SamKnows Better Than I Do.

Some time ago, I volunteered to be part of the SamKnows project- an FCC sponsored study of actual versus advertised broadband speeds. I did this for several reasons. First, studies such as this are essential if we are to address the poor state of broadband availability, speed, and cost in the United States. Secondly, it is a powerful tool for the consumer to have a constant quality monitor of a product that you otherwise cannot track.

Most of all, I found myself often feeling like this:

Last week, the "white box" (it's black) came in the mail. It's a replacement router that sends information about my connection to the SamKnows project. In return, I have a personalized website that tracks upstream and downstream bandwidth, latency, and more. I can finally see if I'm getting what I pay for from Kabletown Comcast.

After seeing the first week's worth numbers, I must admit- I'm definitely getting what I pay for, which is 1.5 Mbs download speeds (I'm poor, don't judge my choice of economy internet!!!) For now, I must contain the rage.

You win this round, Comcast. But I'll be back...

I recommend my 3 readers to jump on the SamKnows project. It's free, they don't track any traffic content, and it is, if nothing else, extremely interesting to see your internet connection broken down into hard numbers and plots.

Best Internet Thursday

Welcome to a new feature of this blog:
BEST INTERNET THURSDAY!
Mondays are typically reserved for examples of good internets; Thursdays are now roped off for the best the internet has to offer. Today's example: Conservapedia!

Has there ever been such an accurate aggregation of knowledge put forth by man? Me thinks not. And if you don't believe me, listen to this: Conservapedia has banned more IP addresses than the total number of users and the number of updates to the site combined. Why would they do this? As Andy Schlafly, creator of the site, says himself in this interview with a hard line reporter, it's to ensure that the site is only changed by "the best the public has to offer." Now that's integrity.

Here's an example of the upstanding excellence of Conservapedia via its article on Climategate.
Picture 1:

Caption: Al Gore on CNN's American Morning, December 9, 2009, in which he stated that snow is melting from the polar icecaps and glaciers at a rapid rate, and that the "global warming deniers" manipulated the emails from CRU out of context.

Picture 2:

Caption: Image from NASA showing a record snowfall in the western United States on December 9, 2009, contradicting Gore's claim. (NASA)

So next time Al Gore talks about the ice caps melting, just whip out the image of snow in the western United States while shouting "YA-BURNT!"

It's this type of hard line truth that makes Conservapedia the number one source for accurate knowledge in the world.

Numba Two!

Well, actually number 9, but the second frame in a slide show.

Tom's Hardware (they're hiring, by the way...) has a list of the top 10 threats to the internet; solar storms come in at number 9.

It's nice to be acknowledged.

Whiskey Tango Friday - Lolcat Bible Project

It's not really the concept - an entire webpage dedicated to translating the bible so it looks like it was written by cats - that lands this site on today's WTF.

It's not the innumerable man hours already put into it (most of the bible, if not all, has already been translated.)

It's not even the hilarious results:

Genesis 1:1 - Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.

What really landed this site here is the unintentional hilarity that is the google ads: almost every one advertises courses to learn the bible. For some reason, I don't think that the people who visit the Lolcat Bible Project are interested in learning about the "real" bible.

Whiskey Tango Friday

In this inaugural edition of Whiskey Tango Friday (WTF), I present a piece of the internet that I've been meaning to share for a long time.

At last May's AGU meeting, I was perusing the research posters when I ran into one that piqued my interest. I can no longer remember the exact title, but it was something along the lines of how space ions can impact terrestrial weather. Okay, sounds neat, I'll give it a look. It didn't take long for me to realize that the poster didn't make much sense. It asserted that a strong electric field, called the SOLAR CAPACITOR [emphasis not mine] was responsible for ALL weather, especially the scary stuff, such as hurricanes. The author said that comets are the result of this SOLAR CAPACITOR, and astronomers were dumb for calling comets "dirty snowballs" (a gross over-simplification of decades of observations).

After re-reading a few of these points to make sure I wasn't nuts, I realized that the author was a crank. He also had a few self-published books on display, covering topics such as how to use a new form of math (using non-base-10 number systems) to calculate all of the prime numbers and other "science" books with no data, no references, but a lot of hand-drawn pictures that seemed to ignore a lot of physics. The more I reviewed his material, the more I realized he was good at being a crank.

The identity of this man? James McCanney. For this first WTF, I present his website in all of its cranky glory. A few highlights demonstrate that James McCanney is a scientific rebel:

• Pictures? Paragraphs? Layout? Sentences that end in anything but ellipsis or exclamation points? Screw that! Why water down James McCanney's message of truth? Take THAT, grammar!
  
• A link to a page where he's selling Doulton (?) personal water filters. Take THAT, fluoridation!
  
• An opening statement (buried in a link 1/3 down the page) that explains how astronomy relies on four incorrect axioms- axioms that, if exposed, will bring down our astronomer overlords! These four lies have been taught to every astronomy PhD student since the 50's, rendering those degrees useless! Take THAT, astronomers!
  
• Note that James McCanney doesn't have a PhD, just a masters degree. Not because he wasn't good enough, but because he was TOO SMART to be tricked by said axioms. Take THAT, establishment!
• After all of his theories, rants, and links to his books, there is a small section called "about conspiracy theories." It reads, " ... occasionally i hear someone say this page contains "conspiracy theories" ... that term was created by a government think tank back in the 60's to de-rate and ridicule anything not broadcast by the official news media on the evening news[.]" That's right, he just conspiracy-theoried away conspiracy-theories. Take THAT, rational thought!

Some day I'll have to work through his space weather section and show why it's just plain wrong. It would be horribly unfair of me to pick on his work without saying why it's wrong. But alas, such is not the goal of WTF. I just have time to bring such oddities to light.

I frickin' love the internet.

Internets, I love you.

TheTorrents and ISPs Dilema

An extremely interesting story has popped up over at Tom's Hardware. In Norway, one of the hotbeds for internet and intellectual property law, may see a landmark trial soon. Norway's largest ISP is being sued because they refuse to block the controversial file sharing website, The Pirate Bay. The suit is being brought by, among other agencies, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). No, I didn't know there was such a thing either.

Let's pretend that the IFPI wins. This would essentially lay the groundwork for any company forcing an internet service provider to block anything that is against their interests. Sound familiar (I'm looking at you, China)? I could rant about this for some time, but I think this quote from the ISP being sued wraps it up nicely:

“This would be the same as demanding that the postal service should open all letters, and decide which ones should be delivered.”

Indeed.

Iran and the Internet

Yes, I'm a bad blogger. I've now finished 2/3 of the travel/conference season, and it's taken a toll on my blog frequency. I returned to Los Alamos last night at midnight from my second trip to find that my lawn had grown twice as fast as it should have. Oh, the sounds of a choking push mower...

I did want to take a quick opportunity to comment on the uprising in Iran- particularly the role that the web has played so far. Apparently, demonstrators have used Twitter to help organize their movement, and despite the Iranian government's work to block certain sites, key video and pictures of what is unfolding have made it to the outside world. After apparent DDoS attacks on Mir Hossein Moussavi's websites, counter DDoS attacks have been organized-- and not just by Iranians, either.

The results thus far have been stirring (from here):


Sure, the internet gives a mouthpiece to some of the greatest whackos ever, but the limitless speech and information it provides has become a key tool for the free world.

That was quick.

Time Warner's plan for a tiered, bandwidth-cap and overage charging system has been trashed.

This is a win for internet users as well as fair-use advocates.

Don't cap me, bro.

A recent move by internet providers, lead by Time Warner, is to change how they charge for service. Time Warner is switching from a speed-based cost tier system to a bandwidth cap cost tier, starting at ~$30 a month for a 5 gigabyte limit with expensive overage costs. ~$55 dollars will get you a 40 gigabyte limit. Compare that to broadband service from Comcast which has a 250 gigabyte cap, but is a speed-tiered system (i.e. they expect you to pay for the speed but don't expect you to reach the cap.) Just how limiting is this? Of course, it depends on your internet use, but the article provides an excellent example:

"Analysts estimate that a family who opts for the 40 GB plan and streams 7.25 hours of online video a week could end up spending $200 per month on broadband usage fees. For the sake of comparison, the average American household spends 60 hours per week watching TV."

This is a huge price increase made only more odious by the fact that such a cap would not reduce Time Warner's already low operating costs. The following is from this article:

In essence, this new cap comes down to a big money grab by Time Warner. And you better believe that other companies will quickly follow suit.

The company claims that testing of this service in small areas found that only ~10% of customers had overage costs. This may be true, but it is not a legitimate excuse for a few reasons. First, I tend to agree with this opinion piece about the real reasons driving this cap. Second, the internet is continuing to grow, and grow quickly. These caps will create an information ceiling in this country that will retard our progress.

Let me expand on that last point. We must all realize that the internet is THE medium for information in our lifetime. The torch has been passed from print news to radio to TV and now to the internet. Nearly every communication service we are familiar with is being replaced and greatly improved upon by internet-based services. Phones? VoIP and video conferencing. Print media? News sites, blogs, and twitter. TV and radio? Hulu, YouTube, Pandora, NetFlix streaming, Podcasts, Flash animation, internet radio... where does this list end? Throw in shopping, banking, remote computing, email, and vast pools of knowledge such as wikipedia. The internet is irreplaceable, growing to become the spine of our society.

Now consider that when compared to other developed countries (those of you who are familiar with the pattern here know that such comparisons rarely favor the US), the internet access available to US citizens is rather slow. Now toss in some download caps and what happens? When you retard the amount and rate of information available to the public, you retard that population's development and competitiveness against other populations who have unobstructed pipelines to these same resources.

While I will be writing to my legislators over this matter, and urge you to do the same, one congressman is already on the ball.