Archive for: March, 2007

Net Neutrality: A Uniquely American Problem?

Mar 26 2007 Published by under Congress, Government, Legislation, Net Neutrality, The Internet

An interesting article in The Register today paints the Net Neutrality debate as a uniquely American phenomenon.

What emerged from the sessions is that ‘Neutrality’ is one of those incomprehensible American phenomenons, from which we’ve mercifully escaped. Your reporter was one of those invited to give a briefing – having reported on the issue from both sides of the pond – and said as much. But in the expectation that this would be the heretic view, rather than the near unanimous consensus opinion.

Summing up, [former UK trade minister Alun] Michael described the clamour for pre-emptive technical legislation as “extreme… unattractive and impractical”.

It was, he said, “an answer to problems we don’t have, using a philosophy we don’t share”.

That’s pretty much the same problem a growing number of people in the US have with it. There is no evidence that this is an issue. The one instance of anything in the US approaching a violation – also known as Madison River – was dealt with. Madison River paid a fine, agreed not to block VoIP traffic, and moved on.

That hasn’t stopped proponents from advocating for legislation in anticipation of there someday being a reason for it. It is not a sound basis for policy. The UK appears to recognize that. The truly interesting point in The Register article is buried.

[T]he UK doesn’t have such as ancient cruft as the US distinction between an information provider and a telephony provider.

They see this distinction as one of the principle problems. Since the Brand X decision and subsequent deregulation of DSL, NN proponents have pointed to that distinction as particularly problematic, while ignoring one of the specific contradictions in their argument – that distinction is the unintended consequence of applying a regulatory framework based upon a specific technology and then trying to adapt it to different technologies.

Net Neutrality attempts to do just that. Net Neutrality assumes that the technology and business models underlying the Net will not fundamentally change – therefore it’s ok to establish a regulatory regime based on what we know today, and what we assume we’ll still know tomorrow. In the absence of a specific problem, legislating a static solution for continually shifting technologies is a bad idea.

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Reruns or No?

Mar 26 2007 Published by under Programming, Television

When ABC announced it would air Lost in sort of a broken schedule with 8 episodes in the fall and 16 in the spring (with a mind-numbing 3 months in between) I was unthrilled. I had been one of the people bitching about the week-on-three-weeks-off schedule from last year, but this seemed worse. Now that we’re trucking though the second half of the season, and I know every week will be a new episode, I’m kind of digging it.

I think the reason stems from HBO. I’ve actually gotten used to series that run straight through with no interruption. I’m still seriously unhappy that I only get a new season once a decade, but that’s another post. With Entourage and The Sopranos starting in just under two weeks, I’m getting ready to invest more Sunday TV time.

In the meantime, my Monday night favorites (How I Met Your Mother, The Class, and Two And A Half Men) are into repeats (yet again) and I’m dreading TV tonight. I dropped Prison Break like a bad habit and 24 has never appealed to me. My only other options seem to be Dancing With The (cough… cough…) Stars and whatever retarded game show NBC is airing. It looks like I’ll pop a DVD in the player and hit the treadmill…

Getting back to Lost, I am really stoked about the season. Granted, for about 90 days I felt like a crack addict needing a fix, but now I’m hooked. It also seems to have made the season better. I’m still trying to determine whether this season is simply that much better, or whether the lack of reruns has simply made every episode seem better.

When I had to wait through two weeks of crap to get a new episode, the occasional dry episode made me feel violated. Now the occasional lull (can you say Tricia Tanaka Is Dead) is acceptable because I only have to wait a week for them to make amends.

I am really beginning to appreciate the true series – even if it means a longer pause between new seasons. As long as the HBO pause doesn’t become the standard, I’m in.

Now bring on Entourage and the Sopranos!

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Internet Porn – A Favorite Topic

Mar 23 2007 Published by under Craziness, Porn, Technology, The Internet, The Law

I’ve spent more than a few bytes on the subject of the .xxx top level domain (TLD) since I launched this blog. Every time it comes around again, I start harping on the topic and urging rather short sighted people to get behind this idea.

Porn sites are largely concerned that the domain name, while billed as voluntary, would make it easier for governments to later mandate its use and “essentially ghettoize sexual information on the Web,” Kernes said…

Religious groups worry that “.xxx” would legitimize and expand the number of adults sites, which more than a third of U.S. Internet users visit each month, according to comScore Media Metrix…

“They will keep their `.com’ domains, and I have no doubt they will buy their `.xxx’ as well,” said Patrick Trueman, special counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian public-interest law firm. “There will be twice as much pornography on the Internet.”

Now, most people who buy a .com, a .net, and a .org address point all of them at the same site, so the argument that this somehow doubles the amount of porn online is really a specious argument at best. That’s typical of the reactionary religious crowd, but what really strikes me as dumb is the porn producers argument.

As an industry, the porn producers generally go along with zoning laws that are already on the books. Most examples of confrontation between the porn industry and local zoning laws hinges on the lack of zoning against porn and the retroactive establishment of zones after a purveyor of smut has opened his doors. They oppose retroactive laws to put them out of business after they have legally opened.

The .xxx domain is somewhat a similar situation. They see this as yet another attempt to zone them out of business. In this case, though, it’s not quite the same. The cost to redirect .com traffic to a .xxx domain is minimal compared to negotiating a new lease, arranging for packing and moving, and build out costs for new space. The cost side of the question is minimal.

The upside, however, is actually quite beneficial to producers.

Yes, all porn may be corralled into a single TLD. But who cares? It would provide parents with easy to use controls for blocking it, but it would also make things that much easier to find.

Getting back to the zealots, here’s the problem. You’re never going to make porn go away – try as you might. There is several thousand years of artistic evidence that the expression of sex through every possible medium is a staple of society. Culture after culture has depictions of sex on everything from cave walls to ornate vases and urns. It’s not going anywhere.

Why let beliefs that you can somehow change human nature prevent you from taking steps to at least curb the problem? The internet is the medium where you actually could make it relatively difficult for kids to find porn. Embrace that fact.

I hope ICANN finally passes .xxx. It really is an idea whose time has come.

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I Am The GOP Oracle!

Mar 23 2007 Published by under Congress, Craziness, Government, Legislation, Politics, Society, The Law

I jokingly referred recently to the odd dichotomy of DC laws that prevent you from voting or owning a gun, but seem to protect corruption in government. Little did I realize that my creation of a confluence of gun control and voting rights laws would be adopted by the GOP caucus as a policy agenda.

I was surprised yesterday to see the Republicans in the House tie a repeal of DC’s gun control laws to the establishment of voting rights.

The voting-rights measure, sponsored by Norton and Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), is a compromise that would add two seats to the House, one for the heavily Democratic city and another for the state next in line to expand its delegation — currently Republican-leaning Utah.

If [Democrats] helped pass the [gun control repeal], though, it would send the voting rights bill back to committee, which could tie it up or even kill it.

While I laughed and laughed, I felt a little ashamed. After all, I’m just a simple man trying to make my way in the universe. I was never aware that this little blog was the GOP’s basis for governance. While I’m flattered, I really must decline the role of oracle for my party – not because I am not worthy, but because I obviously mumble and they misunderstand me.

What I was asking for was some effort to tie the repeal of gun control laws, the grant of the vote, and prosecution of unethical members of their ranks into a nice tidy package. Perhaps instead of giving DC citizens the right to vote, they could, instead, give them gun and hunting permits to track down scumbags like Duke Cunningham, William Jefferson, and Mark Foley. We could establish some sort of a bag limit on dirty politicians and turn the populace lose.

Such a law would do two things. First, it would inevitably result in most of Congress spending a lot more time out of the District. If they knew a city of 600,000 was armed and looking for them, their home state might become a more attractive place to spend their days. Second, for those too foolish to get out of the city, it would thin the ranks of the inept and attract only honest and ethical leaders to this god forsaken swamp.

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New Gadgets

Mar 23 2007 Published by under Miscellany

I’ve added a couple of new features in the last couple of days. First, all the posts now include Digg options. If you see something interesting, feel free to Digg it. Second, I’ve added a feature I like at the moment (Snap Previews), but it might get really old, really fast.

The Snap previews allow you to see where a link goes before you click on it. I look at it as sort of a truth in advertising sort of thing. If you hover over a link and don’t get a preview, it’s a link back to a past post. If you get a pop-up, it’s a link to an external site. If you find these useful, or annoying, or utterly useless, please let me know.

I’m also working on a mobile version of The Quip, but haven’t gotten there yet.

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