Net Neutrality; Grim Future for the Internet

Several ISPs have leaked that they are planning on moving to tiered internet plans, essentially like Cable Television

My friend Ryan writes about it here

And Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, writes it about it here

And here's a video by some internet activists who describe in more detail what's happening:
http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality2

I think it's fairly evident that the main purpose of this change is to control what information makes its way to the public. Traditional media outlets have always been annoyed that any guy with a blog can report on what's happening in the world. A free Internet is bad for them. The goal would seem to be a regression toward a more centralized and filtered source of news and other information. Something that can easily be policed by those with their own agendas.

My horoscope was actually relevant?

Often times when I'm doing my daily sudoku puzzle, on the same page are other useless things like daily horoscopes and comics. Now, I don't want those authors to feel I'm ignoring them, so sometimes I have a look-see. Well today my horoscope was spookily pertinent given the recent developments in my social life. Here's the NY Daily News' horoscope for Virgo for today:

You may not want to give up a certain amount of freedom, Virgo. But if you want to have an intimate relationship, it will be necessary to change your ways, even if it's just a little. With any relationship, change is imperative. It's a matter of altering the things that you do, but not the person you are.

It seems like sound advice, for anyone really. It's particularly relevant for me right now ... so I will certainly take it under consideration as I go forward. God ... I hope I don't become one of those people that lives and dies by their daily horoscope from here on ;)

Google Maps meets Grand Theft Auto

http://www.phatfusion.net/googledrive/

No More Drunk Dialing

Since they're planning to open up the iPhone to 3rd party applications, I think someone needs to finally go ahead and implement protection against drunk dialing.

This could be a puzzle, or series of questions -- any means to test a person's sobriety level -- that would need to be correctly solved before unlocking the phone for outbound calls.

With the advent of consumer-grade portable breathalyzers (which have come down remarkably in price over the past few years), all we'd need is a USB or Bluetooth enabled breathalyzer that can be paired up with your phone, and hazzah! -- We could restrict calls based on how much alchohol is detected in the user's breath.

Or it could just lock certain contacts - that way you can always drunk dial your best friend, but not that boy you just met last week to tell them how much you really really like him ;)


Allow different levels of drunk dialing. Think "thresholds."

1. (low): No dialing recent dates or new crushes
2. (medium): No dialing anyone of the opposite sex (or same sex, whichever)
3. (high): No calls except to cab companies or 911
4. (alcohol poisoning): Automatically call an ambulance for you ;)

My credit card company: da bomb, yo

I just got a physical letter in the mail from my credit card company that says "Your CitiBank statement is now available at http://www.citicards.com. This notification is part of the All-Electronic Program you enrolled in to receive your statements online only instead of in the mail."

More CNN Irony, School shootings

Ok, so in a piece entitled Killer's images 'a second assault on us', the author describes how upset the families of the victims are regarding the media's plastering of the killer's images and videos all over the place -- AND THEN POSTS A LINK TO VIEW THE FULL SET OF THE KILLER'S IMAGES!

Am I the only one who finds this fucked up?

View the original article here: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/20/vtech.shooting/index.html

More CNN "American Idol" headlines

CNN's cynicism continues. I really enjoy these headlines. For a previous example, see my earlier post, CNN's sense of humor

I realize they may not have been trying to convey sarcasm here since there is a legitimate question of whether American Idol is "for real" in this case. But the way it presents on CNN's page of the top 10 most popular stories (http://cnn.com/mostpopular) amuses me perhaps more than it should.