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Net Neutrality 10-02-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.
MORE FROM:
Neutrality’ Is New Challenge for Internet Pioneer an Interview on Net Neutrality with Sir Tim Berners-Lee By JOHN MARKOFF Published: September 27, 2006

[ . . .]

Q. You’ve spoken about the concept of a Dark Net, which would balkanize the Internet. Do you have a nightmare scenario?

A. In the long term, I’m optimistic because I think even if the United States ends up faltering in its quest for Net neutrality, I think the rest of the world will be horrified, and there will be very strong pressure from other countries who will become a world separate from the U.S., where the Net is neutral. If things go wrong in the States, then I think the result could be that the United States would then have a less-competitive market where content providers could provide a limited selection of all the same old movies to their customers because they have a captive market.

Meanwhile, in other countries, you’d get a much more dynamic and much more competitive market for television over the Internet. So that you’d end up finding that the U.S. would then fall behind and become less competitive until they saw what was going on and fixed it. I just hope we don’t have to go through a dark period, a little dark ages while people experiment with dropping Net neutrality and then, perhaps, put it back.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Great Find: Library Thing

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Catalog Your Books Online

Cat Morley of Designers Who Blog found this one for me. I have a feeling I know a few follks who are going to love it. . . .

Great Find: Library Thing

Permalink: http://www.librarything.com/

Audience/Topic: Everyone who reads

Content: Imagine your own Library of Alexandria, a personal wonder of the world. Then imagine you wouldn’t have to pack and move it each time that you changed where you decided to live. Heaven. Yes?

Library Thing boasts over 3.8 million books on member bookshelves for you to peruse. It can search Amazon, the Library of Congress, and 45 other world libraries. It’s a social network of people with similar libraries to yours. Tag your books as might on Flickr. Import and export titles. Library Thing even has it’s own blog! Click on the title shot below to check this wonderful use of technology to match readers with great books and people who love them.

Library Thing

It’s so much fun to see what’s there!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 10-01-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Podcasting and the battle for Net Neutrality

I just read a post over at MacMikeNews.com about Podcasting. . . . it really hit home why the Telecommunications Corps. and the Cable and Media outlets are scrambling to trash Net Neutrality. . . . They’re LOSING THEIR AUDIENCE.

Many people who are downloading podcasts are using it as a replacement for radio, and are starting to use it as a replacement for television. Think about this– podcasts are commercial free, for the most part. Podcasts are downloaded and can be heard or watched at the convenience of the downloader. And since the technology is easily accessible ANYONE can, with just a bit of learning and some inexpensive equipment, create and upload a podcast. . . . I just sampled a few, and though on some the quality was a bit uneven, I’d say that many of the most popular are pretty damn good. Even better, the quality of the CONTENT is much better than the “lowest common denominator” crap that either commercial tv or radio stations think we want to view or listen to.

[ . . . ]

Now, let’s take this a step further– the political scene. If any smaller and less well financed candidate were to be able to take their message directly to the people via podcast . . .

[ . . . ]

One further step– what do artists and musicians need big media companies for if they can take their offerings directly to the people and CUT OUT THE MIDDLEMAN?

[Media and Telecomm Corps] stand to lose billions of dollars if the internet remains free. They will be cut out of the income loop if people don’t need them as a media delivery device.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 9-30-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

MORE FROM:
‘Neutrality’ Is New Challenge for Internet Pioneer an Interview on Net Neutrality with Sir Tim Berners-Lee By JOHN MARKOFF Published: September 27, 2006

Q. So there are political consequences [to losing a neutral net]. Are there are also economic consequences? If so, what are they?

A. I think the people who talk about dismantling — threatening — Net neutrality don’t appreciate how important it has been for us to have an independent market for productivity and for applications on the Internet.

Now, if we compare what you can get into your home with earliest modems, it’s maybe 1,000 times as fast. So that market has been very competitive, very successful.

And I think we wouldn’t have seen this explosion in the exciting, tremendous diversity of the kind of things you see on the Web now. So in the future, obviously, we expect to see many more things. We expect to see, very importantly, television streaming over the Internet, which is going to make a very exciting market in television content and maybe entertainment, maybe educational ideas.

The people deploying these things rely on the fact that the Internet is sitting there waiting to carry whatever they can dream up.

MORE TOMMOROW

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

A Friday Priorities List — 2 Rules and a Bunch of Ideas to Leave Work Behind

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I've been thinking . . .
I’ve been thinking how, at one time in my life, the ones who saw the worst of me were people I was closest to. It’s like the song.

You always hurt the one you love, the one you shouldn’t hurt at all. You always break the kindest heart, with a hasty word you can’t recall.
.

I’m listening to Willie Nelson sing it now. (Moonlight Becomes You)

I was young. I let my guard down with them. It was a sign of trust that I let them see my bad side. Gosh. don’t you bet they were thrilled I would do that for them?

I’m a slow learner sometimes.

Imagine if everyone dumped their bad feelings on loved ones in the name of trust.

I’m not quite sure what woke me up. When my brain and my heart finally reattached, my thinking kicked in. I realized that I was treating people I hardly knew far better than the ones that I loved. I was a success at working for a living, but not such a success at having a life.

2 Rules and a Bunch of Ideas

So I made this list that I check every Friday. It’s not written stone — more like it’s etched in ice. But it does remind me what to think about when Friday rolls around. It’s two rules and a bunch of ideas to focus on so that I leave work behind.

Two Rules

  • RULE 1: Weekends are recreational or recuperative.
  • RULE 2: Except in rare emergencies, all work is “want to,” not “have-to” stuff.

A Bunch of Ideas

  • Plan an activity with someone I love just because we want to do it.
  • Spend time listening to someone special.
  • Do something spontaneous with a friend.
  • Make someone laugh.
  • Call someone I haven’t talked to in years.
  • Learn something new with a friend or a loved one.
  • Read a book.
  • Take two naps.
  • Make cookies. Find lots of folks to share them with.
  • Do something I’ve never done before.
  • Do something I’ve not done in years.
  • Do something that someone else decides is important.
  • Try on some gratitude and generosity

    • .

Of course, your list might look totally different from mine . . . .

Now I let my closest people see the best of me. I like me a lot better this way. As it turns out, they seem a whole lot nicer too.

Liz's Signature

Net Neutrality 9-29-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

‘Neutrality’ Is New Challenge for Internet Pioneer andnterview By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: September 27, 2006

SIR TIM BERNERS-LEE was a software programmer working at the CERN physics research laboratory in Switzerland in the 1980’s when he proposed the idea of a project based on hypertext — linking documents with software pointers.

The World Wide Web went online in 1991 and rapidly grew beyond the physics community. In 1994, Sir Tim founded the World Wide Web Consortium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to promote open standards on the Internet. Earlier this year, he began speaking out in favor of “Net neutrality.” The term describes one side in the debate in the United States over whether Internet service providers should be able to control the order in which they route packets of data — or even be able to reject those packets — or whether they should be required to be neutral on the matter. For example, in some cases I.S.P.’s have restricted the routing of services provided by competitors like Internet phone calls.

He answered questions earlier this month by telephone from Cambridge, Mass.

Q. Do you think you would be able to invent the Web today, given the barriers that are emerging?

A. You have to imagine the Net without the Web. I think I would be able to invent it today, but if we lose Net neutrality, then imagine a world in which it’s much more difficult to invent the Web.

Q. Is your view that the anti-Net neutrality infrastructure actually threatens political democracy? Does it go beyond just the technical structure of the Internet?

A. Net neutrality is one of those principles, social principles, certainly now much more than a technical principle, which is very fundamental. When you break it, then it really depends how far you let things go. But certainly I think that the neutrality of the Net is a medium essential for democracy, yes — if there is democracy and the way people inform themselves is to go onto the Web.

MORE TOMORROW . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE