Of Broken Laptops and Technology Fail (by sarah)

Well my laptop basically died and thanks to Alaric, Seth and Andy using their assorted magiks I have something back which I can vaguelly use but it doesn't really work and is unreliable and may die again at any point. This has made my life just that little more interesting as there were many things I needed to be online for which I wasn't and so with asking others to post things for me etc... my phone bill is going to be high this month 🙁

This also leaves me in a quandary as to what to do really :/ I will probably continue to limp along with this broken thing and just hope that a new laptop appears somehow!

Anyway - this is why my email etc... has been a bit erratic :/

Ugarit Roadmap (by alaric)

I've not had much time to hack on Ugarit lately, which is a shame - but just to keep you enthusiastic, here's my current roadmap.

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Digital Disaster Looming (by sarah)

Last week saw Digital Economy Bill passed, meaning it will become law. This particular bill is badly written and could have far-reaching consequencies for everyone. My first issue with this was that they were trying to whip it through parliament without proper discussion; the MPs don't understand the potential issues that could result from this.

One such issue is the possibility of having your internet access cut off to your house if copyright infringment is suspected. This means that houses with teenagers in would be in danger of suddenly loosing their internet and if Mum or Dad works from home it could cripple the household. Plus the fact that this cutting off can happen just on suspicion means an environment of vigilante rule and sabotage. You're cut off and then have to prove you're not guilty - this is contradictory to how our legal system is supposed to work, isn't it?

Saying the parents should have control over the teenagers is stupid to anyone who remembers being a teenager and, worse, some teenagers happen to be past the age of majority and therefore legal entities in their own right but are likely to still be living at home.

Or... student halls or shared accommodation. What happens when one student gets the internet cut off from an entire Halls with like 150 students desperatly trying to do their course work and trying to access the library archives? This would be done via the internet, funnily enough. The same would go for kids doing GCSEs and A levels - so it suddenly becomes ok to cut of a house, rendering those kids at a social disadvantage during their exams, which could lead to either/or more stress or lower grades - thinking about this you could kill the kids' prospects before they've even began. There are charities out there trying to get internet access into disadvantaged households for this very reason and the Government want to give big business the right to take it away on a suspicion?

Have I missed something here?

And when they say copyright infringement, they mean all the minor stuff that most people didn't even know was infringement (put it this way even the Politicians themselves have managed to infringe copyright during their campaigns without realising it!).

This is just one part of this bill - there are many more which, if taken as written, would be equally as scary if not more so. This will affect companies that rely on the web (which is an awful lot these days especially the small/medium business). Can you imagine being a shop whose main source of revenue is through your web orders and suddenly wham, bam, your premises are cut off? This would be enough to cripple you plus there are other things being mooted such as blocking of actual websites - oh how the commercial competitors could sabatage you with that one - think about it.

The thing is, this isn't over yet - and as I said before whilst I have a voice and its safe to use it I will. For more information on what can be done know look here.

Debill – A Protest Poem (by sarah)

Debasing
Electronic economy
Being blinded by
Illogical idosyncrasies
Leading literate
Lynchings

April’s Challenges :) (by sarah)

This month is mainly going to be dedicated to Script Frenzy which I am really looking forward too! I am working on a comic book of The Punk (the main protagonist from my NaNoWriMo story). I'll be covering the progress of this on Purple Monster as it is all part and parcel of the same thing 🙂

I am also going to be doing another month of Poem a Day - this is NaPoWriMo 🙂 and as I was told last night of somewhere looking for specific science poems I think I shall be rolling on that one soon 🙂 The poems will be going up on Turquoise Monster as always 🙂