of clothing was made in the U.S.A.? This is the book for you.

Substandard Book Report: Obsolete

Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By, from Mix Tapes and Modesty to Typewriters and Truly Blind Dates
by Anna Jane Grossman

A book that reads like an informal encyclopedia with basic information about items that are, as the title suggests, obsolete. Items in this book are fascinating, because simply by owning and using them you are an anachronism. Items like a landline telephone, or the Rolodex that sits next to it. Things like a typewriter and bottles of correction fluid. Things that are, thanks to technology and time, obsolete.

Time to Read

Now that I am done with the spring 2012 semester, I want to attempt to run head first into a stack of books. Of course I don’t mean that literally, or do I?

CISPA: Another Threat to Our Civil Rights

Seems government agencies are at it again. This time the bill is called CISPA. Rather than looking for ways to break the internet like PIPA/SOPA, this bill is looking to amend what the government agencies can look at without a warrant, and  according to the EFF,

“Under Rep. Mike Rogers’ Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA),and Sen. John McCain’s SECURE IT Act, there are almost no restrictions on what information can be spied upon and how it can be used. That means a company like Google, Facebook, Twitter, or AT&T could intercept your emails and text messages, send copies to one another and to the government, and modify those communications or prevent them from reaching their destination if it fits into their plan to stop “cybersecurity” threats.” -https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8444

So, sure if you think about it, not only can this law be used to track “cyber-terrorists” but it can also be used to intercept and snoop on you as you are just using the services that you pay for. Again. This law is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Learn More:
http://cyberspying.eff.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Intelligence_Sharing_and_Protection_Act
http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/security/296402-forget-sopa-is-cispa-the-internet-s-new-enemy

Social Patterns

I want to use g+, I really do, I want to be able to hook it into my website. I want to be able to merge features back and forth so I can maximize any chance of traffic. That is what social media is for me. Sure I have my own private pages for friends. But the public pages on Facebook and Google+ only have one specific function, to spread the word and hopefully bring back views to this site. To that end they all seem to fail one way or another.

So, if anyone in the cosmos is listening I have an idea as to what features are the best when using social media. If I was to create the most functional social media site on the internet it would have these features.