tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71945057085742826752024-03-13T04:40:41.782-04:00Brion's Blog of NothingnessIncoherent ramblings by just another guy with a computer.BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-76476883649184754842010-11-02T08:59:00.005-04:002010-11-02T11:17:24.385-04:00Do your civic duty - educate yourself or don't voteYou read that right - don't vote if you haven't taken any time to educate yourself about the issues, the candidates or their positions. Voting a ticket or based on TV ads alone help no one.<div><br /></div><div>A democracy only works with the voters are informed about the choices they make when they vote. A democratic republic only works when the voters are informed about the history of the candidates they're electing to know whether or not they're likely to follow through on some or all of their campaign promises (hint, it will rarely if ever be "all").</div><div><br /></div><div>If you haven't done any research on your candidates then you're in no position to make an informed decision and should recuse yourself from voting. It doesn't matter if you didn't research by choice or you couldn't research, the result is the same -- you don't really know who you're voting for.</div><div><br /></div><div>If everyone who didn't know much of anything about their elected representative(s) didn't vote, then the only people who vote would be the people who are informed. This is different than saying only an elite class should vote -- this is saying if you want to be part of that elite class, educate yourself, there are many resources available including <a href="http://vote-smart.org/">http://vote-smart.org</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Do yourself and everyone else a favor today -- take time to know all the candidates before voting or just stay home. Since I haven't done my research this time, today will be the first year I've not voted since I was eligible.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>P.S. </b>This is not to say you shouldn't vote at all if you know enough about a few candidates, it's simply saying you should not vote for candidates you know little or nothing about. Leaving columns blank on the ballot is O.K.</div><div><hr /></div><div><b>Helpful links:</b></div><div><ul></div><div><li>Project Vote Smart: <a href="http://vote-smart.org">http://vote-smart.org</a></li></div><div><li>Rochester City Newspaper Election guide: <a href="http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/news/opinion/2010/10/ELECTION-2010-No-endorsements-for-state-legislature/">http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/news/opinion/2010/10/ELECTION-2010-No-endorsements-for-state-legislature/</a></li></div><div><li>WXXI Election guide: <a href="http://interactive.wxxi.org/election/guide">http://interactive.wxxi.org/election/guide</a></li></div><div></ul></div><div><br /></div>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-86802793680339797512010-07-27T23:11:00.006-04:002010-07-28T06:43:52.451-04:00On Censorship and the Digital AgeIn today's world we take a lot for granted. Generally speaking we have Internet access 24/7. We have mobile devices that let us talk, text, or video chat with one another. We have miniature computers like the iPad, Kindle, and netbooks that make portable computing and reading so effortless and compact.<div><br /></div><div>Online we have social media like Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. Information is thrown at us constantly and in turn we give out a lot of our own information (and money) to stay connected with each other and simplify our lives by becoming more digital and less analog.</div><div><br /></div><div>But in this swirl of technological magnificence I fear we are losing our sense of control and with that our sense of self. We gladly give up our favorites and preferences and sometimes even personally identifying information for something free, or to connect with friends. We purchase iPads and Kindles and Nooks so we can read all our books on the go in under 2 pounds of plastic and silicon. We don't think about the consequences of what we give up to get these gadgets, to make these digital connections.</div><div><br /></div><div>With social media it's often not clear how exposed we are until someone we don't know demonstrates how much information they've been able to glean simply from watching our digital activity - tweets, postings on forums, blog postings, links shared on facebook, comments left on friends' pages and so on. I can get pretty frightening when we realize how exposed we have left ourselves.</div><div><br /></div><div>At one time the Internet was a friendly open place. Then it become more sinister with identity theft and people felt safer reading their credit card numbers over an unsecured phone line than over a secured SSL connection on a web site like Amazon. Now the Internet is somewhere between friendly and sinister again with social media providing the friendly facade. Sadly, the sinister side still lurks behind the friendly veneer and we are lulled into a sense of security that is not really there until it's too late.</div><div><br /></div><div>Likewise many people purchase the latest gadgets from Apple or Amazon or Barnes and Noble with the idea they are making their lives easier by purchasing digital versions of books they can take anywhere and read anytime. What doesn't often factor into our decision making are the finer details of the purchase agreement we make when we click "Add to cart".</div><div><br /></div><div>Those details, when more closely examined reveal the sinister side of digital media - proprietary formats and digital rights management or DRM. You may have heard of these terms before and the most common response I get from people is, "DRM doesn't affect me - I don't mind it." That may very well be true...for now.</div><div><br /></div><div>But DRM by it's nature is designed to affect you. It's designed against you, the consumer, and for the copyright holder (usually the publisher, music label, or movie studio). It's designed to only allow you to access your content in the most narrowly-defined conditions and once those conditions are no longer met you will be locked out of your legally-purchased, but not owned, content. Even worse than that, DRM can be used to modify and / or manipulate your purchased content after the seller already has your money. This has happened before and will likely only happen more in the future.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><i>Case Study #1 - Amazon Kindle revokes 1984 by George Orwell</i></b></span></div><div>On Friday, July 17th, 2009 Amazon <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/amazons-1984-kindle-recall-was-legal-not-big-brotherish">remotely deleted purchased copies</a> of George Orwell's <i>1984</i> and <i>Animal Farm</i> e-books from customers' Kindle readers. While the move was completely legal on Amazon's part (remember the fine print you don't read? You don't actually own what you bought and they can delete it if they deem it necessary), it demonstrated the power Amazon wields over all of its customers. In an analog world of paper books, you would own something after purchasing a copy of that thing, but in the digital world you merely pay for the privilege of accessing content. Consider this: if an e-book costs as much or more than a physical book, why don't you have full ownership rights to that content just as if you had the physical book?</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><i>Case Study #2 - Apple's App Store and iBooks Store remove undesirable content</i></b></span></div><div>On <a href="http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2010/05/apples_itunes_censors_fashion_magazines.html">more</a> <a href="http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/06/apple-bans-cartoon-boobs-in-joyces-ulysses/">than</a> <a href="http://www.i4u.com/article26164.html">one</a> <a href="http://www.teleread.com/2010/02/24/apples-expulsion-of-mature-apps-the-e-book-angle/">occasion</a> Apple has <a href="http://www.teleread.com/2010/07/27/apple-removes-erotica-titles-from-ibooks-best-seller-list/">pulled</a> <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/07/apple-cookie-cutter-apps/">apps</a> from the App Store or books from the iBook store because of what Apple considered 'objectionable material' or 'cookie-cutter apps' which they deem as having no value. In most cases users have not had apps they've purchased removed from their devices, but apps and books are removed (or denied admission) from (or to) the app store.</div><div><br /></div><div>You may think that it's completely fair and within the rights of both Amazon and Apple to censor their own stores, and that is true. However since neither the iPad or Kindle work with any other store than the manufacturer of the device, it does infringe on the device owner's rights. Mitch Wagner, a blogger for ComputerWorld illustrates this point <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/16141/apple_censorship">in a blog posting</a> as he reflects on responses to an earlier post of his blasting Apple for censoring their apps. In short: if Apple (or any other company for that matter) locks a device to a single content store owned by the same company (or owned by a company working exclusively with the device manufacturer), then the content of that store should not be censored. If censorship is to be, then the device should be unlocked and able to consume content from other less restrictive sources.</div><div><br /></div><div>As you may or may not see, censorship and digital rights management (DRM) go hand-in-hand. When you don't own or control the content you pay for, then the content providers can control you (or at least what you read through their devices). And while censoring adult content and foul language or "pointless" apps may seem like a benefit to you because your ideals and philosophies line up with Apple's, how excited will you be when your political or religious views are suppressed by the same company? Do you really want to pay a company hundreds of dollars for a device they control almost completely?</div><div><br /></div><div>As an exercise, I encourage you to stop and think a moment the next time you contemplate buying a song that only plays on one type of computer or one device. Ask yourself: if I ever want to listen to this song somewhere other than on this device, can I? Am I allowed to make a copy of it for safe keeping (the answer is always yes in case you were wondering)? Before you buy an e-book that can only be read on a single device, ask yourself if you can save that book off to your computer or read it somewhere else with software from another company.</div><div><br /></div><div>DRM and censorship only works because we let it work. If we reject the notion that we don't own what we buy and that we should have a say in what content we want to view / hear on the devices we purchase, then the companies that make the devices and the content controllers will have no choice but to give you the freedom you demand. How much money would you lose if Apple and Amazon went out of business today and their devices stopped letting you read / listen / use the things you paid for? What recourse would you have?</div><div><br /></div><div>DRM affects you even if you don't know it. Censorship leads to ignorance and being controlled by the educated. Don't let yourself be controlled.</div>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-29855989487250487992010-06-23T06:49:00.011-04:002012-02-28T13:00:11.294-05:00Explaining the futility of data caps<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">We've heard it all before, data caps are pointless but it's often very hard to wrap our heads around why. After all, it seems perfectly fair that those who use more of something pay more for what they use. That's how the market for most scarce goods work in our economy. The problem with that arguments lies in the fact that data is not scarce, it's infinite and so scarcity economics do not work properly.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div>In this article I attempt to demonstrate through analogy why capping data does not make sense when data are not scarce resources - capacity (bandwidth) is.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been going over analogies for a while trying to find one that clearly conveys why data limits are silly and if you can exercise your imagination the following example does a pretty good job of it.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><i><b>The Data Superhighway</b></i></span></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Imagine an Internet connection as being a highway that's 4 lanes wide and infinitely long. The cars that drive on this highway also have a width. (For the purposes of this analogy, the cars can be represented as lines, not boxes because the length of the car doesn't matter.) The data on the internet is like the pavement of the highway - every stone, every pebble is a byte of data. Cars travelling this highway always travel in a line, side by side, across the road and drive at the same rate (none are ahead of the others, nor behind).</div><div><br /></div><div>To help visualize, consider the edge of the highway as "||" and a car as "<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQszphwsu2sBN8b8PiFYVONiNvsRE3BQ7XvmmRIsvthKuyguNB27UMS6vTmY8kEgXRWyfuW3a_Aara6njFlqLxZNizF6GbYTrHelr-IBlb-nRLewAXuC2oLcpRIrkflu6LUVSJiCXXh-Q/s200/datacar1.png" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 43px; height: 10px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5488523026735429986" />". At any given time, the highway with 4 users might look like this:</div><div><br /></div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_vc8AOSAgJ1nVwZ1e4SDNONUQ7kJlo8BoWx1BhZ0jGh34drMslNLB9gReH9uOFUwdHWFvaZu7-bxsJ_q0awK1SJoROKnxqEUTIRim_yCPjJe_ggaoP4mU4LANeVLVjtnvqZuCnUxnYIk/s200/highway1.png" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 105px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5488522819285359346" /></div><div><br /></div><div>Now, these Internet-travelling cars have a unique property of being able to grow and shrink horizontally depending on how much free space there is on the high way and are only limited by the ISP that controls access to the highway. So if there were only two cars on the same highway as before, it might look like this:</div><div><br /></div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLB9zLTAgOpj88NpJ9VjlVVWdskm9aIbT8FmGxISjd1oVbCw7RQ4HIIZB8VA3U7VJIqWiNeErhg1-E_dtay8S_KXwmm2x7Wvn02SHmvQ-TsMBV3N6k9WiSSiGX_quEO2tojEhWOJhdIPc/s200/highway2.png" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 105px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5488523207777210802" /></div><div><br /></div><div>The width of the car is the amount of bandwidth a particular user is using. Over the same amount of time (perhaps 10 minutes), users (cars) with more bandwidth (wider) will be able to access more data (drive over more pebbles) than smaller cars. It makes sense then that without widening the highway (increasing infrastructure) the more people that try to get online at once on the same connection, the less bandwidth each user will have and the less data they will be able to access over the same amount of time.</div><div><br /></div><div>Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T all want to place data caps on your usage and charge overage fees. If we apply this concept to our highway model you can easily see that it makes no sense. The problem is our highway isn't wide enough to accommodate everyone with a large bandwidth (wide car), but their solution is not to widen the highway, merely limit the distance you can travel on it without paying more.</div><div><br /></div><div>Consider the two cars sizes I have above. Let's say the narrower one can access 1Mb every minute of "travel" and the wider one can access 5Mb every minute (because it covers more area over the same period of time). If we have a 20Mb data cap, then the small car can stay online for 20 minutes before the cap is reached, but the larger car can only stay online for 4 minutes before the same cap is reached.</div><div><br /></div><div>While these are low numbers, it demonstrates that with data caps there is a disincentive to having a larger / wider car on the highway of the Internet because all it buys you is less time accessing the Internet without being overcharged. Why upgrade to fiber or 4G if you can't use it? Might as well stay with dial-up and unlimited data since no one seems to have a problem with that (except for the very real problem in the past of people being online all the time and tying up the modems so others can't connect).</div><div><br /></div><div>A better solution is to sell minimum widths, not maximum data. I buy a car that is guaranteed to be no less than 5Mbps wide when the highway is full, and when it's empty my car can grow as wide as available to take advantage of the excess unused bandwidth.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><i>Expert Opinions</i></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>In case you think I'm just talking crazy like some sort of crazy talking guy about the innovation stifling dangers of data caps, here's what a few other more respected technology experts have to say about the matter.</div><div><div><ul><li>Vint Cerf (Google's Chief Internet Evangelist and inventor of TCP/IP) -<a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/08/whats-reasonable-approach-for-managing.html">http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/08/whats-reasonable-approach-for-managing.html</a></li><li><a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/08/whats-reasonable-approach-for-managing.html"></a>Karl Bode (technology pundit and contributor to <a href="http://dslreports.com/">dslreports.com</a> and <a href="http://techdirt.com/">techdirt.com</a>) -<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/98104">http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/98104</a></li><li>Om Malik (founder and senior writer of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/gigaom.com">gigaom.com</a>) - <a href="http://gigaom.com/2008/06/04/why-tiered-broadband-is-the-enemy-of-innovation/">http://gigaom.com/2008/06/04/why-tiered-broadband-is-the-enemy-of-innovation/</a></li><li>Om's white paper - <a href="http://gigaom.com/2008/09/30/gigaom-white-paper-the-facts-fiction-of-bandwidth-caps/">http://gigaom.com/2008/09/30/gigaom-white-paper-the-facts-fiction-of-bandwidth-caps/</a></li></ul></div></div><div><br /></div></span></span></div>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-69387031757916139402010-05-04T07:26:00.006-04:002010-05-05T21:19:09.814-04:00Adoption Newsletter<style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } A:link { so-language: zxx } --></style><span style="font-size:85%;">Happy spring everyone!</span> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;">This is the first newsletter I've ever cobbled together, so bear with me as I muddle through the better part of the last year in review. We are healthy, happy, and employed (though hardly wealthy). 2009 brought a lot of frustration and culminated in a life-changing decision.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;">Beginning in early 2007 Dawn and I started trying to conceive to start a family. After two years of heartbreaking disappointment and a clinical diagnosis for me indicating a persistent problem with no known cause we investigated our alternatives. The natural choices were artificial insemination (AI), IVF and adoption. Each has its benefits and costs. After a few failed attempts at AI we fully shifted into adoption mode.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;">We initiated the adoption process in December 2009, began a five week adoption course in January and wrapped up our home study interviews with a social worker last week. This means we will be eligible to be profiled and potentially matched with a birth family as soon as a week or two. The time-line for adoption after that point becomes very unpredictable and can move very quickly or drag on over a long period of time. We're hoping it moves quickly.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;">I realize this may come as a shock and surprise to some either because it seems so sudden or because adoption is simply a murky subject with lots of myths and misconceptions floating about. This was not a decision either of us jumped into without doing our homework and careful reflection of who we are and what we are trying to do. Below I'm hoping to dispel some common misconceptions about adoption to allay those specific concerns. We encourage and invite questions.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Myth: You get to pick out the child, like a puppy at a store.</b></i></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>Fact:</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> With adoption, the adoptive parents must “sell” yourself in the form of a profile to the expectant mothers who will select you from many profiles. Profiles are a snapshot of your life, your interests, your environment and your family and friends with lots of pictures. We always have an opportunity to decline a child referral (being selected by an expectant mother) if there are unacceptable risks or other factors with the expectant mother or her baby. Matching is a very subjective process and the adoptive parents can only agree to continue a match, not initiate one.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Myth: Adoption takes years to complete</b></i></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>Fact: </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Adoption </span><i>can</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> take years to complete especially for international adoptions when complications arise with visas or the adoption policies of either country. Domestic adoption however can complete in weeks or months after a home study is complete depending on the state in which the child is born.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Myth: The birth mother can take back her child anytime after the adoption has completed in a domestic adoption</b></i></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>Fact:</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Once an adoption is finalized it is extremely difficult for the birth parents or family to gain custody of the child. Only in very rare circumstances such as when the adoption was completed in bad faith and documents were falsified or the birth mother was provably coerced by the adoptive parents or the adoption agency to make an adoption plan for her child will cancellation of the adoption even be considered by the courts. Once parental rights are voluntarily surrendered it is very difficult (and costly for the birth parent) to reverse that decision.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Myth: Adopted children have emotional / mental problems more frequently than non-adopted children</b></i></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>Fact: </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Most adopted children are perfectly healthy physically and mentally. There are always children with special needs and some international adoptions have higher rates of special needs children (such as Russia with higher rates of attachment disorders than some countries). As adoptive parents however we have the ability to only move forward with adoptions that have risks we feel we are prepared to handle. Many studies have shown little difference between the emotional health of an adopted child and the emotional heath of a child parented by his or her birth mother under similar circumstances (socially and economically).</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Myth: We are adopting to give a child a better life</b></i></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>Fact: </i><span style="font-style: normal;">We are adopting because we want to have a family and cannot conceive of a child by ourselves. It is not an altruistic gesture to save a child from destitution. We are still new parents and not much different than anyone else and we are bound to make mistakes any other new parent would make (though we'd like to think we've prepared well enough to handle most anything).</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Myth: Most birth mothers are teenagers who got pregnant accidentally</b></i></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>Fact: </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Most birth mothers are women in their twenties or thirties who for one reason or another have decided they are not able to parent a(nother) child at this time. It is a sign of love and forethought on the part of the birth mother to make an adoption plan for her child to ensure they are raised in a loving family that can provide what she cannot at the moment. In fact, most teenage mothers choose to parent their children.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"> <span style="font-size:85%;">These are the most common misunderstandings that we've encountered thus far with common conceptions of adoption. Adoption is one of those things it seems most people have heard of, have a positive feeling about, but know little about how it's actually accomplished and only ever hear about the horror stories presented on the news – such as the story recently about an American woman who adopted a boy from Russia and being unable to cope with some emotional problems he had sent him back to Russia on a plane by himself.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"> <span style="font-size:85%;">We'd also like to answer a few frequently asked questions about our adoption.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Q: How long does it take?</b></i></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>A:</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> For us the process started in Dec. of 2009 and as of May 13</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;">th</span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;"> we are home study ready which means we can be profiled to expectant mothers. From this point a match could happen immediately or take over a year. The average time from home study ready to finalized adoption with the agency we're using is 8 to 9 months. The time it takes varies on a number of factors including how many children they have to find families for, how many adoptive parents there are that are home study ready, how open we are to race and risk factors (such as drug and alcohol use). We are very open to race and quite open to several risk factors after learning more about them and the effects they might have on a developing child. We have the ability to change our openness to any of these factors at any time if we change our minds.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Q: What is an open adoption?</b></i></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>A: </i><span style="font-style: normal;">An open adoption in one in which the child has some tangible link to his or her birth family after the adoption has been finalized. The degree of openness is up to the adoptive parents and the birth family and can range from letters, photos, postcards, and/or newsletters to in-person visits and gatherings. In some cases the birth mother may maintain an active relationship with the adopted child in a similar capacity to an aunt or uncle. It is fairly common for contact with the birth mother to fade away over time as she moves on with her life and needs to end this chapter.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Q: Why open adoption? Doesn't it just confuse the child?</b></i></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>A: </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Because everyone has a need to know where they came from, who there birth parents were, what they looked like, and what their heritage is. With traditional closed adoptions many adoptees find themselves desiring to seek out who their birth parents were and more information about their birth family. This can be very emotionally difficult for the adoptive parents even though it does not at all reflect on their ability as parents. With open adoption the child has all the information available on his or her birth family. Sometimes this is a lot of information including medical history of the birth mother and father and sometimes it's just a name and a story. The adoptive parents in an open adoption however never have to feel they are lying or hiding information from the child and in many cases the adoptees of open adoptions have little or no desire to seek out additional information on their birth family because they either have all they need or know they've been given all their parents had about the adoptee's birth family.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Q: When do you tell the child they're adopted?</b></i></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>A:</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Immediately and always. Conventional wisdom suggests the adopted child be told using positive language they are adopted from the get-go. Even with infants it's encouraged to talk about adoption and make it something as second nature as breathing</span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">.</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"> The adopted child should be told an age-appropriate story about their birth and adoption and the truth should not be hidden. Even if the child's birth family has a sordid story it should be told but it does not have to be blunt either. Waiting to tell a child they're adopted until they're “old enough to understand” is only likely to lead to feelings of betrayal and, “what else haven't you been telling me?” The sooner and more frequently the better.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"> <span style="font-size:85%;">That pretty much sums up our adoption process thus far and the driving force of our efforts this year and last.<br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"> <span style="font-size:85%;">We hope all is well with you and look forward to visiting family again late this summer or this Christmas (and with a little one in tow with any luck).</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"> <span style="font-size:85%;">Cheers!</span></p>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-31079135119928996312009-10-26T06:34:00.024-04:002009-10-26T15:12:56.211-04:00Adventures in Remodeling - Part 3: Come Together (right now...over me)<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Day 4: October 15th, 2009</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPGZbV_v8cBPbZxkaQ61zwlecBNqeAsx1uzfTjemga2Tqp7WyN-B8N_m7Bm1_e6W6DkAn6q6r2jdzey33npJEciTfTKvUW5Wzs2pGcUW2JVu-kcR9bcFaqi22fcHkRTmVhOF1khHnutnY/s1600-h/DSC01734.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPGZbV_v8cBPbZxkaQ61zwlecBNqeAsx1uzfTjemga2Tqp7WyN-B8N_m7Bm1_e6W6DkAn6q6r2jdzey33npJEciTfTKvUW5Wzs2pGcUW2JVu-kcR9bcFaqi22fcHkRTmVhOF1khHnutnY/s200/DSC01734.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396873908157016178" border="0" /></a>Now that the walls, floor, and ceiling were devoid of any plaster or concrete it was time to insulate and run the new electrical. While unfortunately the mess of 8 wires in the ceiling junction box could only be feasibly reduced to a mess of 6 wires, the reduction of those two wires made a noticeable difference. Two new outlet boxes were installed on the north-facing wall where the sink was - one for a outlet/switch combo and one for the vanity light.<br /><br />Previously we had blown insulation on the outside wall only. This time we insulated with roll insulation which was quite a bit less messy. Just for good measure the entire room was insulated both for thermal properties and for noise-canceling properties.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh64HhYrrYeTdx_hmnE5QAVWsGCq6MGMsZYuvymgHVC27IMw-A8KbJNGkoZHk58ihbxf0L_hSUKi6qpD1D_OLveMGYB14CxAdGFboGbDZsKDmNiMru5ftYK4HGHFAZxgWLm9RzIjvhnC_U/s1600-h/DSC01746.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh64HhYrrYeTdx_hmnE5QAVWsGCq6MGMsZYuvymgHVC27IMw-A8KbJNGkoZHk58ihbxf0L_hSUKi6qpD1D_OLveMGYB14CxAdGFboGbDZsKDmNiMru5ftYK4HGHFAZxgWLm9RzIjvhnC_U/s200/DSC01746.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396874404756520898" border="0" /></a>Lastly we needed a sub-floor not only as a base for the cement backer board for the tile that will eventually be laid, but also for a more traversable surface on which to work. Unfortunately the dimensions of the floor to be surfaced were just slightly too big to fit on a single 4x8 sheet of plywood, so we used two 4x8 sheets of 1/4" plywood. It had to be so thin in order to fit under the edge of the existing tub and I didn't want to bury the toilet pipe in the floor by making the floor too deep.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Day 5: October 16th, 2009</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHHPtQm_fk1oEthyphenhyphendzbqDoIyDo_76n3fqsicQyI2QRNrJPEUu2Hty3R2EXqxvCWQBIX328OWSZfXS4FUU3a45gmdV6ScUWvB6boa66YOMvXV7KLT72rBFryOn5iynx3Z1YNdSFlE7OIR4/s1600-h/DSC01756.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHHPtQm_fk1oEthyphenhyphendzbqDoIyDo_76n3fqsicQyI2QRNrJPEUu2Hty3R2EXqxvCWQBIX328OWSZfXS4FUU3a45gmdV6ScUWvB6boa66YOMvXV7KLT72rBFryOn5iynx3Z1YNdSFlE7OIR4/s200/DSC01756.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396874888122869138" border="0" /></a>After all the demolition and some light reconstruction it was finally time to pass the baton to our drywaller, Ty. His crew of three guys came to the house to hang the green board in the bathroom and hang some normal drywall in the bedroom. They made fairly quick work of it taking only two hours or so to complete the job. Wham bam thank you ma'am and they were gone.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Days 6,7,8: October 17th, 18t</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">h, and 19th, 2009</span></span><br /><br />The next few days Ty stopped over to begin the process of mudding the drywall and making all those minor defects and gaps disappear. Ty didn't take very long either to mud all five walls and the ceiling. He did relate a fun fact to me however. Did you know that up until around 1980 drywall cement contained asbestos as an additive to keep it from shrinking? Apparently with asbestos added, drywall cement could be applied and it would dry exactly as applied in one day. Naturally, asbestos was removed as an <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEyazKNUHqY12RcZOU5tu5w436XkhNd1BxsS1XqvYy2J17_8INTNveH4PYziqW5d7MgZBnLeuUWQdjZw7XnWhGZKHm4zkCsmFLU-cuAVaA2cR18az_Swu4OQfznOUX3hkm6u_XM0aQ20I/s1600-h/DSC01762.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEyazKNUHqY12RcZOU5tu5w436XkhNd1BxsS1XqvYy2J17_8INTNveH4PYziqW5d7MgZBnLeuUWQdjZw7XnWhGZKHm4zkCsmFLU-cuAVaA2cR18az_Swu4OQfznOUX3hkm6u_XM0aQ20I/s200/DSC01762.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396875306842951602" border="0" /></a>additive from concerns about its health impact and no non-carcinogenic substitute has been found to keep drywall cement from shrinking which is why it's always a multi-day process of mudding, sanding and re-applying.<br /><br />The magic of drywall cement and a skilled hand made several gaps and holes disappear. Unfortunately when the first team hung the drywall the completely missed one of the outlet boxes (I guess it was flush with the stud instead of standing out from it) so Ty had to do some exploratory cutting on the north (sink) wall to find it. And find it we did. A little more mudding and you could hardly tell there was ever a problem.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Days 9,10,11: October 20th, 21st, and 22nd</span><br /><br />Once the drywall was done it was time to prime the inside of the bathroom and paint the ceiling so we wouldn't need to worry about dripping paint into the brand new tub and enclosure. Since priming isn't all that interesting I'll just skip to the tub installation.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Day 12: October 23rd</span></span><br /><br />At last the fruits of our labor were about to pay off in something a bit more aesthetically pleasing than drywall (apologies to Ty) - a new tub and surround. For this job we hired <a href="http://www.bathfitter.com/">Bath Fitter</a> to break up and remove our old porcelain-covered cast iron tub and replace it with an acrylic tub and one-piece custom-fitted surround enclosure. The enclosure runs all the way to the ceiling. In addition, they were to frame the bathroom window on the west side wall, replace all the existing bath hardware, and install a new anti-scald valve in the plumbing behind the tub.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOItC6N8RKHb7y5HewjiaPVMx_xh4d_vvHu3QjcL9T6Tq4iokBca7_zT16gdS-YRgOoDr1eeJ94FEgZcbhB_n5e5iZFPu4omKoe0555Ir3zOmtF-xNMv3TLiAvYxIMaxkTUObE896odso/s1600-h/DSC01764.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOItC6N8RKHb7y5HewjiaPVMx_xh4d_vvHu3QjcL9T6Tq4iokBca7_zT16gdS-YRgOoDr1eeJ94FEgZcbhB_n5e5iZFPu4omKoe0555Ir3zOmtF-xNMv3TLiAvYxIMaxkTUObE896odso/s200/DSC01764.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396875889149452034" border="0" /></a>The two-man crew arrived at 8:30am, about 30 minutes earlier than I had expected, and worked all day until about 6pm. Bath Fitter's claim is they will do everything they're contracted to do in one day and clean up after themselves when they leave. They did hold up that claim and there was very little evidence remaining of their presence aside from the new tub and surround.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">However</span>, not everything went as smoothly as one would hope. In the process of installing the anti-scald valve a pipe was twisted and broken in the wall between the basement and the second floor. This resulting in two more people showing up to the house - a plumber and a Bath Fitter supervisor.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxQt97X-frPmRg0kS1dS572BMnWlffPItNox5nM3hRNU7rjH-imDBPsHRLfi-sVDsI8TlN9FLok4hxTpVNAHqlPaLVK3xRLsI3u377kTHJGyzLyjlyeUC-gJ5S-XrROj-uiWZDYJsYJhU/s1600-h/DSC01767.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxQt97X-frPmRg0kS1dS572BMnWlffPItNox5nM3hRNU7rjH-imDBPsHRLfi-sVDsI8TlN9FLok4hxTpVNAHqlPaLVK3xRLsI3u377kTHJGyzLyjlyeUC-gJ5S-XrROj-uiWZDYJsYJhU/s200/DSC01767.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396876531566895346" border="0" /></a>They asked Dawn for permission to cut a hole in our downstairs front room wall, just under the thermostat, in order to access the break and repair it. She gave them permission of course because frankly it wasn't likely to be fixed any other way and that's a better place to cut a hole than the dining room side of the same wall.<br /><br />Somewhere in all this pipe fixing it was deemed necessary (without asking permission) to cut into my new subfloor in the bathroom. I cannot fathom why they needed to do this since there are only two pipes covered by the floor - the toilet drain and the sink drain - neither of which would be involved in fixing this breakage. If they were exploring under the floor I would have preferred a call or text from Dawn and I could tell them exactly what was under there. As such, I was left with a somewhat structurally unsound floor on the right side because they cut it in a way that the newly-unsecured piece was free to bob up and down as people walked across it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEgm7YNZ4ajXGA9T1ey6q5MJJLvtd8UYZpmNiOO61Won7gkI7OS7-2eD-WZOy6ompxAmV4L55btHEBTTcIlVieargY3tSqWukDAOqMb4aGGMswjccfW-VFEBu5cEedR1JqHUkhiL7t6Cc/s1600-h/DSC01788.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEgm7YNZ4ajXGA9T1ey6q5MJJLvtd8UYZpmNiOO61Won7gkI7OS7-2eD-WZOy6ompxAmV4L55btHEBTTcIlVieargY3tSqWukDAOqMb4aGGMswjccfW-VFEBu5cEedR1JqHUkhiL7t6Cc/s200/DSC01788.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396877088603019394" border="0" /></a>I also found my cold water shut-off valve broken for no adequately explained reason and no mention of it to either Dawn or myself, just like the floor cut. The wood cover I had crafted to go over the toilet train was missing (and found stuffed under a pipe under the floor section they had cut) and one of the bolts for the toilet base was lost in the process as well (it had been fairly well attached to the toilet drain pipe head and provided a stop for the wood on top of the pipe).<br /><br />When I got home I was left with a lovely new bath tub that worked, a lovely new surround and bath hardware, a cut up sub-floor, a broken valve handle, a hole in my downstairs wall, mysteriously low water pressure in the basement sink from the level it had been at in the morning, and no idea if Bath Fitter intended to pay for the repairs to my wall and/or stick me with the bill for the plumber. I called and left a message that night and am waiting to hear back from them. Hopefully we can sort this all out and I can still recommend them to others. At this point however, I would not recommend Bath Fitter if you have an older home with less than good condition pipes.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Days 13 and 14: October 24th and 25th, 2009</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0KPg7fMSU1mxFxhmHHQw88KNqaaIJMx4YQHMM3hwXYjwsDpS1rLUgHt-BVqgBDTnoLqmiFDdtiEVs1jE_wSJKXbhV2SIsjr88IBGGHVSrayD_VZsTHTYG78SrPpGhm8q_I38eVVJzP4/s1600-h/DSC01792.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0KPg7fMSU1mxFxhmHHQw88KNqaaIJMx4YQHMM3hwXYjwsDpS1rLUgHt-BVqgBDTnoLqmiFDdtiEVs1jE_wSJKXbhV2SIsjr88IBGGHVSrayD_VZsTHTYG78SrPpGhm8q_I38eVVJzP4/s200/DSC01792.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396877630564004594" border="0" /></a>It's starting to look a bit more like a bathroom again after adding new lighting fixtures on the ceiling and the vanity. Ty is coming back on Monday to patch up some nicks and dents in the wall caused by the Bath Fitter installation crew.<br /><br />Dawn seems to be pleased with the new tub after she took a relaxing bath in it on Sunday. No more stupid shelf in the back of the tub keeping her from being able to lie down almost completely (it is a 5 ½' tub). Spooks our cat also appears to like the new tub because there more room to sit and walk around on the edges now.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update:</span> Bath Fitter returned my call and the supervisor who was at my house explained why the floor had been cut, apologized for the cold water valve and offered to at least provide me the replacement part (because I said I can do the replacement myself), and made some tentative offer to possibly split the cost of the plumber based on how much it cost. Normally plumbing-related costs due to poor existing infrastructure is on the homeowner, which I can understand. He also asked if we needed someone to come repair the marks in the wall. This makes me feel a little better about Bath Fitter though I would have rather not had to call and ask why things were damaged or broken.<br /><br />Here are a few more pictures...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjflKEbK7h3cl1QK6ao-QEOu_eKqoXAbrIY4RnCd6zg77uGGl0NKWb-NW_GTl45VAwEkI-bTwqXBroP8a2OP4OyLI49i8_zOaIzsoHgn6OJ98Plu0j2fI5t_fvso7Ibu4rPkZOeKcD_fqA/s1600-h/DSC01794.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjflKEbK7h3cl1QK6ao-QEOu_eKqoXAbrIY4RnCd6zg77uGGl0NKWb-NW_GTl45VAwEkI-bTwqXBroP8a2OP4OyLI49i8_zOaIzsoHgn6OJ98Plu0j2fI5t_fvso7Ibu4rPkZOeKcD_fqA/s200/DSC01794.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396878688427686418" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEJkkSrwu5Q6DN7WL0vuvqtzC2cl8EkWtRcXNkMZeQCz24FbfFacihp9W-5fRxO8usKv89sJMcdBKQlacFQ-lr7MDy8GZBu8rH1vIQOlmikalxDQsvm_sFo4pCGkcftUFNM2c1loZ-o7I/s1600-h/DSC01795.JPG"></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj91V2xzxDbZE2vuKixQ-SNDKlu1grGi39RjdtQJawKr0BVlZChqe2gMlyv7WGScfkd2Ah10jNvM3M1-8wF8a-x3MuvmLYWOHPjmaps2P0ed9yCbTS6yQsGMRiNxXCu-hhgGc8YazdO9UU/s1600-h/DSC01796.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj91V2xzxDbZE2vuKixQ-SNDKlu1grGi39RjdtQJawKr0BVlZChqe2gMlyv7WGScfkd2Ah10jNvM3M1-8wF8a-x3MuvmLYWOHPjmaps2P0ed9yCbTS6yQsGMRiNxXCu-hhgGc8YazdO9UU/s200/DSC01796.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396878992408544962" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEJkkSrwu5Q6DN7WL0vuvqtzC2cl8EkWtRcXNkMZeQCz24FbfFacihp9W-5fRxO8usKv89sJMcdBKQlacFQ-lr7MDy8GZBu8rH1vIQOlmikalxDQsvm_sFo4pCGkcftUFNM2c1loZ-o7I/s1600-h/DSC01795.JPG"> <img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEJkkSrwu5Q6DN7WL0vuvqtzC2cl8EkWtRcXNkMZeQCz24FbfFacihp9W-5fRxO8usKv89sJMcdBKQlacFQ-lr7MDy8GZBu8rH1vIQOlmikalxDQsvm_sFo4pCGkcftUFNM2c1loZ-o7I/s200/DSC01795.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396878139134422098" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8nME9s0H8g37bovsXqfKXJfcNBKuXd6GPyeU2aVpz7j8cMynzjQYYytg38g1dN7W17gOlmcTdpQSTyGVtZOMWdyjMaZ-g7m4RD1crALAwUtqfxcf-dMQ7s7_Fby2Lke4PQclPcZf_ZNk/s1600-h/DSC01798.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8nME9s0H8g37bovsXqfKXJfcNBKuXd6GPyeU2aVpz7j8cMynzjQYYytg38g1dN7W17gOlmcTdpQSTyGVtZOMWdyjMaZ-g7m4RD1crALAwUtqfxcf-dMQ7s7_Fby2Lke4PQclPcZf_ZNk/s200/DSC01798.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396879405968077458" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2A83ybec3XfVodVbpEwhOuc-kWFNIe3xCkwcjrTdlQngoLxZE2XXC6QvQSvJIEZglb8qnSO0w0uYY6_Rn-VPjF1ek6BuBDcGePqB0mg56NVKaqONS6bSttsiaKiP5gb-UbOSash685hM/s1600-h/DSC01799.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2A83ybec3XfVodVbpEwhOuc-kWFNIe3xCkwcjrTdlQngoLxZE2XXC6QvQSvJIEZglb8qnSO0w0uYY6_Rn-VPjF1ek6BuBDcGePqB0mg56NVKaqONS6bSttsiaKiP5gb-UbOSash685hM/s200/DSC01799.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396879688665750962" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6yDBfQE7yuTF4bGkgwho2JK6gmDPGJQfmJhWHQiDn-xv9GlMSO3ntmAe9MGwtlPnf2pzqKcExZaLL4ZkyDlWGeXKY2qliR6PWHf0XBD61KhY1LPtkBnEB76jQLdaG_Uq0ZvgsK23lGp4/s1600-h/DSC01801.JPG"> <img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6yDBfQE7yuTF4bGkgwho2JK6gmDPGJQfmJhWHQiDn-xv9GlMSO3ntmAe9MGwtlPnf2pzqKcExZaLL4ZkyDlWGeXKY2qliR6PWHf0XBD61KhY1LPtkBnEB76jQLdaG_Uq0ZvgsK23lGp4/s200/DSC01801.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396879952099959890" border="0" /></a>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-79478395865841050722009-10-20T00:01:00.004-04:002009-10-23T07:28:54.983-04:00Adventures in Remodeling - Part 2: Man vs. Floor<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Day 2: O</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">ctober, 12th, 2009<br /></span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRsMZQhF0fmfD7hV-jSoEBG_-nztIFZU4APmt3-rKD0KJiNJf5C4t6eyeJ-3abjI4jIYCQJVLZ-yjBT0jmCgrHq_WU7XaW7MMMc1WHN-FHyHQEc3Tw2wD47b9A7iV5F-7UPZ3t4vpu_so/s1600-h/DSC01709.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRsMZQhF0fmfD7hV-jSoEBG_-nztIFZU4APmt3-rKD0KJiNJf5C4t6eyeJ-3abjI4jIYCQJVLZ-yjBT0jmCgrHq_WU7XaW7MMMc1WHN-FHyHQEc3Tw2wD47b9A7iV5F-7UPZ3t4vpu_so/s320/DSC01709.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394444180148485826" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">With the bedroom wall down, it was time to put some plastic up in its</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> place to help contain the dust from the remainder of </span><span style="font-size:100%;">the bathroom demolition. Dawn was wise enough to cover our bedroom furniture with various items to protect them from terrible terrible plaster dust. Alas, the carpet in the bedroom may have met its match this year - we'll see when it's all said and done (but I'm not holdi</span><span style="font-size:100%;">ng out much</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> hope).<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">Today the task was primarily removing the remainder of everything in bathroom except the floor. The lessons learned from th</span><span style="font-size:100%;">e previous day's adventure suggested a bit more caution and a bit less sledge hammer. Suffice it to say no other walls collapsed in the demolition of the remaining three sides.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCcU1Hko5KOEUF8O9msyDXw9LVrJUoL6wxMXLBB92-0mRykkcFBdWP2y6uYns2fYkLNeBSDDSv9kDgsHNcKfbjx08rni9dzNsc52JpFL0iKKZQhaKuh-l8s5OvtNzZ1QitZRfbpQwRB94/s1600-h/DSC01718.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCcU1Hko5KOEUF8O9msyDXw9LVrJUoL6wxMXLBB92-0mRykkcFBdWP2y6uYns2fYkLNeBSDDSv9kDgsHNcKfbjx08rni9dzNsc52JpFL0iKKZQhaKuh-l8s5OvtNzZ1QitZRfbpQwRB94/s320/DSC01718.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394444723243931458" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">As you can see from the photos, the dust was abundant as it stuck to the plastic in the</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> very hot and humid room (ewww sweat!). Fortunately the removal of all the rest of the tile a</span><span style="font-size:100%;">nd plaster was without event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Day 3: October</span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> 13th, 2009</span></span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">With all t</span><span style="font-size:100%;">he walls down only the tile floor remained. Plaster, once again my nemesis, prevented me from using the sledge hammer full force lest I wish to redo my entire dining room ceiling.<br /><br />For this task, my friend Ray stopped over to give me a hand (I called in a favor owed) and together we set about cracking</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> into thi</span><span style="font-size:100%;">s floor.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">What I was expecting was tile and concrete. What I was not expecting was tile and 2 - 2 </span>½<span style="font-size:100%;"> inches of concrete interwoven with more razor wire mesh! I was also expecting under the tile and concrete there would be a sub-floor, but no such luck just thicker and thinner areas of concrete.</span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhfHj4iHgOoVsqiLqT2O1Gh7RNIyGOWXjH-44pqB7BSg8Nj0R-bJfXVlJUvybce9jKt8-FNZ05OMiwjxj0xk36Cx32nStjGRPY2Xn6haQIPNtrl3vY4Mj7rcAb6q4f1nRIyqAeotyhwDI/s1600-h/DSC01723.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhfHj4iHgOoVsqiLqT2O1Gh7RNIyGOWXjH-44pqB7BSg8Nj0R-bJfXVlJUvybce9jKt8-FNZ05OMiwjxj0xk36Cx32nStjGRPY2Xn6haQIPNtrl3vY4Mj7rcAb6q4f1nRIyqAeotyhwDI/s320/DSC01723.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394445274021847634" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">At first getting the tile out was like pulling teeth...healthy teeth. That is to say it was very slow going and took a lot of energy. But with some luck (and very careful, light sledge h</span><span style="font-size:100%;">ammering) we were able to pull up la</span><span style="font-size:100%;">rger and larger sections of concrete until one 2' x 2' corner of tile and concrete remained.<br /><br />With a great heave and some ve</span><span style="font-size:100%;">ry heavy lifting we carried this last section down the stairs and out to the</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> dumpster.My guess is this single section of tile and concrete was easily 120 pounds. It was quite a lump to carry between the two of us. Unfortunately I did not get any photos of the floor's demolition, but Dawn was kind enough to snap a few</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> shots the next morning of a segment of the behemoth in the dumpster and resulting "floor".<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">Here are a few more pictures:</span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEituN4FwUtdJ1oJrzjQNfx3heVlzmcQtljCoDsvZ5OGX0C6Eyyg2bcr_HebPD3IUNY2oE-db2RoJ6Sxp9UlCwlI26Gl3h43734NDq8ADZjOb1MGVJbcLmn3XONifDzX-UcYh8yG-tta6po/s1600-h/DSC01722.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEituN4FwUtdJ1oJrzjQNfx3heVlzmcQtljCoDsvZ5OGX0C6Eyyg2bcr_HebPD3IUNY2oE-db2RoJ6Sxp9UlCwlI26Gl3h43734NDq8ADZjOb1MGVJbcLmn3XONifDzX-UcYh8yG-tta6po/s200/DSC01722.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394446065024376770" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSl9WfC1XryB4sUgttklFS2aGm3qGO12jzZymJRvOxjsboLRa_NcNz4VYivv4RFUskMyveZS0v4YyWpuguh7wogZ0ydUqAnQujDrxESHSxDQVppO_X8zxaSCPxeF6bvWjjkzlyNACjGFA/s1600-h/DSC01724.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSl9WfC1XryB4sUgttklFS2aGm3qGO12jzZymJRvOxjsboLRa_NcNz4VYivv4RFUskMyveZS0v4YyWpuguh7wogZ0ydUqAnQujDrxESHSxDQVppO_X8zxaSCPxeF6bvWjjkzlyNACjGFA/s200/DSC01724.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394446648547401618" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJ-Zo7Z853jSPZw-x0mKRH-vzq7ftX7xHObEA0cTcOeLuTB12ERZ22PBkOaGxQL0B77bo1MN5EinjOuio_VDIPAbDY1yko_RzjoeilMKQXe1EeNcW77q4XUvi9MAmIt06eLA86HNLUf0/s1600-h/DSC01725.JPG"> <img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJ-Zo7Z853jSPZw-x0mKRH-vzq7ftX7xHObEA0cTcOeLuTB12ERZ22PBkOaGxQL0B77bo1MN5EinjOuio_VDIPAbDY1yko_RzjoeilMKQXe1EeNcW77q4XUvi9MAmIt06eLA86HNLUf0/s200/DSC01725.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394447276785244498" border="0" /> </a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY6iPWsQjSXmiJN2ekbIZQZeiy2F9Q5mVJWUhQj34JXVEe8ZDKwFxZprBEae3K9llOJJ9FNIpKrmlAgcZj0jqantvuJfTyp8tuXxeH7tgZYEvGFo7QzZOX0_kgRNZpnxni43mxSpKUd5I/s1600-h/DSC01728.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY6iPWsQjSXmiJN2ekbIZQZeiy2F9Q5mVJWUhQj34JXVEe8ZDKwFxZprBEae3K9llOJJ9FNIpKrmlAgcZj0jqantvuJfTyp8tuXxeH7tgZYEvGFo7QzZOX0_kgRNZpnxni43mxSpKUd5I/s200/DSC01728.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394481211541846818" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Next: Part 3 - Come Together (right now...over me)</span></span><br /></span>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-73219968183535041612009-10-17T10:17:00.019-04:002009-10-19T21:08:13.624-04:00Adventures in Remodeling - Part 1<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDvtPWnMiFZcuCyJhdNnlkK1O0QXvyjQeNXvddfjxMdKWce-al-BD00X8ENzXHl06bJdRB1j01nZEGRExL0hnh_3IJHp9bbT4OccdwlnCQnfy8AAM4atQyD2WB-NhYk81VNcGWY76pMQs/s1600-h/DSC01692+%28Modified%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 264px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDvtPWnMiFZcuCyJhdNnlkK1O0QXvyjQeNXvddfjxMdKWce-al-BD00X8ENzXHl06bJdRB1j01nZEGRExL0hnh_3IJHp9bbT4OccdwlnCQnfy8AAM4atQyD2WB-NhYk81VNcGWY76pMQs/s320/DSC01692+%28Modified%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394268404270951890" border="0" /></a>What do you do when you have a small water pipe leak in your bathroom ceiling that destroys part of the ceiling and wall? Step 1: turn off the water to those pipes and then ignore it for two years.<br /><br />Eventually however, that large hole with the raggedy plaster and lathe edge staring down at you from above the toilet must be fixed and so this year we decided to embark on one of the most ambitious do-it-yourself home improvements we've ever attempted: complete remodeling of the upstairs bathroom.<br /><br />Our bathroom, a 7' wide x 9' long x 9' tall room with a toilet, 5 ½' cast iron bathtub coated in porcelain, and a long single-paned window in the tub wall is not a large room. How hard could it be?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Day 1:</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> Saturday, Oct. 10th</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfl2-W5ZSn3uuBoRZcg85yFMeYdHj6f_HAN-TucEWZ_erNadpBfThjB3aRu3Fhlk6oqVICLJ8Vh5oP0A9qz_DzS0M5CWgd1lqJFVfvRRdeoCyoe8ZgueFaLieJnjJnOskJ2s_Uz6jDb4Q/s1600-h/DSC01693.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfl2-W5ZSn3uuBoRZcg85yFMeYdHj6f_HAN-TucEWZ_erNadpBfThjB3aRu3Fhlk6oqVICLJ8Vh5oP0A9qz_DzS0M5CWgd1lqJFVfvRRdeoCyoe8ZgueFaLieJnjJnOskJ2s_Uz6jDb4Q/s320/DSC01693.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394266924085223554" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">The dumpster arrives in our driveway and I head upstairs to remove the toilet, dismantle the </span><span style="font-size:100%;">vanity and disconnect our shower head before attempting to pummel the tile </span><span style="font-size:100%;">walls t</span><span style="font-size:100%;">o bits.<br /><br />Dawn kicked off the festivities by taking a hammer to all the protruding ceramic </span><span style="font-size:100%;">wall attachments such as the cup holders in the wall above the sink, th</span><span style="font-size:100%;">e two towel bars, and soap dish above</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> the tub, and the toilet paper holder in the wall near th</span><span style="font-size:100%;">e toilet. Sh</span><span style="font-size:100%;">e then proceeded to hammer down some plaster on the right side of the door.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8r0QnWEGSdWa483JeQuPAfh_r4HUoREA7oA7Lf1QsiAuWXpaPbLubBxM6fhaf0C5HW9iC2FVi58RX9HM1xx7d4tpUWUVJLoSbLhN5dwlxWEnTm31wZ9eW3lJf0bwA_chAmBkhVKJOuU/s1600-h/DSC01697.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8r0QnWEGSdWa483JeQuPAfh_r4HUoREA7oA7Lf1QsiAuWXpaPbLubBxM6fhaf0C5HW9iC2FVi58RX9HM1xx7d4tpUWUVJLoSbLhN5dwlxWEnTm31wZ9eW3lJf0bwA_chAmBkhVKJOuU/s320/DSC01697.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394271612647673698" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">Our first surprise came </span><span style="font-size:100%;">when I wrestled the old recessed medicine cabinet out of the wall and discovered a pile of old, used disposable </span><span style="font-size:100%;">razor blades in a pile behind the vanity. Gillette, Schick, some unreadable - there must have been about four dozen of these razor blades. It all made sense now, the small slit in the back of the medicine cabinet with a small black </span><span style="font-size:100%;">arrow pointing down in to the slit, sort of like a biohazard sharps unit, but much </span><span style="font-size:100%;">too narrow for </span><span style="font-size:100%;">anything that size.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">The blades themselves seemed to be too new to</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> be original to the house, so they probably came about </span><span style="font-size:100%;">much later with the </span><span style="font-size:100%;">introduction of the vanity. Then again, the recess in the wall appears to be built specifically for this vanity so I'm </span><span style="font-size:100%;">not sure what the actual time</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> line of this travesty is.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRJhijC7jt9p_KY-_j3nj24tCOr7z8MyGT2hsVt5xOlBOwKJumkKQU4QL8LsahN5BCZ8MHqy6o4fndBH5a12uqk3ejBbzt3yuxkNhaKrM-2bj9gWtUj_r6LvO8okjtF0npTdEm_qb608/s1600-h/DSC01699+%28Modified%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 280px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRJhijC7jt9p_KY-_j3nj24tCOr7z8MyGT2hsVt5xOlBOwKJumkKQU4QL8LsahN5BCZ8MHqy6o4fndBH5a12uqk3ejBbzt3yuxkNhaKrM-2bj9gWtUj_r6LvO8okjtF0npTdEm_qb608/s320/DSC01699+%28Modified%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394272742814019730" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">Suffice it to say we were put off a bit by the rather careless design of this medicine cabinet. With the removal of the medicine cabinet, the major demolition could star</span><span style="font-size:100%;">t.</span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Gentlemen, start your sledgehammers!<br /><br />It should be noted at this point that my house was built in 1922. What that means in a practical sense is that my house is not built of the lightweight sorts of materials you find in homes today. Quite the contrary. My house is built from solid hardwoods, plaster, and concrete (we'll get to the concrete in a bit). Plaster is not fun to work with. Nay, I think one does not work with plaster so much as curse it because it has a tendency to crack when stressed and creat</span><span style="font-size:100%;">e a holy unbreathable mess (also wholly unbreathable).<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">Armed with goggles, a head wrap, gloves, a respirator mask and a sledge I took to the south side wall (the one with the toilet) to see what lay in wait for me under the acres of tile. After a few good whack and bits of porcelain sailing about I realize the tile is adhered to the</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> wall using about and inch of concrete smeared over some viciously sharp slitted metal mesh which is nailed to the lathe on the studs of the wall. Fun.<br /><br />After some time messing about with various ways to remove this incredibly resilient concoction, I found the best way to take it off was in large, extremely heavy chunks. First I'd smash the tile straig</span><span style="font-size:100%;">ht on with the sledge to loosen the concrete, and then using a pry-bar I'd pry the mesh from the lathe. When I was lucky a 30 lb. slab of tile, concrete, and what can really only be described as razor wire would come crashing down at (or sometimes on) my feet.<br /><br />Finally after a couple hours of this I was finally able to see the light. Literally, I saw the light from my bedroom window shining through my bathroom lathe. It took a few seconds to dawn on me that I </span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4XjpA1ePUIiFonhiAJFL1Cc-6YXzd9Yvxw_lLPWZPwD-2cYJZzUnfWonBolbc3J6m_tTsN1NxqvbNI2G2XiCmaC6sn2YKRFF6valgj1ZAXoRvG4MBAHmWBCxUqLvAIQDp2_UtIcC-FcY/s1600-h/DSC01701+%28Modified%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 282px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4XjpA1ePUIiFonhiAJFL1Cc-6YXzd9Yvxw_lLPWZPwD-2cYJZzUnfWonBolbc3J6m_tTsN1NxqvbNI2G2XiCmaC6sn2YKRFF6valgj1ZAXoRvG4MBAHmWBCxUqLvAIQDp2_UtIcC-FcY/s320/DSC01701+%28Modified%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394277484178656418" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">should not be seeing any light s</span><span style="font-size:100%;">hining through my bedroom wall.<br /><br />Uh oh! The drywallers just got a little more business. Nothing left to do but tear the whole wall down so it can be replaced with new drywall an</span><span style="font-size:100%;">d painted. Don't you </span><span style="font-size:100%;">just love these little project "expanders"?</span><br /><br />That pretty much sums up the first day of remodeling. Here are a few more pictures to enjoy.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJkIO57EVmlk0r83Q8N2vLqaUQbgnyuXMCfHRJF6bx1pWrW3rJw-dEdLiul3aDrR25h-oPNElKP4M45GwG95hhS6OMujk0_SL-oO4ODdv6F0hjcIJncoUafo4GH_8ypCkJIq5uwV2ZWxM/s1600-h/DSC01703.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJkIO57EVmlk0r83Q8N2vLqaUQbgnyuXMCfHRJF6bx1pWrW3rJw-dEdLiul3aDrR25h-oPNElKP4M45GwG95hhS6OMujk0_SL-oO4ODdv6F0hjcIJncoUafo4GH_8ypCkJIq5uwV2ZWxM/s320/DSC01703.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394278030705312370" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYZTRVFStcmwhdtbpEFKdydj3kuiFEbonnRLH-WmtKGj_-7Uc9_fHdgk2IkFoJzQIbEhwiAU_LRzUWTrORaa3qSnk2CVRkSxnBi2dF8aQwTSV4JisiLBf1nXPLfoFWWOF2Xmov4kcT1rI/s1600-h/DSC01707.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYZTRVFStcmwhdtbpEFKdydj3kuiFEbonnRLH-WmtKGj_-7Uc9_fHdgk2IkFoJzQIbEhwiAU_LRzUWTrORaa3qSnk2CVRkSxnBi2dF8aQwTSV4JisiLBf1nXPLfoFWWOF2Xmov4kcT1rI/s320/DSC01707.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394279238667745138" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFpuhvN6_4tBrcOJpS9WdRe6kBjxzC3EsfEjqx-ZrMkMPWp3qWL912G-5r9ZDdegi6iiJz1MLnvUxlanD67qnp8C1CohYmyJbvurPSFaw9aRhwNHqWrQPfig-EMaEcg8m55RrBH2a3zWU/s1600-h/DSC01708+%28Modified%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 291px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFpuhvN6_4tBrcOJpS9WdRe6kBjxzC3EsfEjqx-ZrMkMPWp3qWL912G-5r9ZDdegi6iiJz1MLnvUxlanD67qnp8C1CohYmyJbvurPSFaw9aRhwNHqWrQPfig-EMaEcg8m55RrBH2a3zWU/s320/DSC01708+%28Modified%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394279738366014066" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Tomorrow: Part 2 - Man vs. Floor</span>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-56085815209881374732009-04-30T19:14:00.002-04:002009-04-30T21:14:29.000-04:00For a tech-savvy president, Obama doesn't get itToday the Obama administration's Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, <a href="http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/04/30/esa-cheers-obama-administration-spanks-canada">put Canada on the U.S. "Priority Watch List"</a> of nations in need of copyright reform as the administration sees it.<br /><br />It's been troubling to see a president who claims to "get it", who is addicted to his Blackberry, and who has harnessed the power of the Internet and free services such as Twitter to win a campaign turn around and appoint not <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10133425-38.html">one or two</a>, but <a href="http://www.tomsguide.com/us/obama-riaa-mpaa-doj,news-3786.html">five</a> Department of Justice positions to RIAA-friendly lawyers. He has also <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/24/doj_supports_riaa/">sided with the RIAA</a> in upholding the notion that $150,000 penalty per infringement is not an excessive penalty....for a $1 song.....right.<br /><br />My initial enthusiasm for candidate and president-elect Obama to create and appoint the nation's first Technology secretary cabinet position has now turned to horror. While <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/17/obama-spurns-silicon-valley-names-virginias-secretary-of-technology-as-cto/">Obama's choice</a> for CTO of the nation was lauded by some I remain leery, especially given his choice in technology-related lawyers.<br /><br />For a man surrounded in tech he's surprisingly ignorant of the futility of "intellectual property" (IP) and its enforcement. Do people have a right to their work? Absolutely. Should IP be protected and enforced? Sure, why not? Are we doing it right? NO WAY!<br /><br />IP is a fancy way of saying "something I thought up that I don't want you to copy." We already have laws in place governing copying written works known as copyright laws. Some, including myself, think they are overly generous for the copyright owner and do not encourage ongoing creativity because a single solid gold idea that is copyrightable can become a cash cow for the rest of one's life (or longer). Additionally thanks to current copyright laws, that material will likely never make it into the public domain for future generations to enjoy once it is no longer profitable.<br /><br />The biggest problem with IP as I see it in the U.S. is that there are generally two ways to protect it: copyright and patents. For the purposes of this article, I'm going to focus on copyright.<br /><br />These days in the U.S. copyright is given to everyone and anyone the instant they put a thought into a medium, such as paper, canvas, marble, or a computer file. Copyright can also be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) which provides a little better leverage in a dispute between two copyright holders about who came up with what first.<br /><br />Originally copyright was not automatically granted and you had to pay for it annually with a limit on the number of years you could renew the copyright protection. The purpose of copyright <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92preface.html">as stated in the U.S. constitution</a> is:<br /><blockquote>The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries</blockquote>Key in that passage are the words "promote" and "limited". Since those words were penned the United States Code including the Copyright Act of 1976 which laid the foundation for today's laws has been modified dozens of times. The current incarnation of the copyright portions of the United States Code include the following:<br /><ul><li>piracy and counterfeiting provisions</li><li>provisions for computer code</li><li>protections for records (music recordings)<br /></li><li>protections for semiconductor chip designs</li><li>protections for vessel hull designs</li><li>extensions of protection both in scope and duration (such as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act or CTEA which extends copyright to the artists lifetime plus 70 years)<br /></li><li>perpetually auto-renewing registrations</li><li>transfer of copyright, involuntarily in some cases</li><li>protections for tv programming transmissions</li><li>provisions for satellite providers</li><li>large monetary remedies for infractions</li><li>computer software rental protections</li><li>criminal punishment for gross violations of an otherwise civil nature</li><li>exemptions for dining establishments</li><li>provisions making circumvention of copyright protection devices illegal (Digital Millennium Copyright Act - DMCA)</li><li>protections for business who hire for creative works</li><li>protections for movies and rentals</li></ul>It's clear that copyright has grown wild and unwieldy since its inception. Unfortunately as we have progressed through the years we have not progressed our common sense.<br /><br />What purpose does an extensive copyright provide for the copyright owner? It seems it may provide unending wealth. While this may be good for the owner, is it good for our culture? If culture does not have access to these collected works over time our culture is lost in cobwebs and dimly lit corners of warehouses and collector's cellars.<br /><br />Long copyright extensions do not promote creation of more than a few financially rewarding works. What it does promote is a lot of legal wrangling over who created something first and who copies whom. It neither promotes science or the useful arts nor is a limited amount of time.<br /><br />Some argue that life plus 70 years is a limited amount of time for a copyright until you realize that the copyright can be transfered and renewed from the author's death to descendants or to his estate which may not end.<br /><br />Where would we be today if we did not have any of the works of Shakespere, Bach, Bethooven, DaVinci, or any number of other artists and creative people whose works have moved into the public domain? No one person or entity owns all the rights to those works, and because of it everyone is free to use them to create new works (called derivitive works).<br /><br />What does all this have to do with Obama? With his actions and with his support of the RIAA and all they stand for, President Obama is making a statement that the profits and interests of a few individuals are more valuable than the collected American culture. His actions show that he believes capitalism and profit come before heritage and creation of new works based on old.<br /><br />I recommend reading more on copyright at the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a> website - a website devoted to only restricting creative works to the minimum amount necessary to protect the author from financial harm without all the heavy restrictions of U.S. copyright law. Just for fun, here's a really good winning video in a competition Creative Commons held to promote the site and the idea.<br /><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="504" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.0.5.swf" w3c="true" flashvars='config={"key":"#$b6eb72a0f2f1e29f3d4","playlist":[{"url":"http://www.archive.org/download/Justin_Cone_-_Building_On_The_Past_-_640x480/format=Thumbnail?.jpg","autoPlay":true,"scaling":"fit"},{"url":"http://www.archive.org/download/Justin_Cone_-_Building_On_The_Past_-_640x480/Justin_Cone_-_Building_On_The_Past_-_640x480_512kb.mp4","autoPlay":false,"accelerated":true,"scaling":"fit"}],"clip":{"autoPlay":false,"accelerated":true,"scaling":"fit"},"canvas":{"backgroundColor":"0x000000","backgroundGradient":"none"},"plugins":{"audio":{"url":"http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.audio-3.0.3-dev.swf"},"controls":{"playlist":false,"fullscreen":true,"gloss":"high","backgroundColor":"0x000000","backgroundGradient":"medium","sliderColor":"0x777777","progressColor":"0x777777","timeColor":"0xeeeeee","durationColor":"0x01DAFF","buttonColor":"0x333333","buttonOverColor":"0x505050"}},"contextMenu":[{"Item Justin_Cone_-_Building_On_The_Past_-_640x480 at archive.org":"function()"},"-","Flowplayer 3.0.5"]}'> </embed>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-1173007302959581672009-04-30T07:50:00.003-04:002009-04-30T08:08:22.273-04:00American Cable Association says tier broadband is the futureSurprised? I'm not. The American Cable Association (ACA) is as you expect a cable industry group that supports the notion of tiered, consumption-based broadband billing.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/210247-ACA_Metered_Bandwidth_Pricing_Is_Coming.php">The article</a> written on Tuesday doesn't really give any facts or metrics upon which to base such a claim and they used the tired and false analogy of utilities to get their point across.<br /><blockquote>[I] would like to pay the same price for heating bills all year round, but [I have] to pay more in those Pittsburgh winters when [I use] more. -- AC President Matt Polka<br /></blockquote>Do we <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> have to go over this again? <span style="font-style: italic;">Fine</span>.<br /><br />If my water service were like my Internet service, every time I turned on a faucet or took a shower or washed my clothes my water meter would leak a little bit of water that would be counted toward my usage. Also my meter would leak (from my 'used' side, not the supply side) constantly and slowly every day.<br /><br />Why is my water meter leaking you say? Why can't I fix it? Because that's how my Internet usage behaves today, and we're modeling my water usage after my Internet usage. Even when I'm not online, my modem flashes and flickers away constantly talking with Time Warner and constantly being barraged by network bots and viruses trying to break into my system. This is real traffic even though I have no control over it. Additionally, when I do use the Internet for web browsing I get pop-up ads, flashing ads, streaming music and video ads -- none of which I want but all of which incur additional usage. That's why my meter leaks and I can't stop it -- I'm being charged for things I have no control over.<br /><br />This is why Internet <span style="font-weight: bold;">cannot</span> be metered, at least not until there's a way for me to absolutely control my usage. At home, I can turn off every water-using device, every electrical device not on batteries, and every gas-using device and I won't get charged. I cannot do that with the Internet short of unplugging the cable modem every time I stop using the Internet (which is a ludicrous proposal for anyone, especially people with a family in case you're wondering).<br /><br />I'm still waiting to hear from anyone in the industry as to what is so untenable about the current model. Given that rates always increase, why can't the cost of upgrade simply be included in the standard rate increases?<br /><br />Why can't users pay for the speeds they want without having a limit on the data they transfer?<br /><br />Why aren't businesses (one of the heaviest users of bandwidth) subject to this metered model?<br /><br />Why must residential subscribers subsidize the business pricing model of all-you-can-eat?<br /><br />Until these questions are thoroughly answered I will be a strong and vocal opponent of any metered data billing plan for Internet use.BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-46376605456792611542009-04-27T07:26:00.004-04:002009-04-27T07:45:01.297-04:00Monday morning picture timeAt first, this weekend's outage had me thinking they shut me off for "abuse" of their network primarily because of a lot of uploading I had done on one particular day - the Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope Linux release. So I took a snapshot of my usage graph courtesy of <a href="http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/index.php">DD-WRT</a> and marked it up with descriptions of my spikes in usage. I thought you might appreciate what "moderate" usage looks like.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-CHE6kltVsQuIJrcvXdLWnpypM0uo_b73DsmWWdb4vi7Oi18CZSSi-DhSZ6oyXO6PWImFyGntxu7VZCQl_86f4BvSwPpQGqiGywGD3VZQAwMMnSSIRM4MOo2dnryNKSL__tlB4ue5gA0/s1600-h/April_usage.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 376px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-CHE6kltVsQuIJrcvXdLWnpypM0uo_b73DsmWWdb4vi7Oi18CZSSi-DhSZ6oyXO6PWImFyGntxu7VZCQl_86f4BvSwPpQGqiGywGD3VZQAwMMnSSIRM4MOo2dnryNKSL__tlB4ue5gA0/s400/April_usage.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329332115705304274" border="0" /></a><br />As you can see, for not even the full month of April I've used about 23 GB of downloaded content including:<br /><ul><li>watching 2 hours of TV online a few times</li><li>downloading a couple Linux ISOs</li><li>uploading those ISOs via BitTorrent for 1 day</li><li>downloading software updates after installing the new Linux version</li></ul>The rest of the days represent normal day-to-day usage:<br /><ul><li>VoIP phone calls (sent and received)</li><li>Web browsing (facebook, Stop the Cap!, Google Reader, etc.)</li><li>Watching online videos (YouTube.com, break.com, collegehumor.com)</li><li>Sending / receiving emails</li></ul>While 23 GB is under Time Warner's proposed caps, it's easy to see that with a full month's worth of activity I could easily reach 30 GB under normal usage. I know what you're thinking, Linux releases aren't normal and don't happen every month, and you're right. But they are part of my normal online behavior and there will always been days now and again when I download and/or upload a lot of data. In networking terms it's a burst of usage over the month and residental customers don't usually pay for bursts, only sustained usage (actually they don't pay for usage at all and that's the point of Stop the Cap!).<br /><br />This graph does not include any online gaming, serious amounts of downloading or frequent online TV / movie watching. The video streaming will probably eat up data faster than any other activity online short of downloading games from online stores like Valve's Steam.<br /><br />Consider my usage if I watched 2 hours of TV online a day for a month. That means the video alone would be 60 GB of usage (1 GB /hour * 2 hrs / day * 30 days). Added to my other usage would put me (this month) at almost 80 GB of data usage.<br /><br />Under Time Warner's plan that gives me two options: pay $75/month for the 100 GB tier, or pay what I do now ($55/month) and get charged an additional $20 in overage fees (bringing me back up to $75/month). So clearly, I have no choice under the new tier and it would cost me an additional $20/month from what I pay now (which is $20 more than standard service because I don't have cable and I have Turbo).<br /><br />Just some food for thought. Compare your usage to mine and you'll get an idea of how you fare even without a "gas gauge".BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-31211641102820544552009-04-27T06:36:00.003-04:002009-04-27T07:26:43.624-04:00Time Warner outage not a conspiracyThere are some who want to believe that the <a href="http://stopthecap.com/2009/04/26/serious-time-warner-service-outage-caused-outrage-for-customers/trackback/">sweeping outage</a> of Internet and Digital Phone for Time Warner customers this weekend was part of a purposeful "demonstration" of a so-called "Internet brown-out" due to overused capacity. This however, is just a conspiracy theory and holds no water.<br /><br />Things break. Shit happens. Not everything Time Warner does is fully under their control and not everything they don't do -- such as put up some sort of notice about the outage on their cable TV stations such as RNews -- is necessarily attributable to malice, ignorance will suffice.<br /><br />However, this weekends outage should be a wake-up call to anyone using the all-in-one Time Warner packages (Internet, Cable, Digital Phone) that perhaps a bit of diversity would be well-advised. Digital Phone subscribers were left without a phone and without access to 911 from 10 AM to approximately 1:15 PM on Sunday and I imagine a good portion of those people did not have an alternate phone line such as a cell phone or land line through another company.<br /><br />I do not believe it's fair to pick on Digital Phone or Voice over IP (VoIP) in general as less reliable than a traditional phone line. Traditional phone lines have some benefits it's true. In a power-outage situation traditional phone lines are powered by generators usually and that low voltage power is carried over the phone line. Only wireless phones don't work in that situation (which is probably most people these days anyway). But land lines are susceptible to lightning strikes, trees and branches falling, switching station failures, and any number of other problems that can wipe out service to a large number of people. Additionally, during emergencies land line switching stations tend to get overwhelmed with calls and you start getting the "all circuits are busy" messages.<br /><br />VoIP can often handle emergency situations slightly better because all voice traffic is just IP traffic and as long as the network has capacity (a problem for Time Warner according to them) and everyone isn't calling the same location, the problem is partially alleviated. Though at some point the VoIP service usually goes to a switching station and gets connected to a regular POTS PBX which can still be tied up.<br /><br />VoIP also has many other benefits over traditional land lines. First off, it's usually cheaper (and I stress usually). Second, it often comes with many voice features for free that the phone company charges extra such as voicemail, caller ID, and call waiting. Third, the call quality usually does not change significantly between local and long distance calls. Again, this has more to do with the POTS switching stations that are involved on the far end, but on a complete digital connection, where the other party is also using VoIP, the call quality can far exceed traditional phone lines. And finally, most VoIP services now offer enhanced 911 (E911) services as part of their service which generally requires you to enter your home location information into their system since IP addresses are not tied to a geographic location as a traditional phone line is.<br /><br />So, what are your VoIP options if not Time Warner? Glad you asked. Here's a list of several services available in the New York area and some nationwide:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.vonage.com/index.php?ic=1">Vonage</a> - One of the first VoIP services and probably one of the more popular ones. This service provides a small device you plug into your computer network (modem or router) and your phone into the device. <span style="font-style: italic;">Does not require a computer to use.</span><br /></li><li><a href="http://www.skype.com/shop/">Skype</a> - Offers free computer-to-computer calls and low-cost VoIP calls to land lines and cell phones. Also sells phones and devices to use Skype without a computer.<br /></li><li><a href="http://www.magicjack.com/7/index.asp">MagicJack</a> - Requires a computer, this is a USB device that plugs into your computer and your phone.<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.viatalk.com/broadband_phone_service.htm">ViaTalk</a></span> - NY-based web hosting company who provides excellent VoIP service (the author uses this company's VoIP services).</li></ul>You can find many other service providers and reviews on this site: <a href="http://www.voipreview.org/">http://www.voipreview.org/</a> I'm not sure why ViaTalk gets such a bad rating on that site, but my experience has been quite stellar compared to my previous VoIP services (Vonage and SunRocket - now out of business). ViaTalk does charge monthly E911 and recovery fees for a couple bucks each monthly even with the yearly pre-paid plan.<br /><br />I recommend comparing the features of each VoIP provider you consider with Time Warner's Digital Phone as well as just the price. For example, several providers offer a call forwarding service for free when your home network cannot be reached (because you've lost power, or because Time Warner's network is down - sometimes called Network Unavailable Forward) and will send all calls to a phone number of your choosing or to voicemail. I have calls forwarded to my cell phone so I don't miss any calls during a network or power outage. I don't believe Time Warner's Digital Phone offers such a feature.<br /><br />As usual, it's not wise to put all your eggs in one basket.BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-68834382829521699632009-04-21T14:57:00.006-04:002012-02-28T10:40:46.968-05:00A New Pricing Scheme Suggestion<a href="http://a.longreply.com/130507">http://a.longreply.com/130507</a><br /><hr /><br />A response to "<a href="http://a.longreply.com/130506">Brian Boyko’s Alternative Plan for “Top-Up” billing</a>" by Brion Swanson<br /><br />@BrionS on Twitter<br /><br />There are several good ideas brought up in this alternative, but as a user I'm left with a feeling of the Internet becoming one of those steel national park binoculars that require me to keep pumping coins into it to keep the shutter open.<br /><br />While Brian's proposal is much more equitable than Time Warner's proposals thus far, it still falls short because it's addressing the symptom of a problem not the cause of it.<br /><br />The problem in this case is that Time Warner's business is involved both in access to the Internet and in providing products and services that use the Internet. Those two sides of their business are at odds with one another.<br /><br />If Time Warner Cable were a wholly separate company in every sense from Time Warner and its subsidiary Time Warner Entertainment such that Time Warner Cable's only business was selling access to the Internet, then this would be a much different discussion.<br /><br />Time Warner Entertainment and the media services side of the company would be competing on equal footing with Netflix, Hulu, AppleTV, and others.<br /><br />Given the above backdrop we are still left with the problem of how can Time Warner the media services and Internet access company make money in a manner acceptable to their customers?<br /><br />I propose another alternative approach to pricing Internet access as primarily a speed based approach with incentives at every level to use less data. It goes something like this:<br /><br />• Internet access is provided in multiple tiers based solely on speed of access (50 Mpbs, 30 Mbps, 15 Mbps, 10 Mpbs, 5 Mbps, 1 Mbps -- for example)<br /><br />• Pricing is set appropriately to each speed level to help offset Time Warner's build-out costs. Perhaps the top tier is $150/mo for 50 Mbps.<br /><br />• Each tier provides an incremental discount for amounts of bandwidth below a specific threshold. (50 Mpbs tier has a 150GB usage threshold below which incentive discounts apply to your monthly bill.) This may be a one-time incentive to get below a specific threshold or a graduated set of incentive levels - lower usage offering more credit.<br /><br />In this way, the pricing model is very simple: higher speeds cost more money, low usage can reduce customer costs further.<br /><br />This plan shares many of the same benefits as Brian's plan and have a few additional:<br /><br />• Customers are not surprised with overage charges...ever. At best they will receive a credit on their next month's bill.<br /><br />• Heavy users are much more likely to be the ones who want the faster speeds and will pay more to get it without any data caps. This is true for upstream speeds as well - maybe especially.<br /><br />• Each user's network connection is speed limited so they will never use more bandwidth than they've paid for during peak usage times. That is, a user paying for the 1 Mbps tier will never be able to download at 5 Mbps during peak hours (when there is excess bandwidth available this is not necessarily true) thus limiting the bandwidth they can use at any time, but not the data.<br /><br />• No need to keep track of anything from the customer end: no gas gauges or "roll overs", just use the Internet when you want and pay for your connection speed.<br /><br />As an added benefit, these new billing practices could go into effect almost immediately without having to wait for the DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades. When those are available customers can be notified of the new pricing options.<br /><br />In this plan Time Warner reaps the benefits of customers paying monthly rates for the peak bandwidth usage that they will want on the infrequent occasions they actually use their full bandwidth.<br /><br />This plan also takes a lot of the guesswork out of how much capacity will be demanded of the network at any given time since a user cannot go over their chosen bandwidth. In calculations of peak network usage customers can be assumed to be using no more than their subscribed amount.<br /><br />Right now everyone uses the same (fluctuating) access speeds, but one person may be checking email while another is streaming a movie.<br /><br />With fixed speeds, Time Warner knows that one person cannot use more than <span style="font-style: italic;">x</span> Mbps while it's possible they're using even less bandwidth than they pay for.BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-80034494847307181092009-04-19T20:46:00.005-04:002009-04-20T21:02:30.471-04:00Mini Exposé - The American Consumer Institute: Center for Citizen ResearchYou may not have heard of this organization before, but it's called the American Consumer Institute: Center for Citizen Research and it came into existence around June 2005.<br /><br />The organization is the creation of <a href="http://cei.org/content/stephen-b-pociask">Mr. Stephen B. Pociask</a> a frequent consultant for the telecommunications industry who spoke out against Net Neutrality in August 2006 and whose team of "experts" is now speaking out in favor of broadband usage caps as a benefit to consumers.<br /><br />Here is the full text of the ACI About page for your reference:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>The American Consumer Institute Center for Citizen Research is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational and research institute founded on the belief that consumers’ interests are not satisfactorily represented the wide variety of advocacy and consumer organizations that often represent small subsets of consumers and special interests; ignore distant, collateral and unintended consequences of importance to consumers; and too often mirror advocates’ political views rather than an empirical analysis of consumers’ economic welfare. </p> <p>The Institute focuses on economic policy issues that affect society as a whole, and we seek to be a better and more reasoned voice for consumers by using economic tools and principles to show that markets work best for the benefit for consumers. We are committed to use of generally accepted quantitative, cost-benefit analyses of policy alternatives and their transparent application to assure that our methods can fully and fairly evaluated on their own terms by those who may disagree with our conclusions. We use economic analysis to empirically measure “consumer welfare,” rather than relying on conjecture, opinion or political leaning to judge what benefits or harms consumers. </p></blockquote><p></p>Mr. Pociask is a rather inconsistent fellow it seems. Below is a timeline of his activities and those of his organization(s). See if you can spot the inconsistencies of his stance on the Internet and telecommunications in general:<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">October 2005</span> - Pociask and the ACI <a href="http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/274016/american_consumer_institute_study_finds_rising_cable_tv_prices_cost/index.html">report their findings</a> that older Americans are overpaying for their cable TV bills because of lack of competition.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">August 2006</span> - Pociask and the ACI <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-21-2006/0004419119&EDATE=">report their findings</a> to Congress that Net Neutrality is only being pushed by the "financially powerful [who] earn supracompetitive returns and have significant market power" to the detriment of the consumer and the poor telcos.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">October 2008</span> - Pociask advocates his 'study' findings that telecommuting and other Internet-based activities (such as email and downloading movies) is a benefit to the economy and the environment:<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gVy7U--G57k&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gVy7U--G57k&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object></li><br /><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">April 2009</span> - Larry F. Darby, an 'expert' at ACI, <a href="http://www.theamericanconsumer.org/2009/04/17/open-letter-to-senator-john-f-kerry/">states that usage-based caps are <span style="font-style: italic;">beneficial</span></a> to the consumer.<br /></li><br /></ul><br /><br />Despite his varied history and the eclectic suggestions of the ACI <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/77491">several</a> <a href="http://mediacitizen.blogspot.com/2007/05/consumer-group-fails-smell-test.html">sites</a> <a href="http://www.consumersunion.org/blogs/hun/2007/05/guess_it_depends_on_what_the_d.html">suggest</a> that the ACI has become a source of astroturfing for the telecommunications industry.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing">Astroturfing</a> refers to political, commercial, or public relations campaigns that feign grassroots behaviors to promote a specific view. However, since it is deliberate and is essentially "faking" being grassroots, it got the name "astroturfing" after the artificial grass, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AstroTurf">AstroTurf</a>.<br /><br />When ACI came onto the scene against Net Neutrality (NN) all the cable operators and NN opponents jumped on board the ACI bandwagon and used it successfully to derail any NN legislation.<br /><br />Once again the ACI is popping onto the scene conveninently just when Time Warner backs away from consumer uprising over its usage cap plan and waving a "study" that finds usage caps to be <span style="font-style: italic;">beneficial</span> to consumers.<br /><br />The statement from the ACI was made by Larry F. Darby, one of their residents "experts" - an economist who once was a vice president in Lehman Brothers - that shows a woefully inadequate understanding of what bandwidth and capacity mean in relation to usage. Even in his statement he fails to make a conclusive connection between capping usage and solving this alleged bandwidth problem.<br /><br />As we've discussed before, <a href="http://brions.blogspot.com/2009/04/next-steps.html">usage caps do not fix a capacity problem</a>.<br /><br />It's left as an exercise to the reader to decide whether or not the ACI is to be believed as a credible group focused on the best interests of the <span style="font-style: italic;">consumer</span>.BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-59303574905773816042009-04-19T14:30:00.005-04:002009-04-20T21:00:48.127-04:00Open Letter to Larry F. Darby of the American Consumer InstituteThis letter is in reply to an <a href="http://www.theamericanconsumer.org/2009/04/17/open-letter-to-senator-john-f-kerry/">Open Letter to Senator John F. Kerry</a> by Larry F. Darby of the Amercian Consumer Institute<br /><hr /><br /><br />Mr. Darby,<br /><br />I appreciate your concerns and agree with several of your points in your letter, however I am concerned that you may be taking Time Warner Cable's word from their press releases as solid fact including their own confusion about bandwidth capacity versus Internet data consumption.<br /><br />Please allow me to offer a simple comparison to help illustrate the difference between capacity and usage.<br /><br />Webster's dictionary gives one definition of capacity as: <blockquote>"the maximum amount or number that can be contained or accommodated <a jug with a gallon capacity> <the auditorium was filled to capacity>."[1]</blockquote> Using this definition as it relates to the Internet and data, we say that the capacity of a network connection is equal to it's bandwidth, for example 10 megabits per second (Mbps). Likewise Webster defines bandwidth as: <blockquote>"the capacity for data transfer of an electronic communications system."[2]</blockquote> Please note, I take exception to their example as it is contrary to the definition.<br /><br />Other things we are familiar with that have capacities are rooms (maximum capacity), highways (maximum number of cars at a time), and pipes (maximum amount of fluid that may pass per second). All of these capacities refer to simultaneous usage, not total usage.<br /><br />The capacity of a room is not diminished when one person enters and subsequently leaves. It is only reached as they remain in the room. Likewise a highway's capacity for traffic is not reduced as cars enter AND leave, rather it's reached only when cars enter and remain.<br /><br />So-called bandwidth caps as proposed by Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Comcast and others are actually not related to bandwidth at all. They do not limit the speed of your network connection - the maximum simultaneous data transfer - they limit the total amount of data.<br /><br />That limit is akin to specifying a room has a maximum capacity of 1,000 people and after 1,000 people have entered (and left) the room no more may do so. Or in the case of Time Warner, any additional people to enter the room will pay an additional fee.<br /><br />This extra fee does not do anything to alleviate the problem of having too many people in the room at once. It only discourages people from going into the room in the first place for fear of being the one that goes over the 1,000th person limit.<br /><br />I hope this illustrates for you how "bandwidth" caps as proposed are not a solution to a capacity problem.<br /><br />I agree that perhaps an emergency allotment of bandwidth should be set aside for highly time-sensitive information and services such as medical records or emergency services such as 911, but I strongly disagree with the notion that the access you pay for is somehow related to the amount of data you receive or send with that access. Additionally I strongly disagree that one subset of users are subsidizing another subset's usage.<br /><br />I request that you publish the raw data used in the studies to which you refer so they may be reviewed publicly as a scientific paper would be reviewed by others in the field before it is accepted as credible and realistic.<br /><br />Thank you,<br />Brion Swanson<br /><br />[1] <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capacity%5B1%5D">http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capacity%5B1%5D</a><br />[2] <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bandwidth">http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bandwidth</a>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-6954665062790354792009-04-16T19:54:00.006-04:002009-04-19T20:36:25.057-04:00Here we go againIt's all over right? <a href="http://a.longreply.com/120178">Time Warner gave in</a> and the people's voice was heard!<br /><br />Well, almost.<br /><br />Time Warner has simply retreated a bit in order to regroup and attack again with their "consumption based billing" or CBB as we hip folks in the bloggerverse like to call it. CBB is by no means defeated. Indeed, what Time Warner has taken from this whole debacle is that people were simply not "educated" properly on the benefits of CBB and that's why there was so much outrage.<br /><br />I'm sure it couldn't be because people just do like their freedoms to be limited in the good ol' U. S. of A. .... naaaaah.<br /><br />If you can't tell, the sarcasm is dripping from my words off the screen and onto your desk. Consumption-based billing is <span style="font-weight: bold;">not a solution</span> to a <span style="font-style: italic;">capacity</span> problem. It has many names though. In Canada, they're calling it UBB or <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/04/14/bell-unlimited-download.html">Usage-based billing</a>. Same rose, different name but not smelling sweet at all.<br /><br />Since this seems like an incredibly hard concept to understand to folks like Time Warner and more recently <a href="http://www.theamericanconsumer.org/2009/04/17/open-letter-to-senator-john-f-kerry/">Larry F. Darby</a>, allow me to explain capacity as most people understand it.<br /><br />The <span style="font-weight: bold;">capacity</span> of something is its ability to contain or accommodate a specific amount or number of something. Rooms, for example, have a capacity. Highways have a capacity. Pipes have a capacity. And finally, spoons have a capacity. Capacity deals with how much of something you can accommodate <span style="font-weight: bold;">at the same time</span>.<br /><br />The <span style="font-weight: bold;">amount</span> of something is a measure of <span style="font-weight: bold;">how much</span> of that thing you have - either in a single moment or over time. As you can see in the explanation above, amount is a factor in capacity but does not define or modify it in any way.<br /><br />If I have a teaspoon to use for eating soup and I have an unlimited amount of soup set before me, my <span style="font-weight: bold;">capacity</span> to eat any <span style="font-weight: bold;">amount</span> of soup is rate-limited by the size of the spoon. Having a larger spoon allows me to eat the same amount of soup faster than having a smaller spoon but does not affect how much soup in total I can eat - only how fast I can eat it.<br /><br />Likewise, your Internet connection speed is your rate-limited <span style="font-weight: bold;">capacity</span> to access any <span style="font-weight: bold;">amount</span> of data on the Internet. Charging me extra money for having an extra spoonful of soup does not affect in any way the ability for others to eat soup with their own spoons.<br /><br />To impact someone else's ability to eat soup you'd have to decrease the size of my spoon to make room for more people around the soup bowl. It would take me longer to eat the same amount of soup because I'm getting less content with each spoonful, but it does allow more spoons in the bowl at once. Remember, the soup is unlimited, only the access to the bowl is what limits who can get the soup.<br /><br />We are paying for access to the bowl, to the Internet. We are paying for a specific spoon size and we can be expected to take a full spoonful with each pass. We are not expecting to be able to take 100 spoonfuls and then be charged per spoonful after that. Since the soup is plentiful and the size of the spoon is the <span style="font-weight: bold;">capacity</span> we've paid for, what possible justification can there be to charge us for the <span style="font-weight: bold;">amount</span> of soup we eat? Did we not pay for an all-you-can-eat buffet?<br /><br />With tongue-in-cheek I feel a bit like Homer Simpson when he gets kicked out of an all-you-can-eat buffet before he's actually had his fill and files a lawsuit for false advertising.<br /><br />It seems to me that if <span style="font-weight: bold;">capacity</span> is a problem for Time Warner, they should simply reduce the connection speeds they sell (and reduce the price they charge subsequently as well) so that all our spoons are smaller and more people can fit around the bowl.<br /><br />If <span style="font-weight: bold;">amount</span> of data used is a problem, I want to see the numbers and know how it's possible that content provided from another network simply traveling through Time Warner's network to my computer is a burden since the data come in single-file.<br /><br />The biggest misleading notion that I keep seeing from Larry Darby at the American Consumer Institute and from Time Warner is that different types of data take up different amounts of bandwidth. This is blatantly false. You can download a 5MB photo over a 54Kbps modem just as you can an 800Kb email. The former will simply take you longer.<br /><br />When more bandwidth is available (larger chunks of data can be downloaded at once), then better and more advanced technologies become available such as Voice over IP (VoIP) and streaming movies. But if you did not have the ability to watch movies while they downloaded because your bandwidth was too narrow (slow speed connection), you'd simply have to wait for the movie to download before you could watch it. It does not mean you couldn't watch it. It does mean holding a conversation online would become unfeasable, but that's a slightly different matter.<br /><br />Time Warner doesn't care if you watch your movie online in a streaming fashion (while it's still downloading) or if you have to download it completely before you watch it -- they just don't want you to download it period!<br /><br />That, my friends, is why caps based on how much you download is not acceptable, ever.BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-34289031627186003302009-04-16T14:51:00.002-04:002009-04-19T20:36:25.057-04:00The Power of YOUToday <a href="http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/Time-Warner-Cable-Drops-New-Internet-Price-Plan/GAVd2LxnpE6vGyRySlvCOw.cspx">Time Warner announced</a> that they will not be rolling out any sort of usage cap in Rochester, NY at this (or any foreseeable) time.<br /><br />Well done to everyone!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Potent Quote of the day</span><br />(shamelessly stolen)<br /><blockquote>"All this consumer demand making a difference... Brings new meaning to "The Power of You" -- TWC's slogan" - <a href="http://twitter.com/elvo86">elvo86</a></blockquote>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-22632304026245787272009-04-11T16:06:00.027-04:002009-04-19T20:36:25.057-04:00Reality check: Do Time Warner's new plans make sense?Let's face it, Time Warner Cable's newly proposed Internet usage caps have caused a lot of controversy. Opponents say the changes will cost the average user more money while Time Warner Cable representatives claim it will save some people money and not affect at all the majority of everyone else.<br /><br />In an effort to understand Time Warner's side of the story, I sat down with a big mug of hot tea, some relaxing music, and loaded up their 2008 SEC Annual Report (linked on the right side of this blog). In it, most everything about the company is explained in legalese but enough English for the average person to muddle through.<br /><br />The Annual Report discusses the structure of Time Warner Cable as they relate to Time Warner Incorporated, Time Warner NY Cable Incorporated, and Time Warner Entertainment. It's a fascinating bit of reading of you can stay awake while reading it. The report also defines the services Time Warner Cable provides, what its revenues were year over year from 2006 to 2008, its costs, and its perceived threats to the business.<br /><br />Below you'll find an interesting and poignant fact from the report and placed next to a statement made by Landel Hobbs, the Chief Operating Officer of Time Warner Cable.<br /><br />I've also created what I consider to be a common use scenario, relative amounts of bandwidth for said activities and how they stack up against each usage plan.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">He Said, They Said</span></span><br /><br /><a href="http://a.longreply.com/109511"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Landel Hobbs</span></a> (4/9/2009)<br /><blockquote>With the ever-increasing flood of content on the Internet, bandwidth consumption is growing exponentially. That’s a good thing; however, there are costs associated with this increased Internet usage. Here at Time Warner Cable, consumption among our high-speed Internet subscribers is increasing by about 40% a year. <span style="font-variant: small-caps; font-weight: bold;">As a facilities based provider, we’ve built a network that must be maintained and upgraded. We have increasing variable costs and we have to continue to invest in the network itself.</span><br /></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">SEC Filing </span></span>(12/31/2008)<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">(Capital expenditures, pg. 73)</span><br /><br /><blockquote><br /><table border="1"><br /><tbody><tr><th colspan="4" style="text-align: right;">Year Ended December 31,</th></tr><br /><tr><th><span style="text-align: right;font-size:85%;" >(in millions)</span></th><th>2008</th><th>2007</th><th>2006</th></tr><br /><tr><td>Customer premise equipment</td><td>$ 1,628</td><td>$ 1,485</td><td>$ 1,125</td></tr><br /><tr><td style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Scalable infrastructure</span></td><td style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">600</td><td style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">604</td><td>568</td></tr><br /><tr><td>Line extensions</td><td>350</td><td>372</td><td>280</td></tr><br /><tr><td style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Upgrades/rebuilds</span></td><td style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">315</td><td style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">315</td><td>151</td></tr><br /><tr><td>Support capital</td><td>629</td><td>657</td><td>594</td></tr><br /><tr><td>Total capital expenditures</td><td>$ 3,522</td><td>$ 3,433</td><td>$ 2,718</td></tr><br /></tbody></table><br /></blockquote><br /><a href="http://a.longreply.com/109511"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Landel Hobbs</span></a> (4/9/2009)<br /><blockquote>Rather than raising prices on all customers or limiting usage, we think the fairest approach is to move to a tiered model in which users pay more if they use more.</blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Old TW Plans vs. Proposed TW Plans</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">(from web statements on a.longreply.com, Twitter from AlexTWC, and the original BusinessWeek article)</span><br /><br /><table border="1" width="48%"><br /><tbody><tr><th colspan="4" style="text-align: center;">Existing Plans*</th></tr><br /><tr><th>Monthly Price</th><th>Speed Down/Up</th><th>Data Limit</th><th>Cost per GB</th></tr><br /><tr><td>$15 Lite</td><td>768 Kbps/128 Kbps</td><td>NONE</td><td>negligible</td></tr><br /><tr><td>$25 Basic</td><td>1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps</td><td>NONE</td><td>negligible</td></tr><br /><tr><td>$35 Standard</td><td>10 Mbps/1 Mbps</td><td>NONE</td><td>negligible</td></tr><br /><tr><td>$45 Turbo</td><td>15 Mbps/2 Mbps</td><td>NONE</td><td>negligible</td></tr><br /></tbody></table><br />* - Internet-only subscribers pay $10 more at each tier<br /><br /><table border="1" width="48%"><br /><tbody><tr><th colspan="5" style="text-align: center;">Proposed Tiers</th></tr><br /><tr><th>Monthly Price</th><th>Speed Down/Up</th><th>Data Limit</th><th>Cost per GB</th><th>Overage Fee per GB</th></tr><br /><tr><td>$ 15</td><td>768 Kbps/128 Kbps</td><td>1 GB</td><td>$ 15</td><td>$ 2</td></tr><br /><tr><td>$ 30</td><td>10 Mbps/1 Mbps(?)</td><td>10 GB</td><td>$ 3</td><td>$ 1</td></tr><br /><tr><td>$ 45(?)</td><td>10 Mbps/1 Mbps(?)</td><td>20 GB</td><td>$ 2.25</td><td>$ 1</td></tr><br /><tr><td>$ 50(?)</td><td>10 Mbps/1 Mbps(?)</td><td>40 GB</td><td>$ 1.25</td><td>$ 1</td></tr><br /><tr><td>$ 55(?)</td><td>10 Mbps/1 Mbps(?)</td><td>60 GB</td><td>$ 0.91</td><td>$ 1</td></tr><br /><tr><td>$ 75</td><td>10 Mbps/1 Mbps</td><td>100 GB</td><td>$ 0.75</td><td>$ 1</td></tr><br /><tr><td>$ 99</td><td>50 Mbps/5 Mbps</td><td>150 GB</td><td>$ 0.66</td><td>$ 1</td></tr><br /></tbody></table><br />(?) indicates these are guesses because no actual numbers have been released at the time of writing<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" ><br />Realistic Usage Scenarios</span><br /><br />Under the new pricing plan (regardless of the costs to TWC), customers have to choose between how much data they consume, how fast they want their connection, and how much they are willing to spend but no matter what they can't have what they have now.<br /><br />There simply is no exact equivalent to any existing plan. So-called "light" users will perhaps choose a low plan like the $15/month one, but be saddled with DSL speeds, an impossibly low 1GB monthly usage cap and an exorbitant $2/GB overage fee. However a so-called "moderate" user who might have standard RoadRunner now at $40/month will pay the same amount but potentially hit their cap (10 or 20 GB) and incur up to $75 in overage fees bringing the grand total to $115/month.<br /><br />Below are what I consider to be common usage patterns or scenarios and the associated conservative bandwidth usage followed by the current cost to a user of that scenario and the cost in the tiered system.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"Light" User Pattern</span><br /><br />A "light" user varies between someone who uses the Internet daily for email and little else, to someone who does not use the Internet much at all during a month's time frame. For the purposes of this scenario I will select the following characteristics of a "light" user:<br /><ul><li>Checks email at least once daily including attachments (~ 1MB per day)<br /></li><li>Browses the web four times a week for 1 hour each time (10 - 50MB depending on the sites)<br /></li><li>Gets OS updates once a month automatically (50 - 400MB)<br /></li><li>Very infrequently downloads music or watches video online (5 - 30MB)<br /></li></ul>Given the above, a "light" user may use approximately <span style="font-weight: bold;">658 MB per month</span>. An existing RoadRunner Lite subscriber pays $15/month. In the new tier, the same "light" user could subscribe to the $15/month tier and <span style="font-weight: bold;">pay the same</span>.<br /><br />The difference between existing and proposed is the new system would penalize the user if he or she managed to use twice as much data in one month at a minimum overage fee of $2 or 13% of the cost of the plan.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"Moderate" User Pattern</span><br /><br />A "moderate" user varies between someone who uses the Internet daily for email and web browsing to a person who also occasionally watches TV shows on <a href="http://hulu.com/">Hulu.com</a> or subscribes to <a href="http://netflix.com/">Netflix</a> and occasionally watches a movie on the computer instead of the DVD player. This is a general representation of your modern-day networked person who does not use the Internet excessively, but doesn't shy away from it either. For the purposes of this scenario I will select the following characteristics of a "moderate" user:<br /><ul><li>Checks email at least once daily (~ 1MB per day)<br /></li><li>Accesses the web at least once daily and may spend up to three hours each time simply "surfing the web" including accessing sites such as the <a href="http://yahoo.com/">Yahoo!</a> home page portal for news and entertainment (53 - 263MB)<br /></li><li>Gets OS updates for their computer a few times a month. This may also include getting Antivirus software updates. (100 - 450MB)<br /></li><li>Posts a small amount of personal pictures online with sites like <a href="http://flickr.com/">Flickr.com</a> and <a href="http://picasa.google.com/">Picasa.com</a> (60 MB)<br /></li><li>Uses a form of social networking such as <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://myspace.com/">Myspace.com</a> or <a href="http://facebook.com/">Facebook.com</a> (20 - 100MB)<br /></li><li>Occasionally downloads music from online retailers such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes">iTunes Music Store</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/MP3-Music-Download/b/ref=sa_menu_dmusic2_gw?ie=UTF8&node=163856011&pf_rd_p=328655101&pf_rd_s=left-nav-1&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=507846&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1MWC7THG54M4JXGPJ2SR">Amazon.com MP3 Downloads</a> (25 MB)<br /></li><li>Occasionally plays online games on a computer, Xbox Live, Wii, or PS 3 (50 - 200MB)<br /></li><li>Occasionally watches videos on sites like <a href="http://youtube.com/">YouTube.com</a> or <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo.com</a> (100 - 300MB)<br /></li><li>Occasionally shops online from sites like <a href="http://ebay.com/">eBay.com</a>, <a href="http://amazon.com/">Amazon.com</a> or <a href="http://newegg.com/">Newegg.com</a> (10 - 50MB)<br /></li></ul>Given the above, a "moderate" user may use approximately <span style="font-weight: bold;">2.3 GB per month</span>. An existing RoadRunner Standard customer pays $35/month. In the new tier, the same "moderate" user could subscribe to the $30/month tier and <span style="font-weight: bold;">save $5/month</span>.<br /><br />The difference between existing and proposed is the new system would penalize the user if he or she managed to use five times as much data in one month at a minimum overage fee of $1 or 3% the cost of the plan.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"Heavy" User Pattern</span><br /><br />A "heavy" user varies between someone who exhibits the behaviors of a "moderate" user and also exhibits several of the following behaviors:<br /><ul><li>Spends more than three hours a day each week online (+300MB)<br /></li><li>Downloads a large amount of music and/or movies from <a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes">iTunes Music Store</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/MP3-Music-Download/b/ref=sa_menu_dmusic2_gw?ie=UTF8&node=163856011&pf_rd_p=328655101&pf_rd_s=left-nav-1&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=507846&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1MWC7THG54M4JXGPJ2SR">Amazon.com MP3 Downloads</a> (+575MB)<br /></li><li>Downloads video game demos for the computer or gaming consoles (+2 to 10GB)<br /></li><li>Uses Internet telephony such as <a href="http://vonage.com/">Vonage</a> or <a href="http://skype.com/">Skype</a> with some regularity (+100MB / hr)<br /></li><li>Uses Internet video chat with a web camera (+300MB / hr)<br /></li><li>Watches three or more streaming movies per month through video services such as <a href="http://netflix.com/">Netflix</a> (+18GB)<br /></li><li>Regularly watches TV on sites such as <a href="http://hulu.com/">Hulu.com</a> or <a href="http://abc.com/">abc.com</a> (+500MB / hr)<br /></li><li>Watches and/or uploads videos regularly from sites such as <a href="http://youtube.com/">YouTube.com</a> or <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo.com</a> (+600MB)<br /></li><li>Does a lot of online shopping at sites such as <a href="http://ebay.com/">eBay.com</a>, <a href="http://amazon.com/">Amazon.com</a> and <a href="http://newegg.com/">Newegg.com</a> (+100MB)<br /></li><li>Regularly plays games online using a computer or a gaming console (+100MB / hr)<br /></li><li>Uploads large amounts of photos to sites like <a href="http://flickr.com/">Flickr.com</a>, <a href="http://picasa.google.com/">Picasa.com</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/">Facebook.com</a> or <a href="http://myspace.com/">MySpace.com</a> (+3GB)<br /></li><li>Frequently spends time on social networking sites such as <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter.com</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/">Facebook.com</a>, or <a href="http://myspace.com/">Myspace.com</a> (+300MB)<br /></li><li>Listens to streaming Internet radio from such sites as <a href="http://last.fm/">Last.fm</a> and <a href="http://pandora.com/">Pandora.com</a> (+50MB / hr)</li></ul>Given the above, a "heavy" user may use approximately <span style="font-weight: bold;">75 GB per month</span>. An existing RoadRunner Turbo customer pays $45/month. In the new tier, the same "heavy" user could subscribe to the $75/month tier and <span style="font-weight: bold;">pay an additional $30/month</span>.<br /><br />Additionally in the new system the user would be penalized if he or she managed to use an additional 25 GB in one month at a minimum overage fee of $1 or 1% the cost of the plan. The new plan also provides slightly slower speeds -- 10 Mbps/1 Mbps vs. 15 Mbps/2 Mbps.<br /><br />Other Considerations<br /><br />While the above scenarios do indeed punish heavy users as Time Warner aims, there are several factors that may significantly play into making the "light" and "moderate" users use much more data per month possibly incurring overage fees or requiring a higher, more expensive tier:<br /><ol><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">These are conservative estimates based on my own experience.</span> While I'm a heavy user, my daily average usage currently is around 2 GB. On "light" days I still manage to use about 500 MB of data just checking email and using Facebook. Also the sites you visit will make a big difference on how much "surfing" will cost in terms of data. Sites like YouTube and Flickr.com, even without watching any videos or loading full-sized images, are implicitly "heavy" sites and will use far more data that a text-only site with few or no images. Quick indicator: moving or dynamic pages are "heavy", static and sometimes boring-looking pages are "light".<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">These numbers don't factor in malware and viruses.</span> If your computer manages to contract a virus or get malware on it that malicious software will most likely send and receive data constantly without your knowledge and artificially inflate your data usage incurring overage fees or requiring you to move to a higher tier.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">These numbers don't factor in spam and other unwanted junk mail.</span> Although a much more slight factor, unwanted e-mail is still downloaded to your computer when you check your e-mail and that download uses up part of your allotment.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Time Warner expects Internet usage to grow at least 40% each year**.</span> This means the "light" user above may use 921 MB next year; the "moderate" user may use 3.2 GB next year; and the "heavy" user may use 105 GB next year.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Unsecured wireless home networks may be used by unscrupulous "war-drivers" who drive (or walk) around and use these networks as their Internet access on your dime.</span> <a href="http://www.wardrive.net/wardriving/faq">War-driving</a>'s legality is not entirely clear, but the financial impact on you if you stumble into an unscrupulous war-driver is clear.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">The maximum overage fee is $75 if you really exceed your cap.</span> This means your damages are limited, but it also means you may be paying up to three times as much as you do now for "unlimited" service.<br /></li></ol>** - per Landel Hobbs in the above-quoted statement<br /><br />As you can see, there are many factors that may adversely affect the conservative numbers presented here. The caps as stated place everyone in a tight-fitting shirt that will shrink when it goes through the wash and won't fit next year.<br /><br />Data caps in general create a disincentive to use the Internet for fear of reaching or exceeding the cap an incurring overage fees. <span style="font-weight: bold;">No matter how high the cap is, given time technology will rise to exceed it under normal circumstances.</span><br /><br />Hopefully this article provides some concrete examples of how the tiers will work and who will be most impacted. The best way to get an accurate feel for how much data you or your household uses is to monitor the so-called "gas gauge" Time Warner will be enabling later this summer.<br /><br />You will have two months to determine how much data you download and one additional month after the caps go into effect where you will be warned about any overages but not charged until the following month if your usage remains the same.<br /><br />It's your choice - raise your voice or accept your limits.BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-89315870960847661892009-04-10T07:27:00.003-04:002009-04-19T20:37:32.686-04:00Eric Massa Town Hall Meeting Full of SurprisesLast night I attended a Town Hall style meeting with New York's 29th congressional district representative Eric J. J. Massa held in Pittsford, NY. It appears that these town halls are somewhat regular and a place for constituents to air their complaints to Washington via their conduit Mr. Massa. Tonight was no exception.<br /><br />There were probably around 40 to 50 people in attendance and many topics of discussion were raised including the future of Medicaid and concerns about the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/nyregion/09binghamton.html?ref=nyregion">shootings in Binghamton</a> earlier in the week.<br /><br />Then a student (presumably from RIT) broke the ice with regard to Time Warner's proposed usage caps. This got the room buzzing. Eric Massa re-iterated his stance that he is doing and will continue to do everything in his power to prevent the caps from being put in place. He feels it will hamper the area's economy in a time when the last thing we need is to slow down an already stagnant economy.<br /><br />I stepped out for a moment to answer a phone call and 30 seconds after I returned three representatives of Time Warner Cable stood up and identified themselves. One representative (shown on the right in my friend <a href="http://randyandrachel.com/2009/04/10/time-warners-timing-is-everything/">Randy's blog post</a>) attempted feebly to assuage the sudden air of rage that seemed to fill the vast auditorium by announcing that very recently they have released an <a href="http://brions.blogspot.com/2009/04/abuse-version-20.html">updated statement</a> with "improved" tiers after listening to customer feedback.<br /><br />Two gentlemen near the front center were practically ready to jump out of their chairs and throttle this Time Warner executive and I don't blame them. Mr. Massa did what any diplomat would do and attempted to difuse the situation by volunteering to set up an open discussion with Time Warner and <span style="font-weight: bold;">all stakeholders</span> including Frontier and the people of Rochester. I'm looking forward to that meeting with great anticipation.<br /><br />The elderly gentleman in front of me turned around at one point and stated he was surprised at the turn in conversation -- he didn't expect the Time Warner issue to come up at all much less be a big deal.<br /><br />The best part however was even face to face with the Time Warner exec, Eric Massa stood tall and strong and firmly stated that he would bring down the full power of 100+ members of Congress to prevent Time Warner from implementing these caps unless they can address the concerns of himself and all his constituents to his and our satisfaction.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Well done Mr. Massa. Well done!</span>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-1355033564831202012009-04-10T06:47:00.004-04:002009-04-19T20:36:25.058-04:00Abuse version 2.0Yesterday evening Time Warner released a <a href="http://a.longreply.com/109511">second statement</a> regarding their bandwidth tiers and pricing. Time Warner claims in it,<br /><blockquote>We’ve heard the passionate feedback and we’ve taken action to address our customers’ concerns.</blockquote>Oh goody! They've gotten rid of the caps (or at the very least significantly increased them) right?<br />Not exactly. Here's the breakdown of the "new and improved" tiers:<br /><ul><li>A new "lighter Internet user" tier will exist providing <span style="font-weight: bold;">1 GB per month</span> at speeds of <span style="font-weight: bold;">768 KB up/128 KB down</span> for $15 per month.<br />Overage charges will be <span style="font-weight: bold;">$2 per GB</span> per month.<br /></li><li>Bandwidth tier sizes are increasing to 10, 20, 40 and 60 GB for Road Runner Lite, Basic, Standard and Turbo packages, respectively.<br />Package prices will remain the same.<br />Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.<br /></li><li>A new 100 GB Road Runner Turbo package has been added for $75 per month at speeds of 10 MB/1 MB (very notably slower than RR Turbo now but $20 more expensive). Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Overage charges will be capped at $75 per month. </span><br />That means that for $150 per month customers could have virtually unlimited usage at Turbo speeds.<br /></li><li>Trials will begin in Rochester, N.Y., and Greensboro, N.C., <span style="font-weight: bold;">in August.</span><br /></li><li>DOCSIS 3.0 will be launched sometime in the future <span style="font-style: italic;">[editorial: 2090?]</span> with a 50/5 MB speed tier for $99 per month<span style="font-style: italic;"> [editorial: with an unknown cap]</span>. </li></ul>If you were like me you laughed, you cried, and you hurled. Then after you finished watching <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105793/">Wayne's World</a> you read this memo and your jaw hit the floor.<br /><br />I'm not exactly sure <span style="font-style: italic;">who</span> Time Warner has been listening to because I'm quite sure I didn't hear anyone, anywhere say, "I wish there was a low-end tier with next to no usage and double the overage fee for slower than DSL speeds." Or maybe the execs over there have some <span style="font-style: italic;">really powerful drugs</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Time Warner Doesn't Get It</span></span><br /><br />They just keep missing the point. <span style="font-weight: bold;">People don't want usage caps....PERIOD.</span> We're not shouting up and down about how slow Road Runner is and how we need DOCSIS 3.0 for 50Mbps download speed. (Well, ok some people are, but they're a very small minority at the moment - DOCSIS 3.0 is just good business sense for them no matter what.)<br /><br />Laughingly Time Warner refers to two studies Conducted by Nemertes Research about the pending so-called 'exaflood' wherein the demand for Internet services exceeds capacity and people start experiencing "Internet brownouts" where speed unexplicably is reduced at times.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.nemertes.com/internet_singularity_delayed_why_limits_internet_capacity_will_stifle_innovation_web">first study</a> conducted in 2007 stated in its conclusion,<br /><blockquote>We conclude that the evidence is good that demand for Internet and IP services is increasing exponentially, while access investment is proceeding linearly.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">[...]<br /></span>The next Google, YouTube, or Amazon might not arise not because of a lack of demand, but due to an inability to fulfill that demand. Rather like osteoporosis, the underinvestment in infrastructure will painlessly and invisibly leach competitiveness out of the economy.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">[...]</span><br />There is, however, another gap that is within scope for us, as researchers, to address, and that is the data gap. We have several times noted that the best available data (chiefly that from CAIDA and MINTS) is exceedingly limited, due to the unwillingness of service providers to share details on their infrastructures and capacities.</blockquote>What I take from that study is that it says our <span style="font-weight: bold;">infrastructure</span> is limiting our access and by doing so having an adverse affect on the ability for online businesses to thrive and move forward.<br /><br />Additionally it says that companies like Time Warner are stingy with their data and this report could be highly flawed due to "exceedingly limited" data.<br /><br />A <a href="http://www.nemertes.com/ii08">second study</a> the following year repeated the same message: capacity (i.e. bandwidth) is not keeping pace with demand and that needs to change for Internet businesses to be viable.<br /><br />There have been accusations that Nemertes is simply <a href="http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2007/11/20/suckered-by-astroturf/">astroturfing for the industry</a>, but whether they are or aren't, it seems to me their warnings are going unheeded by TWC. Indeed, TWC is attempting to address the "problem" by limiting usage instead of building out infrastructure.<br /><br />Time Warner hasn't done themselves any favor with this latest memo. I know it's simply renewed my efforts to get the word out and bring people's attention to the fact that not only are these caps ridiculous but that TWC has seen fit to <span style="font-weight: bold;">move the date up to August</span> from the original planned start date in September...but just for Rochester and Greensboro. That's probably because we're simply the loudest two test sites and they want to silence us first by capping our usage and making it unfeasible to continue fighting online.BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-82150720405547549212009-04-09T11:13:00.004-04:002009-04-19T20:36:25.058-04:00Ars Technica breaks down the cost per GB of TW capsArs Technica does a fairly good job of <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/the-price-gouging-premiums-of-time-warner-cables-data-caps.ars">breaking down the TWC pricing costs per GB</a> with the proposed caps. Unfortunately the article author and the editor of the trade publication <span style="font-style: italic;">DSL Prime </span>are woefully ambivilant to the concept of capping altogether and seem to buy into the spiel that the Internet can't grow anymore without caps. Nevermind the fact that the lack of caps is what has spurred the incredible growth over the past 10 years.<br /><br />I'm going to try one more stab at why usage caps don't address the perceived bandwidth problem. This time we'll compare Internet access to time shares.<br /><br />Internet service providers have a fixed amount of bandwidth available to them to resell to customers. Let's say for the sake of this example they have 100Mbps connection to the Internet.<br /><br />In a time share scenario, the ISP could divvy up that 100Mbps however they wanted but once they run out of bandwidth, they can't sell anymore. Perhaps at time share-style ISP would sell 10 customers 10Mbps connections and that's it.<br /><br />Time Warner and all modern ISPs realize that's an inefficient use of the available bandwidth because not everyone uses their 10Mbps connection all the time leaving a lot of "empty" bandwidth. So instead, the ISPs sell 100 people 10Mbps expecting that not everyone will be online using their full bandwidth at the same time. When that happens however, everyone's connection slows to a crawl because they can each only get at most 1Mbps.<br /><br />The usage caps do not change this scenario in terms of how much bandwidth is available or sold. Instead it creates a disincentive for you to use your full bandwidth because you have a limit on the amount of <span style="font-style: italic;">data</span> you can download. If you use your full bandwidth frequently you'll exceed your limit and pay overage fees.<br /><br />This is like the time share you've purchased (2 weeks in August in the Florida Keys) and one week into your stay the owner calls you up and tells you to be out by 5pm or he'll charge you an additional fee for every night you stay. Most people would find this behavior outrageous since you've already paid for then entire two weeks, but your usage of the 2 week access time is capped to only 1 week.<br /><br />In this way, ISPs essentially scare people into not using their Internet connection as frequently so as to help avoid the network slow-downs that occur when everyone is using it.<br /><br />Clearly this method of selling bandwidth doesn't guarantee any particular performance for your money and with the caps may actually punish you for using your full bandwidth.<br /><br />Additionally in the case of Time Warner one of their talking points is the promise to bring even higher speeds than they have now. However, higher speeds just means you can reach your cap faster so that's not much for "helping people save money".BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-71280141381116319042009-04-08T21:08:00.004-04:002009-04-19T20:36:25.058-04:00A Civil Conversation With Time Warner Cable<p>This evening I called Time Warner Cable's customer service number to talk with them about their company's plan to implement usage caps and my resolve to cancel 10+ years of service should that happen.</p><p>After bypassing the annoying menu system, I reached a service representative who introduced himself as Gordon. I began by saying, “Good evening Gordon, how are you tonight?” I think this caught him off-guard a little and his reply sounded somewhat disarmed.</p><p>I introduced myself and told him I was calling to find out more about the proposed usage caps I'd been hearing about. Intentionally my tone was kept calm, soft, and my language civil. He asked if I had read the <a href="http://a.longreply.com/101892">open letter</a> written by their Chief Operating Officer Landel Hobbs. I had. I informed him that I worked as a software developer, have a fairly complex home network set-up and am quite savvy regarding things computerish. I also mentioned that I have been a customer with Time Warner for over 10 years and overall have been very happy with the quality of the cable service itself. Next I expressed my concern at the concept of capping data usage as it does not reduce the possibility of a slow network if everyone is using it at once, even within their limits.</p> <p>Our conversation went back and forth from me trying to explain bandwidth versus data using my water glass analogy and him repeating with some regularity how times have changed and the usage cap has nothing to do with speed. As a matter of fact he was happy to remind me that along with the caps there would be speed improvements. I guess it didn't occur to him that with more speed I can simply hit my caps faster.<br /></p><p>I could tell at times he was flustered with my cool and technical questions and responses. I wasn't about to buy into his talking points I've seen so frequently that attempt to distract from the issue at hand:</p><ul><li>The Internet market is shifting, people are consuming so much data these days and TWC has to change their pricing structure to keep pace with it<br /></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Everyone</span> will be implementing these caps soon</li><li>Frontier tried implementing a much lower cap last year <span style="font-style: italic;">[at which point I reminded him that it was not implemented due to customer backlash and exodus from their services -- he didn't respond to my comment directly but continued talking]</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Most customers</span> will actually <span style="font-weight: bold;">save</span> money with this plan</li><li>It doesn't make sense that people who only check their email should pay as much as someone who downloads movies all the time <span style="font-style: italic;">[again, at this point I interjected and suggested that people pay for the access speed so when they want to use it they can; if price were a factor they would be using DSL or dial-up]</span></li><li>This is just a test of a new way to bill <span style="font-style: italic;">[this was kind of a slip-up on his part I think]</span></li></ul><p>I attempted to ferret from him the exact problem Time Warner is attempting to address with these caps, but he just repeated the line about the Internet changing and Time Warner's business needs to change with it, etc.<br /></p><p>The conversation continued for about 22 minutes and in the end I simply explained to him politely that he should make a note on my account that I <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">will be canceling my service with Time Warner</span> if they insist on putting these caps in place even for only a test. I told him if the test concludes and they remove the caps then I’d come back, but <span style="font-weight: bold;">as long as there is any provider with an unlimited usage plan, that company will get my money for Internet access</span>.</p> <p>He was very cordial, if not somewhat flustered, and the conversation ended with a “Have a good night.”</p><p>I encourage everyone who opposes these caps to have a civil conversation with the customer service center of Time Warner. These are people who get dumped on all the time for the decisions of their bosses and higher. You're much more likely to be taken seriously and your viewpoints appreciated if you're not yelling in their face and casting obscenities at them.</p><p>Additionally, the decision to cancel one or more services now to show you're serious is of course up to you, but I prefer to provide a warning and be ready to follow through with action if the caps actually arrive.</p><p>One interesting thing to note from the conversation is that he very clearly repeated that the so-called "gas gauge" will not be available until September and the three month grace period will begin at that time. This essentially means by December 31st, 2009 we will either have caps or we won't.</p><p>I also encourage the use of <a href="http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/index.php">DD-WRT</a> or <a href="http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato">Tomato</a> as open source router firmware that you can install (with some moderate risk of damage if done improperly) that will enable a bandwidth monitor that you can access without actually using any external bandwidth to read it. I have DD-WRT and it provides a built-in WAN and LAN usage monitor per month broken down by day. Other software includes <a href="http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/">MRTG</a> which requires an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Network_Management_Protocol">SNMP</a>-enabled router[1] but provides more bandwidth details on a web page hosted on the machine on which it runs.<br /></p><hr />[1] DD-WRT has SNMP support even if your router doesn't support it with the pre-installed firmware. SNMP support for Tomato is not default, but there are articles on <a href="http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=51064">how to get SNMP with Tomato</a><br /><p></p>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-3064702170844152712009-04-07T21:26:00.009-04:002009-04-19T20:36:25.058-04:00"Bandwidth Cap" is a misnomer... and it's illegal<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Wrong Term</span></span><br /><br />For much of this debate about Time Warner's <span style="font-weight: bold;">consumption-based billing</span> plan we've been using the wrong terminology -- bandwidth caps.<br /><br />If you consider my previous posts (yes, I mis-used the term as well), bandwidth is merely a measure of the network speed and that has always been capped. Time Warner sells access levels based on speed, standard and turbo at rates of 10 Mpbs and 15 Mbps respectively. By the very definition of access speed the bandwidth is capped at a maximum. So our focus isn't on bandwidth caps so much as it is on data consumption.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Consumption-based Billing Is Illegal</span><br /><br />Further consider that Time Warner only has a right to charge fees for what it owns or is licensed to distribute. This means that Time Warner has the right to charge fees for access to its Internet backbone infrastructure, but only access. The <span style="font-style: italic;">content</span> of the Internet may or may not be licensed to Time Warner and certainly <span style="font-style: italic;">everything</span> found online is not owned or licensed to Time Warner.<br /><br />According to <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106">various</a> <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#119">sections</a> of the <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html">U.S. Copyright Law</a>, it would be massive copyright infringement (punishable up to <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#504">$150,000 per infringement</a> and arguably on a scale large enough to be considered criminal) for Time Warner to charge subscribers for content from the Internet without either being the copyright holder or a licensed distributor.<br /><br />It only follows that consumption-based billing is equivalent to charging for data, not access -- data for which Time Warner does not own or have a legal right to redistribute and charge a fee. Therefore consumption-based billing is outright illegal.<br /><br />I am not a lawyer by any means. I have spent a fair amount of my life in the legal industry and have participated in several mock trials in addition to being an active proponent of open source software and Linux, so I am quite familiar with copyright law in the United States of America and I'm a bit surprised this hasn't been brought up before. I'd be interested in hearing the explanation from a judge as to how this would not fall under the purview of copyright infringement.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Update 4/8/2009 12:07PM]</span> <br /><br />To clarify, I am saying that because Time Warner is effectively charging for content (data downloaded) and not for access to that content, they are in violation of the content owner's rights to monetize their own works since I'm sure TWC is not paying anything out to the content owners for the fees they collect in overage charges.<br /><br />If TWC however changed their data usage cap to a time usage cap like AOL did back in the day, then they'd be in the copyright clear. You would now be limited by the amount of time you spent online, not the amount of data you download (which doesn't impact bandwidth at all and doesn't contribute to any perceived "crisis").<br /><br />For example, the low tier might be 60 hours a month for $20 (about 2 hours per day) and the high tier would be 300 hours a month (about 10 hours a day) for much more.<br /><br />People would at least know exactly what the caps mean and it wouldn't affect their bandwidth / connection speed. Maybe a discounted connection (< 10Mbps) could be offered for even lower, but quite frankly it's more profitable for everyone ("heavy" users and "light" users alike) to pay the same amount because TWC makes a huge profit off the "light" users since they rarely spend time using the bandwidth they're given.BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-84468428929209814772009-04-07T17:54:00.002-04:002009-04-19T20:37:32.686-04:00A Thank You Letter to Congressman Massa<span style="font-style: italic;">The following is a copy of a thank you letter I sent to Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY) for taking a stand against Time Warner's unfair and anti-competitive proposed bandwidth caps.<br /><br /><a href="http://massa.house.gov/?sectionid=7&sectiontree=4,7">You can e-mail and thank Congressman Massa too</a><br /></span><br /><hr /><br /><br />Congressman Massa,<br /><br />I want to thank you for taking a stand for the people of Rochester. In particular I'd like to thank you for speaking out against Time Warner Cable's predatory bandwidth cap proposal.<br /><br />In Rochester, modern users are consuming more and more data from the Internet as more and more services and products move online. Time Warner's move appears to be a thinly-veiled effort to lock customers out of competition and stay within TWC's own product offerings. The products TWC provides that are most under threat are digital phone (Voice over IP or VoIP), video on demand (such as Netflix), and even their flagship product television with sites like abc.com and hulu.com providing the same content in high definition for free online.<br /><br />The excuses Time Warner has made are laughable at best when compared to other cities where Time Warner must actually compete for business. While Frontier does offer some broadband Internet access, they are no strangers to suggesting a cap and their DSL technology is an aging one that is rapidly losing pace to cable and fiber technologies. Even wireless broadband is expected to exceed some DSL speeds in the near future.<br /><br />Frontier is not a viable long-term option. Rochester needs more cable and Internet competition to keep the prices reasonable.<br /><br />Thank you again for hearing the painful cries of Time Warner Customers in Rochester and for taking a stand against these unfair and anti-competitive proposals.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br />Brion SwansonBrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-11126970647035111592009-04-07T07:46:00.006-04:002009-04-19T20:36:25.058-04:00Another Analogy for BandwidthI realize my previous water company analogy may not have been as all-encompassing as I'd hoped, so here's my second attempt at a simpler analogy.<br /><br />Imagine a glass of water with straws in it.<br /><br />Consider the width of the opening of the glass to be the <span style="font-style: italic;">bandwidth</span> that Time Warner has to the Internet for <span style="font-style: italic;">everyone</span> to use.<br /><br />Consider the water in the glass to be the <span style="font-style: italic;">data</span> that you want to download (by sucking it up through a straw).<br /><br />Finally, consider a single straw as your <span style="font-style: italic;">connection to the Internet</span>.<br /><br />When there are only a few straws in the glass, everyone can suck up data as fast as their straw will allow them (that is, the speed of your connection in Mbps - also known as bandwidth).<br /><br />Some straws represent more speed / greater bandwidth and are bigger than others. But there is only a limited amount of space in the glass to put straws. If you pack the glass full of straws to the point where you can't add any more, then you've reached the maximum capacity (bandwidth) of the glass (backbone Internet connection).<br /><br />What Time Warner is proposing is that you will get a bigger straw for the top tiers, but you'll only be able to take two sips. Every sip afterwards will cost you extra money. Because you're straw is so big, you only get a few sips as opposed to a couple good slurps.<br /><br />Time Warner's plan doesn't deal with the problem of too many straws in the glass. Indeed they're exacerbating the problem by making some straws bigger.<br /><br />The people in the lowest tier will also receive the smallest straws and take much longer to reach their allotted number of sips because they don't get as much data per sip as the higher tiers / bigger straws.<br /><br />Let me know if this is any clearer. I really want to help everyone understand why Time Warner's tiered Internet access by usage doesn't help anyone -- not even the light users.<br /><br />I'm not the only one using <a href="http://pcsupport.about.com/od/termsb/g/bandwidth.htm">water as an analogy for bandwidth</a>.BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7194505708574282675.post-88153023767092025702009-04-04T22:40:00.012-04:002009-04-19T20:36:25.059-04:00Demystifying Bandwidth, or The Internet Is Not A Natural ResourceWe need to get a couple things clear before this gets too out of hand.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Bandwidth is not the data you consume or produce.</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Bandwidth is not a natural resource.</span></span></span></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This seems to be of some confusion especially among Time Warner Cable executives. They continue to state incorrectly that some customers are "using up" more than their share of bandwidth.</span> They also suggest that by sorting customers into tiers will alleviate the bandwidth problem because you'll pay for what you use.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Two Problems</span></span><br /><br />There are two problems with that line of thinking and they go straight back to the two things I made clear at the top.<br /><ol><li>Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be <span style="font-style: italic;">simultaneously</span> transferred across a network path (such as from your house to Time Warner's central office to the Internet). This means that if Time Warner's total bandwidth for a single connection from my street to the Internet was 32 Mbps (that's mega<span style="font-weight: bold;">bits</span>, not mega<span style="font-weight: bold;">bytes</span> per second) and only two people on my street were using a full 15 Mbps connection at the same time, Time Warner would still have 2 Mbps of <span style="font-style: italic;">bandwidth</span> available for others to use.<br /><br />To that end, those two people could continue on transferring data at 15 Mbps forever and the remaining 2 Mbps would still be available. Nothing's being consumed except the space in which to transfer data. When one or the other stops transferring data their 15 Mbps of bandwidth frees up and now 17 Mbps is available for others to use.<br /><br />The problem Time Warner is running into is that it oversold its available bandwidth and now that more and more people are actually using their full connections there isn't enough space (bandwidth) for everyone to transfer at their full speed at once. As you can see, just because you pay more for more data usage doesn't mean there's going to be space for you to transfer that data if enough people are in the same tier as you.<br /><br />I'll revisit this idea in a moment.<br /><br /></li><li>When bandwidth is used it does not go away permanently. Unlike water, gas, or electricity -- all three of which must be produced or refined before (and sometimes after) consumption -- bandwidth does not require any pre- or post-processing before it's available to another user after being used.<br /><br />Bandwidth is replenished the instant someone stops using it. Think of it like a rubber band. This rubber band is special in that it cannot break, but it does have a limit to how far it can stretch. Now imagine pulling on that rubber band a little bit. How much it's pulled is analogous to how much bandwidth is being used. As more and more people try to pull it a little bit further it stretches to the point where it cannot stretch anymore. This is the "used up" point.<br /><br />As soon as one person lets go of their section of the rubber band it relaxes a little bit such that another person can pull on it. This is the elasticity of bandwidth -- it becomes available for another user immediately after it is released (not actively transmitting data). How does one meter elasticity? You're not losing or gaining anything, simply pulling and releasing. Bandwidth is not a natural resource and it does not get created or consumed in the same sense as a natural resource.</li></ol>So now we understand that bandwidth provides us a means to transfer data, not a measure of the data we transfer (only the rate at which we do so). This means that a low bandwidth connection can transfer hundreds of gigabytes of data while still allowing many other people to do the same. Likewise, a high bandwidth connection will reduce the number of people who can simultaneously transfer data.<br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Time Warner Water Company</span></span><br /><br />Question: If Time Warner Cable is concerned that the amount of bandwidth available will not meet demand at the access rates they sell (10 Mbps or 15 Mbps), they why aren't they building out their infrastructure to meet the demand?<br /><br />Remember the first problem of oversold bandwidth? Let's revisit that...<br /><br />Imagine Time Warner Cable ran the water utility (we'll call them Time Warner Water), then their story might be something like the following:<br /><br />Time Warner Water (TWW) lays 12" water mains down each block of the city of Rochester in 1905 thinking pipes that size would be more than enough to meet water demand for the current residents. TWW charges each resident a flat monthly fee for unlimited water flow at a rate of 10 gallons per minute.<br /><br />Most residents at the time did not use much water other than to run their tap and toilet and they were content. A very few residents used their water for gardening and cleaning, but they did not cause a problem for other residents because there was more than enough water pressure for everyone.<br /><br />Over time houses are updated with appliances and additional bathrooms all of which use an increasing amount of water. Consequently, increased demand is placed on the common water main. Soon people start noticing low water pressure and poor rate of flow from their hoses when they're out watering their lawn in the evening at the same time as everyone else on the block.<br /><br />Some residents complain to TWW and say they're not getting the flow promised for their monthly fee. TWW's solution to the perceived common problem is to roll out a tiered pricing structure whereby each resident will be charged a base rate for the amount of water they use plus additional charges if they go over that amount.<br /><br />Some people don't see this as a big problem and fall under the low-use tier of consumers. Most of the rest of the block determine they are medium or high quantity users and pay for the middle- and high-end tiers.<br /><br />One evening everyone on the block is out watering their lawn again and low water pressure again occurs even though they've all paid for their usage. In this scenario, we're assuming no one is going over their limit, they're simply all using the water at once.<br /><br />Do you see how the tiers are not a solution to the problem?<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Time Warner Cable's <span style="font-style: italic;">real</span> solution</span></span><br /><br />What hasn't been made very clear in Time Warner Cable's communications is that <span style="font-style: italic;">access speed</span> will be determined by your tier as well. This means if you're in the bottom tier -- the less than 5 GB / month tier -- you will have a lower bandwidth (perhaps 2 - 5 Mbps). If you're in the top tiers -- the 40 GB or 100 GB / month tiers -- you will have the same bandwidth you're used to now (between 10 and 15 Mbps).<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Oh ho!</span> Now we start to see how Time Warner will try to make this work. They'll slow down the low-bandwidth users so they don't take up so much space in the "Internet tube" and give the high-bandwidth users more space to download data. The side effect of course is two-fold:<br /><ol><li>People who infrequently use the Internet now but see pages load very quickly will find their pages load much more slowly even though their monthly billed rate may not have gone down (or may have gone down only slightly).</li><li>People who frequently use the Internet will be able to download the same amount of data they do now but that amount probably far exceeds the 40 GB monthly cap leading to excessive overage charges.</li></ol>In both cases Time Warner makes out like a bandit by degrading the speed of service for infrequent users and making it simple for frequent users to go over their cap and incur additional fees.<br /><br />What Time Warner needs to do is stop overselling its bandwidth. If it can't service all of its customers at peak times at 15 Mbps, then it needs to lower the maximum speed to something it can handle at peak times or upgrade it's connection to the Internet backbone (make the water mains bigger).<br /><br />Charging for data usage is simply ingenuous, inaccurate, and completely missing the point of bandwidth. What they're really doing is finding a way to charge you more for less, and I'd let them know what you think about that.<br /><br />And by the way, this goes for Comcast, AT&T, Rodgers, Sprint, T-mobile and any other ISP or cell phone carrier charging for data transferred instead of access speed.<br /></div></div></div>BrionShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11150273690247034435noreply@blogger.com0