Opposing Net Neutrality a Political Third Rail

Together we won the first round in the battle for Net freedom. But the phone and cable giants are launching a counterattack. We need to raise the alarm and send a clear message to our new Congress: Make Net Neutrality the Law in 2007!

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Washington Post: Opposing Net Neutrality a Political Third Rail
Opposing Net Neutrality has become a political third rail for candidates who seek elected office, according to a story today in the Washington Post. Post reporter Charles Babington praised SavetheInternet.com Coalition efforts to mobilize the netroots and...

Electroshock therapy for "Internet addicts"

The Chinese government is imprisoning and giving electric shocks to people it thinks have become addicted to the Internet.

Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has launched a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls 'a grave social problem' that threatens the nation.

In terms of withdrawal: 'If you let someone go online and then he can't go online, you may see a physical reaction, just like someone coming off drugs.' And in terms of resistance: 'Today you go half an hour, and the next day you need 45 minutes. It's like starting with drinking one glass and then needing half a bottle to feel the same way.'"

Google's 'Sponsored Links' Threatens Internet Free Speech

EFF Asks Judge to Uphold Key Trademark Ruling- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals today to uphold an important ruling allowing anyone to purchase Google's "sponsored links" tied to trademarks, arguing that the practice is legal under trademark law and provides a vital means for online speakers to connect with audiences on the Internet.

Google's "sponsored links" feature allows customers to buy advertisements attached to certain search terms. When a Google user types those terms into the search engine, the sponsored links appear along with the search results. However, a company named Rescuecom filed a lawsuit against Google over the program, claiming that selling sponsored links for the term "Rescuecom" infringed its trademark.

"On the Internet, trademarks aren't just identifiers. They are essential navigation tools and vehicles of expression," said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. "Quashing this speech goes against both the law and the public interest."

A judge dismissed Rescuecom's case against Google last year, but the company is appealing the decision.

Goodbye - CF, the 3 watt LED bulb is here

Innovative Pharox LED Lamp Uses 3.4W: Replaces 40W Incandescent

In netherlands

An innovative LED lamp named Pharox has been launched in the Netherlands. Apparently, this 3 watt bulb is a serious replacement for a 40 watt incandescent bulb. It is rated at 60 lumens per watt. The bulb was created by Lemnis Lighting, by two members of the Philips family.

Thanks for post - TreeHunger

"consuming more resources than you bring in"

Carol Sanford at MIT: "It’s a hell of a way to run a business -- consuming more resources than you bring in, selling off your assets, and cooking the books to make things look good. Yet that is precisely how humans are operating the vast enterprise of living on earth. The U.S. runs a particularly unsuccessful 'Business of Inhabitation', taking up four times more resources than any other nation [...] meeting regulatory requirements and adopting a sustainable approach 'fall short of what we need to do for the planet'. Our problem-solving minds break things down and seek ways merely 'to arrest disorder' or protect what appears valuable [...] We need an evolutionary leap into the 'wholeness mindset,' which involves asking how we regenerate and bring in more of what we need without degrading what is already there." She begins speaking at 5 minutes 22 seconds into the video. ::Video: Carol Sanford at MIT. See also: ::William A. McDonough Conference from 2000, ::Video: Amory Lovins on Winning the Oil Endgame, ::Video: Max Carcas of Ocean Power Delivery, ::Google TechTalks: Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Biofuels

THANKS! TreeHugger :-)
Video: Sustainability is Only Half the Solution, Regeneration is the Other Half

200 million Americans Are Scientifically Illiterate

While global empires leveraged their advanced at the expense of so-called “ignorant savages.”

The good news: America's science literacy rate is up from a pathetic 10 percent in 1988. The bad news: it's still only 28 percent."

The forces of ignorance have squelched science across history, to the present restrictions on federal funding for critical research.

Elites’ exploiting their scientific knowledge for power is also not new. Mayan elites, for instance, used their extraordinary knowledge of mathematics, engineering, and astronomy to build great cities and temples--and sumptuous palaces for themselves--and to awe and control the masses through a religion that included ripping the hearts out of sacrificial victims.

The good news - Americans are more science-literate than Japanese, Europeans
And what might the consequences of this illiteracy and ensuing cultural backwardness be? Nothing less than the destruction of civilization itself...

Answer to why we act like jerks online

This New York Times story on the psychopathology of flame wars has -- surprise! -- generated much heated discussion around the internet:

John Suler, a psychologist at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., suggested that several psychological factors lead to online disinhibition: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending an e-mail message and getting feedback; the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure. Dr. Suler notes that disinhibition can be either benign — when a shy person feels free to open up online — or toxic, as in flaming.

Over on Metafilter, user scblackman rounds up links to some related web references:

What's behind those flaming hot e-mails or UseNet flame wars or MetaFilter comments?. Perhaps, as John Suler suggested, there are a number of factors, including dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection (altered self-boundaries), dissociative imagination, and minimzation of authority, as he discussed in his fascinating 2004 paper.

Link to that MeFi thread, in which several commenters said the NYT article reminded them of the timeless comic above.

Image: Penny Arcade.

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