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Large Telcos (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, etc) Want to Kill The Internet

If you aren’t following, haven’t heard, or don’t understand the news about the large telecommunications companies wanting a “tiered Internet,”

“We don’t want to replicate the cable model on broadband Internet,” Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based advocacy group focused on digital rightssaid. “We don’t want the Internet to turn into cable whereby the pipe owners decide on content and services.”

then this hypothetical conversation from 2019 should help.

Consumers should, and do, want Internet Freedom.

Net Neutrality is also supported by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, considering it (Net neutrality) one of the most pressing technological issues:

“Our open and vibrant and free-wheeling Internet is the last place where we should allow toll bridges to be erected. Every American has a stake in how this turns out.”

Ben Scott, policy director of the media reform group Free Press:

“These pricing schemes are simply poorly disguised discrimination. Requiring Internet companies to pay for high-speed access to the Internet when they’re already charging consumers for the same service means consumers will ultimately pay twice.”

“The scheme will stifle innovation and competition by effectively denying access to start-ups that can’t afford to pay for access to high speeds.”

Get ready to contact your representative!

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Woof Rough, Start

Our boarder for the week arrived and, to remind us how displeased she was with the service on her last visit, she immediately pooped on the carpet and peed on Tommy‘s bed.

In other news, I got all the kids ready for school and sent 2 of them to their respective bus stops. Noah returns home to tell me that school was cancelled after one of his friends’ mother drove by and told him it was cancelled. I confirmed on WBIR that they are indeed closed. Every now and then Noah shows a little bit of spectrum. His statement this morning was a confused "some woman told me school was cancelled" while Sarah said, "___’s mom told me school was cancelled." There is no snow out and the roads are clear. Good day to cancel!

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What to do? What to do?

I have roughly 4 hours before I take Tommy to play D&D with a friend. Do I use that time to bathe the dogs, clean the house, play with the children, shop for groceries, lose myself in blogging and working on overdue personal websites, work on professional websites, home repair, auto repair, financial book balancing, planning ala First Things First, help the wife, or something else?

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Good day to sleep in

I could feel my weary body healing.

Alarm clock 1: Evan, 8 months and sleeping between Mom and Dad, sits straight up and starts looking around for trouble.

Snooze 1: Before he bolts, Dad puts an intriguing toy in his hand. Buys 3 minutes.

Snooze 2: Dad puts Evan in crib and places 3 different toys in front of him. Buys 4 minutes.

Alarm 2: Evan screams. Dad snoozes alarm with pacificer. Buys 1 minute.

Alarm 3: Amy, 3 years, magically appears sitting on the foot of the bed. Molly, the dog, is sleeping in her favorite “dead dog” position which is on her back with all 4 paws straight up in the air toward the ceiling. Dad moves Amy, who has removed her jamies and was looknig cold and stunned, to between Mom and Dad but notices Evan has left a large drool spot which would be uncomfortable on her bare skin so he slides her down some and adjusts covers. Buys 45 seconds.

Alarm 4: Dog rolls over and tries to share the same space as Dad. Evan screams. Dad throws in towel.

Let’s change a diaper and brew some coffee.

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Of Being Dad – Wrong reaction

So this morning Evan woke but wasn’t fully awake. Evan sleeps best in his swing. His first night in the swing he slept 7 hours. Unfortunately this did not hold. He is now sleeping in 2-3 shifts through the night. The swing is wonderful and I highly recommend it!

When I took Evan from his swing he laid his head on my chest and started to drift off so I chose to lay down in Noah’s bed with Evan. Amy and Noah were in the front of the house watching television and both Evan and I drifted off. Shreeech! pause Schreeech! Amy has come into the room and is dragging a chair across the wood floors. I implore her to leave the room and she verbally refutes me. She wants to lay in the bed too. Evan’s eyes pop open.

Now, at this time, I have choices to make. I could be the quintessential father and respond lovingly or turn to something evil. Instead of helping her climb into bed, where I knew she would chatter and toss and turn, I asked her to leave. When she argued I barked. When Evan cried out, probably in response to my barking, I physically hauled her out of the room. Then I felt bad so we made cinnamon rolls.

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Gmail for your domain

So you own a domain. Technically you control a 2nd level domain. A TLD is .com .net .edu and so forth. These are controlled by ICANN but that’s a whole different discussion. Back to "so you own a domain." For instance, I have control over http://siliconholler.com/. I was able to create a third level domain to house this blog at http://blog.siliconholler.com/. With my hosting I have the ability to create email accounts that end in @siliconholler.com so that I could have info@siliconholler.com, sales@siliconholler.com, billyjoebob@siliconholler.com and so forth. But that means I’m limited to the capabilities and rules set forth by my web host and their email server. That might mean I can only have 3000 email addresses (which is the case with my kickin’ hosting at 1and1.com). What if I wanted more? At no cost! Google has introduced its beta program, by application only, to Gmail for your domain.

This special beta test lets you give Gmail, Google’s webmail service, to every user at your domain. Gmail for your domain is hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware or software for you to install or maintain.
Gmail – 2 gigabytes of storage and search tools that help users find information fast.
Control Panel – Easily manage user accounts, aliases and mailing lists.

Note: Not everyone that applies will be accepted into the beta program. I would assume the more users your organization wants to use the more likely you will be accepted into the program.

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Curious Murder

Why? I’ll reprint in full:

Two men have been charged with the first-degree murder of CURIOUS GEORGE co-author ALAN J SHALLECK in Florida.

The 76-year-old writer was found stabbed to death under a pile of garbage bags outside his home in Boynton Beach on Tuesday (07FEB06).

Police found a trail of blood leading from Shalleck’s body to his trailer home and found blood splattered all over the master bedroom, as well several knives and broken glass.

REX SPEARS DITTO, 29, and VINCENT PUGLISI, 54, were arrested on Wednesday (08FEB06) and have confessed to home invasion, murder and robbery, according to police.

Shalleck co-wrote the popular Curious George books with MARGARET REY since the 1970s, after the death of original creator HA REY in 1977.

The big screen version of Curious George, which features the voices of DREW BARRYMORE and WILL FERRELL, hit US cinemas today (10FEB06).