Ironic Title

Canadians Organizing a Rally For Net Neutrality

defrex — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:29:23 +0000

taylortbb writes “Canadians are fighting back against Bell Canada’s traffic shaping (recentlly discussed by Slashdot here and here) by organizing a rally in support of network neutrality. The rally is being backed by a long list of organizations including Google, two major political parties, three ISPs, and two major unions. It’s set for Tuesday at 11:30am on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The only question that remains is, will the government listen?”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bell Canada Launches Its Own Online Video Store

defrex — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:29:22 +0000

rsax writes “Bell Canada recently announced that it is launching a downloadable video store just as it is caught up in a government inquiry into its traffic-shaping practices. Some consider this a conflict of interest since several content providers were in the process of distributing TV shows using P2P technology before the Bell throttling issue started getting media coverage. Bell’s FAQ states that it is not available for Mac users right now (and not Linux either of course) because they are using Windows Media DRM. They do, however, invite feedback on their site.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

QGtkStyle makes KDE apps fit in with GNOME

defrex — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:45:07 +0000

A Trolltech developer has implemented a new Qt style that uses the GTK+ theming API. It will enable Qt and KDE applications to share the GNOME look and feel when used in the GNOME desktop environment.

Geohashing

defrex — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:45:07 +0000

Summer seems to have arrived, at last.

As you may have noticed, today’s comic contains an algorithm for converting dates into local coordinates. For a given day, you can calculate what that day’s coordinate is for your region. Dan has put together a tool for calculating a day’s coordinates and show it using Google Maps. Note that you can’t calculate a day’s coordinates before the stock market opens on that day (about 9:00 EST) — except for weekends and holidays, when it uses the most recent opening price.

We’ve been having fun trying to reach these coordinates for some time now, when the coordinate is reachable — that is, when it’s not over water, in a military base, or in the middle of Bill Gates’s house.

If you happen to be looking for somewhere to go, driving to the coordinates can be an adventure. If you do, please take pictures and drop them on the geohashing wiki (feel free to help fill it out). I’m gonna get some rest and then, at 10 AM tomorrow, see if I can get to the Boston coordinates (I have no way of knowing where they’ll be until then, of course).

And finally, when the coordinates are reachable, meetups are Saturday afternoon at 4:00.

Edit: I answered a bunch of questions in a comment below. Further discussion is also happening on the wiki. I’m going to get some sleep and then head out to today’s coordinates (or as close as I can get).

GPS Cyborg Implant

defrex — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:45:07 +0000

Last week, I wrote a short Python script that uses a USB GPS device under Linux to help with navigation. It doesn’t have maps or anything — it just gives distances and, while you’re moving, the direction to the destination (as in “two o’clock”). It prints this info on the terminal and speaks it using speech synthesis.

I joked about this in Comic #407, but it’s actually a pretty practical way to get around. Just knowing what direction something’s in is a huge step toward finding it. This past week I’ve used it successfully to find my way around towns I don’t know, and we even used it while driving to navigate to an out-of-town destination.

Plus, there’s the bonus that when you’re walking, wearing an earpiece, laptop in the bag, listening to the computerized voice whisper “TARGET DIRECTION THREE O’CLOCK DISTANCE ONE POINT THREE KILOMETERS ETA FIFTEEN MINUTES” into your ear, you feel like a cyborg. I’ll have to set it up with a female voice and rename it “jane.py”.

Edit: I’ve just been testing the recent changes to this script, and it’s really not in a condition where I should be posting it anywhere. But if you can use it as a starting point for hacking, here’s the link. Some of you might find it useful sometime soon.

Canadian ISP Ordered to Prove Traffic-Shaping is Needed

defrex — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:45:07 +0000

Sepiraph writes “In a letter sent to the Canadian Association of Internet Providers and Bell Canada on May 15, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) have ordered Bell Canada to provide tangible evidence that its broadband networks are congested to justify the company’s Internet traffic-shaping policies. This is a response after Bell planned to tackle the issue of traffic shaping, also called throttling, on the company’s broadband networks. It would be interesting to see Bell’s response, as well as to see some real-world actual numbers and compare them to a previous study.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

2008 Google Summer of Code Highlights

defrex — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:45:07 +0000

andrewmin writes “SoC 2008 has begun, and with 175 organizations and 1125 students it looks better than ever before. Here’s a quick run-down of a few programs that, if they are finished, will definitely be making their way onto your machine.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Firefox 3 RC1 Out Now

defrex — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:45:07 +0000

Jay writes "Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is out now. If yours didn't auto-update, then get it while it's hot! The release came a bit early, with Computer World noting: 'As recently as last Saturday, Mozilla's chief engineer said that although the company had locked down RC1's code, it was planning to publicly launch the build in "late May."'" My copy just downloaded — restarting after I save this story. God I hope it's better than the last beta.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CRTC Sets Timeline for Throttling Case

defrex — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:45:06 +0000

The CRTC this morning issued its promised plan for addressing the substantive issues raised by the CAIP complaint over Bell's throttling practices. The plan has an aggressive timeline with all submissions in by June 26th and a decision promised within 90 days. Bell and CAIP have been asked to respond to a series of questions, with the CRTC giving Bell two weeks to provide much more detail on its network congestion claims and its network management practices. Interested parties - ie. the public and other businesses - will have the chance to file comments by June 12, 2008. Combined with the new media discussion document slated to be released later today, CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein wasn't kidding when he told an industry conference in a speech earlier this month that the throttling issue "will have wide-ranging consequences and will lead to a much wider debate. This will undoubtedly occupy much of our time this year."

TOXIC - Garbage Island - Part 1 of 12 - VBS.TV

defrex — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:52:07 +0000