I’m sure many of the geeks out here know about this Net Neutrality thing thats going on right now, but for those who dont, heres the beef.
Some time last year the CEO of AT&T asked the world why the internet should be allowed to use their pipes ( Cables transmitting the data) for free, this sent shockwaves through the internet. Internet service providers would like to be able to charge Web sites for access to their customers, while web sites that could not pay the new fees would be accessible at a slower speed, or perhaps not be accessible at all.

This tiered system provides a number of threats as service providers could, for example, shut out Web sites whose politics

Just a short one today (ben)

A clever combination of the Google Maps interface with a Wiki backend, ive added some cardiff spots including some of our department. Looks like a neat idea, hope they fix the functionality so u can rotate the blocks around areas and suchlike.

wikimapia.org

I dont know how many geeks around will have seen this, and ignoring bens continual rants about my posting lots of mini blogs about different things, heres a neat clip from a Windows 98 Conference, the guys talking about the wonderful new feature of Plug and Play avaliable to all the users of Windoze 98… Brilliant Simple, Opulent Beauty (or BSOD).

In other news, heres a funny clip set of G Bush bloopers

A fabulously sarcastic calculation on the losses the RIAA acheive after a single month of torrent users downloading music. The figures are taken from the $150,000 per infringment maximum allowed by the Copyright laws in the US, which incidentally are the same numbers the RIAA are using to sue XM Satellite Radio for each song their subscribers have recoreded to their Inno Player

Such sillyness always amuses, especially as this guy wrote a Java app to trawl Pirate Bay for the torrents of music in the month of Jan

“We have all heard how the RIAA is suing people over piracy, giving figures such as “300 million dollars a year” in

Google Labs have created what appears to be a clever little set o’ widgets.
Its now possible to write an AJAX enabled website using Java as its base language, which then gets translated into HTML, and Javascript. Creating a neat way of developing ajax sites without the headaches of browser quirks and odd effects.
The Kitchen Sink demonstrates all the widgets avaliable to the user, and its darn impressive, the source code is avaliable here.
I cant play with this at the moment due to exams, but its compatabilty with Eclipse is handy for me personally, but its not IDE focused. While it may not provide all the functionality you want from an AJAX site

Mr Gates is set to build himself a dream factory, one that when running will produce 35m gallons of liquor annually.

The lucky folks of Boardman, on the Columbia river, will play host to Bill’s boozy dream factory when it opens its doors toward the end of this year.

Sadly, the factory will not be a kind of alcohol-themed Willy Wonka’s, complete with lumpy rivers of advocaat and private army of caterwauling drunken dwarves. But instead, will produce fuel-grade ethanol on an industrial scale. Gates owns a quarter stake in Pacific Ethanol, which is behind the plant. The firm aims at a land-grab in the burgeoning west coast market for renewables by fermenting sweetcorn. Makes me wonder what

Found this on my merry travels around the interweb, a rather superb example of innovative guitar styles. Just shows that the traditional methods of doing things are all well and good but sometimes a little creativty goes along way.

“Hannes Coetzee is an aloe tapper and self-taught musician from Herbertsdale in the Klein Karoo. He plays traditional and original compositions using a teaspoon in his mouth to slide the melody on his guitar. The only known practioner of this style, he is able to play the melody and the accompanying chords at the same time creating the sound of two guitars with one.”

Words cannot express my opinion of the US, however, this guy does a very good job of the whole thing, making “Hail to the Cheif”, a popular american style tune thing, into a series of Hand Farts The current government should listen to this and take it to heart.
You sir, are indeed the cheif.

BoingBoing reports that Scientology is opening a “Super Power” training center in Clearwater, Florida. The Center will teach cult members who pay out how to enhance their powers of perception by using training techniques supposedly invented by founder and mediocre sci-fi hack L Ron Hubbard.

“Super Power uses machines, apparatus and specially designed rooms to exercise and enhance a person’s so-called perceptics. Those machines include an antigravity simulator and a gyroscope-like apparatus that spins a person around while blindfolded to improve perception of compass direction, said the former Scientologists…

Scientologist Ron Pollack, who donated $5-million to the Super Power fund after making millions in hedge funds

3 seconds past the second minute of the first hour, on Thursday the 4th day of May, Two thousand and Six.
Doesnt look that good does it?
how about like this:
01:02:03 04/05/06
doesnt happen every day… well, not quite like that anyway