Need bandwidth?

From the department of “dude, seriously?!” - I am six short weeks from an anniversary with my current webhost, meaning another iteration of my yearly billing cycle.

So… anyone looking for cheap hosting? Because if you already were, you might be able to help Whimsi out.

• 1. I can may lease subdomain hosting on a yearly basis. If I decide to do so, approval would be subject to my analysis of your character; mi TOS es su TOS.
• 2. Alternatively, if you’re in the market for fo-reals hosting, consider signing up at Dreamhost with a referral code. You get 50% off any plan (even monthly… hint, nudge), I get $48 bucks.
  >>If you click here, enter WHIMSIDISCOUNT as your promo code. Simple. Done. Yay.

Also, I will likely post something similar on trueplaces, facebook, etc. - don’t let the spam piss you off. I’m not a bad person. Really.

Party like it’s 1992

I live in the country. I live in a quaint (quaint!) little zone, in which the monopoly that is Charter Telcom has solid rule. Behold, the eternal suckage:

In March we received notice that our monthly bill was going up $5, as our area was converted from 5 to 10 Mbp/s lines, thank-you-and-have-a-nice-day. (Insert skeptical eyebrow raise, proceed to prank Charter HQ with a tire iron).

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Completely unrelated note:
Anybody have a room/cardboard box/space-under-dining-table for rent in Hong Kong, say first week of July?

Of Bandwagons and Bandwidth

Of my relatively small collection of quasi-regular blogchecks, not a soul has yet to mention this particular hot-topic-du-jour: and I’m curious. So have at it, folks, be it by email, comment, or personal beratements (which may or may not involve trout and wet noodles). Net Neutrality. Go.

CNET Full Coverage
Snopes.com Article

[TX Rep. Joe, GOP] Barton … pressured his fellow GOP members to vote against Markey’s amendment…Net neutrality is “still not clearly defined,” Barton said. “It’s kind of like pornography: You know it when you see it.”

…And that, my friends, is what bothers the hell out of dear ol’ Sara. Sure, our intrinsic libertarian-esque leanings would generally tend towards the whole “ohh, keep the gummint’s hand’s OFF: Legislation of any type = TEH DEBAL!” — but this is a horse of a different color. Aside from the fact that his statement as a whole pisses me off in the first place (but that’s an entirely seperate ramble…); without base legislation to start with, who’s to make that call of “knowing it when we see it” — on either extremist side of the line? As nice as they’ve played thus far, I really don’t want to leave the call in the hands of the almighty Telcos for all eternity: nor do I want to leave it in Mr. Barton’s hands, either.

Granted, I have to agree with the Good Rep on one point: cases are being overstated, and dangers exaggerated.

Barton argued that Net neutrality proponents were overstating their case and exaggerating the dangers of a more laissez-faire approach. “I don’t think all the Draconian things they (predict) will happen if we don’t adopt their amendment,” he said.
…
“I’m concerned about e-mails being blocked from advocacy groups, of all sides,” said Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat who supported the amendment. “I’m concerned about start-ups that may be shut down.”

Amendment proponents who are going all-out for Neutrality are using all sorts of layman scare tactics to add to their supporters: the honest affects this will have on the average user, at least within a limited time frame, are nothing like the “OMGZ TEH INTARWEB WILL BECOME CENSORED!!!11eleven” effect that is being touted.

Nevertheless: the fact remains that what concerns me most — what scares the everliving shite out of me most — is the fact that The Powers That Be seem completely oblivious to the inevitable repurcussions of allowing the “nice” telcos to lay out their own, individual, guidelines. As a small-town chick, forced to jump through a singular hoop for my beloved broadband, I don’t really hold much stock in the (actual, overheard) argument of “well, if you think it’s that bad, then just boycott the big telcos” (gee thanks; try a traceroute someday, moran).

And so we wait. We watch. And we wonder what the future holds.