Winter Storm Knocks Out Power For Almost A Million In The US

 

 This weekend brought weather woes to much of America. A massive snowstorm pushed into the Midwest and South, dumping lots of ice and snow and setting record low temperatures. 

 

Tree damage from ice accumulation has been reported all across the South. Icy roads have been reported as far south as a stretch of Interstate 10 near Kerrville, Texas, northwest of San Antonio, as well as in the Houston area. 

 

Yesterday, close to a million Americans were without power in a number of states, with over 800,000 as of the writing of this article. And as the storm is heading northeast, there may me some there who will soon be out of power. There were also many reports of grocery stores with numerous aisles of empty shelves. So some people may find items such as toilet paper hard to get for a short while

 

So if a Second Life resident who's on almost every day hasn't been on for a few days, this very well be the reason. Power should be restored to most within a few days. But for a few it may be over a week. 

 

Sources: weather.com, poweroutage.us, Yahoo.com

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

 

The Big Chill: Winter Storm Threatens Power (And Internet) Outages Across USA

 

 This Friday and weekend, a huge winter storm will be rolling south across America "from Texas to (the) Northeast," affecting a total of about 180 million. 

A major, widespread, long-lasting winter storm will hammer parts of the South, Midwest and Northeast Friday through Monday with potentially damaging ice and heavy snow for millions from New Mexico and Texas to parts of New England. This storm will lead to widespread dangerous travel and its destructive South ice storm could lead to long-lasting power outages and tree damage.

The storm has been named Winter Storm Fern by The Weather Channel. According to The Weather Company forecasters, Fern could affect over 180 million in the U.S. with snow and/or ice, over half the nation's estimated population. Either heavy snow or ice is forecast for 33 states from the storm, from Arizona to the Midwest, South and New England.

 With the ice and snow, power outages are likely, meaning no Internet, and for Second Life residents, no getting online until the damage is repaired. 

 

Those in it's path, keep an eye on local weather.

 

Source: weather.com 

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

"Six Strikes" Internet Rule Likely Installed Monday

By Bixyl Shuftan

Internet Privacy activists expressed worry when on Monday February 26, the "Six Strikes" rule was set to go into effect. Devised last year, the rules involve the "Copyright Alert System" set up by the following Internet Service Providers: AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.

Under the system, copyright owners are supposedly alerted to people downloading their content without permission, and they can alert the ISPs to the people targeted by the system. The first alerts are warnings. After a few warnings come "mitigation alerts" which depending on the ISP results in temporary reductions in Internet speed, a downgrade in the service tier, redirection to a page for a period of time, or other measures. After six alerts, there are no more, but each supposed violation is recorded in case the matter is taken to court.





Critics point out that the system is imperfect, that in wireless Internet "hot spots" that an innocent user could potentially be tagged as illegally downloading even if he/she wasn't as open wi-fi signals allow for their IP address to be used by others. Also, there are methods for determined pirates to avoid the system, such as cyberlockers, streaming sites, offline swapping, and others. Then there are privacy issues. Electronic Frontier Foundation director Corynne McSherry called Six Strikes, "just a great big expensive system to snoop on and intimidate people" whom she felt were mostly behaving themselves. She called it's recording of violations, "a private copyright system, and it doesn't have the protections and balances that the public copyright system has." It has also been noted that the system's software to identify copyright violations was inspected and approved by a former lobbyist of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

In early 2012, RIAA was among those trying to get the US Congress to pass the SOPA bill, which alarmed critics who stated it's vague language threatened to shut down the Internet as we know it. It was in the months following it's defeat that the Copyright Alert System and Six Strikes was set up. It was supposedly to be enacted in late 2012, but was delayed by the damage from Hurricane Sandy.

Sources: The Guardian, Torrentfreak.com, Theverge.com

Bixyl Shuftan

Shockwave: To Dox or Not?

Besides Second Life Newser, Shockwave Yareach who makes his home in the Sunweaver Estates neighboring our office building, reads and comments on other newsletters, including Hamlet Au's "New World Notes." One post on Hamlet bringing up the question on the ethics of exposing an anonymous Internet user, or "doxing" as it's called in Internet jargon, impressed the former imbedded reporter of Linden Lab so much, he made it an article in it's own right.

"In my humble opinion, the only justification for doxxing (I'm used to calling it outing, but I guess that was a different era) is to a) prevent a suicide, murder or other heinous bodily crime, and b) expose real life child molesters/rapists to the authorities.

"This is the only time I'll cross that line -- to save lives. If someone is bragging about stealing a car, how do I know he isn't talking about playing Grand Theft Auto? But someone has pics of naked children in their SL home, yeah, I'll call the cops and tell them anything I know.

"The difficulty comes in knowing whether or not someone is honestly suicidal or not. You have to actually know the person well to make this judgement call. Likewise with the question of murder -- I'm sure my wife has said she's gonna kill me when I get home countless times. That's not enough to summon the long arm of the law. Someone talking about X or Y property crime may just be talking about some game they play, just like someone overhearing you talking about AD&D game and the woman you slowly slaughtered with a glaive to get the information you needed ("Hello? Police? Listen, there's a couple of nerds talking about mutilating some poor girl...")

"I won't out people just because they are talking smack about some property crime. But, if I believe them when they talk about a rape or murder or suicide or other bodily crime, that's when I have to make the harsh decision. I've had to make the call a handful of times: a few, the police got there in time. One, the guy wasn't really suicidal and didn't appreciate the police hassling him."

"And one time, I didn't make the call because I didn't believe Hitz was really suicidal -- I was wrong."

Shockwave's better known among his fellow Sunnies as an entertainer, theater owner, DJ, and song parody composer, and a content creator, known for builds such as the "Alien Egg Hunt" that appears every Easter. He has commented before on serious issues, notably when he wondered if Linden Lab's decision to let teens on the Grid might get them in serious trouble.

Weather Alert

It's late August, which is about the time a hurricane sometimes drops in where I live. And this year, there's one headed in my general direction. A category 3, the last time one got close to my home, power was out for a week. A more direct hit, well, I could be out of commision for a while.

Hopefully the storm will turn out to sea, but things could get a bit touch-and-go in the next few days.

Bixyl Shuftan