Alex Reid

“Student warning!” Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales tweeted on Monday. “Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!”

The bad law is the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act and the backlash officially starts tomorrow. See here for more info.

Wikipedia’s decision to participate with a 24-hour blackout was a decision of the Wikipedia community, and intends to bring the lobby message to the masses.

News crowd sourcing site Reddit said they’ll go offline for 12 hours in protest, displaying a “simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit.”  Even Mozilla is planning to participate in the protest, replacing the content on its various sites with anti-SOPA messages.

Some called for Facebook and Google to join the blackout, saying their participation alone would kill the bill. Google has been a vocal opponent of SOPA/PIPA since the beginning. Google won’t blackout, but they will provide a link to some anti-SOPA information on its homepage.

Here’s the list of companies and organizations backing the bill.

Cute animation video explaining the evolution of the English language.

I’m shocked.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world. – Jack Layton

I love this!

From yesterday’s Globe and Mail:

Closing the digital divide in Winnipeg
Canadian Press

WINNIPEG — One of Winnipeg’s poorest neighbourhoods is poised to become the city’s only high-tech wireless Internet corridor, offering free access to low-income people.

Currently, there are hot spots associated with businesses throughout the city, but no neighbourhoods have joined the trend towards wireless Internet access.

Point Douglas is on its way to becoming the first.

“The Point Douglas area is one of the lowest-income areas in the city,” said Rhonda McCorriston, Neeginan Institute of Applied Technology education director.

“The people in Point Douglas are the ones that most need Internet access to bridge the digital divide.”

The digital divide is the gap between those who have access to a digital world of computers and Internet technologies and those who don’t because of their economic status. Those who don’t have access can miss out on job and educational opportunities.

The Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg has already installed a wireless antenna on its building with the help of Smart Partners of Manitoba and the Computer Lending Library.

Smart Partners of Manitoba, a non-profit group that focuses on giving low-income people access to computer and Internet technology, plans to loan out 1,000 computers.

“We don’t want to compete with the private sector. These people can’t afford to purchase their own Internet access,” Smart Partners executive director Karen Keppler said.

The broadcast area for the antenna is quite small and will only transmit a few blocks around the Aboriginal Centre.

Plans are in the works to get two-thirds of the Point Douglas wireless network completed by August, with the rest to be finished in stages.

Setting up the network will cost an estimated $45,000, with little needed for monthly maintenance, Ms. Keppler said.

YES!

I’ve been telling people about this technology for years, and now I have proof of it.

The Bluetooth Laser Keyboard

My big hands don’t like small keyboards or ridiculously small buttons on phones. Now, for only $180 US, you can have a matchbox-sized box that projects the outline of a full keyboard.

Next up, we should see such miniaturization with multimedia. Instead of watching videos on a small iPod video, we should see video projected onto whatever we what (a tent canvas, a wall, a bus, in an elevator, etc). I love it!