Daniel // Mason

Hey all! As blog readers, I assume you all think the internet, and particularly the ability to speak your mind on it is fairly important. Please grit your teeth and bare with me through this ranty post.

The government, along with 29 other countries are trying to pass a law to reduce piracy and control the sale of illegal and fake items on the internet, called the Anti Counterfeit Trade Agreement.

Now I'm not specifically against this. I do understand that piracy isn't fair when people use it to get things for free (though I also think that copyright holders need to catch up to 21st century distribution methods or die, but thats a seperate issue). I also know how it easy it is to get hold of illegal items and how easy it is to pick up fakes (even accidentally) and there should be a way of protecting against this. So in it's raw form I'm not against the basic idea of the law.

However! If you give governments the ability to see everything you do online, look at every file you send, read everything you post or email, they will abuse it. Think I'm over thinking it? While this act was being drafted, a representative of the Motion Pictures Association of America, was caught telling ACTA government negotiators "Bring in a censoring firewall to block piracy and you can use it to shut off sites that embarrass your government, like Wikileaks".

What does this have to do with the piracy of films?

If we allow them to pass this act, it will be like putting a government camera permanently on your life. You won't be able to do anything with out the government knowing about it. You might think, well if you've got nothing to hide, there's no problem, but let me remind you that the guy in charge is not a nice person. He would (and I think is still trying to) sell your medical details to private companies for cash. Without asking you.

Please, please sign this petition.

If you can, it would also be worth trying to meet with our elected representatives to explain why this is a bad idea. Just remind them that the government will be able to see all the porn they look at, that should give them a good kick.

Thank you everyone who read this, it means a lot to me that you went to the effort. Please share this and spread the word.

Thanks

So I think everyone's heard about the governments controversial plans to build a new High Speed Rail 2 link, but what you may not know is that there was an alternative. In 2007 UK Ultraspeed, based on Mag Lev tech, was rejected in favour of HS2.

Now initially I assumed it was just too expensive, but then I started to look into it, and that's not the case. So I'm trying to put together all the facts, bellow is what I've found so far.

Expect this post to get updated with more details as I find them.

I've added finally swapped over my gallery code to the more advanced stuff (sub galleries ftw!). I've still got to add the "Latest" section to it, I have some ideas of what I want to do with it, but not 100% sure on how it will look, so need to put some time aside to play with that.

I'm also planning on adding some custom error pages at some point in the near future as the one's provided by Site Ground don't really fit in with the aesthetics of this site... "aesthetics" I can almost here my front end colleagues sniggering. :)

Oh which reminds me, I got a new job. I started working at Loft Digital in Shoreditch, East London, a little over a month ago, and it's fantastic. Everything I want from a job. Good people. Good work. Open environment. I've already decided I'll probably never work for a 'big company' again. (Let's hope I can stick to that).

Finally, I've submitted Pure Bricks to the iTunes App Store. In the unlikely even that it passes it should be available in the next few weeks. Exciting! Probably going to start getting back on with development of Pure Gravity soon.

Anyone visiting the site in the last couple of days will have noticed that Projects and Tools have disappeared from the menu, to be replaced by Portfolio.

I've decided this is a better way of both showing off my work and getting my tools and code out there. The content isn't done yet, it's all just filler at the moment, and I'm having a few problems with the downloads (I accidentally deleted part of my .htaccess and now can't get to the folder).

Anyway, in terms of looks it's mostly done (though images will be smaller and link to the gallery). And the work that I will be covering is listed, though the actual wording isn't great (or in most cases anywhere near finished).

All downloads will be free, but I'm putting up donation buttons just in case.

So I recently quit my job, and I'm now looking to make the move to a developer position.

To improve my current standing in life I've decided to start working to three goals a day. This started out as a challenge with a friend. First one to complete their three goals gets a round bought for them next time we see each other. However, it seems like a good way to keep on the right track.

Todays goals were:

1. Apply for 4 jobs
2. Get my new D3D11 drawing interface working
3. Go for a bike ride

...all of which I completed, but not fast enough.

Tomorrow I'm going to do 3 more.

1. Apply for 4 jobs
2. Clean the kitchen
3. Fix my D3D11 shader interface