Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss SOPA and PIPA

A lot of websites are down today in protest of SOPA and PIPA, two legislations that were initially aimed at preventing piracy and aiding in consumer privacy online, but have evolved to a point where they have gone well beyond that into undue regulation and federal power over the internet.

If anyone here works on the internet like I do, You know how big of a deal this is, and for once, I can say that I wholeheartedly stand behind our president who wishes to see the issue completely dropped.

If you have the time, please write a letter/email/give a call to the office of your congresspeople and senators to tell them NOT to support this travesty of a potential legislation.

I know that we are supposed to stay away from politics here on the forums, and to the moderators, I wholeheartedly apologize if i am in violation of our status quo. But, Since it could potentially affect the future health of this forum, I think that this is the one exception I would make (of course, my career has me biased in that respect)

Thanks, and hope all is well on your side of the pond,
Mike

Very little chance of this topic staying clean & constructive.

Once again, let's see if we can show mutual respect for each others' opinions or viewpoints.

Thanks, Sunil. I'll bow out respectfully to any one else's opinions.

In any case....Protecting from piracy is an outstanding, altruistic concept. It is the methods listed in SOPA and PIPA that I have issue with.

-mike

Wondered why that big black box was covering the Google logo this morning.

Lol...funny part to this story...

So i work at a company that supplies scientific materials, chemicals, reagents, solvents, bio-active molecules, stable isotopes etc etc etc to everything from tiny experimental labs to giant pharma companies to technology providers etc etc etc.

One of the representatives from one of the branches of the company emailed me this morning about a new function for the web that they are rolling around in their heads, something about some abbreviation that i don't know what it is. I google'd it to find out the defenition of some acronym that related to some compound that of course I have no clue what that actually is. So I hit the wikipedia link....nope, site is down due to the SOPA protest.

Well, counterpart in another office, I would love to help you with this, but without wikipedia, i have NO clue what you are talking about.

Then another branch of the company calls me and asks about "deuterated heavy water"....yeah.....sorry....Could i get back to you on monday?

-Mike

edit:
Luckily, my counterparts are accepting of my non-scientific background, and explained that apparently, these compounds are a lot like tinker toys. I pretended to have properly visualized it......

+1 agreed - keep it civil despite our collective cabin fever.

Haha, that's great Mike!

This further convinces me that I should work less and read the news more.

Yeah, the worst part about it was having to admit to a room full of PHD's that the only way i can keep up was with Wikipedia....which apparently is sacrilege to scientists

<GASP!!> That is NOT peer-reviewed!

Well it is sorta peer reviewed as there is a group that has edit and note functions. I have seen stuff put on there and it was quickly labled junk with a discussion.

The nine most feared words in the English language: We're from the government and we're here to help. - Ronald Reagan.

Mods if that is bad feel free to delete it. I have no problem with that. But you have to admit it really applies to Skinny Bass's thread topic.