More on Net Neutrality and on MySpace

I'm excited that I'll be going to Austin tomorrow with some other co-ops for tubing adventures, especially since I miss Austin, but it will be a little eerie going back to Austin for the first time since my accident. Plus, I hope I don't get my mom's car towed. Anyway, that means that I won't have a post up tomorrow, but I'll try to make one happen on Sunday. Let me quote Senator Ted Stevens before I continue this paragraph:

"They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes." - Ted Stevens

Does that not make you want to pistol whip him? But wait, there's more. He spent ten grueling minutes babbling on with crap like that proving that he has no idea what the Internet actually is (God only knows if he's actually used it before), and it makes you wonder how high the people of Alaska were when they elected him. He's done other bad stuff, mind you, but mostly in the field of pork barrel politics. This is a much more serious matter though, and he even claims that it's a matter between "billion dollar people." I sure as Hell do not have a billion dollars, but I'd like people to be able to access my blog in seconds, not minutes. If you still don't see how this affects you, then you need to watch this. I find it so ironic that a country can be so committed to protecting its freedom from terrorists, and yet it pays no mind if telcos would like to restrict our freedom of choice by making content access so uneven that people are almost forced to use sites that are probably not really the best in their field. In fact, it defeats the idea of competition that our economy is based on. Anyway, I thought I'd lighten the mood of this diatribe with a clip from The Daily Show poking fun at MySpace. That's pretty much the perfect representation of how I view MySpace. I admit to using Facebook, but I'm not addicted to it, and I only have friends on there who I've met in real life and keep on Facebook with the hopes of hanging out with them more. Some are old friends who are far from me physically, but I'd still like to keep in touch with every once in a while. MySpace, however, is just a free-for-all and cluttered with smut as well.

Firefox has become a beloved name among geeks, and few people outside of its user base actually have a negative attitude toward Mozilla, as opposed to Microsoft. What does this mean? It means that they may be in a decent position to actually create their own OS and light a fire under Microsoft's butt. Blake Ross has only given vague hints that he'd be interested in doing this, and the point of it is that Microsoft may actually try innovating and stop taking everyone for granted if someone were to steal more market share from them (just look at what they're doing with IE7). Microsoft is working hard on something else though: their own media player with a bigger screen than the iPod and WiFi capabilities. Why would they be better off than anyone else? Besides their loads of cash for R&D and such, they may actually let you trade in your iTunes songs for a format that can be played on the forthcoming media player. Supposedly, this will be released in November, so it won't be too long before things get confirmed. Meanwhile, there's trouble in paradise for Google: eBay is not letting sellers accept Google Checkout because it doesn't have a strong history yet, which does not bode well with their Safe Payments policy. I don't think anyone can blame them for doing this (for now, at least), despite Google claiming that they already have experience with online billing and payments; just not on Google Checkout. Don't shed too many tears for them though, because you can read all about the design of their offices over here. I so have to try getting an internship there next summer, and you can be sure that I would post lots of pictures (if they let me, that is, because TI does not). Plus, the Silicon Valley actually leads the industry in salaries with an average annual wage of over $120,000. Granted, it costs a considerable amount to live there, but I could get used to that kind of money. Lastly, Intel lost its contract with the US Government for Core 2 processors because Conroe had issues with RAID, which is pretty important to them. Could this hurt them in the general market? I think it'll turn away some businesses, at the least.

Bad news for Logan's Run enthusiasts: the co-author of the book is ceding that things are getting rough for getting the movie remake back on track without Singer, and he's only willing to hang on until next summer. Will Singer change his mind by then? Or will someone new step up? Does this spell doom for our superheroes? Well, let's hope not. We do know that David Goyer will be writing Thor though, and that he just finished a draft of The Flash. His work in the past is a mixed bag though, so I don't know what to expect out of him for these lesser known superheroes. I'm also not all that thrilled about The Illusionist anymore after seeing the new trailer and not being enamored. I'm not buying the accents and the plot looks weaker than I perceived it initially. I was pleasantly surprised by the trailer for Deja Vu though, and I didn't even know until now that Tony Scott is directing it. That means that coupled with Denzel Washington, this is sure to be an out-of-the-ordinary movie experience at the least. A Scanner Darkly had also been expected to be a unique experience as well, but the reviews have been rather mixed so far (though more good than bad). Regardless, IGN has some footage from the red carpet at its premiere if anyone is interested. Oh, and we have more clips from Pirates of the Caribbean 2 if you're still not sold on seeing it this weekend. Lastly, Lost fans will no doubt appreciate this map connecting the show's biggest events and people.

Now for the 3x Thursday:

1. What do you think of space? Do you think we should explore it, or stay here on Earth and tend to matters here?
I think we should explore it, but it shouldn't be a central focus. Maybe we could sustain life elsewhere, or maybe we can find something more, but how will we know if we don't poke around? After all, empirical discovery is the basis of all science, which is pretty important to us, obviously.

2. If you could travel anywhere off Earth, where would you go? Why?
Probably Mars, just to check it out. It doesn't sound like anywhere else in our solar system would be much fun.

3. Do you think we're doing enough to facilitate science? Why/why not? What would you do to change things?
Of course not. We could try encouraging more children to consider careers in science and offering more grant money for them to go to college in the fields they're interested in. Money can really break the decisions of many children who would go to a four-year institution otherwise.