Network Neutrality

Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss our favorite topic: network neutrality. In the news, AOL, Nullsoft, and VLC are in the news, people complain about Twitter for the wrong reasons, and e-readers are getting surprisingly cheaper.
Show Notes
Geeknights 20100621 - Network Neutrality Expanded Show Notes - Show Run Time: 01:04:31 Time | Notes ---------+---------------------------------------------------------- 00:00:00 | Intro 00:00:24 | Opening Chit-Chat | - It's the first day of summer! | - Time Zones | - Warm today. Warm yesterday. Even warmer today. | - Every in-joke ever | - Rym is attending the SIFMA Expo this week 00:06:14 | News | = E-readers in the news | - Price drop on the Nook e-reader - now $150 for the Wi-Fi only version | - No word yet from Amazon on their price | - Used books versus new books versus e-books | - Rym's last used book smelled of lox (Mmmmm, bagels and lox...) | - Value analysis of an e-reader versus an iPad | - The book reading experience (Scott needs that "book smell") | - Tangent on Collectible Card Games and their variants 00:13:38 | = Twitter in the news | - Utah Attorney General tweets the kill order for death row prisoner | - Internet in an uproar, but it's not really that newsworthy | - People don't respect new media | - Engineers don't like Twitter | - Too many people don't get how Twitter works 00:21:13 | = VLC in the news | - AOL has forced VLC to remove Shoutcast support from their video/audio player | - But does anybody out there really care? | - Shoutcast license not compatible with GPL license (and is almost anti-GPL) | - Licensing discussion - MIT/BSD vs. GPL | - VLC would have to bundle adware to keep Shoutcast 00:25:59 | Things of the Day | - Scott - Pi is wrong? (Two Pi or not Two Pi, that is the question...) | - Rym - Something Fantasy (or, Poor Typography Choices) 00:29:59 | Meta Moment | - ConnectiCon 2010 is July 9-11 | - Book Club: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch | - Pax Prime is September 3-5 (Labor Day Weekend) | - Geeknights is broadcast on Ustream (when we remember to turn the camera on) | - Be sure to check out the website and forums at www.frontrowcrew.com! 00:31:53 | Main Topic - Network Neutrality | - Geeknights hasn't done a whole show on Net Neutrality before, but it has had mentions | - Only tech professionals seem to properly understand it AND care about it | - It doesn't say anywhere that networks have to remain neutral... BUT IT SHOULD! | - There is no overall law governing the internet | - The government could regulate the whole mess, but that means no more "wild west" | - Most of the internet should be unregulated | - Evil Companies and How much evil are you willing to put up with? | - The law can't keep up with the speed of the internet | - Professional Opinion Time: We need Network Neutrality, not Internet Neutrality | - The base of the network should not be aware of the content residing on it | - ISPs started getting snarky about who could send traffic across their networks | - Analogy of how the internet works in comparison to hitch-hiking | - We need a completely open, dumb baseline infrastructure | - Discussion of Regulation of ISPs | - Discussion of the real motivation behind the death of Napster, et al. | - Discussion of "Why pirate now when you can get legal media for free?" | - Discussion of Bandwidth Caps, Metering, and Reasonable Rates | - The world where people have more bandwidth is the world where content providers can cut out the middleman | - Data transport at the last mile and at the high ISP level should be data-agnostic | - The Last-Mile providers should not be able to have content production capability | - The ISPs should essentially be a utility | - The problem with a la carte pricing in relation to net neutrality | - Discussion of TV Production Houses, Advertisers, and other vested interests | - The internet destroys all middlemen - only service/utility providers will remain 01:03:35 | Outro
