Do you trust the FCC?

The Huffington Post has the an excellent argument against FCC enforcement of net neutrality. While I certainly distrust big ISPs and don't doubt that they have selfish motives, I also distrust the government to some degree in their ability to regulate the Internet without messing with it. The article cites examples of FCC censorship in the past, and asks the question, "do you want your Internet censored as well?"

Until I read this article, I was definitely a supporter of the FCC enforcing net neutrality, but now I'm not so sure. I really hope that wireless broadband can solve the issue by giving consumers more options as to who their ISP is. (rather than being forced to subscribe through whoever their local provider happens to be.) This would put a lot more power into the hands of the consumer. We would have the option of not doing business with an ISP based on the way they run their network and the quality of service they offer. This would in turn encourage them to provide better service. Problems would of course occur if all of them had non-neutral networks.

I'm not sure what other solutions exist, but I sure hope neither the FCC or the ISPs do what certainly seems possible in the very near future - ruin the Internet.

Privacy?

Forget about privacy in virtual spaces like Facebook, what about privacy in the real world?

http://www.geekbrief.tv/brief-760-immortal-sunglasses-l5-remote-starbucks-incentives-lego-bridge/

CSS Hover

Anton Peck has an interesting article that, after reading it, seems like it should have been obvious to me before. He recommends that when styling elements using the :hover pseudo-class, you should also use the :focus-pseudo class (using the same style). This will give users who use the tab key to navigate through links on your web site the same visual cue as to which link they are on, as those who use the mouse. I'll definitely be implementing this in my future web site designs.

Lightroom 3

Adobe Lightroom is an awesome photo management application. When I purchased my first DSLR camera and started shooting all my images in RAW format, I needed something to manage and convert them. I tried the free UFRaw plugin for GIMP, as I had no budget. It was terrible. The color rendition was my biggest complaint.

I ended up upgrading to Photoshop CS3, which came with Camera Raw. This allowed me to manipulate the raw image properties and convert files to web friendly formats. When I went to Taiwan, I had to leave Photoshop behind, as my Mac is a desktop. I experimented with a bunch of programs by downloading the free trials. Lightroom far surpassed the competition. After receiving Lightroom 2 as a Christmas gift, I've been using it to manage and edit my entire photo collection. Last week Adobe released Lightroom 3. I have been reading about the new features and have been generally unimpressed. They have added a few new things, but not enough, in my opinion, to be worthy of an upgrade. I just watched a video on some of the new features. The automatic, customizable lens correction looks the most interesting to me. But is it worth the $100 price tag? I'm not convinced. At some point, I'll download the trial and give it a try.

Double Dipping

Many forms of media are made available to consumers in one of two ways: either you pay for the content or you are exposed to advertisements. It's sort of an unwritten agreement between content providers and consumers. Cable TV companies (and others) have not conformed to this model and I really don't understand why people put up with it. In my opinion, they should either make the service free or remove the ads. They are essentially double dipping - getting paid by both their subscribers and their advertisers.

The proposed changes to the way ISPs can operate sounds a lot like this same double dipping action. They get paid by subscribers and, in this case, content providers. The subscribers get screwed by having their access to many sites slowed or blocked, yet I highly doubt there will be a lower price tag for this inferior service.

As long as I've had a relationship with Comcast, I've hated the company. Thinking about what they are planning to do irritates me even more.