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It’s been a fascinating and tumultuous week surrounding SOPA/PIPA. I wanted to wait a few days to write again to let things unfold and to reflect on all of the events. So here’s a general list of the events:

Week leading up to Jan 18, the planned Internet protest against SOPA/PIPA

• Companies announcing they would take their sites down for 12/24 hours

January 14, 2012

• President Obama announces he won’t support SOPA

January 17, 2012

• Lamar Smith and the MPAA cry PR Stunt by tech companies

January 18, 2012

• Wikipedia is down. Reddit, WordPress and thousands of other sites are down
• Wikipedia says it received 162M site visits, 8 million of which in the U.S.
• Google said their Anti-SOPA page received 13M page views and 7M petition signatures
• Close to 1,000 people protest in New York City in Midtown Manhattan & protests in San Francisco

January 19, 2012

• MegaUpload file-sharing service is shut down and the owners are indicted
• Anonymous takes down government websites in relatiation

January 20, 2012

• SOPA/PIPA are shelved

January 21, 2012

• Petition is created to investigate bribery of politicians by former Sentator and CEO of the MPAA Chris Dodd due to his remarks on Fox News (10,430 have signed at the time of writing this)

Last week, Mark W. Schaefer wrote an excellent blog post about the herd mentality concerning SOPA/PIPA. He posited that SOPA had become a meme in which folks less familiar with the subject played follow the leader with their stance. I largely agreed with other parts of the post but at that time, I really hadn’t seen the ‘herd mentality’ that Mark had seen.

When January 18 came around and friends were updating their Facebook status,’ the herd mentality immediately became apparent. Mark, you were right! Suddenly everyone was against SOPA because Google and Wikipedia said so. While the bandwagoners decided to join the right side imho, to Mark’s point, the problem was that people were choosing sides without educating themselves first. On the flip side, many politicians are guilty of herd mentality too; many pro-SOPA politicians switched sides throughout the day of the protest. Of course living in the “Windy City,” I fully understand there were other factors influencing the stances of politicians…

There’s another problem with herd mentality, especially in the case of SOPA/PIPA. So everyone that jumped on board, more or less has some knowledge of the issue, but how much do they understand? The question I have now is: With all the “new” opponents, how many of them are actually against piracy. Remember, we still don’t like piracy — it’s just that these bills are horribly written — that’s why we’re fighting.

So the million dollar question is: How do you inform an entire country of an issue that directly affects them when mass-media won’t report on it? Possible answer below.

There’s one incredible update from the land of Reddit: A newly formed Political Action Committee (Reddit PAC). I came out of a two-year posting hiatus just to thank the original poster!

Here’s from the new and temporary website (currently being designed):

Here’s a link to the /rpac sub-reddit

Below is the original post:

Please read this entire post, as well as the comments section, before posting a criticism of this project. I may have addressed it already.

In the past several months, there have been a number of threads on Reddit calling for the formation of a Reddit PAC. These threads are often met with optimism, support, and wonder. Just as often, they are met with criticisms and cynicism.

In December, using feedback from these threads, I started paperwork to form a Reddit PAC. And I’m done. We have one.

Test Pac, Please Ignore is a section 527 political organization whose primary purpose is to raise and spend money for whatever political purposes you want.

Together, we can now:

• Air political advertisements on television
• Donate money directly to political campaigns and other PACs
• Do lots of paperwork

Now, to be honest, I was a bit peeved about the recent debacle in /r/trees because here I am, in the process of putting the finishing touches on a legitimate non-profit organization, and this guy broke all of your trust. So allow me assuage your fears:

• We are registered with the Federal Government. Our tax-ID is 45-4126666 (I believe those of you on 4chan call that “dubs” or something.)
• All of our financial activity is monitored and audited by the Federal Election Commission, and every one of our expenditures will be published on fec.gov. You will see exactly where the money goes, as well as how much money we have.
• This is my SteamID, this is my personal website. If I break your trust, you are free to harass me to the ends of the Earth. If I don’t break your trust, please don’t harass me though =D

So what now? We need to (1) get money, (2) decide how to spend it, and (3) spend it. I’ll cover these three points in order.

Getting Money

There are two ways that the PAC can make money. First, we will be having monthly or quarterly fundraisers by selling products (either “pay what you want” or less than, say, $5) such as ebooks, all made/written by actual Redditors who agree to donate a portion of the proceeds to the PAC. The first fundraiser will start in about a week.The fundraisers will be posted in /r/rpac by me and I will ensure that the correct amount of proceeds are allocated to the PAC, and post proof after each fund-raiser as well as the amount we raised, for security reasons.

The PAC can also receive funds 24/7/365 via Dwolla or Piryx. It’s easier than using Paypal, and instructions are on the PAC’s donate page.

If you have a service or product you’d like to use to (1) promote your product and (2) donate at least 50% of the proceeds to the PAC, send an email to info@testpac.org.

Disclaimer: We cannot accept contributions from foreign nationals or government contractors, sorry.

Deciding on How to Spend Money

Currently, we do not have the infrastructure to decide how to allocate expenditures. Most PACs meet in a board room, have a chairman, and take a vote. Two problems. (1) We are on the internet, and (2) we currently have no voting system that is safe from 4chan or the Mitt Romney campaign gaming our voting system. For now, any of these discussions can take place in the PAC’s subreddit, /r/rpac.

When I created the PAC, I had three expenditures in mind:

1.) Donating money directly to Redditors running for political office, such as these people: Sean Closson, Dr. Michael Ham, Jeff Block, Zachary Meyer, Jonathan Wallace, Peter Marchetti, Joel Tyner, Mike Scala, and everyone else whose name I have apologetically forgotten to include here.

2.) Running political advertisements on issues Redditors are vocal about, such as SOPA/PIPA, cannabis prohibition, net neutrality, and preferential voting systems.

3.) Funding causes like Directing Democracy, which aim to educate and inform Americans on citizenship democracy, and capitalism. Democracy requires an educated and informed populace, and while some companies serve their interests by mis-educating and mis-informing, it is our duty to fight back by teaching our countrymen in a non-biased way.

Of course, this is a Democratic organization, so our expenditures are up to you, not me.

Spending Money

This is the part I’m most excited about. Rather than hiring video production teams and spending $50k on a commercial, we can hire actual Redditors to do our work. We can put a post in /r/forhire detailing the project we would like completed, ask for quotes, and give the job to Redditors.

When products are completed, we’ll post them on the official Test PAC Website and then put the ad on TV or the radio, in magazines or newspapers, or on the internet.

I see so much potential for the Reddit PAC!

What would you like to see come from this?

I’ve had several discussions very recently about the devastating Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) working their way through Washington. I need to mention that these chats have mostly scared me! So many people still don’t know what it’s all about.

There’s a few reasons for this:

• Mainstream media won’t cover it because they’re largely in favor of the bill.
• The details are fairly complicate

and the most important reason,

• Many of my friends aren’t as nerdy as I am about the Internet

Conversations about SOPA go back to the end of October (and 2008 with PIPA) so it’s very familiar to me. So getting back to the curse of knowledge, here is what SOPA means in plain English and why you need to care:

In the words of Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

In terms of SOPA, major content producers and media companies are refusing to adapt to the way the Internet and sharing has evolved and affected their businesses.

From a letter written by 83 of the Internet’s ‘Founding Fathers:’

The effects of this bill are still fairly abstract right now (while the Internet still exists) but when YouTube is suddenly unavailable in the United States, you’ll now know why.

I created a Storify post to help illustrate the magnitude of what’s going on.

And here’s a list of additional links to check out:

• An Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress
• To combat SOPA, Tumblr generates 87,834 phone calls to U.S. Representatives
• A massive list of companies and organizations that support SOPA
• SOPA Sub-Reddit: Many discussions on the topic
• A good ol’ fashioned Google Search

Think of the last time you explained a concept to someone. Was their response anything like:  “Just tell me what I have to do, but in language that a cocker spaniel can understand.”

My Dad said that to me recently and sharing that is not a slight against him. I was explaining an IT process but he just wanted basic instructions. I consciously try to explain in simpler terms but where do you draw the line before it’s dumbed down too much?

The Curse of Knowledge

There’s an idea that has crossed my mind many times over the years and last year after I read Chip & Dan Heath’s book, Made To Stick (not an affiliate link), I finally had something to call it. — The Curse of Knowledge

Stick with K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) more often and we’re sure to communicate better.

The Curse of Knowledge Pt. 2: #SOPASUCKS

This American Life, as so many will attest, is a fantastic program. Ira Glass has been sharing fascinating human stories since 1995 and has been broadcasting for much longer.

So why do nearly two million people tune in to his stories?

Ira explains that it’s not just a decent story but two building blocks that work together.

The anecdote and the moment of reflection.

What else?

• “Abandon crap.” It’s hard to find a decent story. “Often the amount of time finding the decent story is more than the time it takes to produce the story.”

• Do a lot of work and you’ll eventually get “lucky.” “If you’re not failing all the time, you’re not creating a situation where you can get super lucky.”

Ira touches upon a subject that really hit home with me. I can recognize great artwork but when I go to create something myself, I know it’s not at the level of my ambition. If I know what great looks like, why can’t I do it myself?

Ira plays a segment he recorded when he was 27, eight years into his career. He tears into it.

The answer? It takes a while; it usually takes years from having good tastes to creating amazing work.

It’s been an interesting past three weeks. I finally caved and got a new phone. Since last April, I’ve been waiting to upgrade for a device I felt would make a good two-year investment…or rather, would last two years. Six months of excruciating patience later, I didn’t get the droid I was looking for (that was good, right?).

I’m an early adopter, I like to explore and dissect everything but there’s a caveat — when there’s an investment, I research until I blow an entire sales cycle. But I made a breakthrough or as I like to call it, an exception. Having endured my Blackberry long enough, I jumped on getting the iPhone 4S after comparing specs and price of course. Combine that with my line of work and personal interests and it just made sense.

One of my first priorities was to jump on instagram. I love shooting photos and it’s although a different medium, it’s fun nonetheless.

Apart from the photos, instagram would be a new social network I was excited to join and get active in. I don’t think I’ve had that feeling since I joined Facebook in 2005.

Here are a few my instagram shots that I like:

Shoes and a hat in my apartment.

O'Hare Airport

Busted bottle of maple syrup at the bus stop outside my office

The view from my hotel room at Montgomery Bell State Park in Tennessee

On a small bridge crossing a section of Lake Woodhaven at Montgomery Bell State Park in Tennessee. 9am morning dew on a spiderweb with a very foggy backdrop. The water was much warmer than the air.

There was a little building across the bridge with a balcony and an amazing view.

I attended my first Moth Story Slam at Martyrs last Tuesday and boy it was fun! Despite coming down with a mean sinus cold that night, I meandered through the packed-house and got off some photos. The lighting was incredibly difficult but where the luminance lacked, the storytelling delivered.

Not familiar with Moth Story Slams? Each story is given 5 minutes and is scored according to awesomeness. Some are funny, some are sad; some are serious and some are crazy. At the end a winner emerges.

New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Louisville are home to this month’s series of events.

This week’s theme was food. WBEZ’s Brian Babylon did a hell of a job MC’ing and infusing his brand of comedy between epic tales of grub.

Can’t wait for the next one!

Photo gallery after the jump.

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My colleague Brian Quarles and his band, Liquid Soul, hit the stage at Streeterfest. The setup just east of the Magnificent Mile was probably one of the most mellow street fests I’ve ever been to. Although West Fest, Wicker Park Fest and Burgerfest in Roscoe Village serve a younger and more vibrant crowd that doesn’t have a virtual picnic in the grass while the music is blazing.

Regardless, Liquid Soul snapped as always and was followed by none other than American English, a Beatles cover band. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cover band play, mostly because a cover band could seemingly never stack up to the original. But I have to give it up to American English. They had the accents down, they sounded solid instrumentally and vocally and they were all-around enjoyable.

Photo gallery and videos after the jump.

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