Archive for: December, 2006

Hell Froze Over

Dec 22 2006 Published by Turk under Bloggers, Craziness, Gadgets, Stuff That Sucks

I always said it would be a cold day in hell when I agreed with Kos on anything. Well, I guess it must be a cold day in Hades, because he’s right on the money with something. Fortunately for me, it has nothing to do with politics.

You know those extended warranties Best Buy and others try to sell you? Don’t buy them. They are scams.

A few years ago, I bought a Palm Pilot from Best Buy, and bought the 3 year warranty to go with it. They tell you that the warranty is no questions asked. At about the 2 year mark, the Palm Pilot completely stopped responding. It wouldn’t turn on, recharge or anything else.

I took it to my local Best Buy, which due to a move across the country was not the store from which I had bought it.

First I was told I had to have all the original receipts, so I went home, got them and brought them back.

Then I was told I had to have all the original packaging. I went home and got most of it. I was surprised at how much I could actually find. The few pieces I didn’t have were the installation instructions and the original software CD. When I got back to Best Buy, they told me the missing pieces would result in a restocking fee of about $75.

At this point, I was a little pissed, and left the store. A couple of months later, I was traveling back to New Mexico (where I bought the Palm Pilot) and decided to return to the store where it was purchased. That store gave me the runaround, but they eventually made the exchange. They actually had the balls to try and sell me the extended warranty on that one. I told them to blow it out their ass.

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What Do Santa Claus And The Internet Have In Common?

Dec 18 2006 Published by Turk under Miscellany, Net Neutrality, The Internet

The shills for the billion dollar content companies (also known as “Save The Internet”) have launched a new video. It’s pretty amazing how blatantly they’re misrepresenting the facts of Net Neutrality – especially given their proclivity for claiming that’s what phone and cable companies do.

First of all, the “founding principle” of the Internet is not Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is a big government intrusion into the net. The government had previously understood that regulation of this still nascent medium is a terrible idea. Yet now the Net Neut proponents want to freeze development in its tracks – ostensibly convinced that innovation can go no further.

The proponents will tell you that net neutrality has always been – based on a law that applied to 40% of the broadband connections carried by DSL lines. It never applied to cable – which accounts for about 60% of the broadband connections. So NN was never “the founding principle”. It was a hindrance to DSL, and the lack of it allowed cable to arrive on the scene and steal the market (well, that and the fact that cable had faster lines and a $100 billion network investment to make it better).

The video also fundamentally misrepresents the state of what we call the Internet today. I’ll get into why there really is no Internet as most people think of it in just a moment, but let’s look at their definition first.

They claim the Internet is a series of pipes and the phone and cable companies are not allowed to mess with what is in those pipes. That’s simply not true. Phone and cable companies mess with what’s in those pipes 24/7. It’s called “managing the network.”

What that means, for instance, is they give video and VOIP traffic preference over e-mail. They move video and voice to the front of the line so you see smooth video instead of the choppy, buffer-problems you used to see a couple short years ago. As more and more video is watched, it requires more and more management (which requires investments in administrators and equipment).

What Net Neutrality argues those pipes should just sit there and let e-mail spam duke it out with YouTube to see who gets there first. They call that “dumb pipes”.

“Dumb pipes” really is a founding principle of the Internet. That’s how it used to be, but managed networks made it better for everyone. Occasionally they’ll allow for management and priortization of video and voice over other traffic, but it’s usually for disingenuous purposes (but more on that later).

Now the Internet, as you probably think of it, does not exist. A lot of people hear about DARPANet and the government creation of “the internet” and they think there is this great big thing out there somewhere – some sort of tangible item.

That is not the case.

“The Internet” does not exist. It’s like Santa Claus. It’s a great myth perpetrated on the uninformed people of the world. The Internet is a series of interconnected networks – not one big thing. The term “Internet” is exactly what the Latin root of its name implies. Inter- means between and Net is short for networks. The Internet is nothing more than a method of exchanging data and traffic between separate, usually privately-owned, networks.

That becomes important when you consider what net neutrality really means. It means someone who invested $100 billion dollars in a network is now being told they cannot manage it as they see fit simply because someone who invests $49 is afraid they may not be able to access CandyTheDominatrix.com.

Let’s say you have a network in your home – say three computers all linked together – for you, the wife and little Johnny. Johnny wants to spend all day downloading the complete director’s cut of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. That, however, brings your network to a crawl, so you, and the router in your closet, set to work to prioritize the rest of the traffic on your network so Johnny has fast access to educational sites, and the rest of the family can use the net, and The Lord of the Rings is throttled back.

That sounds like a great solution except Little Johnny, not happy with your choices, decides to petition the government to get involved, and they pass a law saying you cannot manage the network to impede Johnny, regardless of the negative impact to the rest of the family.

That is exactly what Net Neutrality does.

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Why Are You Time’s Person Of The Year?

Dec 18 2006 Published by Turk under Society, Technology, The Internet, Web 2.0

Katie and I were trading e-mail about the Time magazine Person of the Year and I thought I’d share the general discussion just to throw it out there. Katie wondered if Time magazine was taking the easy way out by declaring “you” the Person of the Year. Sure, the capabilities for collaboration online are great, but does it rise to the Man of the Year?

My reply, in essence, challenges the first assertion in the article – that the “Great Man” theory of humanity took a beating this year. Despite all the hype around YouTube, MySpace, and web 2.0, I don’t buy that the fundamental balance between fame and obscurity was altered in the slightest.

If you look at the big moments online – Macaca, Conrad Burns, Michael Richards’ meltdown, etc. They have one thing in common – they are all stories about ‘great’ men. Now I use great not in the context that they actually are, but to suggest that in our celeb obsessed world, they would probably fit into Thomas Carlyle’s definition.

Other than the guy running the camera in the Allen video, does anyone actually know the name of the people that captured these events? Of all the bands pimping themselves on MySpace, how many have actually entered pop culture relevance because of it? The Wikipedia page for MySpace lists two – Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen. The former had never even heard of MySpace before discovering a fan had created a site and the latter points out that she had a contract before ever establishing a presence online.

What about normal people getting hundreds of thousands of friends and becoming celebrities? Well, most are either models, actors, porn stars, or bands. The few who have escaped obscurity and landed any kind of mainstream publicity are far between and generally relegated to c-list exposure like Playboy spreads (Can you say Darva Conger?) and appearances on daytime talk shows.

So MySpace hasn’t really ‘made’ anyone. With the exception of fat kids who want to be Darth Maul, or fat kids singing/dancing to obscure Romanian pop songs (neither of which, it is worth noting, originated on YouTube), most of the few examples of video that have become famous involve people who were already major or minor celebrities.

So clearly there is some other indicator that these sites are changing the world, right? Well, no. Not yet.

Does that mean all the hype over online collaboration is empty hype? I don’t think so. I am a firm believer that the Internet empowers people. in campaigns, I have seen the possibilities for allowing people to work – either independently or with others, and achieve some amazing things. We may yet come to a day when the power of the Internet is realized, but I do not, at all, believe a 24/7 version of America’s Funniest Home Videos, or a virtual American Idol for garage bands, amateur directors, porn stars, and wannabe actors is changing the world.

These sites, in the short term, may add a few more marginal celebs to the balance sheet, but they will not fundamentally change the nature of our fame obsessed society. They will be, in the annals of history, the Internet equivalent of the pet rock.

So, in answer to Katie’s question, yes. I believe Time magazine took the easy way out.

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Much News From The NY Times

Dec 14 2006 Published by Turk under Candidates, Conventions, Democrats, Elections, John McCain, Politics, Republicans

The New York Times is just full of goodies today. First, they’re reporting on the hire by Giuliani’s camp of RNC Political Director Mike DuHaime. They follow that up with reports from cocky NYC officials claiming the Democrats 08 convo is as good as theirs.

The convo is the low hanging fruit, so I’ll pick it first. I think the NYC officials are underestimating the importance of the one piece of the puzzle they don’t have – a swing population in a target state in a targeted region. It’s great that they have unions, and it’s great that they think they can raise ungodly sums of money for the convention, but the reason for a convention is to appeal to the electorate through the very small bit of coverage they’ll see.

Colorado makes a great showcase for a party that wants to put out a welcome mat for disaffected moderates and libertarians who are turned off by the GOP’s religious wing. New York has none of that.

The RNC was very wise to pick Minneapolis early and beat the DNC to the punch. Minnesota is much like Colorado in its appeal as a showcase for swing votes. Should the DNC decide to go with New York for money and union reasons, it will be clear that they’re not at all interested in actually appealing to a more moderate voter.

On the Giuliani front, DuHaime is a great hire. Mike is a really good guy and very talented. He also is pretty savvy with technology so he should be willing to be more aggressive and try different things online.

I have fears that McCain, trying to be the establishment candidate, is going to forego some of the technology innovations that would be the hallmark of a maverick campaign – and certainly marked him as one of the first Internet savvy campaigners. He’s likely going to play it much closer to the sleeve and take fewer chances now that he has the lead. Even with Dean’s Internet guy on board, don’t expect to see a Dean-like campaign.

DuHaime will add a lot to Giuliani’s effort, but the big question now is whether he can attract more high-caliber talent to his team. The giant sucking sound coming out of Alexandria is the McCain team trying to reassemble the Bush-Cheney operation. They’ve been largely successful, so we’ll see who Rudy can tap.

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Forgive Me If I Don’t Weep

Dec 13 2006 Published by Turk under Craziness, Crime

Following the raid on illegal workers employed by one of the world’s largest meat processing companies, the apologists are coming out of the woodwork. The United Food and Commercial International Workers are preparing legal briefs to halt the arrests and are working to protect the illegal workers from prosecution. Families of the workers were protesting the ‘cruelty’ of making the arrest right before Christmas.

Well, forgive me if I don’t cry openly for people who have been living and working illegally in the US (and according to DHS have been, in many cases, stealing the identity of legal Americans to do so). Despite your beliefs about immigration reform, the current law is the current law. If you are here illegally, and we catch you, you go to jail and then back home. I don’t care if it’s Christmas, your birthday, or your anniversary.

The clergy have come out to complain as well.

“They are taking mothers and fathers and we’re really concerned about the children,” said the Rev. Clarence Sandoval of St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church in Logan, Utah. “I’m getting calls from mothers saying they don’t know where their husband was taken,” he said.

Well, she and her husband should have considered that possibility when he snuck into the country, took a job illegally, and possibly boosted the social security number of a dead man in order to violate our nation’s laws.

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