Not neutrality...

This is a complicated one.  The very term "net neutrality" is loaded with baggage and preconceptions, but I think those of us in the hinterlands have a big stake in this perplexing debate. Here's some background that helped inform my not-so-firm decision.

1. As is becoming the usual case, Vox has a great beginner's course on net neutrality.
2. Gaming the Title II rules. The shifty way Verizon alternated between rules for broadband and telephone service when it suited them.
3. What's at stake today in the FCC announcement.

Hurtling to my bottom line: The FCC should treat broadband as a common carrier, not as broadband. In other words, they should disallow fast lanes and continue to regulate this industry.

My reasons:

1. I no longer believe there is any concept of "the common good" in the boardrooms of America. What traditions we used to have of serving the public and moral responsibility have been eroded by voracious investors wanting immediate results in next quarter's results. This is a rule with exceptions, but is the safest assumption to begin with. I have no doubt Verizon/Comcast would screw the consumer in a heartbeat without looking back. Wall Street doesn't care about Rural Route 2.
2. Rural Americans have the most to lose here. It is only because of admittedly inefficient and costly regulations we have stuff like electricity and roads and phones now. De-regulating carriers would allow them to ignore us more than they do currently. I realize I have campaigned for free markets in our industry, but dairy and sugar don't need infrastructure to deliver them to our homes, so I consider them apples to the Internet orange. There are some few services and products that cannot withstand increasingly rapacious unfettered profit-seeking freedom.
3. Verizon, et al will doubtless find their way around any net neutrality rules to offer fast pipes to those who pay anyway.With rules in place I think consumers have a better chance of getting at least workable service while they do build out for big content suppliers.
4. Our Internet is national embarrassment. Why reward the people who have made gazillions constructing this mish-mash service by allowing them to rack up even higher profits for no value to most consumers? I would entertain some compromise that would address telecom concerns in exchange for them meeting performance benchmarks and dates in the future. Why not offer to allow fast lanes if we can be in the Top 5 instead of #35, for example, or some other measurable parameter of Internet quality by specified dates?
5. The Internet is one great "equalizer" that doesn't need redistributive taxes or any other horrors that inflame the hard right. Indeed the far right has built its conspiracy industry on the Internet. Of all the things to leave to the tender mercies of Big Telecom I should think this would be the last in conservative eyes. [OK, this is snark, but there is some truth in it] There is a hidden cost to regulation but I think it is almost always exaggerated and once baked into business plans can be mitigated by shrewd management decisions.
6. Google has given me enormous amounts of free stuff and changed my life. Verizon gives me expensive and sluggish broadband. Whose side should I be on?

I will revisit this post after I dope out the announcement today. But tragically enough, the above reasons are the best I can come up with to inform the debate for those of us in rural America. 

Google to the rescue...  

This is about the tenth time this has happened in the last few years. I need a unique, particular device, tool or part, and after checking local sources, professionals, and dealers, I draw a blank.

The problem was attaching our JD 1770 planter to a Case MX315 tractor. We needed all 5 hydraulic outlets (including the mysterious "Power Beyond" set). Only they weren't regular 1/2", #8 BOSS O-ring tips. Cobbling NPT adapters and ORB fittings only slowed the leak to a dribble.

In desperation I googled "hydraulic hose fittings" and arrived promptly here: discounthydraulichose.com

The name alone made me laugh - how typical is that for the Internet age! But not only did they have exactly what I needed, but it was about half the price I could find comparable fittings - even after rush delivery.

This is what I mean by the oncoming productivity that will be boosting our bottom line via the "Borg Effect".  (I have trademarked that, BTW). This is the effortless ability to connect to information and resources that Aaron will use as second nature, and I am continually and happily surprised by.

From bizarre fasteners to appliance parts to unimagined services, my farm is much closer to the hub of the universe than ever before. In fact, we are slowly erasing all the social and cultural penalties for rural living.

Now if we can just get a rural water district...

Remember experts?...

It has occurred to me that one thing unsettling the many who feel comforted by hierarchical political and social systems is the erosion of the authority of The Expert. The presence of sages, living repositories of wisdom who could end discussion with a definitive statement, was alluring in an age of constantly arising means of dispute.

But the explosion of collective expertise - notably Wikipedia, which has only gotten better - has, if not displaced, certainly offered a competing knowledge system. And with it, our reliance on experts has been revealed as just one possible practice, even if only because we now know how essentially mundane were their methods for arriving at their opinions.

But there continues to be resistance to the idea that expertise itself has been called into question, and we can expect that resistance to continue. Experts, understandably, are apt to be annoyed by their devaluation, and are liable to make their displeasure felt. And the thing about experts is that a lot of people still feel disinclined to question them.Experts, geniuses, authorities, "authors"—we were taught to believe that these should be questioned, but until now have not often been given a way to do so, to seek out and test for ourselves the exact means by which they reached their conclusions. So long as we believe that there is such a thing as an expert rather than a fellow-investigator, then that person's views just by magic will be worth more than our own, no matter how much or how often actual events have shown this not to be the case. For us to have this magic thinking about "individualism" then is pernicious politically, intellectually, in every way. That is not to say that we don't value those who can lead the conversation. We'll need them more and more, those "who are able to marshal the wisdom of the network," to use Bob Stein's words. But they might be more like DJs, assembling new ways of looking at things from a huge variety of elements, than like than judges whose processes are secret, and whose opinions are sacred.And there's so much more to this. If my point of view needn't immediately eradicate yours—if we are having not a contest but an ongoing comparison, whether in politics, art or literary criticism, if "knowledge" is and will remain provisional (and we could put a huge shout-out to Rorty here, if we had the space and the breath) what would this mean to the quality of our discourse, or to the subsequent character and quality of "understanding"?Maybe disagreement doesn't have to be a battle to be fought to the death; it can be embraced, even savored. Wikipedia as it is now constituted lends enormous force to this argument. The ability to weigh conflicting opinions dispassionately and without requiring a "decision" is invaluable in understanding almost any serious question. That much is clear right now. There are many, many practical political, pedagogical and epistemological benefits yet to be investigated."Learning" no longer means sitting passively in a lecture hall or on in front of a television or in a library and waiting to receive the "authoritative" version of what the experts think is up as if it were a Communion wafer. For nearly 20 years we have had the Internet, now grown into a medium of almost infinite paths, where "learning" means that you can Twitter directly to people in Egypt to ask them what they really think about ElBaradei (and get answers), ask an author or critic to address a point you feel he may have missed (ditto), or share your own insights in countless forums where they will be read and admired (and/or savaged.) Knowledge is growing more broadly and immediately participatory and collaborative by the moment.The results of these collaborations, like Wikipedia, represent not just new methods of packaging knowledge, but a new vision of what might come to be meant by "knowledge": something more like what Marshall McLuhan called "a galaxy for insight.""The sadness of our age is characterized by the shackles of individualism," Bob Stein said. But are we throwing off those shackles, even as we speak? [More of a superb essay]

This new communal knowledge likewise does not match up well with our economic system which has seen a revival of the arch-individualistic ethos of Ayn Rand, despite their faint usefulness in any part of our real world. If intellectual property, for example, turns out to be much more common than just in John Galt's head, who cares if he sulks in Colorado?

It is also fair to say this idea is not broadly embraced or even acknowledged in the public, so why should we even consider it? The answer is, I believe, that that is the only productive time to consider it - any later and the question is essentially resolved.

Electronic collectivism has very quickly gone from being a sci-fi imagining to being a plausible scenario that more and more people, at least those active in the computer-culture, would endorse for us all. It will be objected that the ambitions of the cyber-sector don’t have that much to do with the life of the culture at large. But one could similarly say that the decisions made by a few thousand members of the investment banking community don’t affect us either. In fact, there is a connection between the ideas held by that minority and the lives that the rest of us live. [More]

I am excited to be witnessing these new forms of arbitration of competitive views, and their deployment by individuals all across the social spectrum to build new things for humanity. but more than that, the excitement of the possibilities these new tools create is the most effective counterbalance to my occasional bouts of despair over our current management of human affairs.

Arctic ice update...

Basically, it's slip-sliding away.

 [Source]

I realize the disappearance of the all Arctic ice would not phase the economic and political objections to the concept of global warming for many in the US, but you have to admit, an open ocean north of us would be hard to ignore.

This graph shows Arctic sea ice volume (not area, not extent) by month, over the course of the satellite record, with the vertical axis units being km³. (See the link above for more detail on the source of data used in the graph. I also recommend Neven’s post Trends in Arctic Sea Ice Volume.)Notice that not only is there, shall we say, a distinctly noticeable downward trend, but that the decline for any given month is actually accelerating. Also notice that the vertical axis begins at 0, so there’s no funny business happening here to make the image look even scarier.The month with the lowest volume, September, has declined from roughly 18,000 km³ to around 4,000 km³. I’ll leave it up to you, dear readers, to conjure up your own way to visualize the volume or weight of that missing 14,000 km³ of ice. (Remember that 1 km³ of ice weighs 1 billion metric tons.) Presumably there are two main factors at work here: Increasing warming due to our continued, non-stop efforts to aerosolize every last gram of carbon we can rip or pump out of the ground, plus Arctic amplification, a.k.a. albedo flip, in which open sea water absorbs much more heat from the sun than would snow and ice.Of course, the thing that many of you immediately looked for is none of the above details, but when the September line is projected to hit 0, roughly 2015.This is the part where we all try to resist the urge to say, “that can’t possibly be right”. [Not much more, because I couldn't stop extracting]

More important, perhaps, is my discovery of a blog dedicated solely to Arctic ice. This is what the Internet is doing for us, folks. And then Google helps us find it.

For all our troubles, we live in a magical time.

Epistemic closure, part IV...

Google isn't helping.



I have noticed this when I use my son's computer to search for something. Algorithms can be changed and I suspect information like this will help.

For myself, I'm taking a little more time to read stuff I do not agree with. It is frankly hard, because much of it is not substantiated in a way I have come to expect.

The Virtual Choir...

I continue to marvel at what we can do with the Internet. This "choir of individuals" is either genius or another blow to our social infrastructure.



Nonetheless, it is beautiful music.

Google sets the menu...

I had no idea so many people use the whole Internet as their recipe book. (What would Jan do without her clipping files from food mags?) Anyhoo, like most foodies I seldom go past the first page of search results, so when Google changes the rules for search, a whole lotta suppers are decided differently.

In late February, when Google announced that it was adding a new kind of search, specifically for recipes, it seemed like good news for a site like ours -– at last Google was shining its searchlight on content we deeply care about. But then came the bad news: once you get your new recipe results, you can refine the results in just 3 ways: by ingredient, by cooking time and by calories. While Google was just trying to improve its algorithm, thereby making the path to recipes easier and more efficient, it inadvertently stepped  into the middle of the battle between the quick-and-easy faction and the cooking-matters group.
Before these new changes, Google recipe results favored sites with lots of content and good Search Engine Optimization (that is, those that organized their pages and chose their words with Google's preferences in mind) – e.g. AllRecipes and Food. Now, recipe results favor these sites, but also those with lots of additional information, such as ratings, calories, cooking times, and photos.
Imagine the blogger who has excellent recipes but has to compete against companies with staff devoted entirely to S.E.O. And who now must go back and figure out the calorie counts of all of his recipes, and then add those numbers, along with other metadata. That’s not going to happen. So the chance that that blogger’s recipes will appear anywhere near the first page of results is vanishingly small. (See Craig Goldwyn's piece on this in the Huffington Post.) [More]

It seems to me the accumulated nudges of such minor information flow influences could be considerable. Given the intensity of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts by businesses, all those plans by the myriad of "ag advocates" planning to use search engine results to tell their story might be a tad naive.

While we have been worrying about the right and FNS or the left and the MSM, geeks have been undermining both on the Web. It also presents a real challenge for ag organizations who are deciding what medium to communicate through to various audiences.

I have always depended on Google and have been satisfied with the results and efficiency. But the rise of content farms and similar "first-page hogs" has diluted the results for even my arcane searches.

I may have to go to page 2!

Access to knowledge...

I continue to be blown away by the power of the Internet (and Google) to improve my life.

Exhibit A:  When we built our home, we had the shell erected and did the finish work ourselves. At that age (30) I was supremely confident I could handle the carpentry, plumbing, electrical, etc.   Heck, I was an engineer.

Of course, these are trades, and using the tools and materials of the times, experience was a much bigger component of success. But the house got finished and has served well for 30+ years.

In the process of replacing the carpet on the stairs, I noticed that I had installed the treads and risers wrong. I found out after searching for "stair construction" and comparing the advice with my work. Perhaps I could have found this out by a book or from a carpenter back in 1978, but I thought I was doing it right. And it was pretty close, and has sufficed.

But my first instinct now when faced with a fixing problem is to download knowledge. In a matter of seconds, my abilities are multiplied.

I don't think the full effect of this phenomenon is close to being realized, but as many observers are pointing out, the result is not to increase incomes, but lower costs. In this case, the Internet delivered free what an experienced carpenter used to provide for $25/hr. or so.

In don't think farming is exempt from this "value predation". Nor are our vendors. Knowledge given freely makes many jobs lower valued, simply because much of their product was "knowing where to hit", as the old joke goes.

This could be an underlying reason behind the jobless recoveries we have been suffering. Perhaps too many jobs were based on closed information systems.

Whatever.

I've got stairs to fix.

The real fight over the Internet...

Several coincidental (or maybe not) developments underscore the growing importance and vulnerability of the Internet in virtually every aspect of modern life. 

First, from Egypt, note the usual pattern of capturing the TV and radio stations was preempted by a government shutdown of the nations ISP's. 

The domino-like takedown of the ISPs indicated the government didn't have a master shutoff switch, but ordered each company to flip their in-house switches.

"This sequencing looks like people getting phone calls, one at a time, telling them to take themselves off the air," James Cowie, chief technology officer for Renesys, said in the company's blog. "Not an automated system that takes all providers down at once; instead, the incumbent leads and other providers follow meekly one by one until Egypt is silenced."

Vodafone Egypt issued a statement saying all mobile phone operators had been ordered to suspend services in selected areas. "Under Egyptian legislation, the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it," the company said.

The Egyptian government is not the first to shutdown the Internet during political unrest. The Burmese government ordered a takedown in September 2007, and Nepal severed all international Internet connections after the government declared martial law in February 2005.

The fewer the ISPs, the easier it is for governments to impose a blockade. Burma, for example, had only two ISPs in 2007. Shutting down the Internet in developed nations, such as the U.S., would be far more difficult, if not impossible, because of the many ISPs operating in the countries with networks linked to other networks inside and outside the borders, experts say. [More]

Now stay with me, as one commenter thinks this presages a new pattern for - of all things - the NFL.

Facebook and Twitter may get credit for changing the face of northern Africa and I'll go out on a limb and say they'll play a huge part in the dissolution of another global force: the NFL Players Union.

      No one wants to talk about a possible lock-out and the threat of a football-free autumn of 2011, especially not around here as the Packers are poised to take on the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.   That's fine, because a trip to the Big Game is a rare and wonderful thing, something to be savored and not sullied with labor pains.
      But once the last piece of confetti hits the Cowboy Stadium field, the NFL will shift it's focus not to preparing for a new season but making sure there IS a new season.    Owners opted out of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, claiming players salaries are cutting way too far into their profits.    Players defend the status quo, saying that there is no game without them and that they should be paid accordingly.    Owners will say that they can't go on like this, not when so many teams need new stadiums to compete.    Players will say all that they want to do is...play.    A lockout looms in early March.
      That's when the fun will begin, especially among the rank and file.
      More and more players are taking to Facebook and Twitter, supposedly to clue friends and followers in on how they feel about the events of the moment.    What some DON'T realize is how far their words reach in a digital word.  [More]

Our current hold-our-nose partnership with Mideast dictators to help counter terrorism suddenly is put in different light when juxtaposed next to the Obama administration position on Net Freedom.

Now comes the test. The Internet Freedom Agenda may have just undermined an ugly pillar of the U.S.’ Mideast strategy — supporting dictators — without doing much to aid the discontented millions that might replace it. While Obama tepidly calls on Mubarak to let people keep tweeting, Egyptian protesters may want the U.S. ”to completely get out of the picture,” as one told al-Jazeera. “Just cut aid to Mubarak immediately and withdraw backing from him, withdraw from all Middle Eastern bases, and stop supporting the state of Israel.”
That’s exactly what Mubarak never demanded — and why the U.S. fears what comes next. ”The traditional debate is that we’re willing to use these tyrants because they’re useful,” explains Marc Lynch, a George Washington University political scientist. “But if we continue to see developments like those we’ve seen over the last couple weeks, if they can’t hold on to power, it doesn’t matter if they’re useful in counterterrorism.”
Not that the U.S. did much to persuade Egyptian protesters it’s on their side. The Obama team “could have come a lot stronger, prevented the Egyptian government from the crackdown on Internet communication, but they didn’t,” says Sherif Mansour from the human-rights group Freedom House. That makes Obama look either impotent or callous.

And it shows the Internet Freedom Agenda to be a dodge. The heart of the issue is whether the U.S. actually sides with the protests spreading around the Arab world — first Tunisia, now Egypt, and in Jordan and Yemen as well. Asking Mubarak to bring back the Internet pales in comparison to the annual $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid he receives. [More]

But even in the face of such demonstrations of the exploding power of the Internet, so-called Big Government haters can't wait to make it another arm of a domestic police state.

Thanks to the GOP takeover of the House, the odds of such legislation advancing have markedly increased. The new chairman of the House Judiciary committee is Lamar Smith of Texas, who previously introduced a data retention bill. Sensenbrenner, the new head of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, had similar plans but never introduced legislation. (It's not purely a partisan issue: Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, was the first to announce such a proposal.)

Police and prosecutors are the biggest backers of data retention. FBI director Robert Mueller has saidsaid last year that Mueller supports storing Internet users' "origin and destination information," meaning logs of which Web sites are visited. that forcing companies to store those records about users would be "tremendously helpful in giving us a historic basis to make a case" in investigations, especially child porn cases. An FBI attorney

And the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which will be sending a representative to tomorrow's hearing, previously adopted a resolution (PDF) calling for a "uniform data retention mandate" for "customer subscriber information and source and destination information." The group said today in an e-mail exchange that it still supports that resolution.

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the free-market Cato Institute, says the push for legislation is an example of pro-regulatory Republicans. "Republicans were put in power to limit the size and scope of the federal government," Harper said. "And they're working to grow the federal government, increase its intrusiveness, and I fail to see where the Fourth Amendment permits the government to require dragnet surveillance of Internet users."[More]

It is curious to me that in the litmus test for socialist downsliding how a health insurance mandate is a hideous theft of our rights, but tapping my computer is prudent behavior enforcement.  This action, along with others will reveal that the Tea Party activists have been naive tools, IMHO. [Kudos to Cato for calling them out, BTW]

Back on topic, I think all of us, and especially the rural community where communication faces different hurdles, better pay more attention to seemingly abstruse Internet control debates and regs. We could find ourselves in a world where the most power tools for popular redress and opinion are dangerously at risk. It will involve homework we don't want to do and relationships with people very unlike us, but we have several dogs in this fight.

Net neutrality has arrived...

After an exhaustive lobbying effort by all sides (I think there are more than two in this one), the FCC will release rules to safeguard access to the Internet.  This is the clearest short summary I could find of what the rules will do.

The first rule is about transparency. Network operators of both fixed and wireless networks will be required to disclose to consumers, content providers, and device makers information that will be necessary for them to deploy services. In other words, if a broadband network operator is using network management techniques that affect an application or if a wireless broadband network provider doesn't allow a certain type of application, the service provider must provide information about the requirements for its network.
The second Net neutrality rule prohibits the blocking of traffic on the Internet. The rule applies to both fixed wireline broadband network operators, as well as to wireless providers. But the stipulations for each type of network are slightly different.
For wired networks, operators will not be allowed to block any lawful content, services, applications, or devices on their network. For wireless providers, the rule is somewhat limited and only prohibits the blocking of access to Web sites or applications that specifically compete with a carrier's telephony voice or video services.
The blocking rule for wireless and wireline networks also includes allowances for reasonable network management. This means that wireline and wireless broadband providers will be able to reasonably manage their networks during times of congestion to ensure every user can adequately access services.
And finally, the last rule applies only to fixed broadband providers. It prohibits fixed wireline broadband providers from unreasonably discriminating against traffic on their network.  [More]

For rural users who may be getting much more from the Internet than we currently imagine, I think this nobody-is-happy compromise works.

 One key phrase above is "unreasonably discriminating".

The proposal falls short of what some consumer advocates had sought. Although it would prevent wireless carriers from blocking competing voice services on smartphones, it would allow them to charge more for other types of Internet applications, such as video or social networking services.

The rules would prohibit Internet providers from arbitrarily blocking or slowing delivery of online services, but they could strike business deals in which a company might pay extra for faster access to consumers.

The proposal marks a compromise after more than a year of wrangling by the FCC, phone and cable giants, and brand-name Internet firms such as Google and Facebook. Some carriers and high-tech firms say the proposal strikes a good balance between protecting consumers and preserving the ability to compete.

"These rules will increase certainty in the marketplace; spur investment both at the edge and in the core of our broadband networks, and contribute to a 21st century job-creation engine in the United States," Genachowski said in an excerpt of prepared remarks released Monday night.

But some Internet companies and Republican lawmakers say the FCC's new regulations will restrict network operators, making it harder for Internet service providers to invest in faster networks that reach more homes.

Rebecca Arbogast, an investment analyst for Stifel Nicolaus, said that the rules are written so they can be broadly interpreted and that questions remain about the real impact on Internet video. It's unclear whether a company such as Comcast could in effect give its video-on-demand service priority over competitors such as Netflix, YouTube and Amazon by charging them more to transmit high volumes of data, she said. [More]

While much of the fine-print is unclear, I suspect high-bandwidth users will see higher costs, but access to the whole Internet will be protected. The niggling suspicion is more of us could become high-end users as we use the Internet for more than just reading Incoming and it becomes our main channel for entertainment and information.

However, at that point, broadband and wireless providers will be competing for our loyalty, I would imagine and the lines of user-volume would become more vague.

Unless Congress is pushed by heavy industry lobbying to override this ruling legislatively, my initial reaction is getting this issue fixed imperfectly allows us to start working and refining the rules as we see how consumers and industry develop this medium.

So rack up another homely fix for a longstanding complex problem. Is it me or are we seeing a pattern in government lately of getting something done (albeit imperfectly) instead of merely having complaining contests?

Ponder what it might mean if government productivity increased even slightly.

A blatant plug...

If you or someone you know is caring for a very sick loved one, please let them know about CaringBridge. We have been following a family member some distance from us and it has been nearly miraculous how it has helped the communications.

The problem is you want to call, and then it's too late, and you know the caregiver has repeated the same story too many times, and then you don't call, and the cycle goes on.  This is what the Internet does surpassingly well, and better with every passing day.

Here's hoping you don't need it, but if...

They know who you are...

At the end of a fascinating article about on-line commenters, this gem:

While news organizations debate scrapping anonymity, the ground may be shifting beneath them. With all of our identifying information getting sliced, diced, and sold, by everyone from credit card companies to Facebook, is there really such a thing as the anonymous Web anymore? Consider this demonstration from the late ’90s by Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Latanya Sweeney. She took three commonly available data points: sex (male), ZIP code (02138), and date of birth (July 31, 1945). Those seemingly anonymous attributes could have described lots of people, right? Actually, no. She proved they could belong to just one person: former governor William Weld. She tells me that 87 percent of Americans can now be identified with just these three data points.

Maybe the best approach to getting people to behave better online is just reminding them how easy it is to figure out who they really are. [More] [My emphasis]

I'll bet the number is even higher for rural areas.

Before ag spokeshumans rush to Facebook...

Consider what can go wrong. The folks at Nestle didn't.

It's a sad sight, to see a man (or woman) broken by the taunts of an angry mob. But what I find most confounding about this whole sorry display is that the real error here was for the moderator to act like an actual human being. Most corporate public relations is about smoothing all rough edges away with the goal of creating an essentially false version of reality, full of comforting jargon and meaningless buzzwords. Exhibit A: Nestle's official statement on palm oil. Many of the commentators on this Facebook fracas are saying that Nestle should just have kept reiterating what was in that statement and avoided riling the crowd. But what's the point of simply pushing regurgitated pap? How can that be considered good manners? It's managed discourse that means nothing, and I think it's far more degrading to the chances of real communication between corporations and consumers than the damage done by one person who shows his annoyance at a bunch of people who imagine that they are engaging in some form of meaningful social protest by posting complaints about a company while sporting juvenile profile pictures on a Facebook fan page.
Don't get me wrong -- I think the whole concept of fan pages for corporations is stupid to begin with, and I think Nestle has done some truly vile things in the course of its existence on this planet. But I gotta say I'm kind of loving the nameless gal (or guy) who had the temerity to tell his (or her) critics "Consider yourself embraced." That was real! That was awesome.
He or she will never make that mistake again, of course, and that just contributes to our greater social detriment. Because if we are going to use social media to its fullest capacity, it should be to help us make real connections between people -- not to attack them when they reveal their own humanity. [More]

One of the most popular breakout sessions this year at meetings I attended were workshops/seminars on social media. Often these were led by (forgive me for stereotyping) very enthusiastic, cheerleadery women who could clearly outline all the upside, but had apparently rarely dealt routinely with trolls or ideologues who have discovered the power of "anonymous".

If you cannot hold your own face-to-face in heated arguments, my suggestion is your ag PR campaign in Twitter could cause you considerable heartburn. And bad actors are just the beginning.  Out there on the Internets are many, many people smarter, more articulate, and rhetorically gifted than you who can hand your your virtual head on a platter just for fun. DAMHIKT.

I point this out not to diminish the idea of what social media may be able to accomplish toward ag's perceived media problem, but rather to encourage those neophytes to gird their onloins*.

*Did I mention the problem of fiendishly clever wordplay that few others find amusing?

Exactly how fast...

Are you surfing?  The FCC wants to help with a simple Internet speed test.

Try it here.

So I did, and this is my score: Download 2835 kbps   Upload 634 kbps

The funny part is I immediately repeated the test at my favorite speed site: pcpitstop.com

The answer there:  Download 4835 kbps  Upload 631 kbps

So I checked back at the FCC site: Download 4780 kbps  Upload 592 kbps

The operative phrase is "your results may vary", I guess.

Anyhoo, the FCC will unveil soon an ambitious plan with some astronomical numbers. Even so the plan for "100-Squared" (100 Mbps in 100 million households) is not extraordinary in international comparison.

Are other countries doing this?

Yes, many countries are already way ahead of the United States in terms of broadband speeds and availability. South Korea, for example, boasts an average broadband speed of 43.3 Mbps, according to a 2008 report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). But, dissatisfied with those speeds, the South Koreans in February 2009 announced an ambitious goal to introduce 1 Gigabit-per-second broadband by 2013.

Other countries also boast impressive broadband speeds, according to the OECD. France, for example, averages speed of 43.3 Mbps and the Japanese enjoy speeds of 93.7 Mbps. The United States broadband speeds hover around 9 Mbps; however, keep in mind that broadband speeds in urban areas tend to be much higher. [More]

I'll try to read the plan when published and see what it might mean for rural citizens. Right now, I'm embarrassed by how giddy I am over 5 Mbps. 

What he said - Episode 12...

Stumbled over this - loved it.



Truth be told, I think it's a little early be assigning moral value to a phenomenon we barely can describe, let alone predict.  For my part, since I'm at the age where memory itself is a fading memory, Google has been an enormous crutch.

I don't begrudge folks new knees - what's wrong with an artificial memory enhancer?

[via boingboing]

If you like to read to children...

Maybe this unique service will help you stay connected with your special little child when you are away:
A Story Before Bed.


We are just scratching the surface of what high-speed broadband can add to our lives.

Hardly any ...

Verizon

  broadband coverage
       
              in Willmar,  



                                 MN, I just found out...

Will the middle be harder to find?...

As tenor and temperature of various debates escalate, I find myself wondering how much my opinions are affected by my habitual use of Google as my search engine.  In case you hadn't noticed (and few of us did) your results are different from others for the saem search parameters.  Google has quietly personalized your searches.

Here's a good explanation from the nerds themselves. (C,mon, look at 'em!)
 


Opinions in the search engine microcosm are variable.

Imagine you’re in a library — the classic metaphor for a search engine and how it interacts with a searcher, from when WebCrawler’s Brian Pinkerton used to explain how they worked back in the 1990s. Someone walks in and says “travel.” In a library, the librarian would ask more questions, to try and understand what they want. Early search engines didn’t do this. They couldn’t do this!
Over time, search engines tried to do the library-style conversation by offering related searches, as a way to get searchers to refine their queries. Then Google took a huge leap last year by making use of your previous query to refine your results. That makes sense and doesn’t seem to require any particular reason to ask for user opt-in. Again, imagine the librarian. It would be unreasonable to expect them to forget the last thing you said in a conversation you were having, as they tried to help you. Unreasonable and unhelpful.

But would you expect the librarian to help you by remembering everything you’d asked over a half-year period? That might be helpful, sure, but it might also be eerie. But this is what Google is doing now. It remembers everything you’ve searched for over 180 days, and it uses that information to customize your results. To alert you about this huge change, it made a blog post on Friday afternoon. That’s it. [More]

So on any given topic my results will be influenced by whatever I have read and searched before. Does this mean I will see fewer results that show alternate/divergent perspectives?

I'm not sure.  I will likely be pointed to more websites that favor my current position, I think.

But what it does mean is search result rankings are now questionable - a real headache for website managers selling ad space.

So, for those of you who may not have received this message before: search engine ranking is dead. In the very near future, you will no longer be able to reliably check your rankings in the Google search engine.
How to Measure Success
Track your traffic, conversions, and ROI. These are the important metrics for any form of marketing or business. That's the way it should be.
Like it or not, personalization of the Google search results is here. Many are seeing it right now for several search queries.
Google has just been awarded a patent for language personalization of search results. They are (or will be) changing the search results based on the language you use in your search query and based on the language of the Web pages that show up on the search results.
I recently searched for a keyword phrase to do some research on other SEO companies. After performing one search and then entering another search query, Google added a phrase onto the top right of the search results: "Customized based on recent search activity." If you see this phrase on a search results page, then your search results have been personalized just for you.
To get more information about it, click on "More Details." Let's take a look at what Google says:

"Search customization details: search engine marketing company
When possible, Google will customize your search results based on location and/or recent search activity. Additionally, when you're signed in to your Google Account, you may see even more relevant, useful results based on your web history.
The following information was used to improve your search results for search engine marketing company:
Recent Searches
You or someone else recently searched for search engine marketing using this browser."

Google is personalizing the search results based on your recent search engine queries. They say specifically that based on your location and/or your recent search activity the search results have been altered.
This is happening even if you aren't logged into your Google account. If you are logged into your Google account, you'll likely see even more different search results.
We're going to see more customization and personalization because Google believes this will bring us more relevant, useful search results. As Google moves more toward personalization, it will be even closer to the end of the search engine rankings: no more top rankings or number one ranking for a certain keyword phrase.
What This Means for Company Web Sites
When someone visits a Web site, they will potentially be more "qualified," and the ratio between traffic and conversions might improve. Traffic may go down, but in the long run, the visitors that do visit our sites via a Google search will be more qualified because the search results were personalized to what that they were really looking for.
There are several things that we'll see in the future as a result of Google's personalization of search results:

• Personalized search will change our perception of search engine "rankings."
• Google will focus on a user's intent, showing us search results based on our search history and the query we use. There will be different search results based on whether we're doing research, looking to buy something, or looking for something locally in our area.
• There will be a local impact on the search results. Search results will change depending on the content and keywords on our Web sites and the geolocation of the user. Search results will change based on your IP address.

[More]

One wildcard will be if users opt-out (how-to on the video above) of personalized search and in what numbers. This subtle change in a tool most of us have become used to thinking of as unbiased and stable may be shaping communications more than even Google imagined.

But is it evil?

I rate this as good news...

While we in the country insist on lots of local control over public matters, what it usually boils down to is politics and self-interest on a microscopic scale.  It also means very little gets done. Slowly.

When siting communications towers or wind farms, the best and worst of our civic commitment is on display.  Higher authority is not to be despised in such cases.

The unanimous “declaratory ruling” made good on a promise FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski made in an otherwise coolly received speech at an industry conference in early October. Under the new rules, state and local governments must act within 90 days of receiving an application for a co-location, that is, a tower site to be shared with other operators, and 150 days for other applications. Carriers have complained that governments are frustrating their efforts to improve coverage by sitting on tower applications indefinitely.

The FCC also ruled that state or local governments may not use the fact that wireless service is available from another carrier as ground for rejecting an application. And they may not require a zoning variance for every cell site. [More]

One small step for better broadband and phone coverage.

Moving in the right direction...

I think. The FCC has taken a surprisingly strong stand for open networks (or net neutrality) that while clearly important to the communications business, has real implications for rural America as well.

In addition to making sure that network operators cannot prevent users from accessing lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, or attaching unharmful devices to the network, Genachowski wants to add two more rules.

The first would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. The second principle would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement.

Broadband providers such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon Communications have opposed regulation or new laws that would dictate how they could run their networks. Up until this point, the Internet has been free of any regulation. And these companies would like to keep it that way.

That said, the nation's two biggest phone companies, AT&T and Verizon, have accepted the principles outlined by the FCC, when it comes to their wired broadband networks. Even though they don't think additional regulation is needed, they have agreed in principle with keeping their broadband networks open.

But the regulation that Genachowski is proposing will not apply to just wireline broadband networks, such as DSL and cable modem service. It will also apply to wireless services. And this is where the major phone companies will likely focus their opposition to the FCC's plans for new regulation.[More]

Since we here in the sticks will never have fiber optic cable strung to our doors, the provision for open wireless is crucial, IMHO.  It is also odd in my thinking that the open networks of Europe seem to be something that cannot be duplicated here.  Since our dependence on wireless for truly high-speed broadband is nearly 100%, this proposed ruling could do more to raise the level of service in rural America than even the government billions, or at the least, make it more comparable to what urban citizens enjoy. Maybe we would have provider choices, for example.

And why not separate buying phones/netbooks/etc. from the service?  Why shouldn't I be able to use an iPhone on Verizon? 

 Long and rigorous testing? Puleeze. The real problem with Verizon, and to a lesser extent all the rest of the U.S. carriers, is that of a dumb pipe thinking it's smart. Verizon wouldn't give up enough of their shackles and handcuffs; they love to nickel and dime their customers by crippling devices and forcing people to their own crapola media and other "solutions." That's why BlackBerry's Storm, among it's other problems, doesn't have WiFi. That's why Verizon doesn't have a good phone. Early on in iPhone's development, Steve Jobs probably talked to Verizon for about 30 seconds before concluding they simply were not capable of letting go enough to carry his revolution. They probably demanded upfront that WiFi be removed and music and video sales go through whatever POS "service(s)" they offer. By the way, of course Verizon's network gets the best marks (on a scale of that tops out at mediocre-at-best) in large part because they have no devices that use any real amounts of data, so there's no real load on their network. Put 10+ million data-hungry Apple iPhones on Verizon and watch their mediocre quality scores plummet. [More]

 These proposed rules would seem to make the market freer, which is the larger question here, I think. In fairness, I think it likely implementation of the rules would end the all-you-can-eat pricing for Internet service.

First is that bandwidth is not, in fact, unlimited, especially in the wireless world. One reason ISPs are averse to neutrality regulation, they say, is that they need the flexibility to ban or mitigate high-bandwidth uses of their network, like BitTorrent and Hulu.com, which would otherwise run amok. Take away their ability to prioritize traffic, the ISPs say, and overall service will suffer.
“As long as there have been networks, people have had to engineer them to ensure that congestion doesn’t occur,” Carnegie Mellon professor and telecom expert David Farber said Monday (he’s the co-author of a cautious anti-net neutrality opinion piece published in 2007). Farber is especially concerned about the impact of the FCC’s position on wireless networks, where bandwidth is already very limited. “When you’re operating that close to capacity, you have to do a very tricky job of managing your spectrum. If you have unconstrained loads being dumped on you, something’s going to have to give.”
Case in point: AT&T has repeatedly stumbled in its ability to provide 3G wireless capacity, thanks to the unexpected popularity of the iPhone. Those difficulties lend credence to AT&T’s (and Apple’s) reluctance to allow apps like Skype and Slingplayer unfettered access to the 3G network: If the network can barely keep up with ordinary demand, just imagine what would happen if we were all live-streaming the Emmy Awards over our iPhones at the same time.

Take away ISPs’ ability to shape or restrict traffic, and you’ll see many carriers running into AT&T-like capacity problems. Their response will almost certainly be to make consumers pay for what they’re actually using. Want to BitTorrent all 6.7GB of the uncompressed Beatles catalog via 3G? Fine, but you’ll have to pay for the bandwidth you’re taking away from your neighbor. [More]

Unlike the author, I think this is more feature than bug.  It would link heavy usage with heavy cost - a

reasonable market action. In the long run, it might mean typically light-using households get a bargain, or cause a raft of new software to monitor and exploit light usage times for massive downloads, just as smart grids do for electricity.  Regardless, I have become highly skeptical of any industry cries of the End of the World if Rule X is implemented.

For those who oppose the rulings based on knee-jerk reaction to any government intervention in markets, I would remind them our wireless system has grown up virtually unfettered by regulation, and compared to countries like Germany and South Korea, we have one of the most embarrassingly fragmented and inefficient systems in the world. The tragedy of the commons applies in a different way here.