Current Events

Voat: A Haven for Reddit, or a Plea?

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By Max Miller

Voat.co, a small Reddit-Like Site becomes a haven for worried Redditors.

Voat.co, a small Reddit-Like Site becomes a haven for worried Redditors.

Over the past few days, the Reddit staff have rolled out a new set of policies to combat individual harassment in their 3,660,074 large user base. To start, the administrators of Reddit removed five subreddits whose subject matter hinged on the harassment of a certain group of people. The most popular of these was the controversial subreddit /r/fatpeoplehate, a place for users to poke fun at overweight individuals, or rather overweight people as a whole. /r/fatpeoplehate had over 140,000 users when it was shutdown, causing a massive exodus of the users from that subreddit, as well as users from the four other, lesser known subreddits, to a Reddit-clone like website named Voat.

Voat was created as a side project for two Swedish College students. The site has gone through a few iterations, but they finally decided on a Reddit-style voting system with community driven content.

What is interesting about the entire ordeal is the huge surge in popularity Voat is receiving. Their servers went down recently, and many cannot even access the site due to the overhaul of users coming in. Even more interesting is the type of community that is now developing around Voat…

Voat: A Haven or a Plea?

If you manage to load up the front page of Voat, you will find yourself in the midst of a “migration.” Redditors who have flocked to Voat have deemed the transfer a Great Migration, much like the historic Great Migration in the United States, except this time with more whiny internet users. 

Unfortunately for Voat, the migration consists mainly of the people Reddit has kept in a corner for many years. The “shunned” subreddits are now becoming the most popular subverses on Voat, and for a fair reason too. Voat allows people to have their say without censorship, something Reddit appears to be limiting on. Because of this, Voat is turning into the “dark side” of Reddit.

/v/fatpeoplehate

/v/fatpeoplehate on Voat.co.

The front page of /v/all on Voat is 70% /v/fatpeoplehate. I am not saying that these people don’t deserve their place to do their thing, but the vast majority of people do not want to be a part of a community like this. As a result, I can see this being very detrimental to Voat’s image as a whole.

Reddit took away a place for users who wanted to make fun of overweight people, and released them on the rest of the web. Although many do not agree with their ideals, it was good they had their place to be. Now that place is Voat.

Voat seems like a perfectly nice website, with a lot of potential if it plays its cards right. I can see it becoming an alternate website for those who want a different kind of community than Reddit has. For now though, Voat is struggling to find its spot, and the new users from Reddit are not feeling as welcome as they want.

Voat, at the moment, looks like a plea for help. The people who migrated from Reddit are attempting to tell Ellen Pao, the instigator of this whole ordeal, that if their rights are infringed on, they will find a better place. Whether or not Voat is that place is yet to be determined, but it seems as though it has become the top choice for many. I will be curious to see how this plays out of the coming months, and if this truly is the Death of Reddit.

Opinion Time

I do not think that this is the Death of Reddit, as some users are saying. I think that this is just another example of a website trying a new feature. If Reddit really sees a large drop in its user base due to this change, then they will change back, but if the opposite happens, then they will stick with this choice. Ultimately, it comes down to how much money they make, and how large they grow their brand. Getting rid of a place like /r/fatpeoplehate could be their best move, or it could be their worst. The next few months will tell us which it is.

If you’re interested, I encourage you to keep an eye on Voat and Reddit for the next 2-3 months. Contrast the two sites, and look at the types of communities that develop. You could learn something.

TL;DR: Reddit has begun banning subreddits because of individual harassment. As a result, users from these subreddits have began moving to the Reddit-Clone Voat. Time will tell what comes out of Reddit’s new policy, and how it will affect Voat.

Keeping the Net Neutral, and Why You Should Care

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By Max Miller

Image from www.savetheinternet.com.

Now I really don’t want to sound like a broken record here, but this is important to you, me, and freedom.

Unless you live under a rock without a router, then you have probably heard the recent hubbub about net neutrality. You’ve probably also seen a million different blog posts, news stories, and tweets covering what net neutrality is, and either why we need it, or why we don’t. Regardless, I’m still going to tell you what it is because net neutrality is just that important.

What is Net Neutrality?

Net neutrality is what makes the web open and free of precedence. Internet service providers, or ISPs, are not allowed to throttle bandwidth for sites, and as a result every website is (on the surface) equal. Every website has the same opportunity as other websites, no matter what the content of the site is, or how much money the website is worth. Because of this, someone who starts joesearch.com can start and run their website, even if they only receive two visitors a month, without the ISPs getting in the way and saying “Joe, you need to pay us a premium if you would like to continue operating on our network.” On the flip side, huge sites like Google with millions of hits every hour can’t get throttled just because they take up a crap ton of bandwidth.

You may have heard about how Verizon throttled bandwidth when users tried to connect to Netflix a few months ago. This is a little taste of what a world without net neutrality would be like. Verizon threatened Netflix that they would continue to throttle their service for Verizon users unless Netflix paid them a fee. As a result of this throttling, Netflix was forced to pay Verizon a premium in order for their users with Verizon to still be able to view their content. As you can see, without net neutrality, things start to get… ugly.

What if we don’t have it?

Well the Netflix debacle is a good starting point for why net neutrality is almost required for the internet today. Without it, situations like that would occur with almost all of the major websites, like Google, Yahoo!, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc, but to an even greater extent. ISPs could block sites completely if they do not pay them, keeping them in the dark for anyone who uses their internet service.

Imagine, if you will, a day where you get on the internet to watch a video on YouTube, but when you arrive on the page all you are greeted by is a message stating: “Your current web service plan does not provide access to video hosting websites. Please upgrade to the premium video services package for only $29.99 more a month.”

This is extreme, but also not too far fetched. What will keep the ISPs like Comcast and Time Warner from doing what they did to cable TV to the internet? A sports package to access ESPN.com doesn’t seem to crazy, or a social media package to access Facebook and Twitter. Without a free and open internet, ISPs could go crazy with controlling how the free web operates.

How afraid should I be?

This really depends on who you ask. There are many people in congress who will not stand for this kind of thing to happen to the internet, while their are others, mainly those you are funded by the major ISPs, who think that net neutrality should not exist. These elected officials are trying to turn something as free and open as the internet into a hole where only the richest companies can make a mark. Gone would be the days that you could buy a URL and start a website in 10 minutes. Google searching would only result in the top 1% of companies that could afford to be on the web for your ISP. If net neutrality does not exist, the internet would become a husk of what it is today.

So what can I do?

Taking a stand for net neutrality is the next step. Before you do though, try reading up more about it. In the sources section below, I have provided a number of links about net neutrality and what you can do to help.

At the moment, the most effective way to combat net neutrality is by getting the word out. Try contacting your state congressman/woman and tell them what you think about net neutrality, or contact the FCC through social media or email. The only way to fix this is to get the word to the ones who can make a difference.

TL;DR: Internet service providers are threatening the free and open internet, and something needs to be done about it.

Sources:

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality

http://www.savetheinternet.com/what-can-i-do

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

http://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality

http://www.fcc.gov/page/fcc-establishes-new-inbox-open-internet-comments

Learning Online and on the Job (AKA, I was on the radio)

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By Max Miller

Podcast of the radio broadcast: http://audio.wscafm.org/audio/2014/biz/WSCA-BIZ_11-10-2014.mp3

Recently I was on Portsmouth Community Radio with my dad talking about the different resources people can use to gain valuable skills while on the job. Above is the podcast of the radio show. It’s about an hour long and worth a listen, especially if you are looking for new ways to gain skills in your line of work, or in a career you are looking to go into.

I would like to write about it more here, but I feel it would be impossible to take the whole hour and condense it down into a little blog post. Instead, I will give a little tease at each of the links talked about, and you can hear about them more in depth in the podcast.

http://tutsplus.com/ – Resource for tutorials on thousands of different topics.

http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/courses/30-days-to-learn-html-css – Learn HTML in 30 days.

http://quizlet.com/ – Free flash cards and quizzing website.

http://ankisrs.net/ – Free flash card app with a optimized memorization formula to give you the best results when memorizing terms.

https://www.udacity.com/ – Massive online open courses  in tech and coding, not free but incredibly useful for anyone looking for a job in a ‘Silicon Valley’ company. Backed by Google.

http://www.codecademy.com/learn – Free, interactive programming website to help you learn a number of different languages from HTML and CSS to Python and Ruby. Features an interactive shell that runs the programs as you learn.

https://subbable.com/crashcourse   or  https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse – Crash course on a number of subjects from Chemistry and Biology to World History and Psychology.

https://www.khanacademy.org/ – Free online learning in any high school/college level subject. In depth and incredible.

https://www.duolingo.com/ – Free and incredibly in depth language learning website. Offers a number of languages and gamifies the entire experience. Best luck my dad and I have had learning any language, and it is 100% free. Best app in the list.

The most useful skill you can have in this day and age is learning on the job, and these websites and apps will help you get the skills you need to advance your career.

 

TL;DR: I was on a radio show with my dad on Monday talking about the importance of learning skills on the job, and the many online resources one can use to gain said skills.

Gravity Waves: Why they are so Awesome.

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By Max Miller

No doubt you have heard about the science news that is sweeping the world. If you haven’t, then I would suggest you get out from under your rock and listen, because this will blow your mind. Scientists at a telescope in Antarctica have just discovered the first direct evidence of the Big Bang, primordial gravitational waves that “polarized the Cosmic Microwave Background that was left over from the Big Bang” [1]. These waves, when confirmed later this month, will be the first evidence of the rapidly expanding creation of the universe that happened just after the Big Bang.

Guys, this is HUGE.

Since I was little I have always been fascinated by space. Up until a few years ago, I didn’t know much about it though, other than what I learned in elementary school and from a book about the planets that used to be my fathers. When I started to do some research on my own, I discovered that space is so much more than just a bunch of planets. Its thousands of galaxies moving in a cosmic race with no end. Uncountable stars, being born and dieing every second. Super novas, black holes, neutron starts, nebulas, asteroids, commits, planets, elemental creation, nuclear fusion. It was all happening around us I had no clue. It is amazing to think about, and almost too much to comprehend at times.

The Big Bang is arguable the most amazing thing that can be thought of: That everything we know, that we can touch, see, feel, think about, was all created from nothing. Each time I think about it, it becomes more and more far fetched. I keep thinking “There is no way this happened, its not possible,” but I always believed it none the less. Now that they have found proof that this huge bang from nothing could have actual happened, and created the entirety of everything around us is amazing.

What is even more amazing to me is that we as a human race have developed the technology and know-how to discover something like this. This isn’t something that could have been accomplished at any other point in time, and to me that is amazing. (I know that we are just know receiving the signals that took 13.5 billion years to reach us from the edge of the known universe, but regardless the people and technology are still amazing).

When this is proven, it will be the greatest discovery in all of physics, right next to the theories of gravity and relativity. I included the embed to a SciShow video explaining the whole thing, as well as a link to the article where I got a lot of my information.

TL;DR: Scientist discovered the first direct evidence of the big bang: Cosmic Microwave Background polarized by primordial gravity waves. Additionally, space and humanity are amazing.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/03/big-rumors-circulating-about-detection-of-primordial-gravity-waves/