Sunday, September 30, 2007

Company of Heroes


Some photos from the RTS LAN Party.

Monday, September 17, 2007

KFOR 6B: Year of the Peacemakers

If anyone on KFOR 6B missed getting their copy of "Year of the Peacemakers", the end of tour video, I've found about 40 DVD copies. It features video and photos from Task Force Falcon, Task Force Sidewinder and all of the rest. If you would like more info, email me at YearofthePeacemakers@mac.com .

Friday, September 14, 2007

Saturday, September 8, 2007

...Abridging the Freedom of Speech...

The Situation:

If you're not familiar with the stripping of Net Neutrality, here's the basic plot-line: Your phone and cable companies, Internet Service Providers (ISP's), want to control what you see, hear and say on the net. Until this point we have roamed the web freely. Whether we are researching a paper or searching for a funny video, if it's out there, we have the freedom to view it. That is because until now Network Neutrality has been an assumed right, not law.

The ISP's seem to think, Hey, we can make more money by charging Google, Yahoo!, and all other content providers, like me, money to allow you equal access to what you are already paying for. If the content providers don't pay up, you and I will suffer with either slow connections or no access to our favorite sites.  Put simply, it's speed censorship.

The Comparison:
Wait a second! Someone trying to control what people see and hear? That seems kind of familiar. Maybe because it's already happening in other countries like IranNorth Korea and China. Is this what it has come to? Are Americans easily confused? Can we be convinced that this is not a freedom worth fighting for? According to this Comcast commercial, yes, yes we are...



They ran this almost every hour on every channel I watched.  But, when they are the cable company, I suppose it's free. I have to say, this is an impressive attempt at a Jedi mind trick. "*waves the hand* Don't worry about it. We know what's best for you." They are banking on inaction.

What they want us to think:
So there I was, at work, putting the final touches on a project when I heard what has driven me to write this post. Until this point, the limited news coverage had focused on what we've covered so far. Then, in the background, played the conversation between a news anchor and an ISP spokesman who pulled an amazing fake left. The ISP's are now saying that Net Neutrality prevents them from spreading high-speed Internet access to poor and rural communities.

What?

This blew me away. I lost a bit of military bearing and went off, only to hear everyone there agreeing, that this was PR spin.  Looking abroad, Japan's universal, open Internet access is about 30 times faster and far cheaper than what we are paying here.  We are the greatest nation and we are being left far, far behind.

Costs us more:
Think about this for a moment. Say you want to buy something online. For this exercise, we'll say it's a nice big monitor to replace the one you are squinting at right now. Currently, you'd search the web and get a wide variety of models, prices and places to buy them from.  Without Net Neutrality, that search will only return results and prices from companies that your ISP wants you to see from companies paying for a monopoly on your business; companies who can now afford to jack their prices up.

There's no way...
Will they get away with this? Looks like they will. Officials with the Department of Justice Antitrust Team have come out against it. And why not listen to them? They've done a bang-up job for America in the past:




What can we do?
But seriously, what is it that saves the Internet? Well, I'm doing it right now. I've sent links to this post to all of my lawmakers, hoping that they accept it as a letter of concern and post their thoughts in the comments below. I'm look forward to hearing from them and you.

Will it work?
I've got faith in the system. Our lawmakers are there, like me, sworn to "support and defend the Constitution", not the corporations.