AZ HB 2549: Outlawing Internet Trolling (Except it wont)

Arizona Looks to Outlaw Internet Trolling | Techland | TIME.com

It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use ANY ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL DEVICE and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.

While I applaud the State’s efforts to update existing laws to ensure new technological means are not used to skirt anti-harassment and intimidation protections, this law will likely not hold up in court because the terms “annoy or offend” were made into “criminal” offenses. Such vague terminology could be used to suppress 1st Amendment rights in Arizona by those who become “annoyed” or “offended” by something someone writes on the Internet. Every day people are “offended” and “annoyed” by the most innocuous of things. That doesn’t mean it’s criminal to say or write them, especially when they are of a non-threatening nature.

Who decides what is “offensive” and there for criminal? I find the derogatory comments about Arizona from progressives, pro-illegal alien supporters and extremist groups like La Raza to harm Arizona businesses via boycotts offensive; so is that a criminal offense? Does that justify 25 years of incarceration? Of course not. And then there is the whole “profane language” part, which the SCOTUS ruled long ago as protected speech, regardless of the level of offense.

A well intentioned law but ultimately one that has been subverted by those desiring to quash free expression in this nation.

ScribeFire

I have to say I despise the new ScribeFire Next (i.e. ScribeFire 4), particularly it’s UI layout (especially since there’s no option to change it atm. I know, I’ve checked). Worse is the options section doesn’t even have a button to confirm changes, so you have to go recheck it to see if the changes you wanted went into effect. Complete fail.

The part that really pisses me off is it updated to v4 without my input. Unrequested updates are my number one pet peeve with any product regardless of whether its a small blogging app or a major corporate CAD package, particularly with regards to applications on the internet since it is so easy to have malicious code.

I suspect I’m going to look for a new blogging app just on principle for the unrequested update alone. I don’t condone anyone changing anything on my computer without my knowledge. Makes me understand better why Firefox 8 automatically disables third-party apps until users give the go ahead.  May not stop the unrequested update BS going on but still nice to think at least someone seems to get it. As it is I’m waiting for a bit before going to FF8, just to make sure some of the add ons I prefer have had time to update to the newest release of the browser.

Okay, enough useless ranting.

AutoCAD Freestyle released

Autodesk releases AutoCAD Freestyle on its 28th birthday | The CAD Geek Blog

AutoCAD Freestyle isn’t for the seasoned AutoCAD/AutoCAD LT professional who needs advanced drafting and design tools to create complex drawings. Instead think of AutoCAD Freestyle as a product your mom could use. While there’s an obvious market for homeowners needing to create drawings for a new deck, or even small landscaping companies, I can also see AutoCAD Freestyle as a potential collaboration tool. Perhaps AutoCAD Freestyle can make the “napkin sketch” so commonly passed to a CAD drafter extinct.

Autodesk – AutoCAD Freestyle

AutoCAD 2011

I’ve been ignoring my geeky CAD/Designer/Engineer side lately.

AutoCAD 2011 in 3 minutes | CAD Panacea

AutoCAD 2011: A Look at What’s New | Cadalyst

Overall based on what I’ve read and seen I like the changed UI so far, particularly the paper-style grid. Old timers might get confused but if you’ve kept up with AutoCAD’s or even if you haven’t they’re easy enough to figure out. Also liked the update to the axis colors (X-red, Y- green, Z- blue). AutoConstrain is a nice feature to have. Admittedly I haven’t used AutoCAD outside of personal projects for some time now, but the newest incarnation appears to be quite good.

Firefox 3 Sucks

Yes, I’m joining the multitude of others who feel the Firefox 3 browser is a piece of crap. All useless fluff and no go. You’d think after I held out for six plus months before “upgrading” (without consent and settings set to require approval, but that’s another thing I’m still trying to discover how it happened since I never approved a download/upgrade) the guys over at Mozilla would have fixed the problems people have been complaining about since day one of FF3’s release. Yeah they have some other issues, so I suppose I can be slightly forgiving.

What I hate most:

1. New address bar. Have to use a plug in to go back to the nice clean address bar of FF 2. Awesomebar is actually Gimmicky Lamebar (or as many call it Awfulbar). Awesomebar FTL.
2. Slow loading. All the time. If I wanted IE I would….well…I wouldn’t use that crappy browser either but you get what I mean.
3. Bookmarks were ruined from a perfectly acceptable system in FF2.

There’s plenty more but my annoyance knows no bounds at this moment. I dread even looking at what it may do when I get around to seeing how it interacts with my websites. At least I was able to get an updated version of my favorite theme. I like my browsers clean, fast loading, and secure. Not this cluttered garbage everywhere clogging my browsing experience up.

Very disappointing.

ETA: #2 & #3 has been resolved…somewhat. Thank god the community seems more with it that Moz does. I’m still considering seriously dumping FF for now. Or spending the time DLing FF2 once more. Depends on whether my annoyance grows over the next few days or not.

USB 3.0 vid

Superspeed USB in Action

Some interesting vids to watch. Some of it is funny to watch as far as how they set up, but still it makes a good point on the USB 3.0 capabilities in my opinion.

News Briefs 08 Jan 2009

Obama pushes stimulus, warns on recession | Reuters I’m highly skeptical of Obama’s neo-socialist attitude that only the government can solve the economic crisis, especially one that will only increase the debt left for future generations. The Federal Government can not be the cash cow for the country to turn o for money that doesn’t exist. History has shown government influence and control hinders economic recovery. Recent history even more so highlights this with the epic failure that was the so called Wall Street Bailout. Do we really want to trust a government that bankrupted the nation’s social programs and ran up massive deficits and debt over the past forty to fifty years to have greater influence in the economy as well? I, for one, do not.

Israel faces criticism as Gaza toll hits 765 | Reuters And why doesn’t anyone blame Hamas, a blantantly obvious terrorist organization, not held accountable for its attacks on civilians? Oh that’s right, only Israel does wrong. Everyone else in the ME is innocent, fluffy bunnies. /sarcasm Yes Israel has done some terrible things to Palestinians, but then so have the Palestinians done terrible things (to both themselves  and Israelis) as well by allowing the Arab world to use them as pawns to keep the corrupt Arab regimes in power for decades.

Microsoft’s Ballmer touts ‘best version of Windows ever’ – CNN.com
What’s funny is I thought Vista was the best version of Windows since the archaic 3.11. I know others had problems with Vista but I never really did. On the rare occasions I did I was always able to find a viable, easy solution. So go figure. Perhaps this means Windows 7 truly will be the ‘best version ever’. Perhaps not. I still like Unix/Linux systems (particularly Ubuntu) better even if I don’t use one at home.

I did get some amusement at the implication that they had developed a flexible screen. The Japanese came up with that nearly a decade ago. I remember seeing it on a Japanese tech news television program. I guess its good that it’s finally reached the US.

News Briefs 08 Jan 2009

Obama pushes stimulus, warns on recession | Reuters I’m highly skeptical of Obama’s neo-socialist attitude that only the government can solve the economic crisis, especially one that will only increase the debt left for future generations. The Federal Government can not be the cash cow for the country to turn o for money that doesn’t exist. History has shown government influence and control hinders economic recovery. Recent history even more so highlights this with the epic failure that was the so called Wall Street Bailout. Do we really want to trust a government that bankrupted the nation’s social programs and ran up massive deficits and debt over the past forty to fifty years to have greater influence in the economy as well? I, for one, do not.

Israel faces criticism as Gaza toll hits 765 | Reuters And why doesn’t anyone blame Hamas, a blantantly obvious terrorist organization, not held accountable for its attacks on civilians? Oh that’s right, only Israel does wrong. Everyone else in the ME is innocent, fluffy bunnies. /sarcasm Yes Israel has done some terrible things to Palestinians, but then so have the Palestinians done terrible things (to both themselves  and Israelis) as well by allowing the Arab world to use them as pawns to keep the corrupt Arab regimes in power for decades.

Microsoft’s Ballmer touts ‘best version of Windows ever’ – CNN.com
What’s funny is I thought Vista was the best version of Windows since the archaic 3.11. I know others had problems with Vista but I never really did. On the rare occasions I did I was always able to find a viable, easy solution. So go figure. Perhaps this means Windows 7 truly will be the ‘best version ever’. Perhaps not. I still like Unix/Linux systems (particularly Ubuntu) better even if I don’t use one at home.

I did get some amusement at the implication that they had developed a flexible screen. The Japanese came up with that nearly a decade ago. I remember seeing it on a Japanese tech news television program. I guess its good that it’s finally reached the US.

Rocketfish RF-HD25

So I finally broke down and bought a hard drive enclosure kit for my otherwise dead laptop. I ended up with the Rocketfish RF-HD25 enclosure kit, mainly because it was the only 2.5″ PATA kit available in the area and even then I bought the last one the store had available. I have to say I love the kit. Simple and concise. Took less than fifteen minutes to get everything up and running, and I’ve been happily recovering the files from my laptop’s old drive.

I do have to say I think the prices of all enclosures (at least the ones at the store) are a little high in price. But that’s my opinion and despite the cost, I think it was money well spent in my case.

Brief thoughts on CATIA V6

As CATIA is a major software package used in my industry I went and checked out CATIA V6R2009. CATIA V6 tries to harness Web 2.0 and Web 3D to improve collaboration and innovation. They also play up the “lifelike experience” angle, though I personally despise that phrase when applied to CAD design and developing since it is used far to often.

The reality is many designers and engineers want and need to interact physically and directly with others when collaborating on ideas. While the rapid exchange of data and files is an excellent idea, being able to access others remotely is a good idea in theory but is still somewhat limited in practice. Perhaps this will change sooner or later, but designers and engineers tend to be conservative by the nature of their careers and slow to accept the idea of removing human interaction in the design process, especially given those fields continually looking for individuals that are articulate and capable of working in groups effectively.

CATIA V6 sounds like a lot of great ideas that have a number of issues to overcome: namely a variety of intellectual property rights regarding file types. There is an on going legal dispute between Autodesk and Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks over a number of issues including the use of DWG in product names.