Thursday, March 31

Copyright Law

I was reading through a friend's blog today, and she posted a video commemorating Tienanmen Square and the political violence that has occurred so many times in the past, and undoubtedly will in the future. I clicked to watch the video, and Youtube popped up with the following message:
Now, here's my question: Is this censorship? Is this kind of copyright protection acceptable? Mind you, this was created by a corporation, but the information the video contains is NEWS. Political forgetfulness is so much stronger if we don't have access to free video footage from the past. I personally find this reprehensible, but wanted to get other opinions...

Thursday, March 10

LinkedIn and Social News

LinkedIn is running a new social network news stream service. The basic concept is that the news which shows up is customized by you and influenced primarily by what other users share. This would make it so that you see things which are the closest to your own network, interests, and industry. Go check it out if you want. News Service


My question is, would you actually use something like this? Most people aren't super into reading the news, and when they do it is often more recreational than work-oriented: reading the sports page or the comics, rather than business news and so forth. If it were specifically targeted to you, however, would you read it?

Thursday, March 3

Death?

Today's question is a tiny bit morbid, so just bear with me for a minute. Everyone has seen or heard of interesting, strange, boring or even bizarre methods of death, from the Darwin Awards to an old woman quietly passing in her sleep. Of all the methods you've heard of, read about, witnessed, imagined or otherwise been involved with (hopefully not committed...), which method of death would you, personally, prefer to have? Would you rather have your head served to your enemy on a silver platter, or go out in a blaze of gory glory? Would you rather quietly pass in the night, or die in a mindbending set of coincidences that befuddle those mourning you?

Tuesday, March 1

Food? Food. Food!

The topic for today's question is courtesy of Starr, who has kindly offered several question topics for submission. A couple were already in place other places, but this one I hadn't been ready to approach yet. It is a little broad, and I may choose to narrow it later, but for now, here goes:

When it comes to food, everyone has their own ideas, philosophies, and quirks. Whether your diet is spectacularly color coded, you think eating meat is murder, or you simply like to cut out the toxic foods from your diet, you certainly have your own thing. What is peculiar about your own diet? What drives these choices? Do you ever vary from your philosophic decisions, or do you stick to your guns?

Question Requirements

This is mostly a maintenance page, but I wanted somewhere to point to when anyone asks whether they can contribute questions. The short answer is "Absolutely" and the long answer is to please follow the following guidelines:

  • Questions on any topic are welcome. The current topics I am writing questions for include (but are not limited to) religion, philosophy, politics, modernity, death, community, and randomness. 
  • If you want to suggest a question, please email me (swpwinner@gmail.com) or send them via Facebook. 
  • Please let me know where you would like a link sent so that I can attribute the question properly.
  • Write more than just the question. If you read through my questions, they include explanations, background, stories, or just extra tidbits.
That's all for now. I may add more later, but if I do I'll post linking back here.