Forecast: cloudy with a slight chance of revolution

An article in IT World informs us that the Chinese city of Chongqing is attempting to attract foreign investors to a new datacenter for cloud computing by promising "censorship-free" data access.

That has sparked an uproar among some Chinese Internet users, because the unfiltered Web access will be available only to foreign companies, according to the reports. People commenting on social-networking sites have slammed the zone as a throwback to the days of "No dogs and no Chinese allowed,"a reference to how local Chinese were prohibited in the early 20th century from entering certain foreigner communities.

Taunting your citizens ... generally not a good idea, China.  They know this freedom is out there ... waving it under their noses is an invitation to revolution.

Friday, July 8

Final Space Shuttle launch of all time is set for Atlantis

So we had a little rain last night

When the whole city is made of brick and stone, thunder does ROLL!

Cowboys & Aliens Interviews

Director Jon Favreau interviews cast members from his sci-fi flick. Some fun stuff.

U.S. Supreme Court Gets it Right

I'm not particularly a fan of violent video games ... but I'm a really big fan of the First Amendment, so I was pretty happy to see the U.S. Supreme Court get it right in upholding the appeals court ruling that California's law prohibiting the sale or rental of "extremely violent" (who defines that, again?) video games to minors was unconstitutional.  Scalia, of all people, wrote:

"No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm. But that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."

7-2 ... I'm pleasantly surprised.

The sun is back

It cleared up on Sunday and it looks like 80-something weather for the start of the week!

Holland Endorses Net Neutrality for Phones

Way to go, Holland!  According to a BBC story, the Dutch Parliament passed a law restricting the ability of mobile data companies from restricting users or charging extra for voice applications like Skype.

Labour MP Martijn van Dam, one of the bill's co-authors, said that KPN was similar to "a postal worker who delivers a letter, looks to see what's in it, and then claims he hasn't read it."

Hallelujah, was that so hard?