Venturepax Inspires Outdoor Adventures, Rewards You For Going Outside

A new website, entitled Venturepax, is looking to inspire us to head outside for a little adventure, and is willing to reward us for sharing those experiences with others. The site is already building a community of outdoor enthusiasts and is encouraging them to post photos and impressions of their adventures for others. When they do, they'll receive points that can be redeemed for discounts in local gear shops, t-shirts, water bottles, and more.

The Venturepax experience has three options: Find Venture, Share Experience, and Earn Rewards. The Find Venture option is a location aware library that suggest popular outdoor options that are in your area, and is a great place to discover new things to see and do outside. The Share Experience section allows you to pot your own suggestions, while also uploading images, while the Earn Rewards option gives you points based on the things you share that will eventually earn you some swag.

Earning points is easy. When you "check in" from a location, you'll receive 2 points. Uploading an image will earn you 20 points, while a video gets you 60. You'll also be rewarded by adding a new Venture to the library and sharing your experiences at that place or one of the others already added to the database. After you earn enough points, you can redeem them for Venturepax gear and discount cards.

The Venturepax website also reports that they are creating apps for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry that will let you check-in, share images, and post thoughts while on the go. That will make it extremely easy to rack up reward points while you're actually outside.

To get started at Venturepax, simply go to the site and create a profile, or login using your Facebook account. Once you're in, you can start sharing your outdoor adventures and finding new ones that you didn't even know existed.

The concept for this site is a simple, but good one. I've already found a few new things to do in my area, and that alone makes it worthwhile.

New Website Offers Discounted Adventure Trips To Members

A new website could prove to be quite a boon for adventure travelers looking for great deals on their next trip. Epic Thrills launched this morning as a members-only site that offers exclusive pricing on some of the best trips available from some of the best adventure travel companies in the world.

Using the Jetsetter model of offering members a single exceptional deal each week, Epic Thrills has partnered with a number of well known travel companies to offer discounts of up to 30% off active adventures to far-flung corners of the globe. For example, the very first trip that they will sell is an 11-day mountain biking journey through Nepal that is organized by Pedalers Pub & Grille, a company well known for its fantastic cycling adventures. Pricing for this trip will be revealed at 1PM ET today, but I'm told the savings will be 20% off the regular price.

Once a new travel deal is posted, it will remain on the site for anywhere from 7-14 days, with a new deal being revealed each week. Members will have the opportunity to purchase at the discounted price, but once the trip reaches its maximum capacity, the deal will be closed.

At the moment, the only way to get into the site is by requesting membership on the site's sign-in page or to know someone (like me!) who can send you an invite. Once you're accepted, you'll be able to create an account, login and take advantage of the savings yourself. While you wait for that invite to be sent, you can read the Epic Thrills Blog, which looks to have some excellent content already in place.

I know that this approach to discounted travel deals has worked well for Jetsetter and it can be a really great option for travelers looking to save a little green. If you're an adventure traveler, you'll definitely want to get in on this program.

Note To Bill Clinton: Fact Checking Sites That Taxpayers Don't Have To Pay For

Bill Clinton is being quoted by The Politico as encouraging the creation of an agency to "fact check" what is written on the Internet and he thinks the United Nations or the U.S. Government should be the ones in charge of it.

Really, I am serious, this isn't a rumor!!!

The Politico:

“It would be a legitimate thing to do,” Clinton said in an interview airing Friday on CNBC.

The agency, Clinton said, would “have to be totally transparent about where the money came from” and would have to be “independent” because “if it’s a government agency in a traditional sense, it would have no credibility whatever, particularly with a lot of the people who are most active on the internet.”

“Let’s say the U.S. did it, it would have to be an independent federal agency that no president could countermand or anything else because people wouldn’t think you were just censoring the news and giving a different falsehood out,” Clinton said.

“That is, it would be like, I don’t know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions, and their mandate would be narrowly confined to identifying relevant factual errors” he said. “And also, they would also have to have citations so that they could be checked in case they made a mistake. Somebody needs to be doing it, and maybe it’s a worthy expenditure of taxpayer money.”

Perhaps Mr. Clinton isn't Internet savvy but someone could teach him quite quickly how to type in www.google.com, then enter keywords "fact checking sites" and wham... guess what Billy? There are already sites out there that do this and lo and behold, tax payers don't have to pay a cent.

There is FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com, OpenSecrets.org, Snopes, and Truth or Fiction, just to name a few.

Leave it to a Democrat to find yet another way to increase spending uselessly at a time when the country is demanding we cut spending.

As for the very idea that the United Nations run such an agency, well considering how scandal after scandal and scam after scam has been proven against the United Nations, that has got to be the most moronic idea ever!

So Bill, please, kick back, put your feet up and have a cigar, (they even make them flavored now!!) but stop trying to spend more of our money.

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Egypt Government Cuts Off Internet As Citizens Rise Against Government On The Streets

Renesys shows an almost universal blackout on the Internet from Egypt where providers simultaneously went dark, virtually cutting off access for the Egyptian citizenry to the rest of the world.

According to that report "every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world. Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all their customers and partners are, for the moment, off the air."

More:

This is a completely different situation from the modest Internet manipulation that took place in Tunisia, where specific routes were blocked, or Iran, where the Internet stayed up in a rate-limited form designed to make Internet connectivity painfully slow. The Egyptian government's actions tonight have essentially wiped their country from the global map.

That has been confirmed by BGP mon.

The Guardian has live updates on the protests with photos, videos (some very disturbing).

Egyptian demonstrators are demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak and the shutdown of the Internet and mobile phone services coincide with a crackdown on the protesters.

Barack Obama took to YouTube to respond and VP Biden is saying Mubarak is an ally and not a dictator.

As Hot Air's Ed Morrissey phrases it "The guy’s been governing under “emergency” powers for 30 years."

AP reports:

Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters poured into the streets of Egypt Friday, stoning and confronting police who fired back with rubber bullets and tear gas in the most violent and chaotic scenes yet in the challenge to President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule. One protester was killed and even a Nobel Peace laureate was placed under house arrest after joining demonstrations.

Groups of thousands of protesters, some chanting "out, out, out," defied a ban on any gatherings and turned out at different venues across Cairo, a city of about 18 million people, some marching toward major squares and across scenic Nile bridges. Burning tires sent up plumes of black smoke across the cityscape as the sun set. Security officials said there were protests in at least 11 of the country's 28 provinces.

It was a major escalation in the movement that began on Tuesday to demand 82-year-old Mubarak's ouster and vent rage at years of government neglect of rampant poverty, unemployment and rising food prices. Security officials said protesters ransacked the headquarters of Mubarak's ruling party in the cities of Mansoura north of Cairo and Suez, east of the capital.

Friday is expected to be the largest day of planned protests and rioting.

Keep up with the news at it comes out at Memeorandum, links to all the news reports and live updates from all over. (Specific link to those stories right now, here)

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Americans Want Government To Step Away From Their Internet

Put down the cookie and back away slowly!!!!!!!!!

Or to put it another way, note to government- Keep your grubby paws off my Internet.

It seems the majority of Americans, or to phrase it more accurately, the majority of Independents and Conservatives (Which equals the majority of Americans) feel that way, but a plurality of liberals feel differently and think the government should regulate the Internet.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 21% of Likely U.S. Voters want the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate the Internet as it does radio and television. Fifty-four percent (54%) are opposed to such regulation, and 25% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

More:

By a 52% to 27% margin, voters believe that more free market competition is better than more regulation for protecting Internet users. Republicans and unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly share this view, but a plurality of Democrats (46%) think more regulation is the better approach.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters believe that the FCC would use its regulatory authority to promote a political agenda. Half that number (28%) disagree and believe the commission would regulate in an unbiased manner. The partisan divide is the same on this question as the others. A plurality of Democrats sees an unbiased regulatory approach, while most Republicans and unaffiliated voters fear a political agenda.

It seems almost every controversial issue has liberals (the 21 percent group) on one side and the majority of Americans on the other side of the issue.

Liberals claim it is because they are "progressive", they arrogantly believe it is because they are smarter, more moral, whatever rhetoric they tell themselves to help them sleep at night because they are scared of the one question they should be asking themselves in the mirror... "could I be wrong?"

Generally speaking, when a liberal answers yes to that question, they become conservatives.. and yes, I speak from experience there.

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FCC's Net Neutrality Order, 194 Pages, PDF

H/T ceciliakang

194 PDF of the FCC's Net Neutrality Order that just passed along party lies with a 3 to 2 vote. (Found here)

Organizations are still looking into whether previous court rulings against the FCC's authority still apply to their attempt to regulate the Internet.

Commentary another time after having a chance to read the whole thing.

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Net Neutrality: We'll Fix What Isn't Broken With More Regulations!!!

The government being what it is, always wants to stick their grubby paws into everything and reports today show the FCC is planning to vote, and say they have the votes they need, to create more regulations, this time concerning the Internet.

The Federal Communications Commission is set to approve on Tuesday Chairman Julius Genachowski's proposed rules governing net neutrality—a concept aimed at preventing Internet providers from interfering with web traffic.

The rules are expected to bar providers from discriminating against legal Internet traffic and require more transparency. They also would let broadband providers for the first time charge more to companies that want faster service for delivery of games, videos or other services.

Net neutrality has become a contentious issue as worries grow that large phone and cable companies are growing too powerful as Internet gatekeepers. Start-ups and small businesses that rely on the Internet to provide shopping, information or other services to consumers are particularly concerned.

The FCC has wanted to step in and act as an Internet traffic cop, but Congress has never given it clear authority to do so.

Both sides of the political aisle oppose this move, but for different reasons:

The proposal has split the five-member FCC board. The two Republican members say the proposed rules impose an unneeded burden and will discourage broadband investment.

Mr. Genachowski's two Democratic colleagues said his plan didn't go far enough, particularly on rules covering wireless networks, but agreed to back it anyway.

Then of course you have the legal issue of whether the FCC has the authority to impose this type of regulation on the Internet:

The rules are also expected to be challenged in court. Similar rules proposed by the agency in 2005 were thrown out by a federal appeals court in April.

In April, a federal appeals court tossed the FCC's first effort to enforce net neutrality rules, saying the agency hadn't justified its authority to act. The current proposal is expected to use a similar argument to the one used in the April case.

In May, the FCC's general counsel said using a variation on the same argument was "a recipe for prolonged uncertainty" but FCC lawyers now say upon further consideration, they believe their plan will withstand challenge.

Mitch McConnell, via The Hill, who will control the House of Representatives come January, are vowing to "push back against new rules and regulations."

The Obama Administration, which has already nationalized health care, the auto industry, insurance companies, banks and student loans, will move forward with what could be a first step in controlling how Americans use the Internet by establishing federal regulations on its use," he said.

McConnell argued that the effort will hurt investment, innovation, and employment.

"The Internet is an invaluable resource. It should be left alone," he said.

H/T Hot Air, video of Mitch McConnell released last night, shown below:



The buzz surrounding this controversial move by the FCC can be seen across the blogosphere already, with liberals believing the proposal doesn't create enough regulation and conservatives believing the FCC doesn't have the authority or congressional approval to enforce their new net neutrality rules, nor should they even be trying to grab power over the Internet by creating a problem where there is none.

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New ExWeb Launching Soon!

If you've wandered by Explorersweb today you may have noticed that it is not open for business. Instead, there is a simple note saying that "explorersweb 3.0 will launch soon", with no further indication of when we can expect the site to relaunch nor what new additions we will see once it does.

Regular readers of my blog already know that I'm a big fan of ExWeb and frequently link to their stories and news from adventurers doing crazy things and visiting remote places all over the planet. While I don't always agree with their stance on certain issues, I do think they do a good job of keeping us all abreast on a variety of topics that we all love, such as mountaineers taking on big peaks, polar explorers heading to the top and bottom of the world, and a whole lot more.

With that in mind, I'm very much interested in seeing what they have in store for us once the site relaunches. Will it be more interactive? Will it allow us to leave comments on stories? How about forums to discuss the latest news and events from the adventure world? Will it include some *gasp* social media elements which have become so popular over the past few years? I guess only time will tell.

So, what would you like to see in a redesigned and relaunched Explorersweb? The old design was functional and worked well, but was starting to look a little dated. Still, I was generally on the site for the content, and not for the design. They always managed to pack quite a bit of info in the space they had, and I suspect that will remain the case in the new design as well. How fancy they get with flash, video, and other features will be interesting to see. Hope they're back up and going again soon.