And now… a word on Usage Based Billing.

Let’s get something out of the way first, shall we?

Internet service is NOT like a utility service such as electricity or natural gas – and therefore can not be billed in the same fashion, nor should it be.

When your local utility service provider runs a meter on your electricity consumption or how much natural gas you use to heat your home, they do that for a very specific reason: it’s costs money to generate that electricity via power dams, windmill farms, solar power arrays, etcetera… and it costs money to develop that natural gas from the sources deep in the earth – you have to pay people to run the drills, process the elements, sail the natural gas tankers, or build the pipelines.

Now… I’m not saying that it doesn’t cost money to string wires and buy network switches – but in no way, shape, or form does it cost anything near what it costs to develop utility services.

In Canada, the largest internet service providers are trying to implement a “usage based billing” scheme upon their subscribers in the same way that you’d be billed for leaving your lights on at home all the time – except with the difference being that you’d have a flat rate up to a certain gigabyte level that you’ve agreed to in a package deal… and then, when you’ve passed that level – let’s say 60 gigabytes, you’d have to pay a steep overage charge of between $1 and $5 per GB.

The things that you should keep in mind going forward is that – according to network specialists that don’t represent Bell, Rogers, or Shaw – it costs anywhere between 0.0013 and 1.15 cents to send one gigabyte of data through Canada’s internet infrastructure – which is nowhere near the 100% to 500% markup that the large ISPs are demanding.

These ISPs had hoodwinked the Canadian Radio And Telecommunications Commission (the equivalent of the F.C.C. in the United States Of America) into agreeing to allowing these companies to charge their own customers these exorbitant fees PLUS forcing independent internet service providers (who purchase their internet backbone access wholesale from Bell Canada et al) to pass on UBB charges to their own customers as of the beginning of March 2011.

This would, in effect, remove all of the unlimited internet use packages available to subscribers of the smaller ISPs – which was, and has always been their major advantage in attracting internet customers away from the major ISPs who tend to offer firmly defined data caps (60GB, 125GB, 200GB, etc.).

By forcing the little guys to bill the same way that the big guys do, the CRTC had completely leveled the playing field – save for those few independent ISPs who had their own internet equipment that did not rely on Bell.

In Bell’s own words as they appeared before the government panel investigating UBB on February 10th, 2011: “…it (UBB) prevents them (independent ISPs) from differentiating their offers from our own.”

Gone would be the all you can eat internet buffet for $50… which an independent ISP could offer to attract new customers, which I’m sure pissed Bell Canada and it’s corporate allies off to no end because their corporate culture was based around screwing their customers any way they could through oppressive overage schemes.

In today’s world of ever-growing data bandwidth, a gigabyte doesn’t go as far as it did in days gone by… even in as little as five years ago.

In 2011, internet users have so many choices available to them online that are fairly data intensive: YouTube, Flickr, streaming Quicktime, Steam, and services like Netflix.

Even those people who like to haunt Facebook and Twitter are pulling down large chunks of data when playing Farmville or watching videos of their nephew’s little league game.

Bell Canada, Rogers Communications, Shaw Media, and the other large ISPs are entitled to make money… nobody is suggesting that they should give away internet service for free.

What has caused nearly half a million people to sign a petition, and what most people would agree to when asked on the street, is that the large ISPs should collect fees that reflect the actual costs of doing business – to have their billing practices be strongly rooted in reality.

Yes… there are an increasing number of Canadians using more than 200GB a month, but the problem is that Bell Canada and it’s friends don’t want to spend the money necessary to bolster their national infrastructure to accommodate this rising tide – and instead of doing the logical thing (building new and better data transmission networks), they want to stifle those 200GB+ users though harsh tariffs.

This is purely greed – nothing else.

The UBB pressure is aimed at maximizing profit.

Profit is good, yes… but obscene amounts of profit is simply evil – and the Canadian public is beginning to rise up against this unparalleled cash grab that isn’t replicated anywhere else in the world.

In a word, it’s uncompetitive – but that makes it too simple.

There are so many businesses in the Canadian marketplace that depend on a reliable, uninterrupted, and unlimited internet for everyone.

Do you think that places like internet cafes could remain in business if they’re forced to pay for their customer’s overages? I mean… I’m sure that you can’t offer internet to everybody who walks through the door and not blaze past 200GB in a month with little effort.

How about your local municipal library? Quite a few of them offer free internet access to their patrons… but would that concept still be viable when the library is being charged $5 for every gigabyte?

Don’t kid yourself: city hall would put a quick stop to that in very short order.

However, the biggest problem with UBB from an internet business standpoint – at least for those businesses that aren’t Bell & Co. – is that the UBB policy unfairly discriminates against companies like Netflix and YouTube that rely on their customers/visitors to be able to consume all the data they can put in front of their eyeballs.

This comes in direct competition to Bell & Co.’s own Media On Demand services – which generally have less content available than Netflix-type services – and results in lost revenue for the large ISPs.

So, again, instead of spending money to bolster their Media On Demand services, they want to quash those of you out their who would go to Netflix as a superior alternative by raping your wallets and bank accounts – forcing you to consume their paltry wares instead.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen such a clear-cut conflict of interest… such a blatant anti-competitive attack on consumers who dare to use anyone but the large ISPs and their various media holdings (CTV, Global Television, etc.).

Interestingly, the UBB provisions that the CRTC gave the okay to, are now in limbo as the federal government had told the CRTC to reconsider or be overruled point blank at the legislative level.

I say interesting because the Conservative Party Of Canada – the current party in power – is very, very friendly with Big Business.

To take a stand against the Big ISP lobby is contrary to party beliefs, and can only be interpreted as being responsive to public uproar – and a deft move to head off the opposition parties from gaining a political foothold that’s rooted in popular unrest.

Yes… it may be snide electioneering, but for the time being, the Government Of Canada is on the side of their electorate instead of giving away everything to Big Business.

How long this lasts is anyone’s guess… but I’d wager it will last as long as the Conservatives winning the next federal election – which is going to be sooner than later, after which time they won’t feel as threatened by the average Canadian citizen who uses the internet.

So, for now, do your part in trying to prevent Big ISPs from getting away with murder.

How?

Write a letter to your local MP… write a letter to your local newspaper’s editor… make a video about your views and post it on YouTube… call into a local radio show and tell them – and all the listeners – how you feel about the large ISPs trying to sodomize your cash flow.

Or… simply visit www.openmedia.ca and take advantage of their resources.

But, don’t take my word for it.

Go online – while you can afford it – and see what the average Canadian internet user thinks of UBB.

Movie Blog: The Trailer For TRON 2

The first movie that featured heavy CGI way back in the early 80′s now has a sequel. Can you dig it?

Trailer is in HD, so use the Widescreen pop-out and select 720p from the control bar.

Things That I Don’t Understand… Vol. 2

So here again I go… down that smokey, crater-pocked, ranting road – bringing nonsense and jibber-jabber out into the bright sunlight where one would expect it to shrivel up and die like so many witches who have had houses dropped on them.

But no.

These items will go on, almost like a ballad by Celine Dion, and continue to curse society as a whole for God only knows how long.

Oh well…

On with the show!

ITEM NUMBER SEVEN

Violence perpetrated by young girls.

Where did this come from?

Back in the day, girls were supposed to be the fairer sex – not the one that will shank you with a pair of scissors for talking trash on Facebook.

What is the source of this simmering anger in today’s generations of teens? Who is causing this?

Is this a product of the generational battle for women’s equality?

Is it some bizarro manifestation of penis envy?

Have girls come to the realization that the only way that they can top their male classmates physically is to go bat-shit crazy at the drop of a hat in ways that most guys would never consider?

Young men are often perplexed because they don’t know how to react if a girl gets violent with them because – despite outward appearances – boys still adhere to the ages-old mantra that females are delicate and therefor not to be roughed up.

I say screw that!

Boys, if you’re reading this, fight back!

If a girl thinks her pants are big enough to take a swing at you, and it connects, feel free to slug her back.

Equality for women works both ways – not just the positive things like bigger paychecks.

It means equal treatment, and equal treatment means that they can get a whole hearted return on all their actions – they should be perfectly ready to take any bruises that they have coming to them as a result of things they’ve done.

Call me a brutish caveman if you like, but fair is fair.

ITEM NUMBER EIGHT

12 year old girls that have cleavage that would put Barbie to shame.

Twenty-two years ago, when I was 12 years old, my female peers were flat as a lumpy board for the most part.

What is the process behind this gender acceleration?

Is it the metric tonne of growth hormone that preteens have consumed by the time puberty rolls around through various foodstuffs?

Every piece of meat… every glass of  milk… every single item that we put in our mouths that came from an animal is loaded with growth hormones – drugs that are fed to cow, pigs, and chickens to speed up their maturation so that they can be slaughtered, be milked, or lay eggs faster and be more profitable.

Society in general sees sexual activity statistics of the very young and shake their heads without taking into account that little Krystina isn’t so little anymore and is giving J-Lo and Shakira a serious run for their money.

It’s a biological certainty – hardwired into human DNA – that once girls develop the equipment, they feel the need to employ it.

All they have to do is find a male who’s reached an equivalent state of sexual maturity – and I can only presume that the genders are on equal footing since they all eat the same food.

As Sherlock Holmes would say, it’s elementary.

If you parents want to put that sexual genie back in the bottle, demand that the food you buy is organic and not modified by big corporations for a faster buck.

Assuming that this trend hasn’t already bound itself it to our DNA, the 38DD 12 year olds should thin out over time.

ITEM NUMBER NINE

Virtual copies that you never actually own.

There’s a push amongst the tech savvy to get rid of hard copies of DVDs/Blu-Ray discs/CDs in favor of virtual copies that you purchase online from Amazon or iTunes that will ‘always be there’ for you to stream whenever you feel like it.

How does this even make sense?

Do you not understand how fragile corporations are?

What happens to that $20 investment if the company you ‘purchased’ it from goes tits up?

Your movie, TV shows, music, or book will go bye-bye and you’ll have zero to show for your money.

This may seem like an odd argument coming from me – someone who likes to stay somewhere near the cutting edge of technology – but it’s firmly rooted in reality.

Have you ever experienced a service outage from an online business that you rely on?

YouTube is down for maintenance?

Getting the Fail Whale page over at Twitter?

Your internet service provider is having a bad day?

Your copy of Assassin’s Creed 2 isn’t working because Ubisoft’s  DRM servers are offline – making it so you can’t play the game you just paid $60 dollars for?

How is it even sane to trust an online company to keep your precious purchase for posterity?

Are you frakkin’ kidding me?

Hollywood, I demand that you keep pumping out hard copies of your entertainment products so that I can always access the media at any second of my life that I wish to enjoy it.

I take pride in looking at my shelf of DVDs, visually confirming at a glance that I spent my money wisely on things that I enjoy.

I don’t think that I have to explain the tactile joy of holding something that you just spent money on – a self-justification that you’re living a life that you that you’ve worked hard at.

Online digital copies are abstract thoughts – ephemeral by their very digital nature, nothing but a series of ones and zeroes residing on a server thousands of kilometers from where you live.

You don’t own it.

All you’ve done is paid someone for the privilege of maybe looking at that media item if all the various techno gods are smiling on you today.

Fuck that.

ITEM NUMBER TEN

Spending ridiculous amounts of money on your child’s first birthday party.

You do realize that 1 year old Bobby Junior is going to have zero recollection of the event, right?

I mean, other than the cute/embarrassing photos that you will take of his face covered in chocolate ice cream cake.

Exactly what are you trying to prove?

Do you think that the number of balloons, quality of the hired entertainment, and size of the cake and goody bags is somehow relevant to the amount that you love your child?

Is how much you love your offspring measured in dollars and cents?

Of course not – unless it is… in which case you really need to get yourself some therapy and perhaps give your child up for adoption.

No… the only reason you make such a big deal of his or her turning the ripe old age of 1 is so that you can stake out your position in the social hierarchy of your circle of friends and acquaintances – and not for any valid emotional experience between your and your child.

Let’s be honest here: the party is going to emotionally overwhelm little Bobby/Sally as they simply don’t yet have the faculties to process the information overload that’s on offer.

The parents that do go to these insane lengths wonder to themselves why their child – in more cases than not – is in a rotten mood and making such a fuss amongst all the faux revelry.

Do yourself a huge favor if you have a child who is going to complete their first year on this planet of ours: buy or make a cupcake and stick a candle in it – maybe even a sparkler if you want to go for some wow-factor.

Chances are that it’s going to be 1000% more of an genuine emotional bonding experience with your baby than the three-ring circus happening at the birthday party down the block.

And really… isn’t that what you want?

Apple Sucks. I’m Sorry If You’re Offended.

Ask any Apple product user out there in the wilds of the internet or – gasp! – in the real world what made them buy their Mac/iPod/iPhone, and you’ll almost invariably get the same answer: they’re innovative.

I suppose this could be held out to be true if you were a technological neophyte who knew little about the technology that’s inside their purchase.

The problem with that is this: there is a very large number of people in this world who actually know what the parts and software that comprises an Apple product does – thusly knowing the inherent limitations of the device.

This creates a problem for Steve Jobs, and it’s the number one reason why he moves heaven and earth in attempts to make Apple products look cool – to make them fashionable status symbols.

If it’s white & shiny, or black & shiny, people are more likely to gloss over (hahahah… so punny!) the nagging problems that they encounter over the lifetime of the product – which isn’t going to be more than 2 years in reality due to Apple releasing a newer version of the flashy technojewelery that they paid a ridiculously large sum of money for.

What’s that? The product was worth all the extra cash?

Again: technojewelry.

You buy these things to look fashionable, and not based on technological superiority.

Want to know something interesting? The average uncut diamond is worth about $10 when you factor in rarity and the processing of rock to extract it.

$10.

Now, yes, that’s in its uncut state and cutting is where the art is – and where most jewelers will justify the 2000% markup.

Does this sound familiar?

Have you ever done comparative shopping between a Mac and a PC?

Technologically, the systems aren’t any different – yet the prices are excessively separate.

Side by side, the two machines might be different in appearances, but they’re essentially the same under the hood.

All the parts involved are mostly made in the same factories by the same manufacturers to roughly the same standards – though the Mac parts might be lower powered when compared to the same PC part.

The internal guts of these two computers might be arranged slightly different – but let’s be honest: a lot of PC makers arrange their parts in different configurations while trying to get a leg up, yet they all run Windows.

However, when we go to look at the price tags on each machine, you have to do a double/triple/quadruple/quintuple look!

The PC will be priced at $799.

The Mac will be priced at $2,799 (or more: see here)

I’m sorry.

Say what?

You want me to pay $2,000 dollars extra for what is essentially the same machine?

Are you out of your freakin’ mind?

What’s that, Mr. Jobs? You want to make the same kind of money that HP, Dell, and Acer do in their PC divisions?

But you only have 5% of the world’s personal computer market! That’s madness!

Oh… wait… I see what you’re doing!

Jack up the price on every computer so that it LOOKS like you’re selling 3.5 units every time a single computer is purchased!

Genius!

Your accountants must love you!

When Apple is making 3.5 times the money per computer, it really looks like they command 17.5% of the computer market when you boil it down to dollars and cents (cents, not sense)…

…when the truth is nowhere near that.

I have to give Mr. Jobs credit, though.

It takes huge, gigantic brass balls to make a money play like that.

The fact that he gets $5 for every $100 spent on personal computing is really an accomplishment – but it’s nowhere enough for a publicly traded company that has shareholders looking for money to put in their pockets.

What was Mr. Jobs to do? How could he make more money for the people who had invested their hard-earned dollars in Apple stock?

Why… take the technojewelry concept to the next level!

Jewelry isn’t very practical if you can’t wear it on your body, is it?

Thus came the Apple iPod.

Contrary to what Apple would want you to believe, the iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player on the market, despite it’s current cultural ubiquitousness.

All Mr. Jobs did was pair together function (which was being done already by other companies) with form – which was something relatively revolutionary at the time.

People could walk around enjoying their music while feeling good about how swell the iPod looked and accessorized their lifestyle.

Apple even cared enough about their customers to make a web store to sell music directly to iPod users – because, honestly, buying a CD in a physical/real world music store was just too hard with all the track ripping and what not.

They’re even generous enough to only keep 35 cents of every 99 cents (the rest goes to the music industry), only leaving them $475,000 a day in profits!

But… that wasn’t enough money.

Shareholders screamed MOAR!

They money hungry stock owners saw that the MP3 player market was saturated with products that did everything the iPod did and more!

The Microsoft Zune plays HD video and the current generation iPod doesn’t.

Sansa players have voice recorders.

So on and so on.

Apple needed to up their game to find new revenue streams.

Steve Jobs said add a phone to the iPod and give it a touchscreen.

And behold, it was good.

Let’s add downloadable applications, he said.

And the Apple devotees rejoiced – spending $2.4 billion dollars a year on apps.

And things were good for a month or so – before competitors released phones that did everything an iPhone did plus a lot more.

Hell… the only thing the iPhone really brought to the cellphone market was the touchscreen – and that was very easily duplicated.

The iPhone was seriously lacking in certain areas as well, missing functions that other cell owners took for granted.

But… it was black & shiny! OMFG! More technojewelry!

Shareholders screamed MOAR!

They money hungry stock owners saw that the smartphone market was saturated with products that did everything the iPhone did and more!

So here we are now in the era of the iPad – and I won’t make a stale joke about feminine hygiene products.

In it’s most basic sense, the iPad is just a jumbo iPhone/iPod Touch – which as usual isn’t upgradeable, and the early adopters will curse it’s lack of Flash and/or Silverlight, among it’s dozen or so shortcomings.

It doesn’t bring anything new to the market, and I’m sure the stock owners are a bit puzzled since it will be VERY easy for a competitor to top the iPad with very little to no research & development costs.

Sure, there’s the App Store and another potential for $2.4 billion dollars in revenue a year – and maybe that’s enough for stock owners.

However, they really have to be glancing over in Google’s direction with a little bit of nervousness – and not just because of the price difference in stocks (at the time of my writing this blog, Apple was at $200 USD a share vs. Google’s $543), but because Google seems to be hell-bent on taking on both Microsoft AND Apple.

Have you ever seen a Google phone? One that either runs on Google software or is marketed directly to the masses by Google themselves?

Prime example is the Nexus One cellphone.

It does everything the iPhone does and more – and usually for less!

Wow. Do you have any idea how tedious it’s getting to write statements like that? Do you?

Anyway…

In the end, as hopefully you can see by now, is that Apple doesn’t offer the world anything that’s better than the competitors.

So why oh why do the Apple fanboy/fangirls of the world continue to scream at the tops of the lungs that ‘Apple is the best EVAR!’?

What is it that inspires such blind and almost unequivocal (see Linux fanboys) devotion?

Have I mentioned the white/black & shiny?

The technojewelry?

Oh… I have?

That’s the sum of it.

If that’s so, why is Justin Long still on TV poking fun of John Hodgman’s PC after what seems like 20 years?

Apple still feels insecure, that’s why.

And it’s a justified insecurity because someone in the Apple hierarchy has a level head on their shoulders and sees the truth of the matter i.e. that ultimately, Apple products are inferior.

Why that person hasn’t been fired personally by Steve Jobs is an incredulous miracle, but I think it has a lot to do with those stock holders.

Apple Computer nearly died a long slow death not very long ago, and shareholders would really rather that not happen again – thus the reality checker at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

As far as Apple’s computer line is considered, the fans will shout words like the afore-mentioned innovation, as well as words and concepts  like ‘easy to use’, and ‘virus free’.

Easy to use?

I suppose they are when you take into consideration that using OS X and its various iterations is sort of like taking the Windows experience, making it prettier (though Windows 7 is pretty gorgeous) and then dumbing it down so a kindergarten student can use it.

What’s that, Infuriated Mac Fanboy?

Windows Vista/7 ripped off OS X?

Truth of the matter is that Microsoft had been working on a visual update for Windows long before OS X hit the market, and there is reams of data to back that up readily available from the U.S. Justice Department if you know where to ask (data related to investigations into Microsoft’s anti-competitiveness).

However, I’ll let David Pogue deal with the Vista vs. OS X battle over here.

Finally, let’s address the ‘virus free’ banner that Mac fanboys/fangirls like to wrap themselves up in before facing the world.

Yes, there are very few viruses out on the interwebs that are specifically coded for Macintosh computers.

Is it because Apple computers are inherently bulletproof when it comes to malware written in someone’s basement by their no-good, Cheetos-eating, Red Bull-drinking miscreant of an offspring?

No.

Is it because it’s easier to write anti-virus code for a Mac?

Nope.

Is it because Steve Jobs flies around the internet and eats all the potential Mac virus bombs before they can be delivered!

Yes!

Oh wait… no… that’s not it at all.

The reason Mac users go their entire Apple product using lives without encountering a nasty virus that wants to corrupt their data or hijack their internet connections is this: 5%.

Five measly percentage points.

Why would virus writers – who depend on vast numbers of computers to distribute their ill-meaning wares to other vast numbers of computers – bother writing a virus that would only effect 5% of the computer ecosystem?

There’s no money or no glory in 5% of the world.

If you were walking down an alley and you saw a dollar with 5 pennies on top of it, which would you pick up? The dollar or the pennies?

I dunno about you, but I’m sure as hell taking the dollar – and that’s exactly the way virus writers see the internet…

…and that’s the exact reason why Macs are virus free.

They’re not popular enough.

If you’re a Mac user and reading this blog, take great comfort in your binary isolation.

But beware, Mac User: if Microsoft, Google, and Linux all suddenly disappear like you wish every night before falling asleep, guess who’s gonna be the most disease-ridden girl at the Internet Prom?

It sure as hell ain’t gonna be Sun Mircrosystems.