another week, another storm

I'm happy to be attending Pensacola Junior College and I think I can get a good, worthwhile education there, but that school definitely has its moments of disorganization.  Last night was my first night of class for the fall semester.  My Monday class is called Electronics for Technology and for its grand beginning we learned that we don't yet have an instructor.  We didn't get a syllabus and, because of Labor Day, we won't be meeting again until September 8.  I wonder if we'll get a 2 week discount on the class.  Oh well.  I didn't really have money for the textbook yet, anyway.

There's a hurricane in the Caribbean.  Great.  Its name is Gustav and it's headed for Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Cuba.  Then it's supposed to move into the Gulf of Mexico.  Forecasters aren't sure what it's going to do from there but they are describing it as a major hurricane.  The Pensacola area just dodged Tropical Storm Fay.  Now we have to keep our eyes on Hurricane Gustav.  I hope it doesn't hit us but the problem with that line of thinking is that it means I indirectly hope the storm wreaks havoc and destruction on someone else.  It's going to do serious damage to someone, somewhere.  I just don't want it to be me.  I don't want it to hurt anyone, but if it comes down to you or me...  Keep track of Gustav and his incipient siblings at the National Hurricane Center.

Early mornings are no time for moral dilemmas.  Time to return to the comfort of Gizmodo and beyond.

Open Your Wallet to Open Computing

It's nice to get up early.  I recommend it.  There's something right about it.

Gizmodo informed me that computer manufacturer Acer may start producing an open platform gaming console.  I imagine it's basically going to be a gaming oriented linux based desktop computer.  Good idea.  I hope Acer succeeds.  By the way, the computer above is not the one referenced in the article.  The one above is the bitchin' Acer Aspire Gemstone Blue.  What is up with that stuff beside on the left side of the keyboard?  I think it might be an alien device.

In other "open" news, Verizon is, and this is almost impossible to imagine in today's business landscape, studying ways to improve peer to peer traffic!  Verizon has once again shown that it wants to do business the way an increasing number of consumers who want to use technology the way they want to use it and are simply looking for the fastest, cheapest service provider.  While companies like Cox and Comcast are throttling users who are heavy bandwidth consumers, Verizon is looking to improve such users' experiences.  Coupled with last year's announcement that they would open up their mobile service to "any app, any device", Verizon is showing itself to be a worthwhile, progressive business.

Speaking of open phones, check out this video Google's open phone software, Android.

Verizon courts privacy advocates

I'm a customer of AT&T and while I can't really complain about my personal experience with them, I can't really say much that's positive, either. AT&T has participated in some customer surveillance shenanigans, though, and they seem to be willing to be compliant with government efforts to snoop on people.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed legal briefs and evidence against AT&T, claiming they are diverting Internet traffic to the NSA for widespread secret surveillance and possibly breaking federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment. [SecurityFocus]

It's not just AT&T, though. It seems that most companies involved with data flow are looking at ways to snoop on their customer's activities. Well, Thomas J. Tauke, executive vice president for public affairs at Verizon, is breathing some refreshing ideas into the discussion:

“We generally are reluctant to get into the business of examining content that flows across our networks and taking some action as a result of that content,” he said.

Amen, brother!

Preach on!

“We don’t want to solve any network congestion issues by restricting the flow of certain kinds of traffic,” he said.

Read the complete article from the New York Times: Verizon Rejects Hollywood’s Call to Aid Piracy Fight. [by way of Gizmodo]