One month

Yes, it's been an entire month since I've written. I'll try to keep it a bit more frequent than that in the future, but you know how things are. First news, the Democrats lost a key vote regarding net neutrality. The concept of net neutrality is (very roughly) that you pay for the bandwidth and should be allowed to use it any way that you want. However, companies could, in theory, provide you faster access to certain sites, or not allow you to use certain applications which access the internet (p2p programs, for example). That would be very, very bad. Not only would it be next-to-impossible to connect new devices to the internet (which means no companies like Skype or Vonage), but even your good ol' web browser like Firefox could have to wait awhile longer, while Internet Explorer users get preferential bandwidth treatment. Here's a good op-ed on net neutrality.

In other news, the Twins stadium looks imminent. I almost puked when Carl Pohlad (or some other fogey) was on TV after another Twins loss and said "Oh, this wasn't about the politicians, or the Twins organization, this happened because the fans demanded it!" Yeah, freakin' right! I was JUST complaining about the lack of private businesses subsidized by government. In my opinion, if we're going to spend MY tax dollars on a building, I'd better have unfettered access to it. Fine, build a stadium, but give away 5,000 tickets away for every game for free to citizens of our fair county. And don't you think there's areason that this stadium issue has come up EVERY YEAR FOR THE PAST 5+ YEARS and been shot down?? Take a hint: no one wants this except the "chosen ones" who need better box seats and want the citizens of Hennepin County to pay for it. How does one go about organizing a sales-tax resistance, anyway?

Hey, you should start your own business, if you can't think of anything better to do.

Also, the new hiphop album that Paris has put out is pretty, ummm....revolutionary? It's good, though I've only listened to it a couple of times so far.

A couple more quick things and I can finally get in the shower (friggin' roommates...): Berkeley is offering audio lectures online via itunes.

Do you know what an illegal prime is?

And it's time to support nuclear power, you hippie freak.

Here's a pretty good list of free software programs that can (sometimes) replace those expensive ones