the daily dub

Congress today is debating SOPA (or the Stop Online Piracy Act) – a serious piece of legislation that creates a “Great Firewall of China” type situation in the US. Supporters of this law claim SOPA targets “rogue” foreign websites that encourage piracy, but the bill’s vague language creates the necessary tools to silence free speech on the internet.

Under this new law, an individual or corporation can simply send a letter, and a site’s DNS (this is what turns “blog.ryandubois.net” into a machine address) and ISP (providing the physical connection to the internet) can be required to shut that site down, without ever setting foot in court.

This kind of “guilty until proven innocent” tactic has been seen before with DMCA takedown notices (which, we all know, are never, ever abused – (tongue in cheek)). This threatens the very fabric of the internet (DNS, and the internet itself, were created to prevent exactly this kind of usage – the internet is designed to route around any blockages automatically – congress is undermining the fabric of the internet, as if its any of their business).

The worse part is that this law can also outlaw circumvention tools (again, very vague language that could conceivably include VPN tunnels, or Tor bridges, both of which have very legitimate uses).

Wanna take action against this? Call your rep today!

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This is our entry way.  They had some really crappy coat hooks up on the wall that were attached to some random, unpainted board.  We ripped that down, repainted the wall, and attached much nicer coat hooks directly to the wall.

Our breakfast nook.  They used to have a god awful fan that hung down so low, you’d nearly knock your head on the lights.  We replaced that with a temporary light fixture.  It’s so much better!  We hung up a stemware rack on the left there, added a large mirror on the wall (to increase the apparent size of the room/nook), and moved our old desk there (temporary until we get a proper bar fixture).

All of the cabinets got sanded down, nearly to bare wood, primed and repainted.  Then, all of the hardware (hinges and pulls) were replaced with more contemporary styles.  We added a moveable island to the left of the stove for more counter space, fixed the hole in the wall for the vent hood, and attached a spice rack, and fixed the broken tiles.

The speakers on the wall there are temporary – we’re going to install in-ceiling speakers (I got it all wired, just need to install the speakers). TV wires are buried in the wall, along with TV power.  I just need to finish hooking a couple things up before we can get ride of all the wires hanging down.  We also added those crown moulding style shelves on the wall. Lovely!

We hung a really cool double-bar towel rack (two frosted glass rods), another crown moulding shelf, and nice robe hooks (behind the door).  We also replaced the ghetto-fab tension bar for the shower curtain (something seen more in college apartments than houses) with a really nice, curved curtain rod, installed on the dry wall.

Repainted, hung window treatments, added a mirror.  This is the new color of our master bedroom.

We replaced the ugly ceiling fan in the bedroom with this more modern and clean design.  Also, on the left wall is a long crown-moulding style shelf.

Did I mention I built the closets from scratch?  Yea, double bar on one side, single bar with shelves on the other.

One more angle of the beautiful master bedroom.

We reattached the missing cross-member from the furnace closet door.  Looks much nicer now!

Our home-office, viewed from the window.

Added a nice wrap-around double desk.  Really looks nice in there.  And we still have room for an air bed on the floor when guests stay over.

 

Well, that’s most of the inside updates.  We (obviously) still have quite a few things on the list to do.

Stay Tuned!

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Today is Friday.

 

 

 

Carry on…

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My wife recently started a new job, planning an hosting events with Urban Diversions.  Things like happy hours, trips to Yosemite, and rock climbing.  Things she gets to do for free (even being payed for).  That doesn’t suck right?

Here’s some photos of a recent trip to Yosemite she hosted:

This is the majority of the group posing for a photo on the foot bridge below Vernal Falls.

Speaking of Vernal Falls.  Look at how FULL that is!

 

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Yea, that shrub there was growing up into the attic.  Also, some birds figured out it had punched a whole in the attic vent, so I had to deal with those.

As you can see, the yard was somewhat neglected.  The place was vacant when we bought it.

Here’s a shot of the backyard, taken from the vantage point of the side-yard.  That shed is still there, but not for long.  It’s filled with debris from fixing the place up.  Also, those boxwood bushes are all gone.  yay! There’s some snazzy patio furniture, a fireplace, and candle light all over the place now.

This is what the back of the house looked like.  Nowadays, there’s a new attic fan (solar, of course) on the roof back there.  It’ll get painted probably today, to blend in a little better. Not much has changed from this angle, except for reseeding the lawn, and cleaning out the fins of the AC compressor.

Here’s where you’ll notice the most changes.  This is the family as viewed from the entry way.  As you can see, the color of the walls is puked-up-avocado green.  Gross, huh?  And that ceiling fan hangs dangerously close to ones head when passing by.  Also, that far corner is quite dark, no?

All that has been changed.

This photo was taken 90 degrees left from the previous one. See the thermostat on the far wall?  It wasn’t hooked to anything – REMOVED! Also, there’s a nice, large TV mounted to the wall now (burying the wires is coming soon). And of course, we painted everything.

This is the front bedroom.  What we have deemed to be the office/guest room. Dark, blank, gross crayon writing all over the walls (this kid had no discipline at all).  All cleaned up as you’ll see in coming photos.

And our coup-de-grace: the master bedroom.  We really turned this room around.  From the baby-poop wall color, to the hideous window treatments and ceiling fan – all has been dealt with!  I even re-built the closet! It used to be that cheap-o white-wire crap.  Now it’s all custom hardwood.

Here’s the one-and-only bathroom.  Kinda nasty huh?  It’s now a nice, deep purple, has a nice, curved shower curtain bar, and that gross soap dish? Gone! New shower-head, removed that ugly, mismatched cabinet. Check!

This used to make me chuckle everytime I walked by: they installed a new furnace (presumably replacing the wall-heater).  But, they didn’t bother to repair the wood they had to cut out to get the furnace in place, nor did they do a half-decent job of patching the dry-wall holes.

Tisk tisk! This has all been fixed.

Okay, you thought the master bedroom was bad?  Who did this paint job? What lunatic picked these colors?

We painstakingly took down all the cabinets, sanded them clean, repainted them a nice, bright white, replaced broken tiles, recaulked the sink (somebody decided that grouting the sink to the tiles was the smart way to go..), and repaired a giant hole in the dry wall. Also, that door to the garage has been replaced with an insulated steel door.

And last, but not least, we removed this garage conversion.  They converted the garage (presumably unpermitted) to an office/room.  Yea, that’s not gunna work for us.  We dispatched this hack in about an hour.

It goes without saying that this took both of us working countless hours together, along with some invaluable help from friends and family to accomplish all of this.  Also, it’s been about 6 months of solid work.

More to come, stay tuned!

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