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Good morning all, and welcome to the most epic RFM ever. Srsly, so many links.

Ways To Give:

Claire linked me to a fundraiser for Sarah Burke, a Canadian freeskiing champion who died in an accident in the US -- and whose hospital bill for her stay in a US medical facility was $500k. The money has been raised to help her family, but the information is still something I think people should have, and they are accepting donations to help with funeral services and establishing a foundation in Sarah's honor.

abraxas_life is in a charity ride for Diabetes, Tour de Cure, with her father, but they need to raise $200 each to participate. Her father is apparently doing well, but she could use some help reaching her goal; you can donate here.

Anon linked me to a fundraiser by author Patrick Rothfuss, Worldbuilders. Worldbuilders donates all of the money made to Heifer International, which helps build sustainable economies is poor areas and third world countries. Pat is raising money through lottery and auctions; you can find more info here. You can also donate directly here. The fundraiser lasts until midnight on February 7th, CST.

ailelie is raising money to start Plunge Magazine, an ezine focusing on queer women in genre literature. She looks like she's got a heck of a plan for it, and like her I'm not sure if there's another ezine out there with the same focus, so I think it's well worthy of support. You can check out more info and donate here.

Fans Helping Fans:

I'm rattling the cup myself this week; I have a friend who's in need of help and I could use some help helping her. I can't really say more than that, but if you're in the mood to pass on a couple of bucks to a very deserving person, and you trust my discretion, you can paypal copperbadge at gmail.com or give at the donation page here. Thanks guys :)

bicrim has a fantastic opportunity available for Cafe computer security engineers in the DC area. They're hiring fast and desperate to find folks; you can find all the info here, and I strongly urge you to check it out!

polarisnorth found an apartment through RFM last year, and now is looking for a new roommate to live in said apartment. It's in the Boston/Cambridge area and you KNOW they'll be good people 'cause they're Cafe. :D You can contact her at DW or LJ, or her other roommate aria at DW or LJ; those posts have information including links to Craigslist ads with photos.

Help For Free:

the_rainbow_jen passed along the news that according to Swedish law, if you want to legally change your gender, the government forces you to undergo sterilization, taking away your reproductive rights. There's a petition regarding it here And an open letter from the Human Rights Watch here.

888mph has an informational post up about Lau Fat-wai, a Portuguese citizen arrested and sentenced to execution for drug trafficking in pretty suspicious circumstances. You can read about the case here (and why Amnesty International is taking an interest) and there's a link to a petition.

starlingthefool linked to a site that I thiiiink I may have linked to before but can't remember: Charitysearch. This site allows you to search the web while helping to donate to charitable causes; every time you go to their site to search (which eventually redirects to the search engine of your choice) Charity Search makes a charitable donation.

News To Know:

Trigger warning on this one, please check the blurb before following the link: lirren let me know about Project Unbreakable, created in October of 2011 by Grace Brown. Grace uses photography to help heal those who were sexually abused by asking them to write a quote from their attacker on a poster and photographing them holding the poster. Obviously this may be very, very triggery to some folks, so click with caution.

brainwane has an informative link about Kindle highlights and interactivity with Amazon. I'm not well-versed in Kindle so I'm not sure what it means, to be honest, but her quote from the conclusion seems informative: "If you have a Kindle, connect it to your computer and look on its filesystem. All your highlights are kept in a structured-text file located at documents/My Clippings.txt. This file includes highlights taken from PDF files and other ebooks not recognized by Amazon, which don't get synced to kindle.amazon.com. ... take control of your highlights by backing up this file."

SOPA/PIPA Special feature:

I got a ton of links this week about both SOPA/PIPA efforts and the Megaupload takedown that was apparently not linked to the blackout but did happen to coincide with it, and of course the Anonymous strikback that led off from that, which let me tell you, wigged the hell out of my mum. So in case you've been hearing a lot about this stuff but haven't had time to hunt up information, I have some for you!

daymarket linked to an explanatory infographic that explains what the proposed legislation does. Please be aware this infographic is rather simple, but daymarket also linked to a more complex discussion here. The number of supporters/detractors is also now out of date after the blackout (a more up to date one is here, but this is moving very fast.)

Regarding the Megaupload indictment, jadey linked me to a discussion of it by some of Dreamwidth's folks here. For the story as it unfolded, kallaneboi linked to a WSJ article about the shutdown, stephani673 linked to a Gizmodo article about Anonymous's revenge, and taerowyn had a Gawker article about why this revenge, while terribly satisfying, is also rather hazardous to your computer's health.

Both of these issues are getting a lot of attention and are part of a very fast-moving continuum. It behooves you as internet users to be aware and informed; don't depend on my once-weekly updates if this is something that concerns you.

Just For Fun:

I know I'm just about the only person who finds Shit Girls Say unfunny and kind of worrying, but it's creepy and I had to have an upsetting talk with my sister about it. That said, I'm not gonna lie: Shit Austinites Say cracks me up.

Also awesome: Apparently now our technology allows us to make music out of tree rings!

Ever wanted to read about the neighborhoods of Chicago? Here are some profiles, complete with awesome logos.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can always post items for my attention in comments here (or on any post) or email me at copperbadge at gmail dot com. If you're not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help. Remember, non-embedded links are love.

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It's all about food, in ( A Cheaper World )