Surf Free or DIE!!

Its Sunday, December 26, 2010, I have Batman underwear, I'm wearing it right now, and this is The Side. Christmas has come and gone and my kids still haven't opened up all their presents. Spoiled little things. Really though, its an effort by myself and the Missus to maintain a little order in the house. If they opened everything at once we fear we would lose them and the floor in a sea of wrapping paper. Not sure if the rest will get opened today as its snowing quite steadily today and they'll likely want to be out playing in it.

As for what I got for Christmas aside from Batman undies. Dad came home from the hospital yesterday. That's all I wanted.

SAVE TEH INTARWUB!!!

When I agree with Al Franken on something its time to pay attention. What am I agreeing with him about? Net neutrality. This is what keeps the internet free and open. For those of you that are confused by this thinking "but I pay for internet service, it isn't free", here is a video from Phillip Defranco explaining it.



Still confused about Net Neutrality? No problem. Check this out. Everyone on the same page now? Let's move on.

The great thing about the internet is that its a pretty level playing field for talent and ideas. You can put a ton of money into a website, and that'll float you for a while, but if you don't have damn good content you will eventually sink. Inversely, if you don't have a lot of funds but you've got something worth clicking on and half a brain as to networking online, you will get people viewing your stuff. For example, I don't pay anything to do this blog aside from paying for internet connection and purchasing whatever stuff I review, with a few exceptions. I do not pay to advertise to send people to this blog. I link to it on Twitter and Google Buzz. I've gotten over 2000 page views this month, a new record for me. Someone else could be paying for internet connection, paying for a domain, may be paying a webmaster, and also be paying to advertise his site. He might be paying all of that and not get as many page views as this blog.

But let's say companies decide you should pay a fee to look at things on Blogger which hosts this mess I post up thrice weekly. Currently you only pay a connection fee to get online and you can read it absolutely free. What if it cost a quarter to come on over here and read this? The quarter doesn't go to me, who produces and compiles the content. It goes to your internet service provider who is the one who set the price. What do I get? Less views, and that's it. Because they'll obviously charge less money to go to bigger sites and why pay a quarter three times a week when you need nickels to go to YouTube or Facebook. It adds up. I certainly can't afford to pay up a nickel every time I'm on here, so The Side would be retired.

The federal government has passed legislation to protect net neutrality, but its pretty vague. There's lots of wiggle room for companies to get around. This is important for the future of the internet. Freedom requires vigilance. That's includes internet freedom. Contact your representatives. Make your voice heard.

MUSIC!!

And if net neutrality went away you might end up having to pay and extra fee to see stuff like this. It would be worth the fee, but I'm still not changing my position.



Thus endth the post. I'm going to go grab the flamethrower and clear the walk. Stoopid snow. They really need to stop having those Global Warming/Climate Change conferences in winter. Every time they do, it snows like a sum'bitch. Ah well. See y'all Wednesday.