What he has also discovered is that the volcano is in the middle of an eruption cycle. Apparently these eruptions happen in clusters and the magma levels beneath the surface of the earth are much higher than expected. Essentially this thing could erupt at any time.

In a very simplified explanation, there are water pools beneath the ground, the magma is rising, and once it hits the pools, steam will form and create pressure. Once enough pressure has built, the magma will erupt!

So california residents can look forward to a very dangerous ecological event coming very soon. At last measurement, the magma was 500 feet below the water pool. Nobody knows how fast it’s rising.

UFC President Dana White has been embroiled in an online dispute with members of Anonymous after his organization expressed support for SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Many back-and-forth exchanges on Twitter and in the media between White and members of Anonymous took place. Supporters of both sides made statements and tweets.

Then came this Jan. 26 Tweet from Mike Rood, a Richmond, CA police officer, supporting White (his Twitter account has since been deleted):

Then, yesterday, all hell broke loose.

Anonymous re-tweeted Mr Rood’s comment, noting that his threat of violence was illegal.

Ahoy @Fan1UFC – well that’s just lovely. An OFFICER OF THE LAW threatening people with WEAPONS/DEADLY FORCE? Isn’t that um, a crime? ClASSy.

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) January 31, 2012

They then called on their Twitter followers to call Officer Rood and his supervisor about his public statements.

Email or Call Sgt. Mike Rood, Richmond PD, Badge #116 about his threats – mrood@richmondpd.net | 510-965-4985 (via @AnonyOps)

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) January 31, 2012

And, they responded. The Richmond, CA Facebook page was flooded with comments about Rood. They were deleted, and have continued to be deleted. The page currently shows no activity since January 26.

The Facebook wall for the local newspaper, the Contra Costa Times, was also flooded with complaints about Mike Rood. those are still up to view.

The Walt Disney Co. was reported to have refused calls made by Sen. Dianne Feinstein to join in a discussion on SOPA and PIPA with members of Silicon Valley. Sen. Feinstein was attempting to broker a truce between Hollywood and Silicon Valley, both powerful constituents in her state.

The Huffington Post is reporting that the Senator called up both Hollywood and Silicon Valley to broker a compromise on PIPA and address concerns that the tech sector had with the bill.

Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger declined the invitation on behalf of Hollywood. “Hollywood did not feel that a meeting with Silicon Valley would be productive at this time,” a spokesperson said.

Unfortunately, the meeting took place with only tech companies present. Senate Democratic aides tell The Huffington Post that Sen. Feinstein is now working to amend PIPA.

To make matters worse, there is no common ground between the two sectors when it comes to these bills. As the blackout yesterday confirmed, the tech sector is completely against the bills and want them dead. This echoes what a senior Senate aide told The Huffington Post when they said that the tech sector refuses to specify precise changes to PIPA so the bill would get killed outright.

It seems that the only party that actually wants to change the bills are the senators and representatives working on PIPA and SOPA respectively. The content producers in Hollywood wants to push them through and the tech sector wants them to die. There is no compromise there and Washington is attempting to broker one. Doing so would allow them to stay on good terms with both Hollywood and the tech sector, both of which are powerful lobbying allies in Washington.

It remains to be seen if there will be any compromise on these bills, but it’s not looking good. Considering how many members of Congress dropped their support yesterday during the blackout, it’s looking more like Silicon Valley is going to get its way.

For those new to the series, here’s how it works: we identify four YouTube Partners who are steadily growing but haven’t yet hit the 100,000 subscriber mark. You watch their videos, then vote for your favorite in the top right corner of this blog. The channel with the most votes at the end of the week will be featured on the YouTube homepage and videos page. In past months, winners like evmoneyTV and ThePortraitArt have seen growth in their audience and video engagement thanks to your support.

This month’s partners share a common theme of locomotion: skate boarding, gardening (plants move, y’know), yoga, and travel tips for California (people sometimes move, y’know). The four videos can be viewed below:

To vote for your favorite video, visit YouTube’s blog and you’ll find a poll in the top-right corner of the page. As of writing this, there are seven days remaining to cast a vote for your YouTube partner of choice.

As previously reported, Apple is holding a memorial service for Steve Jobs today at Stanford University, where Silicon Valley’s elite have been invited to attend.

Apple will hold another memorial event for the company’s employees on October 19.

Jobs passed away on October 5, and has been remembered around the web perhaps like no other before him, in terms of the amount of people expressing their condolences and paying tribute, from the tech elite to celebrities and the rest of us common folk. Here, we looked at 100 quotes from well-known people.

Jobs was laid to rest at a small private ceremony on October 7. More on the death of Steve Jobs here.

But California Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed the bill.

Here’s the veto message he sent back to the State Senate on Sunday:

I am returning Senate Bill 914 without my signature.

This measure would overturn a California Supreme Court decision that
held that police officers can lawfully search the cell phones of
people who they arrest.

The courts are better suited to resolve the complex and case-specific
issues relating to constitutional search-and-seizures protections.

That California Supreme Court decision that Brown references is the People v. Diaz, a case ruled upon by the supreme state body in January of this year.

In that case, the suspect Diaz was arrested for selling ecstasy to an officer during an undercover drug bust. Upon his arrest, his cellphone was seized and put into evidence. During the interview of Diaz when he was back at the station, an officer looked through his text messages and found texts about the selling of ecstasy. Diaz, naturally, moved to suppress that evidence as a violation of his 4th Amendment rights.

The California Supreme Court upheld that the evidence would remain admissible, because the mobile device was found to be “property incidental to the person” instead of a “pathway to personal data.” That means that it doesn’t require a warrant to be perused.

The Supreme Court of the United States upheld this ruling when they declined to hear the case.

California Senate Bill 914 would have in effect overturned that court decision and made that type of mobile search illegal. Brown’s veto will allow it to stand.

Wired suggests that Brown’s decision in this case could be tied to political gain, in that it “shores up support with police unions,” one in particular that donated $38K to his campaign.

Senate Bill 914 was supported by big name organizations like the ACLU as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who asked Californians to take actions and petition the Governor to sign the bill. Here’s what they had to say about it:

Modern smartphones are a candid window into the intimate details of our lives carrying everything from text messages to emails, from webpages we’ve browsed to our real time location, from lists of contacts to photo albums. But under California law, an arresting officer can reach into your pocket, pull out your cell phone, and thumb through everything on it regardless of whether your phone has anything to do with the arrest itself.

SB 914 ensures that law enforcement officials can’t search your phone without a warrant. This law will also cover other forms of sensitive mobile devices, like tablets and organizers.

It doesn’t matter if you’re arrested at a street protest or pulled over for a traffic stop; the sensitive data on your mobile devices shouldn’t be subject to the idle curiosity of law enforcement officers.

The EFF paints a pretty frightening picture of what warrant-less mobile device searches could mean for the public. Just think about everything that a police officer has access to if they start browsing your iPhone – it’s not just your text messages.

It means emails, call history, location data as well as all your photos. Since most apps on smartphones keep you automatically logged in, that means that technically your Facebook and Twitter accounts would be open to a warrant-less search as well.

There’s no word on whether or not you are compelled to relinquish your passcode if your phone is passcode locked and if so, what the penalties would exist for refusal.

This surely feels like an unsettling path to be traveling down. What do you guys think? Let us know in the comments.

Did California’s tax law impact you? Please share.

The law, which is often referred to as the “Amazon Tax Law,” requires online retailers to pay taxes on their affiliate advertising. Almost immediately after this law went into effect, online retailers, such as Amazon, cut ties with affiliate marketers in the state.

According to Loper, this action meant that a half dozen of his largest advertisers on ShoesRUs terminated their relationship with him, leaving him shy of 70 percent of his revenue.

“It was, essentially, out of business overnight,” he said.

The California law was intended to help the state with its struggling financial issues and to also reduce the competitive advantage that many brick and mortars believe online retailers have over them. Loper, however, does not think that either of these goals has been fulfilled.

“Neither of those groups are better off today than they were before the law passed,” he told us. “The state’s not getting any revenue and the playing field, per se, still has not been equalized.”

Loper also pointed out that he would have never thought such a law would be implemented in a state that is the home of so many tech companies and the Silicon Valley. But, since it was, he had no choice but to move from California to Nevada to start a new business.

His new site is a comparison shopping site for shoes called ShoeSniper and is similar to his previous site. He chose Nevada because it does not have an online sales tax. Fortunately for him, he has already regained nearly all of his former advertising relationships.

Interestingly, as the debate surrounding online sales tax debate continues, more states are considering taking actions similar to the law that California recently passed. What’s even more interesting is that Congress is contemplating action at a federal level. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), recently introduced the “Main Street Fairness Act,” which Amazon, incidentally, supports. The House has introduced a similar bill as well.

Would  you like to see the online sales tax issues solved at a state level or federal level?

Was this a wise move by the California government? Tell us what you think.

Democrat Governor Jerry Brown has called it a “common sense idea,” according to one report from the LA Times. Though clearly many disagree with that notion, thinking that it will do more harm that good. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said in the past that the company is protected in the U.S. constitution’s prohibition of state’s interference in interstate commerce:

And in the U.S., the Constitution prohibits states from interfering in interstate commerce. And there was a Supreme Court case decades ago that clarified that businesses — it was mail-order at that time because the Internet did not exist — that mail-order companies could not be required to collect sales tax in states where they didn’t have what’s called “nexus.”

So there’s that, but as my colleague Josh Wolford noted in a recent related article about Texas, more and more states are saying that Amazon affiliates count as physical presences and are enacting sales tax regulations already.

That’s why Amazon has been shutting down affiliate programs. Amazon has told affiliates in the past that they’d have to move to another state to continue earning commissions on referrals. Overstock.com has reportedly done that before too.

It’s worth noting that California’s sales tax rate in general will be dropping to 7.75%. Here is the bill that was signed into law (pdf).

Some groups representing brick and mortars feel the law should be extended on a national level, claiming the taxes take away competitive advantages from Internet retailers that don’t have a physical presence in a particular state. Consumers are able to avoid fees from purchasing from these retailers that they’d otherwise have to pay by buying in-state.

Affiliates have been informed of the termination of their contracts with Amazon. They have received a letter from Amazon saying:

(The bill) specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers – including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you – even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.

We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.

Danny Sullivan, a California resident wrote Bezos an open letter “thanking him” on his personal blog Daggle. It begins:

“Thank you for your letter today, informing me that after seven years of being one of your affiliates — and having earned for you about $150,000 in that time — that you “deeply regret” unilaterally terminating my contract with Amazon to be an affiliate. I also especially appreciated the part where you reassured me that this action wouldn’t affect my ability to keep buying from your company. Nice touch.”

He goes on to add that while he is fortunate enough to have a successful day job, the loss of income will have a far greater impact on many other affiliates. He also makes a good point about how Amazon will continue to get paid from existing affiliate links without the actual affiliates getting paid.

“I’m not sure how many affiliate links I have on the blog,” Sullivan writes. “Not that many, maybe 25 to 50 in all. But until about an hour ago, those links were worth something to you. Now, because of your squabble over the sales tax issue, you’ve decided to just take for free what you’d previously paid for. If I don’t find time to track down and kill those links, you keep grabbing orders that get made through them and keeping the cut I previously received”

“Over the next day or so, you’re going to get a lot of orders this way,” he adds. “Bigger affiliates will eventually move. Plenty of smaller ones won’t be bothered to change. But those small ones that don’t will add up into plenty of money for your company. You, of all companies, really understand how all that long tail stuff can mount up, right?”

Danny makes some fair points, but the fact that the law was passed is likely to drive businesses away from the state, as clearly they will have no choice if they wish to continue relying on Amazon for income.

jjlwils55, commenting on the LA Times report says, “Okay, here’s the answer…start buying products from overseas companies.  In this day of internet technology, this is a job killer and at the end of the day will not raise additional taxes.”

In the same thread, a small business owner says his company was a victim of similar circumstances all the way back in the early 80′s. “We operated out of Pennsylvania until they ‘needed $65 million’ and ‘targeted only 4 industries’ for a ‘new sales and use tax’. Lots of Exemptions only to the connected cronies in Harrisburg (lawyers of course). WE VOTED WITH OUR FEET AND MOVED TO FLORIDA. We moved the Business and Six Families after ‘growing up there’. We are still angry.”

From the sound of it, there are plenty of people getting ready to pick up and move, or at least consider it, as a result of this California law now. But how long before they are greeted with similar issues at their next destination. You can see how the ordeal has been playing out in various states in this map from TheStreet.com:

Amazon isn’t the only one the law will affect, by the way – just the biggest.

What do you think? Should states tax online retailers the way California is doing? Should about federal law? Share your thoughts in the comments.

That’s Google’s position, at least, as it looks like the $60 million contract will go to CompuCom Systems, an IT outsourcing company with ties to Microsoft.  Google isn’t exactly hiding its displeasure, either.

Marc Lifsher and David Sarno explained earlier this morning, "Now, the Internet giant is accusing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration of rigging the bidding system in favor of its rival in Redmond, Wash."

As for how things got to this point, the pair reported, "Google spent months trying to compete in the contract bidding process but never formally joined the race because state officials drew up a lengthy list of requirements the company said were impossible for it to meet."

Of course, $60 million isn’t much to Google.  The bigger deal is that the organization’s lost an opportunity to get a toehold in the government IT space, and another chance may not come along for a little while.

Microsoft, for the record, has more or less stayed out of the fight, just commenting on its qualifications.

Original Article: A California court is making jurors sign a declaration that they will not use the Internet to look up details about facts related to cases. This comes apparently at the request of a San Diego lawyer.

According to Greg Moran of the San Diego Union Tribune, "In the latest sign of the collision between the courts and new communication technologies, jurors will have to sign declarations attesting that they will not use ‘personal electronic and media devices’ to research or communicate about any aspect of the case. That includes computers, cell phones and laptops. Jurors will have to sign the declarations, made under penalty of perjury, both before and after they serve."

Though this is reportedly the first time such a thing has happened in California, this is certainly not the first time that such an issue has been brought up. Not too long ago, we were hearing tales of Twitter (and social media in general) causing mistrials. The talk has mostly been related to discussing the case, however, which has always been a no-no.

This latest example appears to be more about doing research though. The question is, can this really be enforced?

"My guess is that many will ignore the signed promise as well — in fact, as some behavioral research has shown, just telling them not to do it, may make them even more likely to do so," says Michael Mansick at TechDirt. "At some point, the courts are going to have to realize that you simply can’t prevent people from looking up more info, and will have to come up with ways to adapt."

It is interesting to see that practices of the American Judicial system are still being affected by something as simple as using the Internet, or Google to look things up. It will also be interesting to see if this becomes more of a common practice across the country.