Successful Blog

Tues. 7pm Chicago: Open Mic — Start Your Engines! It’s Cars!

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The Ferrari, the Porsche, the Bentley, the VW Bug. . .

Personal Branding logo

YES, the mic will be open again tonight. So start collecting your thoughts. Remember, you get to bring what you want to talk about.

The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

Tonight we’re talking about everything cars!

We might also talk about being able to be

  • cool cars, fast cars
  • first cars, junkers
  • things we did for cars, things we did in cars
  • places cars took us

AND THE EVER POPULAR,

Basil the code-writing donkey.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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The Mic Is On! We’re Having Parallel Lives!

Net Neutrality 9-16-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Guess the State and Win a Subsidy: Senate Plays Geography Games in Telecom Bill

Are you good at geography? If so, you may enjoy the small geography quiz buried deep inside of the telecommunications bill now pending in the U.S. Senate. Hidden on page 121 is a paragraph directing the FCC to expand universal service payments to “insular areas, including any insular area that is a State comprised entirely of islands…”

[. . . ]

As it turns out, the list of states covered by this provision is quite short:

1.Hawaii.

And, by total coincidence, a senator from that state — Daniel Inouye — is the co-chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee — which wrote the bill.

[. . . ]

The provision illustrates how far the bill has strayed from a hoped-for focus on eliminating unneeded regulation. At its core, there still is substantial positive reform: streamlining of the video franchising process. But that important change is surrounded by a luau of special interest provisions. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 9-14-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

New Report Skewers Telco Spin on Competition

Why has the United States fallen behind the rest of the world in accessible and affordable broadband service?

The answer, according to a report [PDF] released by Free Press, the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union, is marketplace failures wrought by phone and cable companies’ near monopoly control of last-mile broadband markets.

The 44-page report, Broadband Reality Check II, exposes the truth behind America’s digital decline: A marketplace controlled by the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast has left Americans with higher prices, slower speeds and no meaningful competition for high-speed Internet service.

It exposes the lie behind phone companies’ repeated claims that the U.S. has a diverse marketplace, with myriad broadband choices for the consumer.

It decisively skewers the notion — put forth by telco executives and their high-paid shills — that “fierce competition” precludes Net Neutrality protections.

[ . . . ]

Broadband Reality Check II also finds:

The 14 other OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] nations saw higher overall net growth in broadband adoption than the United States from 2001 to 2005.

Consumers in other countries enjoy broadband connections that are far faster and cheaper than what is available here. U.S. consumers pay nearly twice as much as the Japanese for connections that are 20 times as slow.

U.S. broadband prices aren’t dropping: Cable modem prices are holding constant or rising, and DSL customers on average are getting less bandwidth per dollar than just a year ago.

The market share of “third platform” alternatives like satellite, wireless and broadband over powerline technologies has actually decreased over the past five years.

The report contradicts the rosy picture painted by the Federal Communications Commission, by exposing the agency’s failure to rein in broadband monopolies . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Link Leak Virus Overtakes Parallel Universe!

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Everyone Knew the Time Warps Weren’t the Only Thing

If we could have as many lives to be as many versions of ourselves as we could be, what might we become? The outer limits of Successful-Blog had that conversation and weird musical sounds were heard coming from every category in the sidebar. No one actually said that an extraterrestrial would be a choice, but . . . some thoughts in that direction seemed to come up.

The Link Leak Virus was to be part of the whole operation, whether we were Mother Teresa, Mark Cuban, Lucille Ball, or Donald Trump.The Link Leak Virus is a special strain of the indie virus with blogtipping mutations that occur in threes. But we were in a summertime frame of mind.

Welcome to all of the new folks who came. It was great fun having you!

Cool links were shared.

What Actually Happened?

And this week Rick Cockrum of Shards of Consciousness found a creative way to tell the story of last night’s event.

AdLib is happy just as he is
Fresh bread close at hand, hair down to his chair
His blog back in biz, and music filling his air.

Joe is a lawman,
A wookie for real
Protecting us all with McGyver’s great skill.

Scorpia, too, is content
As she already is
Everyday fantasy is already her biz.

Liz directs song and the dance,
Electronics begone.
Children, flowers and writing Is where she belongs.

Renee comes in singing,
Dancing dog in her arms.
Man and canine alike, she soothes with her charm.

Christine’s in Missouri
Her ballads filling college breeze.
She stopped and said hi before the clock made her flee.

Chris Cree is traveling,
A hero in the stars,
Humming Led Zeppelin, escaping storms in his car.

Seanrox cooked at the barbie,
A feast he laid out
While being James Bond with a bottle of stout.

Douglas dropped in among us,
Just to say hi
Then time warped him away, away to fly.

Ben plays great hockey,
And cartoons on the side,
With Basil his donkey, round the world he does fly.

Starbucker wings in
Home from the West,
Song and dance in his soul, with his wife he does rest.

Cat steps in for a moment,
Still fuzzy with sleep,
Tea in the morning, as to bed we softly creep.

Tony’s in a time warp, two hours behind,
Somewhere he is starving
Drawing comics so fine.

Phil zips by so fast
Pac-man behind him
In a kung-fu world Donkey Kong races past.

Wendy said it was fun
From time zones away.
In the alternate world she stops by to play.

And Ellen pops in
With a comment from home
She read the discussion as a way to be grown.

So another mic closes
It was quite a feat.
We think of you often until the next week.
— Rick Cockrum of Shards of Consciousness

Thanks, Rick, for that great summary! Thanks Everyone, for coming!
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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The Mic Is On! We’re Having Parallel Lives!

The Mic Is On! We’re Having Parallel Lives!

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

Here’s how it works.

open mike night

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about.

Tonight we’re talking having more than one life!

castle Beach Barsailboat

We might also talk about

  • Donald Trump or Annie Lennox
  • Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela
  • Steven Spielberg or Meg Ryan
  • anyone real or fictional

AND THE EVER POPULAR,
Basil the code-writing donkey.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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The Mic Is On! It’s Summer Vacation Again!

Tues. 7pm Chicago: Open Mic — What Would You Do with a Few Parallel Lives?

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Let’s See There’s the Rich One, the Rock Star One . . .

Personal Branding logo

YES, the mic will be open again tonight. So start collecting your thoughts. Remember, you get to bring what you want to talk about.

The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about.

Tonight we’re talking about having more than one life!

We might also talk about being able to be

  • Donald Trump or Annie Lennox
  • Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela
  • Steven Spielberg or Meg Ryan
  • anyone real or fictional

AND THE EVER POPULAR,

Basil the code-writing donkey.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
The Mic Is On! It’s Summer Vacation Again!