reddit

All across Twitter these days, you can find people who are standing up to the bipartisan Congressional coalition behind the Stop Online Piracy Act. But one news site is taking its protest a whole lot further than simply plastering a "STOP SOPA" banner across its Twitter profile picture.

Reddit, a popular news aggregator, said today that it will be "blacking out" its entire site for 12 hours on January 18.

"The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy," Reddit's editors posted this afternoon. "Congress is considering legislation … Read more

Rep. Paul Ryan, one of the most influential members of the House of Representatives, appears to have bowed to a campaign started at Reddit.com opposing the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act.

Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who was talked about last summer as a potential GOP presidential candidate and who delivered his party's response to President Obama's last State of the Union address, said today that he would vote against SOPA on the House floor.

Support for and opposition to SOPA and its Senate counterpart, Protect IP, doesn't follow traditional party lines. The conservative Heritage Foundation has … Read more

Reddit user ModXMV has one cool uncle. ModXMV posted a pic of the uncle's creation, a DIY "Star Trek" mailbox dubbed the NCC-USPS.

In my imagination, the uncle is actually a Scottish engineer in a red shirt.

The project consists of a standard mailbox with an original-style Enterprise docked above it. This would be right at home outside of William Shatner's mansion.

The mailbox looks like it provides ample room for deliveries of back issues of "Starlog" and shipments of props purchased on eBay. There's no word on whether or not it is phaser-proof.… Read more

We asked CNN technology writer Mark Milian to come into the studio today to wrap up the last show of the year, and he surprises us with Peter Ha from The Daily in tow!

Our two favorite guests join us for a discussion about the tech trends of 2011 ("hacking," privacy, mobile OS wars, Tumblr, and Reddit), and we'll also take a look at Mark's new book, Letters to Steve: Inside the E-Mail Inbox of Apple's Steve Jobs.

It's a collection of e-mails sent from the legend himself that shows his dedication to customer service and Apple fans. Some of them aren't so nice, though, as Mark tells us a few stories about his lesser-known messages.

I know you're probably super upset that this is the last episode of the year, but we'll be publishing exclusive Yuletide and Throwback episodes throughout the break, all the way up until we start our block of CES shows, live from the CNET stage at the Las Vegas Convention Center!

Thanks to everyone who helped us out this year--too many names to list, but we wouldn't be here without all our awesome guests, fans, moderators, producers, callers, and co-workers!… Read more

This software engineer really, really loves Christmas...and symphonic metal, as his cube decoration contest entry shows.

Redditor and software engineer Billiam5 posted this video on Reddit late last night demonstrating his achievement in action, replete with dancing Christmas lights synced to the song "Wizards in Winter," by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO).

According to the artist himself, Billiam5 used the Arduino prototyping platform and Flash-based animation programming to bring the LEDs to life:… Read more

I dressed up as a train engineer for a Halloween party, and it took half an hour to get the straps on my overalls adjusted right. Life would have been a lot easier if I had just gone with a QR code like Reddit user adriannezy.

She works in an IT department and wanted to participate in Halloween at an absolute minimum level. So she went with a QR code on her shirt.

The QR code links to a photo of her in a Star Trek costume that looks like a cross between Uhura and Spock. This represents geek chic on multiple levels.… Read more

Here at Crave, we rarely post random photos from Reddit, but when we do it's because we discovered something genius.

This clever photo was posted earlier this week on the social-bookmarking community's sub-Reddit, /r/gaming section. Simply titled "She's got me figured out," the photo shows a list of chores that only a Grand Theft Auto fan could appreciate. … Read more

The four-tuner Tivo Premiere Elite makes its debut, Netflix cracks down on people who stream more than one video at the same time, and Yahoo's board fires CEO Carol Bartz after less than three years on the job.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

Too busy to keep up with today's tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET for Tuesday, September 6.

• CNET got the scoop about Google's mobile search practices. Korean trustbusters raid Google offices in Seoul. Jay Greene writes: "Regulators are apparently interested in information about Google allegedly limiting access to rival search engines on its Android mobile operating system."

•Yahoo's Carol Bartz is out as CEO; fired by the board. Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse will fill in as CEO.

• Just because you're not checking into Foursquare doesn't mean … Read more