September 24, 2009 at 14:19
I am pleased to see that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski supports network neutrality. Allowing unencumbered access to an “open Internet” is vital to its continuing value and to Americans’ right to free speech. However, the chairman has not properly addressed a key underlying issue: content neutrality. If Internet service providers (ISPs) are to discontinue discrimination based on the source of data traffic, then so too should content providers end such practices. Under content neutrality media giants such as Disney, Google, Yahoo, etc. would no longer be allowed to demand payment from ISPs for access to their content.
For example, Disney’s ESPN 360 is using an online video content delivery model of demanding payment from ISPs based on total number of subscribers in order to provide all of the ISPs subscribers access to video content. The sports-media giant’s fear is that they would not be as profitable if they offered ESPN 360 only to individuals who chose to pay for it. So instead the fee is levied on all users, regardless of their individual interest level. Without content neutrality as part of the deal we will see the a-la-carte merit-based model of the Internet disappear in favor of a model where content is forced as a package on consumers by media giants. This will result in skyrocketing costs for Internet access and a crippled and “closed Internet.”
For more on content neutrality please see the American Cable Association’s statement from earlier this week.
September 13, 2009 at 09:41
An aerial photo I took in Newport, R.I. of the mansions is the Sammy’s Camera Photo of the Day today on daily news site Noozhawk.
September 8, 2009 at 19:53
Col. Edward H. R. Green is known locally in Southeastern Massachusetts as the rich eccentric son of “Wall St. witch” Hetty Green, once the richest woman in the world. Col. Green spent his life trying to spend and give away his mother’s fortune, making him the area’s most prominent philanthropist of his time.
MIT erected the "Radome" antenna on top of the Round Hill water tank in the 1950s. (image from Wikipedia)
Having grown up in Rhode Island, I spent a lot of time in nearby Massachusetts. I was always fascinated by the “dish” on Round Hill in South Dartmouth, Mass. Much of the information available to me as a child about this massive, seemingly alien structure was part of local folklore, a muddle of facts, stories and rumors. Some said it was an MIT experiment to eliminate fog, others said it was a radio antenna for listening to deep space. I never quite understood the connection between it and the impressive mansion just to the dish’s north until I began researching it as an adult. In my travels I found an original printed copy of this publication “WMAF: The Voice From Way Down East” published by Round Hills (sic) Radio Corporation in 1923. The document is somewhat of an early “corporate PowerPoint,” outlining Col. Green’s company and the radio station as well as his passion for broadcasting.
WMAF was one of the first broadcast stations in the country when radio was born in the 1920s and WMAF and sister station WEAF in New York were linked via AT&T cable and carried live music, theater and other entertainment on the airwaves between New York and Massachusetts.
Today his mansion on Round Hill is condominiums and his water tank turned lighthouse turned MIT radio antenna demolished, but his legacy as a radio pioneer and early technology enthusiast is documented in this booklet and several other local publications. Col. Green was a bizarre and interesting character whom, if alive today, would most certainly have his own reality show and it would be far more interesting than The Apprentice.
For more on Col. Green and his story check out the book Colonel Edward Howland Robinson Green and the World He Created at Round Hill by Barbara Fortin Bedell. It may be available from Partners Village Store in Westport, Mass. The cover price is $39.95.
September 7, 2009 at 13:04
I have written a simple utility which fixes a bug which persists with Snow Leopard 10.6. Users are reporting that with multiple monitors attached to the MacBook Pro the local display profile changes from it’s correct setting when woken from sleep, resulting in a washed-out blue-ish look on one or both monitors.
Simply opening the ‘displays’ preferences panel results in the color profile automatically correcting itself back to the correct profiles. This can be a pain, so I have created this AppleScript Application which simply does the above automatically. Place it in your dock and click it whenever you encounter this situation. Hopefully this will be addressed by Apple before this application comes out of beta testing 
Download MacBook_Pro_ColorFix.zip (66 KB)
Update 10/7/2009: For four days now I have had the Screen Saver set to “Never” and Energy Saver set to “10 min” in System Preferences and I haven’t experienced this problem since. I think the screen saver is the culprit of this bug. Turning it off seems to stop the display profile from changing unexpectedly.
September 6, 2009 at 01:06
I’ve added some new aerial photos of Massachusetts and Rhode Island to the galleries. These new shots are from about 300 feet AGL in an R44 helicopter. Check them out.
