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Net Neutrality 9-23-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Congress is clueless about the internet [via The Blog Herald]

So why am I not worried?

Because soon the next generation of elected officials are going to be people my age, people who grew up with the internet, people who instant message their friends. In the next 10, 20, and 30 years the people that are elected to office are going to be people who “get” the internet, people who understand why net neutrality is important.

Laws aren’t irreversible. In 25 years the justices on the supreme court will understand the internet – they can say that laws enacted today are unconstitutional. The people who grew up logging into Facebook and checking email will be more powerful.

The next guy in charge of the RIAA might understand why downloaded music isn’t such a bad thing. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 9-22-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Net Neutrality: Letter to Lorelle

. . . if everything and all the content that was being accessed, was in the same network, nobody really cares. . . . The person who laid that infrastructure is also the one reaping the revenue out of it.

We are talking about a world, that in another few years is going to look very very complicated and simple at the sametime. I could switch between my television and “mobile communication device” in ease. I can flip my video conferencing session from my mobile phone, to the big screen television to get a better view and perspective if I wanted to… all this means, I’ll have to hop between networks, and the amount of effort, energy and money that needs to go into making sure that interoperability is achieved, is enormous – not to mention the billions of dollars that are invested towards that infrastructure.

Simply put, nobody is going to make that investment, unless operators can be sure that out of all these services, they can get some money. . . . Since all the devices will be on IP . . . there cant be a way to differentiate what these services are. That’s basically the reason why these “walled gardens” are being raised – just to make sure that there is some basis for charging your usage, in a fair manner.

. . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 9-21-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Commerce Poll on Telecom Bill Reeks of Desperation

The Senate Commerce Committee released yesterday, and posted on its web site today, a Verizon-funded push-poll that not surprisingly finds 1. Most Americans want competition in cable and 2. Most Americans are opposed to “onerous” (that’s the word used by the supposedly independent “bi-partisan” write-up of the poll results) net neutrality regulations.

[ . . .].

Check out the poll’s loaded question on net neutrality:

Which of the following two items do you think is the most important to you:

Delivering the benefits of new TV and video choice so consumers will see increased competition and lower prices for cable TV

OR

Enhancing Internet neutrality by barring high speed internet providers from offering specialized services like faster speed and increased security for a fee

Faced with this choice, is it any surprise that 66% of the 800 registered voters surveyed (91% of whom were clueless about net neutrality) opted for the delightful delivery of benefits of new video choices over the insidious barring of cool new services such as faster broadband and better security?

The survey, conducted by not one but two bought-and-paid-for political polling firms, Public Opinion Strategies and The Glover Park Group, is just routine message manipulation by the pollsters . . . But the fact that once again, the United States Senate is disseminating corporate propaganda on one of its most powerful committee’s web sites, funded by stiffs like you and me, should get everybody hopping mad.

. . . The Senate Commerce Committee has given up even a thin veneer of working for the public. It’s working for Verizon now.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Links Leaked All Over the Cars!

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Vroom Vroom Leak

In an amazing turn of Open Comment Night events, as soon as we started our cars they started leaking — even our new friends from askpatty couldn’t help. It seeems their vehicles were leaking the most links all night! It’s as if the cars WERE the link leak virus.

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.Things quieted down as our engines warmed up.

We still told some wonderful car stories.

Cat woke to Tanks and a coup. She’s in our thoughts.
HART says never ask a police officer fo an ID.
It’s a Birthday for Designers Who Blog

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

Cool links were shared.

Vrooom, Vroom Summary by Rick Cockrum

What Rick writes makes us all sound so interesting. I think we should do this again!

Liz our hostess once again,
Open mic once more begins.
Tonight it’s cars and highway travel,
Women and garages, the pain unravels

Breanne is first, she made our day,
Working with women and the web she’s not shy
With dogs and cars she loves to play.

Douglas stopped in for a glance.
Of American cars he is derisive,
European luxury is his vision.

Susan came for a while,
Click and Clack make her smile.

Jody popped in with statistics galore
Of cars and women she can tell us more.

Kirsten has good luck car shopping,
But mechanics can really get her anger hopping.

Cat’s in the middle of a Thai coup,
No TV, no phone, with tanks all around,
Communication through the net is still sound.

Katiebird tells us of her great scare.
A truck has attacked her
With never a care.

HART has stories that are really quite grand.
We can’t help but say
HART, You’re the MAN!

Scorpia rides a taxi and walks a fair bit,
But storms are around her,
She returns to her cave to prevent getting hit.

Joe makes us jolly with his verse wit
The women console him,
They say they won’t nip.

And Candice is the sys-op, Ferraris her bag
Stuck in an Accord
Made her quite sad.

Seanrox loves his Mustang, he’s built for speed,
Laptop in one hand, pizza the other,
He rides through the land,

Ben drives up in an old Mazda.
He says his car sucks,
So The Great Big Small Business Show was noted.

Trisha watched House before she came.
She couldn’t stay long
Due to rather bad neck pain.

Renée sold her car and wanted advice
On what car she should get for the tall and the short,
Abby wrote in and called for divorce.

Meikah sang a song about strong inner pain,
Fast cars and freedom, our childhood dream.
That leads to life that our parent’s life sang.

Starbucker’s hearing the train’s lonesome wail,
Life has been good, he’s seen his family and then
Phil, his main man.

Tony picked our collective minds,
About a problem with driving as our ages do climb
We had little to say, the law doesn’t help,
We just cross our fingers, and in time cross that line.

Becky’s car broke down,But she still brought the drinks.
Happily married she’s in a small town.
Her spouse the mechanic, she cures computer hijinks.

Christine made it in at the end of the night,
But her wifi wouldn’t last,
She had to take flight.

And Easton had Arny, a little Geo
With tires like cookies,
The car finally had to go.

AdLib slept in for once I should say
But day or night,
He can’t stay away.

And Alvin, though clueless
With cars as it seems,
Has a brother who sees them fulfilling his dreams.

And finally we end , sixteen hours in,
Hendry Lee with a Wow! You talk like the wind!

Rick, you are the special one. Thank you so much for doing this again! thanks to everyone who participated!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 9-20-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Politicians battle over network neutrality

Ben Scott, policy director of the media-oriented lobbying and outreach organization Free Press, said . . .

“Imagine what it looks like when you create a multitiered Internet – you create a fast quality of service for people who pay a lot of money,” he said. “Essentially you’re creating Internet that’s best for those who can pay the most.”

In a system without expanded infrastructure, Scott said, that would mean those who cannot pay the most would have a degraded quality of service.

It’s important to distinguish between consumer tiers and those that would be on the Internet itself, Scott said.

“We’re each buying different amounts of bandwidth, but once we pay our fee and get online, it’s the same quality of access,” he said. “No one decides which Web site goes fast, which goes slow.”

[ . . .]

Alok Gupta, department chairman and Carlson School of Management professor of Information and Decision Sciences, said services that are not free now can be provided for free should companies be able to charge for services that require a higher level of access.

“You can not only have more incentives for investment, but you can actually increase social welfare by providing multiple levels of access,” he said.

The real danger in this area is if media companies merge with infrastructure companies, he said.

Implementation of a multitiered system requires some thoughtfulness, Gupta said, as legislators cannot let companies do whatever they want.

“If the network slows down because of high level of activity, that is natural; but purposeful degradation of services should not be allowed,” he said. “That’s the real legislative issue. That’s something we need laws about which we don’t have right now – not that it should be illegal to provide differential services.”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

The Mic Is Open! Start Your Engines! It’s Cars!

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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. 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 everything cars!

cars

We might also talk about

  • 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.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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