In the spring of 2008, I made my first attempt at blogging. The blog only lasted about 10 posts until I eventually lost interest. The site’s no longer up, but I have the wordpress database backed up, and I may decide to republish these early posts at some point.
This morning, I decided to read through the posts of my original blog, just to get an idea of what was going through my mind about a year and a half ago. A lot of these posts took place during the primaries and presidential election of 2008. It seems that the things that mattered most to me at the time were government transparency and net neutrality. It was a nice reminder of why I got behind President Obama, and what I really want to see happen during this presidential term. Of course, this was before the Lehman Leap, and priorities have changed. But regardless, here are a few excerpts:
From Time Warner Starts to Meter Internet Access – 2008-06-02 23:22:37:
Time Warner Cable announced plans to meter internet access in Texas today. Beginning Thursday, new subscribers in Beaumont, Texas will have a monthly data usage cap between 5 and 40GB. This plan will also have an overage charge of $1 per gigabyte of data usage beyond the set cap. Comcast, the largest cable company in the U.S., also has plans to implement metered internet access.
While I don’t disagree with the idea of metered bandwidth, per se, I find the business practices and potential first amendment infringements of major ISP’s infuriating. While corporate media has monopolized newspapers and television, the internet provides a medium for any user to contribute and voice their opinion. When a few large corporations monopolize the flow of information on a certain medium, that gatekeeper, aka Comcast or Time Warner Cable, can potentially inhibit or promote access to choice informants. The internet has a chance to succeed where older forms of media have failed, but Time Warner and Comcast’s recent actions can potentially threaten network neutrality.
From Obama – The Open Source Candidate – 2008-06-04 23:09:36:
The word, “change”, has been triumphed by Obama’s supporters and rendered meaningless by his opponents throughout his campaign. But “change” IS NOT just a buzzword. In recent years, America has fallen behind the rest of the world in the use of alternative fuels and in the area of mobile technology. Pharmaceutical companies and big oil companies continue to control policies through their lobbyists.
One of the main issues on which Obama is running is the transparency of government. Obama wants all pending bills and all meetings between congressmen and lobbyists to be publicly available and searchable. Obama embodies the same principles that people of the open-source community have defended for years, and this main reason why I’ve been a big supporter of his throughout his campaign.
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen the transparency promised in the second excerpt. But the administration is making a nice push for net neutrality. As much as I want to see health care reform, net neutrality might be the issue that matters most to me. It was nice to be reminded of that by reading through some of my old work.
A Personal Reminder of Where I Stand on Net Neutrality
In the spring of 2008, I made my first attempt at blogging. The blog only lasted about 10 posts until I eventually lost interest. The site’s no longer up, but I have the wordpress database backed up, and I may decide to republish these early posts at some point.
This morning, I decided to read through the posts of my original blog, just to get an idea of what was going through my mind about a year and a half ago. A lot of these posts took place during the primaries and presidential election of 2008. It seems that the things that mattered most to me at the time were government transparency and net neutrality. It was a nice reminder of why I got behind President Obama, and what I really want to see happen during this presidential term. Of course, this was before the Lehman Leap, and priorities have changed. But regardless, here are a few excerpts:
From Time Warner Starts to Meter Internet Access – 2008-06-02 23:22:37:
From Obama – The Open Source Candidate – 2008-06-04 23:09:36:
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen the transparency promised in the second excerpt. But the administration is making a nice push for net neutrality. As much as I want to see health care reform, net neutrality might be the issue that matters most to me. It was nice to be reminded of that by reading through some of my old work.