Brad’s Ideas about Things™

The National Cable and Telecommunications Association wants consumers to

think that the ultra rich silicon valley companies are trying to make the

Internet more expensive for consumers. Those Fat Cats in California don't

understand you like the friendly cable conglomerates do!

This has got to be the most appalling lies I’ve ever seen broadcast on television. I just saw this on the Bravo channel, and my jaw dropped. I made sure to see who paid for it, and it was a group called the National Association of Telecommunications and Cable Companies.

Let’s set the record straight. Net Neutrality is NOT a bad thing. It is a Very Good Thing. This is a ploy for the telecom and cable companies to not double dip, but TRIPLE dip! You already pay for your internet access. The companies that the telecom and cable industry want to extort are already paying for their internet access. And don’t think that the likes of Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, etc. aren’t already paying for the amount of traffic that they get. The telecom/cable industry just wants to dip further into everyone’s pockets, and try to get a little slice of the profits. As if they aren’t already earning enough.

There was a story a couple of days ago about how certain phone companies are not going to reduce the price of their internet offerings, even though they are no longer required to charge a tax that was withdrawn by the federal government.

Keep the internet free (as in liberty).

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I just got back from LWE Boston, and I have to say, I was a bit disappointed. Don’t get me wrong. I had a lot of fun, made a good number of contacts, and saw a lot of new technology. But it seemed like the number of actual conference tracks were weak, and the number of exhibitors seems to be dwindling.

I’ve never been to LWE San Fransisco, but I really hope it is better than this, otherwise LinuxWorld will be dying a slow, painful death. Part of the problem may be that it is not as much a show for geeks anymore, but more a show for suits. I walk the fine line between the two, but still tend to be more of a geek.

The theme of the show this year was definitely virtualization. If you weren’t talking about virtualization in general, or Xen in particular, no one was going to listen to you. There were some very cool new technologies. I’m looking forward to evaluating some of them.

The .org pavilion did have a lot of good exhibitors, and I met a lot of great people there. What I love about the .org pavilion is that it still embodies what is great about Linux and the OSS community in general. A bunch of volunteers, doing work because they want to.

I’d go back again next year. I just hope the conference tracks are expanded again, and increase the diversity of them. Another suggestion is to expand the .org pavilion.

Wow… Where to start?

This has been a crazy week. My brothers and I were able to convince our parents to evacuate. They don’t usually leave for hurricanes, but this was a big one. So, they packed up and went to Dallas to stay with my oldest brother. Good timing since he just had his fourth(!) child.

Oddly enough, the things I was worried about did not happen, while others that I couldn’t even imagine, did. For instance, most of Terrebonne Parish seems to be fine. One of my aunts, who has been flooded many times, did not get any water for this one.

What I did not know, is that one of my uncles was in the Superdome for 6 days. We didn’t hear about it until after he was safe in Baton Rouge. Very scary.

My friend Paul has been blogging about all this. His blog can be found here. There is a lot of great information there.

I want to thank everyone who has asked how my family is. I really appreciate how many people care about their well-being.

The first week of school is complete. Overall, I think it is going to be a good semester. My Symbolic Programming class should be interesting. It will cover a bit of AI and LISP. Should be fun.

My other class is OO Design and Implementation. At first, I thought it was going to be a bit of a drag, considering the textbook. Much to my surprise, it is going to be a good course. We’re going to cover Design Patterns, which I am VERY happy to hear. I’m already pretty well-versed in DP, but a little formal education on them can’t hurt. I’m just happy to see things like that being taught in the higher education system. I had lost a lot of hope for HE. It’s good to know that some real-world techniques are being recognized.

On a side note, my professor for my OO class is a former colleague of mine. I worked with him at SAIC, on my first job here in Charlotte.

The new house is almost complete. We’re looking at closing on Wednesday. Keep your fingers crossed. It really should happen this time. :) The fence is almost complete. The inside is being cleaned up. It’s looking good.

Back to school soon. I was taking a look at my books today. One of the classes I’m taking is ITCS 3112 - Design and Implementation of Object-Oriented Systems. Sounds like a fun class, right? Well, the book for it is “Introduction to Java”. ARGH!!! Intro?! For anyone that knows me, they know that I’ve been programming Java since the Java 1.0 days. I think “Intro to Java” may be a BIT boring. I really hope there is some good reason for it. Like, maybe starting at Chapter 10 or something. Otherwise, this class is going to be a BIG drag. Oh well, at least it should be easy.

The title says it all. Welcome to my blog. I’m finally getting around to it. Or a “round tuit”. Ever seen one? I haven’t. I guess that’s why I never seem to get one.

Hopefully, this won’t be another project that I just can’t seem to “finish.” I guess that’s the good thing about a blog; it really is never finished. Maybe that’s why I’ll be good at it. Or I may suck. Who knows? Can’t hurt to try, right?

The site may go through some changes. I finally settled on WordPress. I have to say, I’m impressed with it. Lots of options, nice editing facilities. And there seems to be a good community out there using it. I’m still playing with my own theme, but for now, I’m using Ocadia. It’s a good look, but I do want something that is more my “own”.

Well, that’s it for now.