There is currently a bill in Congress that aims to inject the interests of corporations in the process of federal funding for institutions of higher learning. H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, has a number of provisions (it has nearly 800 pages) but one in particular is very troubling. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has posted the details on their blog:

The bill also includes a section with a title that sounds as if it were dreamt up by an entertainment industry lobbyist: Campus-based Digital Theft Prevention. Specifically, the bill says:

Each eligible institution participating in any program under this title shall to the extent practicable—

[…]

(2) develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.

This is an attempt by corporations to solve their own perceived problems by meddling in the governmental funding of education. This is akin to McDonalds persuading Congress to force schools to serve Big Macs lest they lose federal funding. This is the epitome of the perversion of our educational system!

Please take a moment and read the original article on the EFF website. If you feel like I do you need to contact your state representatives and let them know that corporate interests have no place in the process of funding education. There’s a link on the EFF page to do it so no excuses, activism works apathy doesn’t.

I have a weekly assignment in my Intro to Interactive Media class that requires me to spend 4 hours on a pre-approved, self directed project. I actually began this blog after setting up server space for another project. But I digress. my idea for this coming week is to start a forum for students at the Art Institute of Portland. I enjoy forums and post frequently on a few and infrequently on a few more and think it’s a great way to exchange information among groups with similar interests. I know of an open source forum server app written in PHP that I think will work great for this.

I’m jazzed about the idea for two reasons: as a member of other forums I am interested in understanding more about how they work and I feel like the student population is lacking a good online place to call home. There are some people on Facebook, some on MySpace but I have yet to find one place where any group discussions take place (aside for some very stale Facebook groups). I’ll need to do some guerrilla marketing on this as getting people talking will be my biggest hurdle. I know that if it gets some exposure and gets some people talking that it will take off.

Keep an eye out for more on this subject.

Edit: After further thought on the subject I’ve renamed this post (originally titled AiPdx Forum), I still want to target students but affiliate it with my design site DrivenByObsession.com. That will also lesson any concerns about possible confusion over whether the site is affiliated with the school, as well as help develop my “brand”? I’ll set up a real simple index page at the main address and link through to the forum.

I received a letter yesterday from my auto insurer, American Family Insurance. Apparently they’ve reviewed their files and no longer feel the same way about me that I feel about them. The letter states they will have all of their stuff out by 2/22 when they are able to get their own place. Bastards. The worst part of the letter was the matter-of-fact laundry list of indiscretions from the last two years in our relationship. I mean, yes I got caught during the time we were together. More than once. They know how sorry I was and never ever in our relationship did I ever hit them with a claim. Bastards.