Conservatives to review CRTC’s usage-based billing decision

Image: Adapted from Stephen Harper - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2010 by World Economic Forum under a CC-BY-SA license.

The Canadian meltdown over the CRTC’s ruling that network owners could punish smaller ISPs with usage-based billing has met with mild political progress.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, or as I like to call him “fuck you,” declared on Tuesday that there would be a review of the finding with a decision coming March 1.

My biased, angry, but no less accurate prediction? Since everyone has agreed an election is coming, the Conservatives will likely strike down the decision for political points. They will use the issue to further demonize and weaken the CRTC, thus removing the chances of Canada ever getting robust regulation of internet providers, and ultimately furthering the corporatist agenda. In the end, we’ll get slightly better service than the current rampage-of-greed, such that we can live with it, but not more.

Once again, Fight the power.

Canada Surrenders to Corporatist Forces, Internet Stolen

Image: Adapted from Bell Headquarters by Sweet One under a CC-BY-SA license.

I have a series of questions for our Canadian fans. Do you like the internet? Do you like using the internet for legal services such as gaming and Netflix? Do you like watching ShufflingDead’s videos in glorious high definition on YouTube?

If you said yes to any of the above, then you are, right now, in the process of receiving an almighty corporate cock-lashing.

… Continue Reading

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook fan page hacked

Image: Adapted from Mark Zuckerberg Facebook SXSWi 2008 Keynote by deneyterrio under a CC-BY license.

Poor Mark Zuckerberg. He’s TIME’s person of the year, is worth billions of dollars, 500 million people he may or may not think are “dumb fucks” use his website, and someone hacked his fan page.

A group or individual apparently excited about the idea of Facebook being run like a co-op rather than a for-profit enterprise had this to say in the voice of Marky-Z:

Let the hacking begin: If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn’t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a ‘social business’ the way Nobel Price winner Muhammad Yunus described it? http://bit.ly/fs6rT3 What do you think? #hackercup2011

The posting was quickly removed, but not before 1,800 people liked it. I wonder what Zuck’s password was. Love? Sex? Secret? God?

Source: TechCrunch

Verizon, Apple team up and people care

Image: Adapted from apple store fifth avenue black friday by jardenberg under a CC-BY license.

Verizon has announced that they will be carrying the iPhone in the US beginning in February. That means AT&T isn’t the only carrier of the Apple device any longer.

The tech world is ejaculatory over this announcement, or they were when I read about it two days ago. By now they have presumably moved on to something else, like whining about the absence of some minute and irrelevant feature in whatever $500 hunk of plastic they plan on picking up next.

Those currently with AT&T looking to switch to Verizon out of spite or something will have to buy new phones because Verizon runs a CDMA network, whatever that is. They will also have to pay out $325 in “early termination fees.”

This story makes evident two things: I don’t understand the tech world, and phone companies are fucking scammers.

Source: CNN

MySpace fires half its “talent”

Image: Original MySpace logo. Copyright MySpace.

MySpace, the once and future shittiest website on the internet, is letting go of 47% of its staff. That works out to a 500-person strong army of unemployed techno-wizards who assisted in the operation of a site which once allowed users to customize the CSS of their pages.

In an ironic twist, the decision comes just days after an entirely make-believe rumour circled the internet surrounding rival Facebook’s supposed closure. Back in reality, Facebook has dominated MySpace, draining its members and embarrassing the social networking site by not utterly sucking for years.

MySpace continues to thrash around, claiming these cuts are related to “legacy business,” and that the company is on “a clear path for sustained growth and profitability.” Whether MySpace can figure out it should focus on indie band networking in time remains to be seen.

Source: CNN