Confusion about Verizon and Net Neutality

Actually, I'm more confused about Google. Actually, I don't understand the whole thing. All I heard was that Verizon and Google proposed a payscale for the Internet, so people who pay more get their stuff pushed to the front and those who don't pay won't get found the same way they can be found now.

Which sounds like a terrible idea to me. So why is Google, my champion of Goodness on the Internet, signing on with this?

So what do I do? I google more information. Naturally.

This is where I found good explanation of exactly what Google and Verizon are proposing. Basically, it doesn't sound that bad. But none of the restrictions they are proposing apply to wireless? Which is, experts say, is going to become how we all access the Internet?

This source explains:

It seems that the prevailing logic is that there's simply not enough spectrum for this idyllic "play fair" scenario to truly work, so fewer restrictions would be necessary for the wireless internet space to blossom as the wireless side already has. Moreover, we get the impression that these guys feel the wireless space as a whole is simply too competitive right now to withstand any red tape.

I'm not convinced. A significant (and we're assuming growing) percentag of Verizon's business is in wireless, but they won't have to submit to any of these regulations?

And this is where I learned just how sneaky they are being.

Google...after all these years...why?

This article, on the other hand, says Google and Verizon have the right idea, saying they are only advocating "bandwidth shaping that is vendor-neutral but traffic-specific", which is important:

All of us involved in running networks pay attention to the types of traffic flying about on our lines. We wouldn’t be very good network admins if we didn’t ensure that traffic that needs to get through fast gets through fast and traffic that can tolerate some latency tolerates a bit of latency when it needs to.

But he goes on to say that his mom's Skype call should take precedence over her neighbor's porn downloading. That doesn't sound vendor neutral to me. He argues that we have to do something to prevent the giant traffic jams coming our way since the Internet is growing so fast. How about just developing more efficient ways to deliver more bandwidth, instead of rationing an arbitrarily small amount? I don't have the technical knowledge, but I'll definitely be finding out.

Facebook, of all things, is criticizing this in the interest of openness and fairness. Really, Zuck? But more importantly, really Google? Facebook is in a position to criticize you for this?

I hope this gave you guys a little bit more clarity on the issue; it helped me understand it better. I'll be following this though, so check back for updates!

We Ditched the TV and Rely on the Web for Entertainment

...in April. You might remember. It's been three months, and here's our update.

So far, so good. We barely notice that we don't have TV except for all the Red Sox games we've missed. Well, maybe I'll speak for myself and let CW speak for himself.

I haven't, unfortunately, dramatically cut back on how much time I spend staring at the big screen in our living room, but it's nice that I'm not bombarded with advertising during those three or four hours on the couch. So that's a plus. Also, we're watching more of exactly what we want (like Weeds, South Park, LOST, 24, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and less crap in between (like Family Guy). Also I'v become a huge fan of documentaries, nature (especially those featuring David Attenborough) or otherwise. So, in a way, I'm learning from my TV instead of just consuming it. Maybe.

I have also realized just how deeply in love I am with Netflix. Really - it knows no bounds. Did you know you can watch James and the Giant Peach on there? Seriously, go watch it right now. Although sometimes Netflix occasionally disappoints, it more than makes up for the movies it doesnt have with the gems that it does.

Sex In Spaaaaaace!!

Check out this series of posts from MSNBC's Cosmic Log about sex in space: have you ever thought about having sex in space?

I, personally, have not though now that you mention it...

The point of this is not to speculate if astronauts have sex in space and which ones, but to think about space tourism and colonizing the moon or Mars: if humans are going to spend any significant length of time in space, they're going to think about sex at some point.

Or not:

I asked something like - are you guys thinking about that, really? Because all I could think about at the time was not vomiting or bonking my head on the roof when I flew through the air. Sex was the last thing on my mind.

I've never experience weightlessness so I have no idea, but I'd assume that, after a while, you'd get used to it, lose the nausea, and gain more control over your movements. Plus, I whole-heartedly agree with this sentiment:

While the engineers call for assistance devices and choreography as though it were a spacewalk, I have full confidence in the one human drive greater than the one to explore.

If there's a will, there's a way. I also liked her suggestion to install the back seat of a car on the space station, since are has many of the same challenges (minus the no gravity thing) and people still regularly enjoy sex there.

But the point of all this is to really talk about space research. It's popular to say "spend the money d0wn here on earth to fix our problems now!", but that's not seeing the big picture. Space is amazing - we hardly know anything about it. It's the final, FINAL frontier and it probably always will be. Just as its important to study the natural world around us (and studying the dep oceans is basically the same as studying space and I definitely think we should be down there too), it's important to feed our exploration of the stars.

If we want to be a society that values invention, creativity, engineering, exploration, etc., we should invest in space research because it reflects those values. Just because we want people to solve certain problems doesn't mean they will if we keep throwing money at them. You never know where a solution will come from; you don't know whether or not studying to create earth-levels of gravity on Mars or the moon will have any positive implications for life on earth. It might, or it might not. That's what humans do: we try things and experiment.

Should we start throwing money at NASA without holding it responsible? Of course not. We shouldn't do that for ANY organization. And NASA should also do a better job engaging the public, marketing its worth, showing people just how awesome space research really is and making it about every individual human's sense of wonder, not just high level, ivory tower research and projects or whatever.

Dude, space is awesome you guys.

Quitting TV

We got rid of cable this weekend. It's been quite an adventure so far.

First, we started by hooking up my Mac Mini to the TV playing music and music videos on the big screen. Fun, but the mouse and keyboard didn't work from the couch, so we had to get up.

I bought a wireless mouse and keyboard that worked from across the room, and we started watching Bones and SNL skits on Hulu. It was great to take a break from the commercials, but we still had the cable in place as backup. Nothing like a little Good Eats before bed, you see.

But CW and I had been complaining about Comcast and talking about getting rid of cable altogether for months. We wanted to make the leap, but were afraid of the consequences: we'd never been without a TV for more than a few days for our entire lives. But about two weeks ago, I finally made the appointment and we went through with it: cable TV currently doesn't come to our house.

It was my second try.

The first time I called, I rehearsed: "Hello Comcast, this is Meg Flynn from 517 Broughton Drive, and I'd like to cancel my cable." It took a few times before I felt confident to dial the number. But when the friendly lady asked how she could help me that day, I sheepishly asked to down grade my package. I was even more sheepish when Chris came home and told him I had not only chickened out, but had left us with a miserable cable package that not only didn't have ESPN, but also didn't have SyFy. Even worse, we didn't have any TV service at all upstairs, and I had no idea how or why, but was too ashamed to call back and ask.

The injustice of it inspired us, so I called again and asked to cancel it for real.

"Hello Comcast, this is Meg Flynn from 517 Broughton Drive, and I'd like to cancel my cable."

Success! But I cringed, waiting for a fight, thinking is this guy asks why I'm cancelling or if there was a way for him to convince me to stay, I'm going to crumble.

You see, first of all, I hate Comcast since it's a power-hungry monopoly that doesn't provide goo enough service for the exorbitant charges it requires. Secondly, TV has a limited positive impact on our lives, if at all. There have been nights when the two of us, after a long day at work, sat on the couch from 6pm to 11pm watching reruns, Keeping up with the Kardashians, and worse: the local news broadcast. Barely saying a word to each other and only getting up to get something to eat. Feeling your brain turn to mush inside your skill would be a mind-blowing experience if you're mind was working at all at the time.

And seriously guys: do you have any idea how much marketing bullshit you're exposed to in a 120 minute period of TV watching? It's insane. And I speak from experience: it DOES effect you, even though you think you're better than that. It's getting in your brain, man.

This is all very snobby and hippie-elitist of me, I understand. I'd say not as much as this guy. But you know what? Family Guy isn't that funny and LOST will never satisfy you.

But I digress. The guy came on Saturday to take away our cable box and adjust our connection so that we'll only be getting Internet from now on. Ironically, the cost of Internet nearly doubled so we'll only be saving a few bucks a month with these change. Again with the snobbiness: I argue that our quality of life with improve significantly regardless.

Immediately, however, we recognized a problem: we now had no way of telling what time it was in our living/dining area. And we'd relied so completely on the cable box to know what time is was, all three of the clocks in our kitchen had been neglected to the point they now all read a different time. CW set to solving that problem. And other than that, things were ok. We survived the first day. We spent most of Saturday night watching videos on YouTube and Vevo on the big screen (which I'm not sure was any better than TV?).

But over the course of Sunday, we both independently realized a much bigger challenge lay ahead. We didn't say anything to each other; the fear was too great. Of all the times to cancel cable, I'd scheduled it for the day before Opening Day.

Not gonna lie: I panicked internally when I realized. But I didn't say anything unless CW was regretting the change too. I had to stay strong.

Fortunately, under the guise of enjoying the weather with friends, I invited us over to the Varnesi's house for a cook out and, conveniently, was able to watch the first few innings of the game on their TV. Unfortunately, the game started at 8pm, and everyone was tired: we needed a back up plan. So I suggested we turn on the radio in our room and listen to the game the old school way - how quiant!

That actually worked pretty well, and it's really a good thing I canceled it when I did, since if we were used to watching baseball every night, we'd never be strong enough to ditch the thing. Though I think the radio has more commercials than the TV between innings. Alas.

We're looking into some kind of web-based subscription for baseball. I'll let you know what we find, and how the experiment goes as we try to get through baseball season without a TV. I suppose the bottom line is this means we'll be going to the bar more often to watch the game, so call us if you'd like to come too!

New Gig

Things have been quite here at Thinking for a while, but not because I was lynched for my series on conversation (this blog doesn’t get enough traffic for that). It’s because I have a SOCIAL MEDIA WRITING GIG.

Sort of. I’m working with Tyson Goodridge at Dialogue (OMG I'M ON THE BIO PAGE) a social media marketing consulting firm that looks at the big picture – how the way we have conversations are changing because of the tools we use. Awesome right? Tyson and I collaborate on blog posts for the Dialogue site; sometime this week, hopefully, I'll be meeting the rest of the team. It’s really exciting to be a part of a growing company (right in my own backyard!) in the same sector I’ve been voraciously consuming information about for the last eight months.

I can’t even tell you how exciting is ok? There is no way to convey that in a blog. Except writing in all caps, but then you wouldn’t be able to read it. Ok? But remember: I’m REALLY EXCITED about this.

Anyway, after we worked on this post, I found some more information pertaining to social media use today that is interesting.

First, we have a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life project that says nearly all Americans get their news from more than one source, which includes the Internet, but only a little more than half get it exclusively from the Web. The study reads:

In the digital era, news has become omnipresent. Americans access it in multiple formats on multiple platforms on myriad devices. The days of loyalty to a particular news organization on a particular piece of technology in a particular form are gone.

...and I'm not sure that's entirely true. I access the news online, but usually through just a few sources. CNN for one. Of course, I'm also in love with Thoora, which may mean my habits will change in time. But I think the bigger picture is people aren't loyal to a particular news organization, but to particular curators of news. For example, I like ReadWriteWeb and True/Slant, which draw information from a wide variety of sources (but I LOVE T/S).

The study also emphasized that people are getting more news through social networking. I would guess Facebook especially, though the 37% who said news is a social experience (and by that I mean they share and comment on items reguarly) for them did cite Twitter too.

Cool tidbit: the survey highlighted weather specifically as one of the most common topics of information people look for online. The study said 81% of respondants look for weather information online. Why wait for Local on the 8s when you can get instant access? Makes me curious to see what the Weather Channel is doing to beef up its online presence. I perfer NOAA personally. Blame CW for that one.

The other interesting article I found was from ReadWriteWeb, citing a report from Hitwise Intelligence that said Facebook is quickly growing to be a major driver of traffic to news items all over the Web. And I love that it talks about how great this is for encouraging freer thought and more dialogue around current events. We all know how I feel about Big News. Of course, that good news is tempered:

Perhaps more importantly, though, Facebook, Google News (1.4%). and Google Reader together account for less than 5% of news sites' total traffic [emphasis their's]. The #1, 2 and 3 drivers of traffic to news sites? Google, Yahoo and MSN - portals and search engines where the editorial judgement is made by centralized algorithms and powerful front-page editors.

And as much as I love Facebook, I love RSS readers better, and this article said those just aren't competeting. I say its a matter of people not realizing what they are missing, so I digress:

I use Google Reader, which has the trademark simplicity and clean look of all Google's applications. There are so features I'd add, but it certainly gets the job done. I highly reccomend you try it out, but there are others to choose from; here are a few to consider.

It's simple to use, but start by going to your favorite sites, like those you have bookmarked, and look around for a little orange box with three white curves in it; scroll down this page and look at the left hand column until you hit the Subsribe section - that's what you want to find. Follow the prompts, add it to your Reader, and then check back every morning or, when you get more subscriptions, every few hours to see what's new. You'll always have something interesting to read, and YOU can CONTROL what information you absorb, not Someone Else who is also interested in selling you more Stuff.

Feels good to be back here writing!

The Evolution of News

If you liked my other posts about the evolution of news, Justin Kownacki has more to say about that in his most recent post. Go read that. There's a lot to talk about from it, but here's where I started.

The internet enabled people to get more information faster. The growing desire for this gave birth to the 24-hour cable news channel, which is able to broadcast breaking news almost instantly whenever it happened and is a place for info-junkies to turn.

But to succeed, mass media has always had appeal to the lowest common denominator (ie the media’s role in Spanish-American war, among many other examples).

Thus, the 24-hour news channel now features celebrity gossip and blows coverage out of proportion to achieve ratings and make money; the more sensationalist the story, the more attention, the more money. Print media has been trying to compete on the same level with some success (ie: the Boston Herald), but really can’t keep up.

With so much sensationalism and some widely publicized mistakes as major media move too fast to break a story, however, some people have been looking for alternative sources. And more will as time goes on.

The internet helped out there too by lowering the cost of entry into the journalism business. Now, people can turn to a lot of different sources for immediate coverage AND alternative opinions and in some cases more trustworthy reporting. Think about Twitter: you get hundreds of eyewitness reports in the form of tweets, which are too small for much more than the facts – the who, what, when, where, and why newspapers are supposed to be covering.

Now, people have the challenge, like Justin said, of filtering the tweets (and blog posts etc) from people they already know they agree with, or they know are trustworthy, down to the most interesting commentary or, as Justin says, the most actionable piece of information to save time.

A reporter, then, has the task of finding a field they specialize in; Congressional politics, for example. That reporter spends her time reading Senators’ tweets, pundits’ blogs, and even working her beat to get the raw information. Through networking and diligence, they can build an audience that is interested in what they have to say and eager to include them as they whittle down the places they get their news from dozens to a handful. As long as that reporter (or organization) continues to provide interesting, original, actionable (I like that word), and most importantly relevant information, people will look at her website, see her advertiser’s ads, and even pay content.

And here comes a brilliant analogy:

Think about your car. You might have one or two gas stations you go to for gas because they are convenient; they are on your route to work maybe. But you go to a certain local garage whenever you need to get your oil changed because you trust the mechanics not to overcharge you and to educate you if they see something you need to know about. But maybe you don’t go there for new tires. You go to specialty tire store that has a wider variety in stock and better prices because they have better buying power.

You go a website like Politico that specializes in Congressional news and has a great deal of sway in that industry.

Make sense? Do you agree? Neither?

Bit.ly is pretty cool

As I figure things out on the Interwebs, I like to share them, though it's typically 50-50 that the person I'm sharing it with has already seen/heard of what I'm talking about.

Everyone's heard of Bit.ly, I'm pretty sure.

But dude, check out the clicks info. The site takes some figuring out to see where all the information is (I wish it didn't take you to a new page every time but expanded or contracted the page you are on to display new numbers. But then, that might not be possible), but it's cool to see who's clicking on the links you shortened and posted about and how many clicks you contributed to the total click count for that item of information. Confused? like I said, it takes some getting used to. But it's still pretty cool. If only as a way to kill a few minutes while you wait for your coffee brea...OMGTIMETOGO.

Really Cool Stuff

I just discovered this website today so I'm still figuring it out, but honestly, I'm blown away. The funny thing is that I found out about it via those annoying suggestion boxes on Facebook: someone I know is a fan of it and Facebook thought I would too. Carelessly, I clicked the little X, only to stumble across it a few hours later when another blog I was reading linked to it. I guess Facebook was right.

The site's About page does a better job explaining what it does, but this relates really well to what I was talking about yesterday in filtering the news you read. Instead of telling you What Is Important, this site tells you what lots of other people think is important, even if its news that's a few days old and even if the traditional Media isn't covering it.

I was looking at one topic - Apple's purchase of Quattro Wireless - and Thoora had a tab of the big news media, a tab for its indexed blogs, and a sidebar running alongside both with the most recent Twitter posts on the subject. It only gave you a snippet from each source, and the clean lines and soothing colors (I mean CNN, really: a giant, fire-engine red banner across the top, while simpler than you're previous look, is just the thing to get me all concerned) prevented it from becomming an overwhelming experience. So much information, and you get to choose who get it from and how indepth you want to get. Fabulous.

I haven't explored the various tabs and filters yet, but I'm pretty much sold - Thoora is officially part of my Google Reader feed.

24-hour cable news is bad for you

I would now like to address the challenge of being well informed and up to date on current affairs while avoiding the hysteria of the mass media which aim to spoon fed Americans in a spasm of fear.

It bothers me a little when my friends say things like “I don’t want the news; it doesn’t effect me and its so negative it brings me down all the time.” First of all, I’m sad that they get sad when the think about how terrible the world can be; I mean, it is depressing sometimes and who wants their friends to be sad? But advice like this, found at an otherwise excellent blog The Personal MBA -

Seriously – 99.999% of the things you hear in the media are completely outside your sphere of influence or locus of control. The news media makes money by attracting attention, and nothing gets attention more than the rumor of imminent danger or threat. The only likely outcome of watching the news is that it’ll sap your attention and divert your energy from improving your situation to fretting about what the world’s coming to. Keep your attention on what you’re doing to build the life you want to live, and it’s only a matter of time before you get there.

- also bothers me because, as a citizen of a democracy (in title anyway; let’s not go there today shall we?) that is a major influencer of the world, I think its irresponsible to not care. It’s your right to not care of course, and maybe I’m not thinking about the people out there who will never care, no matter what. But as a curious human being, don’t you want to know what’s going on?

The real issue is about control: where you get this information dramatically effects how you feel about it. Is someone behind your TV screen and someone behind a desk telling you what you Need to Know? Then of course you’re going to feel lost and scared. I agree with the above point in that those Someone’s eat when they get your attention and the cheapest, easiest way to do that (since the world can be, in fact, a somewhat scary place) is to talk about bad things and the negatives. Seriously: look at those headlines!

What’s the solution?

Instead, get your news from sources you can control, and the Internet is the best place to start. At least at the above sites you can click on what you want to know about and what is important to you.

A site I like to get my news from is Politico. I’m subscribed to its RSS feed in my Google reader and, throughout the day, I get a peek at its headlines. If a headline seems especially important or interesting to me then I click and read further. Otherwise I focus on what I’m interested in and what makes me happy.

Salon and Slate are good news sites that mix hard news with feature stories about life that make me happy. Twitter trending topics, interesting articles your friends are posting on Facebook - these are other ways you can focus on what you want to know about without all the DRAMA. Take advantage of technology and learn about the world around you! It's not all that scary, really. Plus, it's fun to get fired up!

Awesome tech

I love Discovery News for bringing random, interesting, and weird stuff to my Google Reader every day. This one sounds fabulous, though I can imagine it will take some tweaking so the TV knows that, just because I'm gesturing wildly when an ump makes a bad call, I don't necessarily want to switch channels.

It's the gaming application that I'm most excited about. Not that I really play video games ever (I actually love watching other people play them and following along with the story. Weird?), but if didn't have to remember what all the buttons or what combination of buttons I need to press to kill a dwarf or something, that might make it way more fun.

Am I that lazy that playing video games is too much work to learn how to do?