Twitter, the Moon, and $2 Reviews

So I've virtually gone off the map as far as blogging, but decided it might be something worth getting back into. I've got comments I can (and do) make about anything and everything and I know sometimes a couple of people also care. Of course, aside from my commentary, I do know a lot of people are interested in the articles and links I come across through the day. So I think this is going to become a little bit more of a rundown of my articles from now on, my own Drudge moment. Occasionally I might dwell on some bigger topics and I hope to give some interesting insight especially with my religious side and my burgeoning law career (still got a while on the latter and the former is an eternal work in progress). So here's my rundown for the day of a few things I've come across that I think are worth noting and talking about.

First up, Twitter's changing their censorship policy. When I initially read about what was going on I was kind of confused at the big deal about it. A lot of people were pretty concerned about freedom of speech issues (it's meant to regulate speech in areas where speech isn't free). But apparently they used to shut down the comments to all of Twitter, but now they've figured out to regulate it just for certain areas. And they've even given you information on how to get around the IP list for your country so you can pretend to be posting from somewhere else. I highly recommend this post from technosociology to get an even better breakdown of how good this thing is for freedom of speech. I know, semi-counterintuitive but you'll find out why.

Some additional Twitter news: Nevada GOP to release election results via Twitter. Pretty cool idea to keep you informed. Also kind of enjoy the snub to the AP it is. Gotta stay up with the game if you want to play.

In NFL news, I'm worried we won't see more awesome flips from Jerome Simpson. In traditional Bengals fashion, he's found himself in legal trouble for marijuana trafficking. I would have thought if anybody would keep the Bengals tradition still going it would be Adam "Pacman" Jones for sure, but looks like Jerome Simpson is keeping it real.

In related criminal news, always recommend EDSBS's Fulmer Cupdate. Here's some background info on the Fulmer Cup. And if you need more college football satire and silliness, Spencer Hall's recruiting breakdown series is fabulous. Fair warning, the language is a bit harsh sometimes on that site.

I think most people have heard about Newt's ambitious moon plans, well here's my boy Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) giving a run down of it:

(Spoiler Alert: He says it's the pols who are the only setback. Maybe that means Newt could actually get this thing done if he's elected!?!?)

I've often heard that there were services that you could buy positive ratings from, this company decided to just refund their customers for 5 star reviews. That's the hard part about the internet ratings. It's easy to incentivize people to give positive reviews and most people (me included) are too lazy to write a review on things. Plus, I don't trust the general population's opinion (I mean they seem to like Geico ads and Flo). That's why I stopped looking at IMDB for movie ratings. People that usually take the time to write reviews on things (unless they're paid to do it) typically love or hate it and that's why they write the review. There's very few "normal" opinions on things so it's hard to get a true metered result. And that's why I stick to Rotten Tomatoes for my movie reviews and CNET is probably one of the better places for reviews on pretty much anything else.

In some more silliness news, great post by Poynter about how the New York Post verified the infamous "Headless Body in Topless Bar" headline. Kind of funny thing about society sometimes, truly horrific crime that's been committed by I don't think anybody can deny the humor in it. And to leave off, a fabulous article from NPR on what Liam Neeson should punch next. I think my favorite suggestion is Warranty. What do you enjoy?

Also, make sure you watch the BYU-SMU game tonight. Should be a good one. Go Cougs!