Tag: technology

Net Neutrality Or Die

by rhealitycheck

Ok maybe that’s a little extreme… However, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt this passionately about something that is going on in the world. I truly believe Net Neutrality is a right that the public should have. So what is Net Neutrality? It is the belief that all content on the internet should be given the same credence (aka bandwidth) and people should be able to choose what content they want to see without any impediments (like limiting bandwidth for less popular sites).

There’s actually a really great video from Endgaget where they interview Tim Wu, who explains why Net Neutrality is so important and what has gone on recently. I recommend everyone watch it. So much so that I’m going to make it easy for you and embed it here.

As an American I take pride in the freedoms that we have but it worries me that these freedoms are being lost as corporations control more and more of our political process. Part of what makes the internet so great is that you can get anywhere and find even the smallest of blogs if you just search hard enough. Though the video above really describes this is in the mobile broadband space, what happens when we take one step in that direction. Why wouldn’t the telecom companies that provide business and home internet service not want to follow in mobile carriers footsteps and start limiting access from computers as well? I think this is the next big thing in technology that we really do need to fight for our rights. It may not seem like much now but it could change the whole internet tomorrow.

Her Favorite Color is Chrome

by rhealitycheck

Yes, I did steal my title from a country song and no this post is not about cars or trucks or well anything “physical” for that matter. This is about Google’s new browser Chrome. I was extremely excited to check it out and start playing around with it. Unfortunately you can’t download it if your company has a firewall. Now you would think that a company like Google could have made an installer package that didn’t rely completely on the internet and could install without getting information over the network. So that in and of itself is disappointing. But also, I’ve been hearing some not so great things, like a friend has been playing with it for a little over a day now and he said that he can’t get any pages to load and that he keeps getting their version of 404 which is “Aw, snap”. I think that’s pretty sad too and just reading a few reviews the fact that you have to find workarounds already for just normal browsing is a bit disappointing. Not to mention the security breeches that I’ve seen rumor of. I am still excited to download it at home and at least futz around a little bit but I am hoping that my experience will be better than what I have been hearing so far. I suppose we’ll see, I mean I’d like to say my favorite color is chrome but currently, I’m a bit hesitant to even spend any significant time and energy on it (both of which I am short of these days).