I believe EST is five hours behind UTC ---- so 5:00 UTC is midnight here on the east coast, if I have my reasoning right. Midnight, Tuesday going into Wednesday and then 24 hours total.Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18.
The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States —the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECTIP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate— that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made. Here’s how it’s been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the community’s discussion.
My hunch is it won't be a complete blackout. My hunch is that the Wikipedia site will explain what is going on.
From what I have read I oppose these bills but there is the matter of "bandwidth hogs" and what ISP's can do to control them.
ReplyDeleteBasically, if you have high-speed broadband you can "watch TV" via the internet even now. If a cable TV provider also provides broadband the
very fast internet from the cable TV company could be used to drop cable TV.
A lot of lefty activists support this because they believe they can start a new cable network. Problem is that no one wants to watch their stuff. Think of Air America radio, Jay Leno in prime-time and the Al Gore "Current-TV" channel.
The Dish-network carries "Free-speech TV" but hardly anyone watches it. http://www.freespeech.org/
When there is a TV sports blackout there is usually a static page explaining why the blackout was occurring or if there is other programming a banner message on the bottom of the screen.
ReplyDeleteI would expect that Wikipedia will have a default page explaining their position on the issue.
Unfortunately, in the short run, this is all futile; Congress has "money" interests. In addition, incumbents (presidents/congressmen/senators) desperately need to control internet content. It's getting away from them, both in terms of dollars lost and messages being spun.
DeleteAt the end of the day, the politicians will make rules in their favor. But that too, in the long run, will be futile, with the internet so robust.
It is interesting how things worked out: the internet was originally seen as a way to maintain communications even if a major war broke out, taking out many nodes, through re-routing of the packets. Now, it appears, that even the equivalent of a Congressional nuke will, in the end, not work.
I work for a small cable/data/phone company. Our solution for the bandwidth hogs is to cap a monthly quota of 100gb & 300gb depending upon your level of service. You pay $5.00 per 0-25gb overage.
ReplyDeleteThis is in response to people canceling TV services.
30-40 Netflick movies, 15-20 HD Movies per month will hit your 100gb quota.
or
25,000 song files
or
1,694,915 e-mails
20,000 digital photos
3400 Online Gaming hours (approx 720 hours in a month)
I don't know about you, but folks watching 40 Netflick movies a month live in a very different world than the one I live in.
DeleteVery interesting data; thank you.
But I would assume those folks watching 50 movies/month would call me crazy if they knew how much time I spent thinking about the Bakken. What a great country.
DeleteOur Cable co allows 100gb or 300gb data transfer in a calendar month.
ReplyDeleteFYI: 100gb=
1,694,915 emails
25,000 song files
20,000 digital photos
45-50 standard def movies, 15-20 HD movies
online gaming for 3400 hours.