Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Don't check a good story too closely

In journalism, it has long been a practice to not check a good story too closely.
Net neutrality is a prime example. Assuming it ever existed, and as the old saying goes: When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.
When foreign correspondents toted heavy, though small, satellite dishes around the Third World they would make them available to other writers. But for much more than the data, audio or video transfers cost.
Of course there was no record of this, and the local government didn’t get a sou.
These days the issue is whether a provider will charge some users more, and some users less.
Some call it Internet robbery.
The problem is that this will be gone in the blink of an eye. Bandwidth is increasing exponentially.
The military has developed ways to send data in bursts.
There are people out there who will figure out how to frustrate this attempt at monopoly.
So why should a user pay for a 24/7 connection when everything he/she needs can be downloaded/uploaded in a minute or two.
As shown on HBO’s hit “Silicon Valley,” data can be compressed and sent at almost the speed of light. OK. That show is a comedy. But the idea works.
What will the Comcast Weissman score be?
The season finale put the whole thing in perspective, comparing data speeds to the length of penises.
Smoke ‘em if you got them when you come back from hyper space.
Don’t wait for Scotty to beam you up back up.
Oh, for the days of the Trash 80. That was the nickname for the device that could send at 75 baud.
In those dreamy days a robot could be put together from parts in the nearby Radio Shack. “Number 5 is alive.”
Beware. You will be lucky to get a robot that does your bidding as in “Robot and Frank.”

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