Once Barack Obama took office the WhiteHouse.gov site changed dramatically. This is truly the first technology driven president. I was looking around and came across the Technology Agenda page and was please to see the bit regarding network neutrality.
Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets
* Protect the Openness of the Internet: Support the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.
* Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership: Encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum.
* Protect Our Children While Preserving the First Amendment: Give parents the tools and information they need to control what their children see on television and the Internet in ways fully consistent with the First Amendment. Support tough penalties, increase enforcement resources and forensic tools for law enforcement, and encourage collaboration between law enforcement and the private sector to identify and prosecute people who try to exploit children online.
* Safeguard our Right to Privacy: Strengthen privacy protections for the digital age and harness the power of technology to hold government and business accountable for violations of personal privacy.
via Technology.
Tags: I was flipping through my Newsweek and came across this article. The full read is astonishing.
Some ships have started putting armed guards on their vessels. Others have used weapons such as sonic guns, which use beams of loud noise to deter pirates. Does any of that worry you?
It will not protect them. We also have rocket-propelled grenades and we can destroy them. For those with the sonic guns, we hijacked some of them even after they fired the sonic guns. Truly speaking, when we go to sea we are drunk, and we are like hungry wolves running after meat. We don’t even know what we are doing until we have boarded.
via Q&A: Somali Pirate Explains How To Steal Ships | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com
Christmas went well. There were lots of gifts exchanged, lots of food eaten, and lots of yelling because the dogs were near. Yes, Drake had a fit in Wisconsin with the dogs. However, as the weekend went on he got more comfortable with them.
New Years Eve was nice. The Grand Rapids Griffins game was fun. The team had nice black jerseys on. I know there are a lot of teams that have black third jerseys that people don’t like, but I do. One this is that if they were to wear these black jerseys on a regular basis they will need to get black helmets. The Griffins normal helmets are a dark blue, but they still looked good with the black. We did not stay for the indoor fireworks, Drake was tired and I wanted to get over to Brooke’s place.
Drake went home with Grandma and Grandpa, and Theresa and I went to Brooke and Rob’s apartment. My other sister Megan and Brooke’s friend Katie was there as well. Nothing too fancy, we just played some Apples to Apples and watched Dick Clark stumble through the night. I think it was about 2am when Theresa and I made it home.
New Year Day was Christmas all over again. We had waited to have Christmas for my immediate family until then for a number of reasons. One thing that worked out well was that the Winter Classic II was on NBC. We opened more presents and watched the Red Wings win over the Blackhawks in classic fashion. It seems strange that last season Detroit could not beat Chicago.
After the game I helped Eric change the serpentine belt on Theresa’s Alero. Funny thing, you have to take off a motor mount to get the belt off and on. It didn’t take too long to do, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it by myself.
On our way home we stopped by Theresa’s sisters house to say hi and check on our niece. She had swallowed something earlier in the day and made a hospital visit. She’s fine now, but she still has not passed whatever she ingested.
Once we got home we made a Best Buy run. I had accumulated enough gift card money to purchase an Asus Eee PC 1000H for $5.99. My mom had picked one up a few days ago and I didn’t think about it when she bought it, but there is no dial modem in these. My mom’s house currently only has dial up internet, so now she is waiting for a usb modem to be delivered. They are thinking about getting a connection card from Sprint for their internet, which might even save them money if they were to drop their land line. The only problem with that is they would lose the phone number that I grew up with, and is the only number of theirs that I can remember off the top of my head.
Moving on… the Eee PC that I bought does not have the new fancy Atom processor in it. In fact it only has a 900mhz processor in it. That has yet to bother me though. There is 1GB of ram in the little thing which helps. The real test is going to be installing the Sling player. If It can handle that then I’m all set. I don’t plan on doing anything more intensive then that on the little guy. Surfing the web, checking the email, playing Pogo.com, and watching TV via Sling, that about it.
The software success come in the form of getting the HP On-Screen Cap/Num/Scroll Lock Indicator software 
extracted from my computer at work so I can put it on my Eee PC. There is no light or on screen notification for caps lock on the Eee PC, which bugs me. I set a router password in reverse case because I didn’t know the caps lock key was on. This program will help out tremendously. The other thing I did was remap the up arrow and right shift key. I made them trade places because my right pinky kept hitting up when I wanted shift.
Christmas has come a little early to my TV. My TiVo announced a lineup change last night and this morning I was able to confirm the following new HD channels:
186 Biography HD
210 Planet Green HD
214 Fox News HD
221 Lifetime Movie Network HD
223 Speed HD
224 FX HD
225 E! HD
227 Cartoon Network HD
Hey I even got a mention on Engadget HD.
Listen, we all know that pirating any copyrighted piece of entertainment is technically stealing. Just like online pornography is technically cheating on your wife and doing 75 MPH in a 65 zone is technically putting other people’s lives in danger.
The problem is that none of those things feel illegal, at least not in the same way punching a puppy does. If you see someone punching a puppy, you feel compelled to do something about it; if you see someone downloading a TV show, you feel compelled to make popcorn. No amount of clever PSAs is ever going to change that.
