I sent a letter to our CEO today, urging that we join the net neutrality fight. Copy below.
This is short notice, but there’s currently a bill before Congress that could change the way the Internet operates. It could mean higher costs to get traffic to our sites.
Net Neutrality is the concept that end users (consumers) pay for a certain amount of unfettered bandwidth (****** advertises 6 megs) and content providers (us) pay for internet pipes to come to us. Currently, this means that consumers pick what sites to visit, and what content to view and download.
The big telecommunications companies are pressing Congress hard to allow them to “throttle” different content at their discretion. This essentially means they control what content is available to the end consumer. It also means we would likely see their reps show up to extort higher fees from us by threatening to send our business elsewhere. If they are able to make money in this fashion, I think it naive to believe they won’t do so.
Currently they are using language resembling, “there is no definition Net Neutrality,” or “there isn’t a problem yet.” This is patently untrue. SBC’s CEO Ed Whiteacre has stated that he intends to end Net Neutrality.
*Forgot to add this quote*
“there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?”
If some sort of Net Neutrality act doesn’t get passed that prohibits their ability to “throttle” content, we are essentially putting the power to decide which internet companies live and die into the hands of guys like Whiteacre. I don’t know about you, but this idea makes me very, very nervous. This is clearly a non-partisan issue that looks like it is being played partisan on “The Hill”. I’m emailing you about this because you have a voice that is heard, and this issue clearly could impact the way we do business.
I urge you to get in touch with your contacts (on both sides of the aisle) and make them aware of this situation, and do whatever we can to make sure Net Neutrality doesn’t die.
My two cents.
My logs have looked a little strange lately, like some sort of crawler was spoofing IP addresses and crawling around my site. Looks like one of the Bolsheviks messed up, because I found a referring reference in my logs. Here’s a link to what appears to be (by Babelfish translation) a web interface for an engine that maps sites for a return visit by a comment spam bot.
http://yourguest.com.ru/test.php
Ok, the nifty way to do KML’s shouldn’t be a mystery, as it’s high in the Google search. But this is for those that are too lazy to FGI it (like me sometimes):
http://www.simplespatial.com
Well, this is a bit sobering. Two posts in a row about wild fires. Yesterday it was about Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona. Today I stirred from the house at about 4:00. Not bad after last night. From the parking lot at the local coffee shop I could see smoke plumes rising from Waterton Canyon. I moved to where I am now so I could ride it everyday.
My reaction, after I stood there slack-jawed for a while, was to grab the bike and head up the canyon. Part of the motivation was curiousity, but a large part of it was a need to ride it at least one more time in case it burned down.
Luckily, it started raining, cooled down, and got very humid (at least for here it was humid). I reached Strontia Springs just as one of the choppers landed.
I boogied up the Colorado Trail to Lenny’s Rest. The fire was on the other side of the next ridge over, and the helicopters were making runs every 5 to 10 minutes.
On the way back down, the spotter from one of the helicopters was on the ground. I stopped and spoke to him a bit. His name is Cully and he’s from Oregon. These guys did a hell of a job stomping this one out (hopefully it stays that way).
An interesting side note. There was a Denver Water Board employee there as well. As a former kayaker, I found it a bit funny when he described the number of kayak paddles they found washed down into the reservoir. He said they built up pretty quick.
Anyway, Cully and crew put a beatdown on the fire. On the way home from the Canyon, I saw at least 15 lightning strikes hit the ground south and west of the hogback. I think it’s going to be a busy year for these guys. Don’t pass up any chance to let them know how much we appreciate what they do.
One of the most beautiful places I have ever seen is on the verge of burning up. Sedona sits at the mouth of Oak Creek Canyon, which is in danger of going up in smoke due to a transients campfire. Having lived there before and seeing some comments online, I’ll cut to the chase and say it’s more likely the transient is a Phish-head than an illegal immigrant.
We had a choice of Moab or Sedona for Memorial Day weekend. We chose Moab, because some of our group hadn’t been there yet. I think if you go to Sedona before you go to Moab, you’ll end up disappointed with Moab. Nothing against Moab, it’s a beautiful place, but Sedona is just that grand, and Oak Creek Canyon is a big part of it.
Here’s a birthday wish to the Hot-Shots and fire crews working the lines in the canyon, good luck and keep safe.
Story from azcentral.com. Check out the Reader’s photos in the sidebar.
I’ve started a new section on the Blog called Front Range Trails. On it, there will be trail descriptions and my preferred routes through those trails. “Just like 1000 other people, you say.” Well, sort of, but it doesn’t end there. I found a nifty way to map my favorite mountain bike trails in Google Earth. So… on each of the trail description pages, I will post a zipped .kml file that you can load into Google Earth and get a good idea of the elevation changes associated with the map.
If you don’t know how to operate Google Earth, here are a couple of tips.
- Use the little control buttons under the map. You can zoom in and out.
- Use your arrow keys. Holding down the SHIFT key, the up and down arrows will change your perspective on the terrain, allowing you to see it from straight above or at an angle in 3D relief.
- Holding down the SHIFT key and using the side to side arrows will spin you around the center of the view you are looking at.
- Load KML files with the dropdown File menu. You can find all sorts of them by, well, Googling.
- If you haven’t seen it before, you can actually fly around the map, following the trails. It is pretty awesome.
Happy Trails!
