Charlottesville, the bustling little metropolis right in the northern/center of Virginia, the small town with the even smaller town mindset. For being a city serving an 80,000 person metropolis, it's dramatically far behind. There's 4 movie theaters, none of which have more than 6 screens or have stadium seating and none of the movie choices overlap (as in...I won't see Harry Potter 7.2 because it's only showing in the theater that smells most like urine...and there's no other choice to go see it but travel to a different city, or pirate it :D). Of course there's a plan to build a new complex where there would be a great new movie theater...they've been in permitting fights since 2003 and the board is hell bent on not letting them build. In fact, even though a new project group took it over and broke ground to put in the new sewer lines...the city is trying to REVOKE the permits. Why? Read here: http://cvilletomorrow.typepad.com/charlottesville_tomorrow_/2011/06/stonefield.html

Some of my favorite exerpts from that little gem:

“This would be perfectly fine down at Short Pump,” said board member Bruce Wardell. “But Short Pump’s out in this contemporary, entirely newly constructed environment.”

“I think if we approve a building with this much stucco in it, we’ll never be able to say no to anybody else with anything this size ever again,” said board member Paul Wright. “Either we’re making an enormous change in our design criteria here or we’re not.”

“I think of these changes as minimal,” Wright said. “I’m getting the same sort of blank white building. I’m getting a building that doesn’t respond to local architecture, and you’re tinkering on the edges.”

Oh well that makes sense, a giant useful new clean complex would be totally worthless if it didn't fit in with the local architecture, right? If it didn't respect the design history of the city? Well I thought I'd highlight some of the design that the city is trying to protect. I won't even have to leave my desk...I'll do it from the comfort of google maps :D

I'm passionately in support of LGBT rights, and I was trying to think about why. It's not because I'm at all LGBT, could it be because growing up I was called "gay" all the time? Is it because it's the right thing to do? I really couldn't pinpoint it for a long time, but then I started thinking about Fred Phelps and his WBC (no link) and all his "God Hates Fags!" signs, and it made me realize that atheism and LGBT folks are completely linked.

Why is that? There's obviously the biblical arguments for "homosexuality is wrong" and maybe rejecting the bible means rejecting that antagonism? (By the way, Mark 7:15; 1Sa 18:1; plenty of others) But nevertheless, I don't really think that's it. I had to go back through my own development as an atheist to figure it all out.

I remember being raised Catholic and going to church, and going to CCD twice a week after school, and being told to pray every night and stuff. I used to be sad about things, or want things, and I would be told "ask god for it and maybe you'll get it." And I used to go through the motions, but it was more about the procedure than actually thinking I was talking to anyone. Then you find out the tooth fairy, and Santa Claus, and the easter bunny aren't real. I think the Santa thing was very instrumental for me; you take this great person everyone thinks about that has the power to watch you all the time and can give you things if you're good, then POOF surprise they don't exist. It's a very short leap between that and god. For the record, Santa had a better track record for coming through for me.

I don't remember the exact point, but there was a time where I actually thought someone was listening, then a time where I went through the motions so I didn't get yelled at. But that was the thing; I still had to go to church on Saturday nights, I still went to CCD, I had very high-pressure friends, all that crap. I just stopped believing, but didn't say anything, probably at the age of like 10-12. Then talk of confirmation came up, and I didn't really feel like the work of it, so I told my parents that I didn't want to pursue it. I had a time after that where I had some high pressure friends try and recruit me to other christian faiths, and while it was with the best intent, I think it made me resentful. I started questioning a lot of things. God gives loaves and fish to hungry people, and we have hungry people now, but our church is undergoing an expensive renovation. Why does god forgive people; it's like it's ok to do bad things as long as you're sorry in the end? I can be sorry for anything, can I do anything? Jesus was humble and lived modestly yet we build these huge temples and have priests driving Mercedes wearing gold hats, would jesus want this? People always say it's a lesson when something bad happens, but a blessing when something good happens, how is that different from just having bad and good things without the meddling of a god?

Basically, I stopped believing very early, then started questioning the establishment on top of those non-existent beliefs, then finally chose to embrace the disbelief. The disbelief happened, and wasn't a choice, but instead the choice was to embrace it and be public about it. For me, I was very antagonistic towards my parents, and also grew up in an area with a lot of diverse belief (I had Hindu friends and such) so the pressures of christianity were at least not overwhelming, it became very easy to just be like "I don't believe and I don't want to go anymore."

But while it was easy for me, I can just imagine what it's like for someone living in an oppressive place, with oppressive family, surrounded by non-sympathetic beliefs. It must be terrible. And I think this is where my compassion for LGBT causes comes from. I draw huge parallels between what Atheists go through and what LGBT people go through. There are differences, and LGBT people have totally different struggles, but I feel there are a ton of things in common. There are state constitutions that say a belief in god is required to hold office, people are amending state constitutions to prevent LGBT people from expressing their relationships.

So yea, I think that's why I relate so much to the LGBT plight. Atheists and LGBT folks need to stick together; we're all just trying to live out our lives in the face of a majority that thinks we don't have a right to exist and need to be fixed. Fight the power!

This is something that will no doubt go completely unnoticed by the mainstream media, and it will probably happen eventually. But why am I the only one I've talked to outraged by this??? Read here: Comcast in deal talks with NBC Universal (This has since been denied, but still worth talking about.)

This is a HUGE problem. The people providing the conduit for content to come to the consumer should not have a competing stake in what content you are watching. This is the CORE issue of net neutrality; the communications pipe should be CONTENT NEUTRAL. Obviously it already happens all the time; Time Warner clearly has a huge stake in the CW and so on, but it's outrageous and has consequences.

Just to clarify what I mean, think about this: Comcast owns NBC, which plays a national news program that competes with those on ABC, CBS, Fox, etc. As a partial owner of the station, Comcast could profit form the ad revenue that the NBC program pulls in, meaning they have a vested stake in having eyeballs choosing NBC. Now, Comcast owns and controls the pipe that channels come through. In America, there's essentially a non-compete setup going on; where I live, it's against the community rules to have a satellite dish, AT&T is considered really poor, and Comcast is the only cable provider (due to crappy and outdated laws). Doesn't this seem like a HUGE conflict of interest? There's laws in place somewhat preventing this, but it's pretty generally agreed upon that they're super weak laws.

This has happened before. In 2000, Time Warner and ABC got into a spat and for 36 hours ABC was shut off. And the way it works now, most content providers have their hands in content creation: Time Warner owns CNN, CW, and a ton of cable networks, NewsCorp owns DirecTV and all the Fox crap, etc. Imagine if this translated to what people fear is going to happen to the internet: GE, which owns NBC, also owns Hulu. If Comcast had a stake in Hulu, it's a HUGE conflict of interest and the technology exists to make you pay more for other video providers; picture "Basic Comcast Internet - Hulu Included, youtube for $5/MB, Intermediate Internet - More Money, Hulu Included, Youtube Downloads Included, Uploads $5/200kb" etc.

To me, this is complete crap. It's about revenue sharing. In an ideal world, content conduits make their revenue through subscriptions and should be able to compete FREELY on available infrastructure. They have made back their infrastructure investments by several times and Cable backbones should be government owned and licensed out JUST LIKE AIRWAVES. The whole structure for content agreements is broken; like how now DirecTV customers can't get VS. and have no recourse but one of the other limited carriers. Carriers then compete for who can provide the best to-the-house service. Content creators then make their money on the ads; that how it should work, they're rewarded by revenue for making content that attracts eyeballs.

Anyway, this news is disturbing to me and people should be thinking about it on these terms. It's bad for the consumer for all these FCC protections and exclusivity agreements to be in place.

  My last rant (Time Warner Sucks), I felt, was pretty good. It pretty much summed up in conclusive fashion how Time Warner abuses its power as the only possible provider of cable service to your home. However, they've failed me as a customer YET AGAIN.

  We are moving out of this house on the 15th of June, and called TWC to get it canceled that day. So what happens? A truck arrives at our house early this morning (June 7) and shuts off our cable and internet. The one time they're not late is when they shut us down a full week early. So I call, and the lady on the phone says "hmm, how odd, it's in here for the 15th, we don't know why they came out." We have to wait a whole day for the tech to get his happy ass back out here again and turn it back on. FUCK CABLE.

  This is why deregulation of cable failed. When the conservatives pushed deregulation of the cable industries through in 1996, they ended capitalism and instituted monopolies. Time Warner is my ONLY choice for cable here, and I can deal with that, get satellite (I'll deal with that in a minute) and DSL (we don't have a phone line to our house, not an option) or go without. Tell me, next time you argue with a conservative about capitalism or socialism, what they say to the idea that only one company is allowed to deliver a service to your home and they have 100% control of the price and options you get. Capitalism, the "Survival of the fittest" of the economic policies, gives way to "survival of the most prominent lobbyists."

  Case in point, when we move to Virginia, the cable provider we're assigned to is Comcast. We have 4 tv's; did you know that as part of their own internal rollout of digital services called "project Cavalry," you must have a box on top of every TV you want to watch on. A box you rent for $7 a month. I suggest you read this: "How the Unknown Digital TV Transition Could Screw You" We want the digital package where I can order my MMA Pay Per Views on the main TV, but to have that service on one TV you must have it on all.

  So get Satellite and DSL you say? Oops, where we're moving, the homeowner's association (you know, that loveable institution where people who can only get what they want by complaining to a bureaucracy get to fuck with their neighbors) has decided that having options for what you want to watch is too ugly. So we have no fucking options, except good old fashioned, monopolized, deregulated comcast.

  If you have the option to get satellite, I strongly suggest you exercise it. I would have had I know how effed up the whole cable industry was, and when I get to a place where I can have sat tv I will, but for now I will have to suck it up with this.

Time Warner sucks. We've had Roadrunner for about 2 years and it's complete garbage. I've complained for a long time about it, but now I have evidence. First of all, I did 2 download tests to assess the speed of roadrunner. I downloaded an ISO of the new Ubuntu distribution (9.04) over both Bittorrent and http here at home on my Time Warner Roadrunner Cable and at school over the wifi network. At home, I activated the downloads each night at about 11:30 PM when I went to bed and stopped them at about 7 AM when I left for work the following morning. The night of the torrented download, over the whole night, I'd downloaded 46 Mb of the 700, and the night of the http download I'd downloaded 134 Mb. (BTW, could there be some throttling going on here, which they said they don't do? hmm.) That means over bittorrent I'm getting approx. 1.74k/s over torrent and 5.08k/s over http, which is paltry yet typical. We have trouble chatting while streaming video here. From the exact same source on the same laptop at the UNCG wifi network, I got the WHOLE 700Mb file in 6 minutes 28 seconds over torrent and 11 minutes 14 seconds over http, meaning speeds of 1.85Mb/s for torrent and 1.063Mb/s over http! We've even called a tech out to the house, he hooks up his meter, says "looks fine to me, have you considered paying for Turbo?" and leaves. No I'm not paying for fucking turbo, I should be paying for dial-up since it would be a GODDAMNED IMPROVEMENT.

Speed is not the only egregious offense either. For your consideration, I present the following evidence: (click the images for larger versions)

Exhibit A: Thursday, March 26, approx 7:00 PM, www.woot.com goes down. No woot-off, all other traffic works including shirt.woot.com, but woot is down.


Eshibit B: Sunday, March 29, approx 5:30 PM, my website goes down but other traffic is fine. My domain's server logs show no errors and people I chat with can access my site, only I cannot.


Exhibit C: Sunday, March 29, Approx Midnight, fark.com and some of the sub pages become inaccessible. Sites fark linked to are fine.


Exhibit D: Monday, March 30, Approx 9:30 PM, my site goes down again showing the same symptoms as Exhibit B. The site works, I know it.


Exhibit E: Tuesday, March 31, approx 7:15 PM, a single Megaupload page goes down but others don't.

This had been happening extensively around this time, I only took the care to document it a few times. Now, according to Time Warner, they're just innocent helpers. "Hey, we saw you got an error when trying to access this page, here's some things that might help you out while what you're looking for is inconveniently down." However, there's no errors. After that last intercept, I went into the little "Why am I here?" link on that page, where they have an option to "Disable Roadrunner Suggestions." I of course click that, and suddenly, I get no more intercepts. More importantly, I get NO MORE ERROR PAGES EITHER. it's not like all these sites go down for frequent swatches of time as Time Warner would have you think. What was happening is Time Warner randomly intercepts your traffic and sends you to a page full of sponsored links, collecting advertising revenue, until you opt out. This practice is SUPREMELY illegal and a violation of their end of the TOS (not the suggestions but the intercepting of my traffic, though how do you really prove that), yet for 99 of people they wouldn't think of it, they'd think TW/RR was being helpful.

Couple all of this evidence with the Time Warner tiered internet debacle that was going to be tested right here in the North Carolina Triad, and it's pretty clear you have to be an idiot to go with Time Warner for any of your services. I haven't even gotten into the 2 months we had digital cable SOLELY for the purpose of watching MMA Pay Per Views and the system didn't work from day 1, we'd try to order and they wouldn't have events or they were labeled the wrong channel or wrong time and you'd miss them or couldn't pre-order them.

We'd cancel if we weren't moving in a month or if we had a phone line coming to the house to get DSL, but the least we can do is tell you to NEVER GET TIME WARNER OR ROADRUNNER INTERNET.