Internet
mikethemadbiologist | July 5, 2007The FTC has released a report calling for the end of net neutrality (FTC's pdf report here*). What does that mean? Well:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to abandon net neutrality and allow telecoms companies to charge websites for access.
The FTC said in a report that, despite popular support for net neutrality, it was minded to let the market sort out the issue.
This means that the organisation will not stand in the way of companies using differential pricing to make sure that some websites can be viewed more quickly than others. The report also counsels against net…
revere | June 4, 2007This really gripes me.
A Michigan man has been fined $400 and given 40 hours of community service for accessing an open wireless Internet connection outside a coffee shop.
Under a little known state law against computer hackers, Sam Peterson II, of Cedar Springs, Mich., faced a felony charge after cops found him on March 27 sitting in front of the Re-Union Street Café in Sparta, Mich., surfing the Web from his brand-new laptop.
Last week, Peterson chose to pay the fine instead as part of a jail-diversion program. (FoxNews; hat tip Boingboing)
Here's the story. The café offered free wireless…
mikethemadbiologist | January 20, 2007...but I saw Al Gore speak last night, and he's not going to run for president. He did, however, have a lot of interesting things to say.
-role of television
-need to incorporate internet differently into schools
-overemphasis on liberal arts education (tension)
-slammed Bush and global warming critics
-decried scientific censorship
Gore was a keynote speaker at the "Science and Society: Closing the Gap" meeting held here in Boston. In his talk and the Q&A, Gore made some interesting observations:
1) The last forty years we have moved from a society built around the written and spoken…
mikethemadbiologist | December 3, 2006
Glenn Greenwald, in an excellent post about privacy in the computer database era, relates the following chillling story about the public release of his personal information (italics mine):
I had an ultimately inconsequential but nonetheless quite illustrative personal experience with this several months ago. Back in July, when right-wing blogs were obsessed with investigating my personal life, including where I spend my time, this comment was left at Wizbang, in response to a July 21 post by Wizbang's Kevin Aylward:
Kevin,
Glenn Greenwald departed the United States on June 22, 2006 and hasn'…
mikethemadbiologist | October 25, 2006
(from oldamericancentury.org)
Conservative activist keeping a sharp eye out for Democratic Google Bombers
Majikthise reminds us to join Operation Google Bomb. If you want to join, the html code is here. You'll find some very interesting articles about some not very nice people in the next paragraph.
--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl
--AZ-01: Rick Renzi
--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth
--CA-04: John Doolittle
--CA-11: Richard Pombo
--CA-50: Brian Bilbray
--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
--CO-05: Doug Lamborn
--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell
--CT-04: Christopher Shays
--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan
--FL-16: Joe Negron
--FL-22: Clay Shaw…
mikethemadbiologist | October 12, 2006Yesterday, the Department of Justice approved a merger between AT&T and BellSouth without any conditions, a consent decree, or judicial review. AT&T would control half the land lines and the U.S., and it's no secret that AT&T wants to crush net neutrality. And in a rare display of bipartisanship, Democrats and Republicans have opposed and criticized the DOJ's ruling. Contact your congresscritters, and tell them that this merger sucks.
mikethemadbiologist | September 19, 2006...but it also has blogs, posts, and threads. Al Franken explains this to Lanny Davis.
mikethemadbiologist | July 3, 2006Kos should definitely be given credit for creating the political site DailyKos. But unfortunately, skill sets don't always transfer. His political analysis suffers greatly from, well, not to put to fine a point on it, his ignorance of political events before 1992. I say this because Kos often seems to have internalized Gingrich-era talking points:
Libertarian Dems are not hostile to government like traditional libertarians.
But unlike the liberal Democrats of old times (now all but extinct), the Libertarian Dem doesn't believe government is the solution for everything. But it sure as heck…
mikethemadbiologist | July 3, 2006By way of BornUnderPunches at DailyKos comes this transcript of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Dumbass) pontificating on "an internet." I'm sure he'll do a superb protecting the internet (italics mine):
There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.
But this service isn't going to go through the interent and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and…