The future of the internet under new FCC rules

"Net-neutrality" is here! And this brief video shows us what the internet might look like under the FCC's new regulations:


(via The Tea Party Economist)

1981 report on internet newspapers

What? Newspapers on my home computer? That's the stuff of science fiction:

"[T]he new telepaper won't be much competition for the twenty-cent street edition."

Whew! Looks like you dodged a bullet there, mainstream press!

(via LifeBuzz)

Handy site tells you if your favorite site is down

Having trouble with Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, or YouTube? You may want to check out DownRightNow.com:

You know the feeling: you're happily using one of your favorite web sites when, all of a sudden, you're interrupted by an error message. It can be frustrating. Is there a bug in the web site, or is your Internet provider acting up again? Where can you turn to find out if others are having the same problem?

downrightnow was created to tell you when popular web services are experiencing trouble. It pulls together information from several sources to determine when there's an outage or other disruption:

Reports from users who visit downrightnow

Public messages on Twitter from users who are having service trouble

Official company announcements and status reports

Other third-party web sites that monitor service status

Just visit downrightnow to stay informed. You'll get real-time updates on the status of your favorite web services, both official and unofficial, all in one place. And don't forget to file a report whenever you notice a service issue -- it's easy and you'll let others know they aren't the only ones having trouble.

Of course, if DownRightNow.com happens to be down...well, then you're kind of on your own.

Amazing photos offer a rare glimpse inside Google

The internet isn't, as Senator Ted Stevens suggested, a "series of tubes," but you will certainly notice a lot of tubes in this amazing photo gallery of Google's data centers.

These colorful pipes are responsible for carrying water in and out of our Oregon data center. The blue pipes supply cold water and the red pipes return the warm water back to be cooled.

Our Council Bluffs data center provides over 115,000 square feet of space. We make the best out of every inch, so you can use services like Search and YouTube in the most efficient way possible.

A rare look behind the server aisle. Here hundreds of fans funnel hot air from the server racks into a cooling unit to be recirculated. The green lights are the server status LEDs reflecting from the front of our servers.

(via Colossal)

Scientists discover the "anternet"

Harvester ants (photo: Steve Jurvetson)

An interesting article from Stanford discusses the striking similarities found between the internet and ant colonies:

On the surface, ants and the Internet don't seem to have much in common. But two Stanford researchers have discovered that a species of harvester ants determine how many foragers to send out of the nest in much the same way that Internet protocols discover how much bandwidth is available for the transfer of data. The researchers are calling it the "anternet."

Deborah Gordon, a biology professor at Stanford, has been studying ants for more than 20 years. When she figured out how the harvester ant colonies she had been observing in Arizona decided when to send out more ants to get food, she called across campus to Balaji Prabhakar, a professor of computer science at Stanford and an expert on how files are transferred on a computer network. At first he didn't see any overlap between his and Gordon's work, but inspiration would soon strike.

"The next day it occurred to me, 'Oh wait, this is almost the same as how [Internet] protocols discover how much bandwidth is available for transferring a file!'" Prabhakar said. "The algorithm the ants were using to discover how much food there is available is essentially the same as that used in the Transmission Control Protocol."

Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP, is an algorithm that manages data congestion on the Internet, and as such was integral in allowing the early web to scale up from a few dozen nodes to the billions in use today. Here's how it works: As a source, A, transfers a file to a destination, B, the file is broken into numbered packets. When B receives each packet, it sends an acknowledgment, or an ack, to A, that the packet arrived.

This feedback loop allows TCP to run congestion avoidance: If acks return at a slower rate than the data was sent out, that indicates that there is little bandwidth available, and the source throttles data transmission down accordingly. If acks return quickly, the source boosts its transmission speed. The process determines how much bandwidth is available and throttles data transmission accordingly.

It turns out that harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) behave nearly the same way when searching for food. Gordon has found that the rate at which harvester ants – which forage for seeds as individuals – leave the nest to search for food corresponds to food availability.

A forager won't return to the nest until it finds food. If seeds are plentiful, foragers return faster, and more ants leave the nest to forage. If, however, ants begin returning empty handed, the search is slowed, and perhaps called off.

Still, if you have a problem with your internet connection, I would recommend calling your IT professional, not the Orkin Man.

Google Chrome's imperfect "incognito" function

The Google Chrome browser has an incognito function (Ctrl+Shift+N) that allows users to surf the net without tracking web pages or cookies. This feature, however, does have its limitations:

Government didn't create the internet

Despite what Al Gore and Barack Obama would have you believe, the internet wasn't created by the government:

It's an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens—and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way. ...

... As for the government's role, the Internet was fully privatized in 1995, when a remaining piece of the network run by the National Science Foundation was closed—just as the commercial Web began to boom. Blogger Brian Carnell wrote in 1999: "The Internet, in fact, reaffirms the basic free market critique of large government. Here for 30 years the government had an immensely useful protocol for transferring information, TCP/IP, but it languished. ... In less than a decade, private concerns have taken that protocol and created one of the most important technological revolutions of the millennia."

So who really invented the internet? Check out the story in the Wall Street Journal.

Fun with YouTube closed captions

When watching certain videos on YouTube, you can click the "cc" button to get automatically generated closed captions. The funny thing is, YouTube gets them wrong. Really wrong. A lot. Veteran YouTubers Rhett and Link demonstrate:

I'm in the Library of Congress!

Well, so is everyone else on Twitter. Federal News Radio reports:

The Library of Congress and Twitter have signed an agreement that will see an archive of every public Tweet ever sent handed over to the library's repository of historical documents.

"We have an agreement with Twitter where they have a bunch of servers with their historic archive of tweets, everything that was sent out and declared to be public," said Bill Lefurgy, the digital initiatives program manager at the library's national digital information infrastructure and preservation program. "The archives don't contain tweets that users have protected, but everything else — billions and billions of tweets — are there." ...

... Using new technical processes it has developed, Twitter is moving a large quantity of electronic data from one electronic source to another. "They've had to do some pretty nifty experimentation and invention to develop the tools and a process to be able to move all of that data over to us," Lefurgy said.

The Library of Congress has long been the repository of important, historical documents and the Twitter library, as a whole, is something historic in itself.

The government is watching, so be careful what you tweet.

Feds will shut down communications nationwide on November 9

In case you haven't heard, the federal government will be shutting down communications for a few minutes on November 9. Here's the official reason as stated by the FCC:

At the Federal Communications Commission's June 9, 2011 Agenda meeting, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett, joined by representatives from FEMA and the National Weather Service, announced that the first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) would take place at 2:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time) on November 9, 2011. The purpose of the test is to assess the reliability and effectiveness of the EAS as a public alert mechanism. EAS Participants currently participate in state-level monthly tests and local-level weekly tests, but no top-down review of the entire system has ever been undertaken. The Commission, along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will use the results of this nationwide test to assess the reliability and effectiveness of the EAS as a public alert mechanism, and will work together with EAS stakeholders to make improvements to the system as appropriate.

Before you start thinking that this is legit, remember that this is the federal government we're talking about. And let's not forget that the EAS is the same "alert" system that failed to activate during the 9/11 terrorist attacks a decade ago. While I would love to be able to give the incompetent fools in charge the benefit of the doubt for once, I can't help thinking there's an ulterior motive. A guy in a gym doesn't perform a 400-pound clean and jerk for his health; he does it to impress those around him. My guess is this has less to do with actual public safety (think TSA molestations in airports) and more to do with letting the rest of us know who's really in control of every bit of information we see and hear.

The Today Show in 1994: What is the Internet?

(via LewRockwell.com)

Cats in sinks

That's right. An entire web site devoted to nothing but pictures of cats in sinks...




And I thought my blog was a waste of time.

Google: The early years

What was Google like before the internet? Well, it wasn't very fast...

(via Fury.com)

Toshiba's 3D monocle, and other April Fools' Day pranks

Everyone loves a good April Fools' Day prank. This is especially true of companies with a wide internet presence. Come April 1st there is no shortage of pictures, videos, and web site "tweaks" to alleviate the monotonous scenery to which one has grown accustomed while cruising along the Information Super Highway.

Here is a sampling of this year's pranks.

Toshiba: 3D Monocle


IKEA: The Hundstol, a high chair for dogs


Google: Gmail Motion


Google: Search result for "helvetica"

ThinkGeek.com: New line of fake products, including Angry Birds Pork Rinds...

...the Playmobil Apple Store Playset...

...and Star Wars Lightsaber Popcicles

Whole Foods: Insects raised with compassion

Check out these and other pranks here.

Vikings Fan Auctions Off His Allegiance on eBay

"Pickle4200" is one Minnesotan who is done with the Vikings:

I am auctioning off my allegiance to any NFL team. I am/was a Vikings fan before last night's loss to the Saints. I can't continue to put myself through the torment of being a Vikings fan year after year. I need a new team, help me decide where my new allegiance will be. A little background on me, and how I got to this point... I am a 30 year old Minnesota native, and have been a die hard Vikings fan my entire life. After last night's loss to the Saint's, I have decided to move in a different direction. Losing isn't what bothers me, it is the way in which we lose. The Vikings have a way of building your excitment to a peak and then crushing your spirit, ripping out your heart and stomping on it. I can't take it anymore...The Gary Anderson miss field goal, 41-0, and now 12 men in the huddle followed with an interception... I AM DONE! Please help! Top bidder gets to choose my new NFL team!

Somebody takes his football way too seriously.

First Church of Tiger Woods Disbands

From TigerWoodsIsGod.com:

After several days of evaluation, I have decided to disband the First Church of Tiger Woods (as indicated by the graphics at the top of this web site) and I will not renew the TigerWoodsIsGod domain name when it expires in a couple of months. Any future commentary on this site (which may not happen at all) will be regarding Tiger's failings in relation to his affair/accident debacle which continues to unfold almost by the hour.

Because the First Church of Tiger Woods has been in existence since late 1996 and this web site has been around since early 2000, you might think that such a decision might be difficult. In this case, it was not. Unfortunately, Tiger Woods has made it all to easy to realize that he is no longer worthy of any special admiration.

It seems having these escapades brought to light has been a healthy dose of reality not only for Tiger but for his fans as well.

Hack Your Life

Looking to make your complicated life a little easier? Check out LifeHacker.com.

This nifty site offers all sorts of "tips and downloads for getting things done" and covers just about everything. Want to eliminate that chaotic cluster of computer cords? Mix your own chalkboard paint? Make an inexpensive pair of noise-isolating ear buds for your iPod? Order secret menu items at fast food restaurants? You'll find the answers at LifeHacker.com.

D'oh! A Deer! A Baby Deer!

Accidents happen on America's roadways, even to Google's Street View camera cars. Like this one, which happened to hit a baby deer:

Don't bother trying to find the picture. They took it down.

The Google Earth and Maps team responded to the incident:

Gathering the imagery for Street View requires quite a bit of driving; as such, we take safety very seriously. Unfortunately, accidents do happen -- as some people have noticed, one of our Street View cars hit a deer while driving on a rural road in upstate New York. Due to several user requests using the "Report a concern" tool, these images are no longer available in Street View.

The driver was understandably upset, and promptly stopped to alert the local police and the Street View team at Google. The deer was able to move and had left the area by the time the police arrived. The police explained to our driver that, sadly, this was not an uncommon occurrence in the region -- the New York State Department of Transportation estimates that 60,000-70,000 deer collisions happen per year in New York alone -- and no police report needed to be filed.

Be careful out there, people. Deer are becoming almost as much of a nuisance as squirrels.

Google Doesn't Stop for Hitchhikers

And we're not just talking about the Information Superhighway. Check it out here.

Someone Actually Fell for the "Nigerian E-Mail Scam"

It's stories like this that make a good argument for requiring people to get a license before being allowed on the Information Superhighway:

Why do I get the feeling that stuffed in an old shoebox, tucked away somewhere in her bedroom closet, is the deed to a bridge in Brooklyn?