Tech at Night

It’s Friday evening, and mentally I’ve almost checked out for the weekend, but I still have a lot to get through here, so let’s get going before I zone out with some Horatio Hornblower (a series I’ll start on this weekend thanks to a neat site called Age of Sail).

One big story is that Amazon may be trying to broker a Net Neutrality compromise. Amazon is, like Google, an Internet firm that stands to benefit greatly if ISPs are pounded into the ground by the FCC. But, as Amazon’s Paul Misener points out, “there have been almost no Net neutrality violations.” So Misener suggests, to cram his full piece into a few words as best as I can, that Internet routing be allowed to be more flexible and yes, payment enhanced, as long as everyone gets a shot at it. Fairness does not demand a socialist leveling of everyone onto the lowest common denominator of service.

It’s good to see at least some Net Neutrality proponents understand the way the Internet works both as a business as well as a technology, and can cut through the socialist ideology to start proposing reasonable compromise. I hope to see more talk of this nature.

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Tech at Night

Good evening. Once again we see shoddy thinking from the FCC as they continue the push for the National Broadband Plan. Not all Americans have equal access to high speed Internet connections they complain, ignoring the fact that some Americans choose to live out in the middle of nowhere, and that choice comes with costs.

Chairman Julius Genachowski and the rest of his socialist team on the FCC don’t care, and just want to pass those costs onto the rest of us, it sounds like. Watch out as they try to declare a right to a good Internet connection, even if you’re off in the hills.

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Tech at Night

Uh oh, we’re getting close to midnight on the east coast, and Tech at Night for Monday still isn’t out! Time to hurry…

We start this week with the shutdown of Blogetry.com. I’ve been assured this is a very disturbing thing that should concern me greatly, but I’m not so sure. Look: when your free service has become a nest of sites conspiring to distribute copyrighted works, you should expect things like this.

Do your homework. Don’t be the failed state on the Internet. Don’t host your site on services that act that way, either.

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Tech at Night: FCC, Google, Texas

On July 16, 2010, in General, by Neil Stevens
Tech at Night

Tonight I will be brief. My wrist is begging I not type another word tonight, but I have a queue of things I don’t want to leave until Monday. So I will share them, but with less commentary than usual. Apologies from my wrist.

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Tech at Night: FCC, Indecency, Google, Free Press

On July 14, 2010, in General, by Neil Stevens
Tech at Night

Good evening. I’ll get started on tonight’s overview right away by taking a look at Free Press, and some new information pertaining to that neo-Marxist organization dug up by Big Government. Specifically, when co-founder Robert McChesney isn’t dreaming of a total government takeover of all the media in America, creating a “media reform” of single-payer, state-controlled news nationwide, he’s defending Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Why? Because Chavez has implemented “media reform,” of course.

That’s right, what Free Press wants for America is what Hugo Chavez has done in Venezuela. Ponder that the next time they tell you Net Neutrality is a harmless technical matter. And make sure to read the whole thing over there. Big Government really does do good work.

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Tech at Night: LMGTFY

On July 12, 2010, in General, by Neil Stevens
Tech at Night

On Friday, I was assured in the comments that Google didn’t actually want to gather any data, that it was purely accidental and not “a conspiracy.” Oops: Google is actually seeking even more Wifi data through the FCC.

Also, Darrell Issa isn’t letting the Andrew McLaughlin scandal die quietly, and Google’s need for insider Net Neutrality lobbying may become apparent in Tech at Night for Monday.

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Tech at Night: Google, National Security Agency

On July 9, 2010, in General, by Neil Stevens
Tech at Night

Good evening. We’re now off to a good start with this new Monday-Wednesday-Friday column, because this time I’m getting it published before midnight on both coasts.

So let’s get right to it. The two big stories I’m seeing are that Google’s Street View spying troubles are coming home to the US, and the NSA is apparently expanding its mission to protect US communications from foreign agents in a new and potentially troublesome direction.

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Tech at Night: Sunlight, Free Press

On July 7, 2010, in General, by Neil Stevens
Tech at Night

Welcome to Tech at Night. For a while now my second writing job at RedState* has been covering tech issues at night. Mostly it’s Internet issues these days, because that’s where the grabbing hands of the government have been grabbing all they can lately. But now I’m making it official, with a logo and a schedule. From now on I expect to be posting Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays late, but don’t hold it against me if occasionally I leak past midnight**, okay?

The basic goal of Tech at Night is to expose all the ways that the radical left wants to use government to bring us into the same kind of tech darkness that North Korea (pictured in the logo) suffers in a literal sense.

And now, on to business: Tonight we check back in with Sunlight Foundation and Free Press.

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Nima Jooyandeh facts.