We all know that some of the major connectivity providers (I’m looking at you, Comcast, and you, BT) have already started to filter out some traffic. Comcast calls it “delaying”, but in reality they have already started to throttle down BitTorrent connections. I’m not going to close my eyes and say that this is legal traffic - you and me both know that most of it isn’t. The point is that they are unrestrictively filtering traffic over the BitTorrent protocol - legal or not. BT throttles *anything* that isn’t HTTP! And there has been a major uproar over the introduction of the BBC iPlayer - many providers are simply not willing to allow their precious bandwidth to be used to transmit 100% legal television programs (which, when viewed / filtered at packet level, are indistinguishable from illegal downloads / uploads). And now a major UK company has caused an uproar. Cue you, Virgin.

Virgin Media’s CEO, Neil Berkett, has stated in an open interview that “Net Neutrality is a load of bollocks”. If that were the only thing he said - I’d have to agree with him. We live in an age where anyone can put up a website, and immediately have the same level of accessibility as any other website, no matter how big or small. Nothing should change that, and it should never be an issue. But Mr Berkett seems to think otherwise. Apparently, Virgin Media is already in “talks with unnamed content providers to deliver their content faster”. Rumour has been about that this is a prod towards Google (flamed solely by their recent April Fools joke named “Virgil” - that one backfired on you guys). Google has long been an advocate of Net Neutrality, and rightly so.

What kind of an Internet would it be if we could load Yahoo! in a second, but we had to wait 5 minutes for YouTube to load? Or if we could download the latest version of America’s Army (a government funded game being my point here) in mere minutes, but have to wait for hours to get the latest patch for your grassroots game, purely because they are unable to pay the extortionate “increased bandwidth charges”. Or perhaps it could go further? You, the user, could be made to pay more to access the sites you want on a sort of “tiering” system - £19.99 gets you access to Google, YouTube, and 50 other sites at high speed! £29.99 gets you access to another 50! And for only £39.99, you can have access to 150 sites at high-speed! Unrestricted internet would become a thing of distant memories - because once one goes, the rest will follow.

The outlook, to me anyway, looks good at the moment. There is currently no threat of there being any restrictions put in place - and with the massive uproars being caused in the media, in efforts to maintain Net Neutrality, and on just about any blog / site that has anything to do with the Internet, I don’t see it happening soon. But the threat is real - and I suggest you get well informed before it’s too late.

Suggested Reading

• Network neutrality on Wikipedia
• Save The Internet
• Open Internet Coalition
  

I’m sure you’ve all seen 1001 different posts on peoples’ experience in switching to Linux from Windows, some good, some bad. My experience has generally been good - aside from having some initial sound problems (that eventually turned out to be a mixture of problems including wrong drivers going to wrong devices, and a short-circuit in my speakers), everything has been pretty smooth. I have quite literally started from scratch - the only things I backed up were my music collection, and a small number of important documents like my private key. It’s cleared a lot of the crap out of my system.

My music has imported smoothly into amaroK, my player of choice in Linux. I tried previously to get amaroK to work on Windows (as it can do, and will natively do in the future) - but failed at the last hurdle after a 13 hour rampage with portage on Windows. Not pretty. But that’s another story. I think things are starting to become a bit more “normal” for me now - apart from the occasional error message on login (which is to be expected on a Beta OS to be honest).

The one program I did install (infact, I think it was even before amaroK went on) was Conky. If you use Linux and haven’t tried or seen Conky before now, give it a try. It’s useful, but at the same time it’s pretty cool. There’s something to be said about having lots of graphical widgets showing your CPU in the style of a rev counter, or your temperature as a thermometer, but nothing really beats having it all printed out onto your desktop in plain old console font - with a few pretty graphs thrown in for good measure.

I’ll try and keep the blog up to date with my experiments and findings in Ubuntu. Just like everyone else

I think the simplest way for me to describe my feelings behind advertising on Wikipedia is that, given careful moderation of the adverts, they will not harm Wikipedia or any of the sister projects. Perhaps this would entail a special relationship with an ad broker, such as Google. They would also have to be relatively non-invasive. Perhaps only on search results? Slapping them all over articles is not a good plan. Intra-paragraph links, again, a bad idea. Why on search results?

Wikipedia doesn’t document everything. If I went there, and searched for a relatively unknown thing, or a service name, we might not get any results. With adverts, there is another layer of results for the user, who may find them useful if there are no results in Wikipedia. So not only are we assisting users, we are generating a bit of money for the foundation at the same time.

People have argued  that knowledge should be free - and I agree. Knowledge should be free, and Wikipedia makes it free. Introducing adverts doesn’t make it any less free. Unfortunately, we do not live in a free world, and until the Foundation is able to find a way of using the immense amount of bandwidth they use for free, they will always need to make money. Asking for user donations is fine, but that only happens once a year. A regular stream of income would not only be beneficial to the Foundation’s goals, but it would also bring around countless new opportunities, both on and off-wiki.

Of course, it’s always possible to just block the adverts if you don’t like them…

The Nintendo Wii is quite possibly the best thing that has happened to video gaming in a LONG time. Whereas before the termn “gamer” was considered to be someone who sat there and twiddled a controller with their thumbs (and sometimes the fingers), and with the introduction of PS3’s SIXAXIS, turning the controller from side to side - the term now includes the people who get up and play a game of tennis via a video game, which leaves you exhausted afterwards. The Wii was not only revolutionary in it’s controller, but also in it’s gameplay style - finally the games console has become a family item, a party item. And the other consoles have taken heed of this - Rock Band being the number one example I can think of. For some reason, though, sitting there with a few friends having a “think-off” just seems a tad wierd. Where’s the actual competitiveness outside of the screen?

There is no doubt that this technology brings a massive opportunity to gaming, however. I am thinking first of all about those who are motor-impaired - especially in the hands. Finally there is a way for them to interact with a game - and actually stand a chance of success, rather than battle with a controller that is plain akward for them to use. But I think that the technology will stand the best chance of success if coupled with the existing controllers - because then it adds another level of interactivity to the game. Not only can you move your character, swing your weapon, jump, crouch, and crawl, but now, with the power of thinking alone, you can send your character into a “Rage” mode, or activate long-sight, or interact with other characters in the game world - freeing up buttons on the controller for more actions. Yes, things start getting complex here - but it needs refining, not dumping.

The flipside of the coin, however, is that we end up with a generation of layabouts - those who can game, interact, and possibly even chat without even lifting a finger. Is this a bad thing? Say, for instance, the technology was adapted to allow people to text message by brainwaves - would this be safe to use while driving? You are taking away thought from driving and putting it into texting - the same as if you physically had the phone and was texting. The danger of a crash increases. However - say it was adapted to help shoppers - by just thinking of the exact item they wanted, a small screen on their trolley would take them straight to it. Or, you could shop online with very little effort indeed. Think of each item in turn, think of your credit card number, your security code, and then just think about submitting it. Except it all happens. That sounds a bit creepy, though…

I don’t think I have a conclusion to make here. The technology is very exciting indeed, and it’s something I want to see emerge in the gaming world. But it has be done carefully - lest we all just end up sitting there like vegetables, just thinking about playing a game. Oh wait…

Probably the highlight of the event was being able to interview Keith Murray of We Are Scientists - exclusively, I might add - which means that Peter and I got into the Green Room - an area normally out of bounds for press. He was a genuinely nice guy, and the interview itself, even though it’s a bit short, will be up on Wikinews soon!

It’s quite difficult to describe just what it was like. With Rock Band competitions going on at the front, live music at the back, and hundreds of gaming stands, displays, movies, and stalls around to revel in, we were spoiled for choice. Between us we managed to photograph *everything* except for the Far Cry 2 exhibit - which was packed out from start until finish. Everything was interactive, and there were always spaces to just pick up a controller and play - it wasn’t jam packed, but “buzzing” I think describes it well - although not much playing was done by either of us! It’s definitely something I’ll be doing again next year!

If we block internet adverts - no matter what method we use to do it, we are denying the website owner the opportunity to make money. But this is where the moral dilemma lies - many people do not wish to view the adverts. Much like if we are watching TV - we’ll leave the room while the adverts are on to make a cup of tea, or when we watch back a recorded show, we’ll fast-forward through the adverts. Is this not fundamentally the same - the adverts are there for all, but some wish to avoid them. I believe it’s up to me what displays on my browser screen - and any unwanted aspects of the site I am free to remove at my will. That’s why I don’t care if you use an adblocker to hide the adverts on this site - that’s your choice and I will support you in it. I won’t reduce functionality of the site, or even go as far as to block you from the page. I’ve even tried to make the site break down as gracefully as possible if you block my adverts.

But there are others who aren’t as understanding. The major uproar has come from so-called “professional bloggers” who run their sites almost entirely on advertising revenue.  Those who have gone as far as to block users if they block the adverts. This is wrong - in my opinion. Whatever happened to blogging because you enjoy it, rather than to make a living and a profit. Blogging should not be a job any more than football should not be a job - but rather a hobby that you enjoy and want others’ to enjoy reading your work. Forcing adverts on the people who support you by reading your content is not going to make them come back, and therefore you are not only losing revenue, you are losing readers. And readers are the most important part of any blog. So should the readers be allowed to choose what they see? I think you can answer that one yourself.

Perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate how blogs earn their money. What the “industry” needs is someone to come up with a revolutionary new idea that targets blogs and bloggers, one that removes the need for advertising. Paid blogging is an option - and if it is done well it can be a good addition to any blog. But blatant paid posts are another annoyance - another thing that readers will not want to see. Inline adverts are nasty and obtrusive. Popups are downright wrong. Are we missing something?

If a student says that the Earth is 6000 years old because that’s what the Bible says, they MUST be given the same grade as a student who uses the scientifically accepted 4.54 billion year figure.

So you are telling me that a student can pass a science class based on religious opinions? That sounds like a load of rubbish to me - it is insulting to anyone who has ever worked in/on/with science,  and to those who have rightly learned the scientific viewpoint of the world, and used that to pass the subject named Science. It’s not science if it is suddenly permissible to include religious viewpoint - that should be kept to the subject named Religious Studies.

The bill angers me so much. As someone who is against deistic religion as a whole, and as someone who studies Science, and who plans to continue studying Science onwards for a good number of years yet, it angers me that it is possible that students will gain a pass grade in the subject that I am devoted to by using their religious viewpoint as fact, when what the human race has strived for in the last 3 billion years (admittedly, most advances have happened in the last 10,000 years) is left unacknowledged. Religion and Science should not and cannot cross paths - Religion is a set of arbitrary beliefs. Science is a set of experimentally-supported beliefs. If religious people are unable to set aside their arbitrary beliefs for what has been proven through real-world experiment and hard work of humans, then they should not be anywhere near science. If scientists are unable to accept the fact that some people are unable to set aside their arbitrary beliefs, then they should stay away from Religion.

Thankfully, it’s not law in Oklahoma yet.  But it has already passed through the House of Representatives, and all that is left is passing the state senate. It’s already law in Texas - and it has landed schools and the state in heap of trouble, with lawsuits flying left, right, and centre. All because Politicians are allowed to let their religious viewpoints and bias infiltrate their work, they have played politics with religion, and now it’s affecting science. Are we really going to have a generation of “scientists” who were passed for saying the Earth is 6000 years old? Or that we were created in 7 days? What will happen to Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection? What will happen to all the rational theories about how we came to exist - aside from the Theory of Creation? Will they fade into oblivion, because religion now dictates science? We’re slipping back into the dark ages, and we can’t let the Church (or any other religious group) take control of science again.

• March 15th: Anonymous Protests - Wave 2
• March 15th: Stop The War Protest 
• March 16th: Play.com Live!

Anonymous Protests - “Operation Party Hard / The Ides of March”

So “Anonymous” are out protesting against Scientology again. I orchestrated the Wikinews coverage of the February 10th protests - an occasion that an estimated 9,250 people attended worldwide. Once again I will be in London covering the two protest locations - more information can be found on the LondonLulz Wiki - an Anonymous-run site for organising the protests. One difference on my side this time, though, as I will be wearing my brand new Wikinews hi-vis jacket! So if you see me darting around with a massive Wikinews logo plastered over my back, feel free to speak to me!

The February protests were generally quite fun to cover, and the 300+ photos I took can be found on this pretty Flickr slideshow. People were light-hearted, and even though I’m reporting neutrally, I found myself laughing along with the memes and jokes that were being blared over a megaphone - including my favourite - “Chicken! Cult! Chicken! Cult!”, as the protesters pointed to KFC and the Church respectively. I always report over Twitter for my field events - you can find it right here, and I hope to have a Twitter widget running on this blog ASAP!

Stop the War Protest

I don’t know much about this one, aside from the fact that the photo on the website about the protest scares the hell out of me - I’ll be glad to be wearing my vest. This is my first protest outside of Anonymous that I will be covering - and it comes on a day where I will be covering three protests in one day!

Play.com Live!

This one is probably the one I am most excited about. With it’s awesome lineup of exhibitors, bands, and personalities,  this one sounds like I could easily spend all day there with my issued press pass. Hopefully I’ll be able to nab some good shots of the celebrities - and yes, there are even some interviews in the works. Stay tuned - interviews will be posted here too - they might even be videos!I’l be sure to write back with news on all the latest games, etc etc.

So - a busy weekend for me! Peter will be joining me as my named “Photographic Assistant”, and I will be joined by Adambro on Saturday for the Anonymous protests, but he’s not someone I can dump my bags on!