Wednesday's Guest

Instead of my normal Wednesday's Guest where a real live person shares something, I wanted to let some of the organizations and websites that are part of the online protest of SEPA speak up.

This from Google  

Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA. The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

To sign the petition use the link to Google that I provided.

This from Forbes Magazine:

The growing anti-SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) support that has swept through the gaming and Internet community found a very big ally today. With websites like Reddit and Wikipedia and gaming organizations like Major League Gaming prepared for a blackout on January 18th – the same day that the House Judiciary Committee hearing on HR 3261was scheduled in Washington, DC – President Barack Obama has stepped in and said he would not support the bill. SOPA has been killed, for now.

This from Wikipedia:

Imagine a World  Without Free Knowledge

For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.

This from me - a real live person:

SOPA is another example of how government goes to an extreme to deal with an issue. Piracy is a problem on the Internet. I have seen my books being pirated. But to enact such broad restrictions as are in this bill is ludicrous. Go after the pirates, but leave the Internet accessible for people who are sharing but not for profit.

Daylight Saving Time - Who Needs It?

This coming Sunday is the day most of us in the United States are to turn our clocks back one hour as Daylight Saving Time (DST) ends the first Sunday of November.

There have been many reasons for establishing DST, some factual, some not so factual. One I always heard was that it was established to give farmers more hours of daylight in which to work. However, that never made sense to me as farmers work from daybreak to sunset, no matter what time it says on some clock.

This morning I decided to check online to see if I could find some verified reasons for the time change, and I found this on Wikipedia:

Modern DST was first proposed in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson, but the practice is controversial. Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment, and other occupations tied to the sun.

 Traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra afternoon daylight, but its effect on health and crime is less clear. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity, modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited or contradictory.

DST's occasional clock shifts present other challenges. They complicate timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, recordkeeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Software can often adjust computer clocks automatically, but this can be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST protocols are changed.

 In a letter to the editor in The Dallas Morning News, Jim Watt, who works for American Airlines and handles takeoff and landing slots at European and Asian airports, wrote that the difference between the U.S. and European time changes creates havoc for the airline industry. In the European Union, their version of DST - Summer Time -  begins and ends at 1:00 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time). It begins the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday in October. In the EU, all time zones change at the same moment.

The result, Watt wrote, "Are airline schedules that are compromised because most large European airports are unable to accommodate the one-our shift of our schedules required to maintain the normal departure and arrival times in the States."

I'll admit I am not a huge fan of DST, but do remember appreciating the extra daylight hours at the end of a workday when I had a 9-5 job. It was also easier to adjust to the changes when I was a bit younger.

What about you? Do you like DST? Is it easy for you to adjust? Do you think there should be a global schedule that has the time change on the same day and time?