The 50's/50s issue keeps popping up in the course of my daily life. I keep going around in circles with it, all the while telling myself it actually couldn't matter any less. I in fact just deleted a long, extremely nerdy paragraph about the place syntax has in language. Writing it helped me decide that the possessive is a rhetorical device referencing the non-possessive 'occurrence' meaning, so while they're not completley equivalent, neither trumps the other.
That was the interesting version. Be glad I try to curb myself.
I actually want to talk about this article. That's right, Net Neutrality has come to Canada in a very bad way. Bell and Roger's (especially Bell) are now choke holding certain venues on the internet by controlling the transfer rates and access. This is partly due to Bell and Roger's having terrible infrastructure that can't handle the kind of exponentially increasing demands in terms of data transfer. Even with that in mind, since it's peer to peer transfer that is the issue, most notably Bittorrent, it looks mightily like these companies are just trying to muscle out competition. Bittorrent has many free (and legal) video downloads--CBC has even put a few television programs on it. This competes with Bell and Roger's video download programs, which you have to pay money for.
Net Neutrality is the idea that the user should have control over what they do on the internet and the provider should not be able to manipulate transfer rates or access. For more info go here. This is a ridiculously important issue, as the internet is the best tool for citizenship involvement in terms of activism, DIY, or just general information. That only works when it's completley open. There is a reason it's so heavily controlled in a place like China, where google and yahoo provide search records to the government. The internet is incredibly powerful, but not if someone with political or profit-minded interests is determining what or how we see on the internet.
Now, some of the more tech-savvy of you might object, saying that p2p (notice the hip lingo--that one was for you, tech-savvy people) is primarily a means for people to exchange pirated music or films. That's true, but it certainly doesn't have to be that way. There are many legitimate uses for p2p that are finding a greater audience. I don't pirate, myself. The way I see it, most of the bands I listen to have day jobs and are simply doing it for the love of the art. Me buying the album helps them go on tour or make rent. And to quote the immortal Henry Rollins:
"[The major labels] can't get it through their thick, greedy heads that they've been overcharging people for music for so many years and have been cranking out so many alarmingly mediocre, tepid records where the only song you want is the one you saw the video of that looks somewhat interesting--the rest of the album is eeegh--so why would you want to pay 22.50$ in a strip mall for a J.Lo record? That's crime!"
Of course when he actually said it, there was more swearing and shouting. Point is, if you are only listening to music you don't want to pay for, find something you would. Where can you find music like that? The internet! See how I'm bringing it full circle? That's real blogging. Yeah. Or luck, whatever.
Search around at all the podcasts and bands releasing some music for free. Seriously, google "independent [your favourite genre]". You will find free samples of music within five minutes.
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