Support Network Neutrality

So, recently there's been a big deal going on about "Network Neutrality." Currently, legislation has been proposed and is being considered in congress - this legislation has the potential to change the internet as we know it today. Pooey... =p .... not good for the little people who like to surf the internet, not good at all.

In short, the big-bad-greedy telecommunications giants such as AT&T, Comcast, & Verizon (can you tell I don't like them?), who are our internet service providers, want to get legislation passed to make it legal for them to charge internet content provider such as Google, iTunes, etc. a not-too-small fee for being able to send data quickly and reliably. Baaaaad idea. Why?

Commercially,doing away with net neutrality will most certainly jeopardize innovation, entrepreneurship, and fair competition on the net (which has been the hallmark and very essence of the Internet and the 20th century 'digital' revolution itself), by skewing the odds greatly towards the big, established companies with deep pockets. How can any startup or enterprising entrepreneur with a great idea and little budget compete in a world without net netrality?

More importantly, the lack of net neutrality will jeopardize us as consumers and end users as well. For one, this extra cost to the content providers is sure to trickle down in one form or another to us - the unwitting consumers. Furthermore, we don't want them to control the contents or how fast we have access to them either - it's called freedom of information.

Imagine, picking up the phone and calling our favorite fast food place Super Mario's, but instead of Super Mario's, the big-bad-greedy guys will answer and say "Please hold for connection to Super Mario's .... but if you want to have Wario's we can connect you right away (becuase they paid us money)!" uh... but we had called for Super Mario's... to which they will reply "In that case, hold for connection please," and then we'll be on hold for who knows how freaking long.... now imagine this happing on the internet while we visit our favorite sites or check email, how frustrating would what be? (here's a really funny clip about 'net neutrality' too)

Now something's definitely wrong with that.

If we want Super Mario's & had already paid for the freaking phone line, then give us Super Mario's. Don't give us Wario's just because Wario's has paid up for faster connection. Geez, this is not what the internet is all about.

We need to keep the network neutrality that we currently have.

The big-bad-greedy guys have been putting all their resources and efforts into lobbying our congress members in DC (such as big campaign contributions, etc.), so we need to muster all the collective support we need as consumers and let our voices be heard.

Please, I urge you all join the fight and help keep the networks free (before our oh-so-wise congress votes otherwise...).

www.savetheinternet.com provides many ways to make our collective voices heard (write our congressmen, write our local newspaper, etc etc etc)

Thanks ~ !

mini me

Here's an avatar of myself that I've created using Design-her Gals website (I had seen one at The Muttering Muse). I have to say it's a pretty darn close imitation of real life, even G was impressed.... =)

Everything in the picture are items that I actually do have in real life (red glasses, silve ipod mini in pink case, heart-shaped silver necklace, black converse shoes, blue jean - too many to count, & black tops - I have quite a few of these too).

The only thing that's a little far feched might be the pink bag - all the other bags they had were too structured (not anything I would carry), most of the bags I have are soft & somewhat funky. Plus, I had picked the color mainly for asthetics, in real life I would have picked a more muted color like grey, black or navy.

Anyhow, the avatar is pretty much what I look like on a daily basis.

the orc-ant war : final battle, hopefully...

[see battles 1 & 2 first...] Alas, to my dismay, my small victory in the previous battle was a small victory indeed. More of the wretched little orc-ant scouts were sighted on the prowl in the kitchen at night. The spearmint gums were effective for only a few hours and then the orc-ants were back again, argh! So we took the last measure possible, removed the face plate, and spayed with (gasp!) insect spray/chemicals. Hopefully this will be able to ward them off for good, banishing them to the depth of the shadow realm (anywhere but my kitchen!!). Hopefully there will be peace in my kitchen tomorrow.

the orc-ant war : battle 2

[be sure to read account of battle 1 below first to be able to keep up with the action!] So the smudged black pepper paste didn't work very well and I had to resort to an alternate bane of ants - the spearmint gum. So now the 'door to the moria' is framed and reinforced with unwrapped spearmint gum. And surprisingly, it did keep the evil orc-ants away (I just want to keep them away, not kill them, because even evil orc-ants have a right to live, just not in my house, that's all). One small victory for me today... hehehe

the orc-ant war : battle 1

To my dismay I found ants in my kitchen this afternoon. Of course I wanted to get rid of them. After searching on-line, I read that black peppers will do it (I wanted to find a natural way that didn't involve chemicals, since it's the plug right next to the stove). Hence the black pepper paste (pepper with water) drawn around the outlet (source of the scout ants). Unfortunately it didn't work very well, hence the next picture. At this point the plug and the pepper paste looked a lot like a 'door to moria,' where the evil orc-ants dwell. Must contain evil orc-ants....

rational people do irrational things - all the time!

Sounds counter-intuitive?

Well, we do it all the time (at least I know I do...). It could be seen through the smallest decisions that we make, like eating a delicious piece of chocolate even though we know it'll come back to bite us in the ass, literally, later on; or wanting to sleep just a little longer and then waking up later with the slightest twinge of a headache from over-sleeping (very unpleasant... trust me, I know... people should not be expected to be rational when they are sleepy...).

The way I figure it, it's pretty much a problem of time,one of instant gratification versus delayed regrets. Yet we probably do it over and over again, all the time, many times a day, indefinitely. (I also highly suspect there's a factor of self-control or discipline involved, but let's not get into that now.)

So does this mean I'm not rational, of course not! I deem myself to be a perfectly rational person. It's just that sometimes people suffer short bouts of irrationality when they simply concentrate on the moment, you know, the here and now. I simply consider it ~ human. Plus, being irrational makes things more interesting (just don't be overly and thoroughly irrational, like taking-out-a-home-equity-loan-to-gamble-on-one-game-of-blackjack irrational, okay?).

So rational people of the universe - be irrational!
(picture of cute bear courtesy of Brys Bruins Collectable Bears)