RU-FI-OOOOOH!

Yesterday, Arstechnica reported that Bell Canada had started throttling P2P traffic not only across its own network, but even on the services being resold or redistributed by other DSL ISPs.

Throttling and other anti-P2P practises appear to gaining prevelance amongst the Canadian ISPs for some reason. Meanwhile, south of the border, the American public is in an uproar over the anti-P2P practices of Rogers‘ counterpart, Comcast. All the while, Rogers has been engaging in anti-P2P practices — in fact, anti-net neutrality practices — far worse than what Comcast has been charged with; while Comcast may be resetting P2P connections at certain times of the day or in certain areas, Rogers throttles ALL encrypted traffic wholesale.

My question is, why aren’t Canadians as concerned about Net censorship and the impaired quality of broadband offerings here? American ISPs can hardly get away with anything without Congressional hearings being arranged, and up here Rogers is making a complete mockery of the concept of net neutrality.

Canadians, it’s time to wake up and hold the telecom giants’ feet to the fire.

Someone please tell me where I can sign up to express my anger, and hopefully in a manner that might drive legislative change barring what Rogers, and now Bell, are up to. I’m angry, dangnabbit!

(Via digg)

Oh my Lord.

Yep, the age of robotic companionship is upon us.  Given advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and not to mention expanded definitions of marriage, it seems inevitable.

Robot spouses are hardly going to become the norm — indeed they remain an anomaly at the moment (unless you know something I don’t!) — but I can certainly see the allure for a certain category of people.  Perhaps those who may find it difficult to relate to other people, or find the prospect of real human relationships too risky.

Frankly, I’m somewhat disturbed by Zoltan’s story.  It speaks to me of someone who finds real emotional contact with a human being too difficult.  As well, this is damning indictment of society at large in that we’ve been unable to help those who are emotionally repressed or fragile.

I’m sure there are those that would readily disagree with my opinion here.  After all, why shouldn’t everyone be able to do what they want and what they’re comfortable with?

I have to think that human beings gain the most satisfaction from accomplishment, and especially emotional accomplishment.  There is nothing more emotionally satisfying than a fantastic relationship, and especially with one’s spouse.

I’m sure this is going to become a more contentious and fascinating issue as technology advances, so feel free to sound off in the comments with your own opinion.

(Via digg)

Over at ReadWriteWeb, Josh Catone comments that internet fandom is not ready for primetime.  This commentary follows the news that the CBS TV series Jericho was cancelled again.

Josh asks:

What do you think? Are there any other reasons why strong online numbers haven’t translated well to the TV? Do you think Internet fandom will ever be ready for primetime?

In the comments, David Dworsky replies with an excellent statement.  He essentially asks when the differentiation made between TV and the Internet will cease.

I actually wholeheartedly agree with David.  As an example, I barely watch TV shows on my television anymore.  In fact, for the last few years, I’ve not even had a television, preferring to either watch shows with the TV tuner on my computer, or better yet, preferring to download the TV shows so that I could watch them at my leisure.

This is hardly a new concept to this Internet generation, but people are more and more expecting to be able to consume media on the devices of their choosing, at the time of their choosing, and via the medium of their choosing.

I believe this fact has really impressed upon on the TV industry.

Unfortunately, the industry still relies on old-world metrics that appear to have dealt Jericho a fatal blow.  It’s really too bad since the show is genuinely entertaining, and obviously has a large following.

My hope is that Jericho is only the first of such shows, and that eventually shows with large online followings are realized to be as worthy of investment as major network shows like Lost or House.   In fact I’d like to see us more rapidly advance to a point of being medium-agnostic when it comes to content distribution and consumption.