Category: internet

RESET the NET

On By Rick McIn Apple, blogs, ethics, Google, government, internetLeave a comment

Two choices.

1. You can simply assume there is no privacy. No privacy online. None on phone.

Or …

2. you can try taking some small steps to discourage the NSA and other organizations from collecting data on you.

I’m switching from Google search to DuckDuckGo, for example. That might help. Apple is now offering DuckDuckGo as an alternative web search engine.

On the other hand, Google is responding to criticism, now offering end-to-end mail encryption, to try to make your email private.

reset the net

Watch the RESET the NET VIDEO .

Edward Snowden is all in for this protest.

RESET the NET

John Oliver on Net Neutrality

On By Rick McIn government, humour, internetLeave a comment

The funny man actually explains the issue better than anyone else.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. Profanity.

96% of Americans have only 1 or 2 internet providers. For now. That will get worse since the American government has no incentive to protect consumers. Expect even less competition in future. Slower speeds and higher prices than the best of the rest of the world.

best Tech pundits

On By Rick McIn audiocasts, internet, product endorsementsLeave a comment

Tom Merritt vs Mike Elgan

Tom Merritt is probably the smartest Technology pundit of them all, better (even) than his former boss Leo Laporte.

Unlike Leo, Tom is egotistical and not nearly as likeable.

Still, Tom was my #1 tech news authority before getting fired by Leo late 2013. His salary of $200,000 or so was not being recouped. Money was the main issue, I believe.

Tom was replaced by … Mike Elgan.

A guy I’d never heard of. Something of the opposite of Tom Merritt.

Mike was terrible on audio at first. No gift of the gab, at all. Reviews were tragic. Over the months he got better and better. Mike is very smart. And very well connected in the Tech world.

He has 3,289,961 followers on Google+.

Though I don’t do much on Google+, I follow Mike on TWIT.

what-is-google-plus

I just subscribed to Tom’s audiocast Daily Tech News Show.

Toms-DTNS_SquareB

I’ll listen to both. They are quite different.

email openinternet@fcc.gov

On By Rick McIn economics, government, internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

… the FCC voted to move forward with their new proposed net neutrality rules. While somewhat tempered from the original rumored proposal, the proposed rule is still far-sweeping and controversial. …

If you have strong feelings about the proposed rule, now’s your time to be heard. …

The e-mail inbox the FCC set up for accepting comments …

openinternet@fcc.gov

Consumerist – How To Tell The FCC Exactly What You Think About The Proposed Net Neutrality Rule

open internet

Here’s the message I sent them:

faster internet, wider delivery and more competition

Tell me honestly that Wheeler’s current proposal will result in faster internet, wider delivery and more competition.

You can’t.

It won’t.

We want what they have in Korea, Japan and Europe. Or better.

DISAPPOINTED in the FCC and the Obama government. This is the kind of anti-competitive legislation I’d expect from Republicans.

Mike Elgan has 3,291,744 followers on Google+.

https://plus.google.com/+MikeElgan/posts/DQQmXzwrpAi

I trust his opinion as do hundreds of thousands of others. His opinion is my opinion:

Wheeler has managed to forward his proposal to kill net neutrality in a country where almost everybody wants net neutrality. He’s doing it by exploiting the ignorance, gullibility and passivity of the public, the anti-regulation platform of the political right and truckloads of money from the industry he serves at the expense of the public. …

read on … How Tom Wheeler’s FCC plan will wreck your Internet.

email openinternet@fcc.gov

Or don’t complain if your Internet service is slow, expensive and crappy in future.

Net Neutrality debate in 3 minutes

On By Rick McIn economics, internetLeave a comment

Tell the FCC that they should reclassify broadband internet as a telecommunications (or “Common carrier”) service. Right now broadband is regulated like TV or radio, which doesn’t make sense.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Obama, the FCC, and the (former lobbyist) FCC Chair Tom Wheeler are supposed to be protecting the Public. They haven’t.

The Obama administration has sucked, so far, in terms of Net Neutrality.

There’s less competition in the USA than ever before.

FCC’s Wheeler facing net neutrality revolt

His Daughter ~ Molly Kate Kestner

On By Rick McIn internet, music, things getting betterLeave a comment

This is why I love the internet.

A talent like this can rapidly gain an international audience without some corporate middleman.

Listen to Molly Kate Kestner, a high school senior from Minnesota, perform an original song, “His Daughter.”

With a voice that shows more range than those of a lot of famous singers today, Kestner sings about a girl abandoned by her alcoholic father who’s looking for love in the wrong places, but eventually creates a family of her own. …

High School Student Stuns The Internet With Breathtaking Original Song (Video)

Click PLAY or watch her on YouTube.

(via our Uncle George)

Worst Company in America?

On By Rick McIn internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

For 2014 …

Comcast beats Monsanto in Consumerist’s “Worst Company in America” poll

But another survey finds Comcast is only the second worst cable company.

Monsanto might kill you and kill the world.

But internet service providers kill you every day. Death by a thousand cuts.

Consumerist is owned by Consumer Reports. I trust their opinions.

Here are the rest of the corporations you should boycott if you can.

2014wciabracketqfinals2

Comcast also “won” Consumerist’s poll in 2010. Electronic Arts won the prize last year for the second year in a row. The poll began in 2006. Other winners include Halliburton, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), Countrywide Financial, AIG, and BP.

SLOW internet in Africa

On By Rick McIn economics, government, internet, product complaints1 Comment

Internet speed and reliability in southern Africa is crappy. As bad as I’ve seen anywhere in the world.

We postulate that there are not enough cables running under the ocean …

NOT SO.

south Africa

Oh sure: cables in the Atlantic have a higher capacity than a cable going down the coast of East Africa. … Not to say the cables in Africa are less useful, in fact many are newer…

Africa is in pretty good shape because multiple new cables have been laid so capacity can grow for many years to come, and cables are designed to last for a minimum 25 years.

CNN – This is what the Internet actually looks like: The undersea cables wiring the Earth


So — we should blame the Internet Service Providers of Africa. The “pipes” are not the problem.

NSA highly unlikely to read your email

On By Rick McIn ethics, Google, government, internet, product complaints, things getting worseLeave a comment

A former employee of the National Security Agency, Loren Sands-Ramshaw, weighs the benefits / risks of the U.S.A. collecting all your online data:

Many are concerned about the NSA listening to their phone calls and reading their email messages. I believe that most should not be very concerned because most are not sending email to intelligence targets. Email that isn’t related to intelligence is rarely viewed, and it’s even less often viewed if it’s from a US citizen. …

I do believe that the safeguards against unauthorized data retrieval by Agency employees can and should be improved.

I do not believe that their information-gathering powers should be curtailed. Such restriction would not only hinder the Agency’s ability to gather intelligence, but also impede its ability to wage cyberwarfare.*

The NSA is our best hope in this war. In my mind, the Agency’s continued dominance of the Internet is absolutely worth the once-a-year one-in-three-hundred-million chance that your private data will be purposefully viewed by an NSA employee. …

read more …

NSA

Verge – Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others launch campaign for NSA reform

Lonely Planet soon DEAD to me?

On By Rick McIn books, dead to me, economics, internet, things getting worse, travelLeave a comment

I love Lonely Planet.

But not — perhaps — for much longer.

The end of guide books? Lonely Planet lays off one-third of editorial staff

lonelyplanet

Venerable travel guide brand Lonely Planet, which has bounced from owner to owner in recent years, just announced some bad news: They’re slashing staff on three continents and getting rid of much of their content staff. Almost 100 jobs were slashed in Melbourne, Australia alone, and additional layoffs were made at Lonely Planet’s London and Oakland offices. …

Update: According to an email from a Lonely Planet publicist, “Print will continue to be part of the mix” for the company.

END OF AN ERA: LONELY PLANET SLASHES CONTENT JOBS

They say they’ll switch to more digital format, more user generated content.

The time’s not right. Yet.

Show me a worthy digital alternative to a Lonely Planet guidebook?