SOPA is back again with backdoors and lobbyists

Together, we beat SOPA in a huge victory for internet freedom. But this Saturday, internet freedom protests are breaking out in over 200 cities across Europe. Why?

Because the companies behind SOPA are using international trade agreements as a backdoor to pass SOPA-style laws.

SOPA's supporters are pushing two agreements: ACTA and TPP. ACTA would criminalize users, encourage internet providers to spy on you, and make it easier for media companies to sue sites out of existence and jail their founders. Sound familiar? That's right, ACTA is from the same playbook as SOPA, but global. Plus it didn't even have to pass through Congress.

TPP goes even farther than ACTA, and the process has been even more secretive and corrupt. Last weekend (we wish this was a joke) trade negotiators partied with MPAA (pro-SOPA) lobbyists before secret negotiations in a Hollywood hotel, while public interest groups were barred from meeting in the same building.

Can you take part? Tell officials in your country to scrap ACTA & TPP! And spread the word about Saturday's protests!

http://www.killacta.org/

This is going to be tough fight. But we need to make secretive trade agreements harder to pass than US law. If we don't, our internet's future belongs to the lobbyists behind SOPA.

This is just the beginning,

--Holmes Wilson, Tiffiniy Cheng, Joshua Blount & the whole Fight for the Future team.

Day 2 Continues from yesterday

So me and my cousin and her friend went to the photography workshop as planned. Actually I didn't know about this workshop at all. It was my cousin who knew, she read in couchsurfer.com forum.

There were numerous interested people who came also. Some was from the States, others were from Taiwan and some is native here. The main instructor named Marche, he's European and currently living Taiwan. His companions were from Euro and the Philippines.

All of his lectures were about technical terms: aperture, ISO, shutter speed, white balance, zoom lens, etc. Most everyone brought their big, bulky, nice D-SLR and some hi-end lens.

After a hour of lecture, we were began to walk, followed Marche. We took photos at the bar near the street, behind the small alley, and some were residence building. We took pictures of subjects front of the walls. Because the walls have very interested textures and colors. Our companions (as in the group) volunteered to be the models.

Photos I took came out look very interested and surprised. Because we were instructed to use different settings of sharpness, tone, saturation and contrast, even change the ISO and white balance.

It was good experience and tiresome because three of us (my cousin, her friend, Trong, and I) thought we were going to shoot at the meeting destination but we walked around on the street and through many alleys under hot sun from 10AM to 5PM. We left an hour earlier, we could handle the heat.

I will post the images soon on my homepage and/or this blog.

Here in Vietnam

I'm currently stay in Vietnam. Some says the weather here is hot and humid, and rains heavily on certain seasons. To me it's true that it is humid but I don't think it's that hot.
Problem is that the traffics around here, let's just say, everyone is drive freely wherever they see and want.
It's been years since my last visit, however, the surrounding has changed dramatically every year. More cars, motors, bars, tall building and houses.

I'll try to enjoy my stay here, I have relatives here by the way. But not used to go around like in the States.

Today, in a hour, I'll planned to go pay a visit a local photography workshop with couple peers. There's a foreign photographer visit here to give a lecture. The even starts at 10AM thru 5PM local time.
I've already made preparation, brought my Canon, couple lens, memory cards, batteries, and tripod, all that related techs.
Let's hope I can learn a thing or two.