Sadly, Tumblr doesn’t natively support comments, so if one wants to add comments to their Tumblog, they need to use a third-party service. However, this is a feature that I’m pretty keen on adding to Thoughts, Rants and Stuff so I added Disqus, which will allow you to now add comments. So please, comment away!

I’m happy to be able to remove all of the “Stop Censorship” stuff from thoughtsrantsandstuff.com because as of Friday, January 20, 2012 SOPA and PIPA were dropped! All of our calls to Congress and protests on the internet worked. There is no longer any SOPA or PIPA. This makes me so happy, a HUGE thank you to everyone who did anything; even just censor a tweet. It worked.

I went to the Tour de Nerdfighting in Wellesley, MA on January 10, 2012 and it is in the runnings for one of the best nights of my life. From standing in line for 30 minutes just to get in to finally meeting John, Hank AND Katherine Green it was filled with awesomeness. For those of you that weren’t able to attend the Tour de Nerdfighting or will be attending at a later date and want to know what’s going to happen here’s a brief synopsis.

As I said, when I got there at 6:30 (starts at 7), I was waiting in one of the largest lines that I’ve seen in a while. Side note: why do lines seem to stop getting longer once you get in them? After 10 minutes of waiting I saw the van and OH MY GOD ITS AWESOME! I’ll post a photo set with the picture that I took later (including the van). Once I got the front I was pleased to learn that the check-in line for those with last names R-Z (mine’s a S) was non-existant. I then picked up my book and had to sit in the back of the mostly full auditorium. I decided to open up my book and see if there was a Hanklerfish. Lo and behold, there it was. I didn’t realize that all of the books on the tour would be Hanklerfished, but still IT’S A HANKLERFISH! After numerous waves traveling through the crowd hank sock made an appearance. In the effort not to bore you, I won’t say exactly what hank sock said; but it was funny. John came on stage, read, Hank came on stage, he sang songs. And while he sang everyone stood up and danced, but I couldn’t bring myself to dance (I can’t dance for my life), even to “Shake A Booty” one of my favorite Hank Green songs. Then they answered questions (they didn’t get to mine), Hank got shocked, sang more songs, more dancing…I realize that this is probably pretty boring to read. There was one other thing, but I won’t spoil it for those of you who will go to a future stop.

Then there was the signing. You got in line based on a number that was randomly given to you when you walk in. I was fortunate enough to get the low number 35,639. The numbers started at 35,500 so that was a low number. They called you up by 35,500 - 35,525, 35,526 - 35,550, etc. Once you got to the front of the line by the stage, you got to the back of another line. It was a trick. But after another half hour of waiting, it proved to be worth it. My conversation with John went something like this, no it went exactly like this:

John: Hi, how are you?
Me: Good thanks, you?
John: Good thanks. Thanks for wearing my face on your torso (I was wearing a Pizza John shirt)
Me: (Laugh) Thanks for your books, they’re great! Paper Towns is currently my favorite book.
John: Hopefully TFiOS will beat it!
Me: Well, Paper Towns beat Tom Sawyer.
John: Thanks, that’s high praise!
Me: Thanks for the signature! (He was writing To Toby - DFTBA! in my book during the conversation and J-Scribling a TFiOS tour poster I got there)

Then I got “This Machine Pwns N00bs” signed & Hanklerfished by Hank, of course and I got a tour only CD signed by Hank. Finally I got the poster signed by The Katherine. I think that her signature is truly rare. There are at least 150,000 J-Scribles and 7,500 Hanklerfish’s but there must be very few “The Katherines.” Finally I left. I didn’t get home until 11PM because I live in Cranston, Rhode Island and I was in Wellesley, Massachusetts. But it was totally worth it, it was absolutely amazing. DFTBA.

In English class (I know, I know, it’s the second post in a row resulting from English class), we had to write Haikus about our pet peeves. One of mine is when people write Ipad instead of iPad, Ipod instead of iPod or Imac instead of iMac. So here’s the resulting Haiku:

When writing “iPad”

Capitalize P not i

Or make me very mad

Just thought I should make Tumblr aware of this.

As you (hopefully) knew, science is filled with questions. Some of them however, sound pretty stupid. One of them is “Why does matter have mass?” You probably thought that that was an extremely stupid question. But think about it for a second. Go ahead, this article will still be here for you to read when you’re done. You probably came up with the answer “It just does” or “It’s stuff, it’s gotta have mass”. Why does it have to have mass? This has been baffling scientists for decades. One of the answers that we’ve been able to come up with is called the Higgs Boson.

My understanding of the Higgs Boson as that it’s this particle that’s contained in all other particles. This particle travels through the Higgs field, and the denser/bigger the object, the more “mass” it “collects”, which causes it to slow down giving it more mass. But as of now, this is just a theory. There are a plethora of other theories as to why matter has mass, but this is the most widely accepted.

The Higgs Boson is one of the most integral parts of our existence. This may just be why it’s one of the most sought out particles ever. Because of this, it’s been given a nickname: “The God Particle”. I think that just about speaks for itself. However, it may no longer subside as just a theory.

Physicists think they’ve stuck the jackpot and found it. This may ring a bell. A few months ago I told you that physicists think they got a Tau Neutrino to go faster than the speed of light. In a press release they said that they didn’t in a very prolonged way. As of now, we can just hope that they’re right about the Higgs Boson.

But what does it mean for non-physicists? Not much. Our lives wont change just because we know something new. We wont lose or gain weight because of this. But for physicists, everything will change. They will now have a new outlook on matter. They will now be able to pursue other theories that rely on the Higgs Boson.

But this is all a big “if”. This all assumes that we did actually find the Higgs Boson. Only time will tell.

What do you think?

As I said in a previous article, today is the massive call congress day to oppose the Protect IP Act. Personally, I called the offices of Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse and Harry Reid. Jack Reed and Sheldon being my local congressmen and Harry Reid being the national majority leader. Everytime I got their secretary saying that they’ll pass it along. Now, we can only hope that the Protect IP Act doesn’t pass.

Who did you call?

I know I’ve been writing about this a lot, but it’s something that really needs to be addressed. A little while ago I wrote an article about the Protect IP act and I’m sure you can agree that it’s a terrible act. This website could get shut down (hopefully not, though). So I would like for you to join me in calling congress on this Tuesday (11/29) and tell them that you don’t want this to pass. You can read more about the Protect IP act and commit to calling congress here: http://americancensorship.org/

Thank You in advance for calling congress, if this act were to pass, the internet would never be the same.

Must read if you’re considering purchasing a Kindle Fire.

To read, click the link below.

http://www.lockergnome.com/android/2011/11/24/amazon-kindle-fire-it-burns/

You may have heard of something called the Protect IP Act. Basically it gives Hollywood the right to censor the Internet. Not the government, Hollywood. There’s a section of the copyright law called fair use. Basically if there’s something that I find funny and want to comment on, I can upload parts of said media and comment on it legally. This is a good law and I’m in favor of it. But with the Protect IP Act, this wouldn’t be legal. If copyrighted material is in a YouTube video and someone who works for the Motion Picture Association doesn’t like it, they have the lawful right to get the video taken down from YouTube without it ever being looked at by an unbiased person, potentially someone at YouTube under the Protect IP Act. It’s basically designed so that Hollywood can sell more movies. Here’s another example: you probably know that Tumblr has a lot of GIF’s of parts of copyrighted material that is commented on. This is, for the most part, under fair use, legal. But if the Protect IP Act is passed this will not. At this point Tumblr cannot go through all posts looking for this stuff and deleting them so Tumblr will get sued AND shut down at the touch of a button. You read that correctly, SHUT DOWN. Tumblr.com WILL NO LONGER BE AVAILABLE. If YouTube, a service that we all know and love, was founded today under the Protect IP Act it would undoubtably be impossible for them to survive. Someone will upload copyrighted content, Hollywood won’t like that and Hollywood will have YouTube shut down. It’s literally a like flipping switch. It’s as if they have a switch for every website that exists, flip it to one side and it’s functioning and other and it’s not. If they want to, they can disable a website. If someone who works for the Motion Picture Association doesn’t like something, it may not even have to have copyrighted material, they could effectively shut that website down.

Congress can mess with a lot of things, but they will NEVER be able to touch the Internet. The Internet is an amazing place where I can learn about particle physics or watch a cat play the piano. That shouldn’t change because some a**hole at Hollywood wants it to so they can make a few more dollars. I could understand it if the Government wanted to censor the Internet (however I AM NOT advocating for that to happen, it should never happen) but you don’t give the power to the entertainment industry, they have a biased view on things. This act is just downright stupid. I urge you to contact your local congress member and persuade them to repeal the act. If you’d like a more descriptive outlook on these laws, I would highly recommend watching this video: http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/. I’m not going to get arrested for posting that link am I? I might if the Protect IP act is passed.

Remember: The internet is ours and it should stay that way, period.