Crusader

Wow, congrats. I thought I saw something about this on Rod's Facebook but two and two didn't seem to come together at the time lol.

Gas, power, sewage, water, and trash are basic necessities and their costs are based on fuel and man power needed to function. These are also regulated, I agree with you on the idea that internet related fees should also be regulated as it has become a necessity like telephone service. We're going backwards, we can't all start digging wells and using candles and firewood for heat and light because development and advancements in technology have shown us there are better and more efficient ways of doing things. We'll be the laughing stock of the first world if we keep going this way and discourage people from using a technology so prevalent in our daily commerce. If you want to promote development then you HAVE TO USE technology. In effect, if power and water have become utilities that are controlled by the government, perhaps we should look into nationalizing the backbones themselves? A first year student in economics knows at least a little about economies of scale. As more producers and consumers adopt a product, more is produced, it becomes for the producer and the prices go down for the consumer. The internet is a lot faster now than it was when we were using it in the 90's and whole industries are now based almost entirely on the internet. Canada has always wanted to portray itself as a leader in technology and research but this move is going to set us back 20 years of progress. We're known for companies like RIM who developed the Blackberry and companies like EA, Ubisoft, Bioware, and Ballard were initiated in Canada. How is it going to look when we suddenly start being elitist and discourage entrepreneurs and our citizens from fully utilizing the internet? Look at what they did recently in Egypt, it became headline news ALL OVER THE WORLD when Egypt shut off their country's internet access. China is constantly vilified for putting up a firewall and we're essentially trying to do the same thing but instead of putting up a firewall, we're making it expensive enough that people won't be able to afford to fully utilize the internet. You're essentially stifling technology and future development just so a company can make an easy cash grab. It appalls me that the CRTC didn't even seem to bother asking these companies what their rationale was for their pricing schemes. They obviously didn't think this decision through and clearly didn't realize the scope and scale of allowing these companies an unregulated monopoly on what is now a basic necessity. I bet Marshall McLuhan, a famous Canadian visionary who was respected around the world for his keen insight and philosophy on media theory and communication, is spinning in his grave right now. We gave him the Order of Canada because he showed us that "the medium is the message" and if you look at his writings about the "global village" you'll see that it really all applies to the internet. If you give a company control of a medium, then you're letting them dictate what you think and forfeiting your right to free speech. This is what McLuhan would call thought control. We're supposed to be a first world nation and a democracy, why are we letting private companies dictate our access to media? Are they taking back our right to legally purchase music, movies, games, and TV shows online? Are we suppose to give up talking or video chatting with our friends and family? Are they going to turn the internet off during the next election or if people are angry at the government? Letting these companies start freely charging exorbitant fees without providing valid rationale is the first step to letting multinational companies start running our countries. edit: Check this out: http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1621...on-Petition.pdf This is the petition wrote to the government.

Basically, here's the down low: - CRTC passes a law where they can't regulate our internet service providers. - Your monthly transfer limits are going to go down, sometimes more than half of what it used to be. - Your ISP can charge you whatever they want per gigabyte you go over your monthly transfer limit. - Canada is the only country in the world who agreed to do this. We are now the worst country in regards to how much we'll have to pay to use the Internet. Interesting facts: - Bell just bought CTV. - People are starting to buy TV shows and movies directly from services like iTunes or Netflix. - Bell now has TV shows to sell on "video on demand" services built into digital cable/satellite. - People are turning to the Internet for their TV shows and home phone service (Skype, VOIP, Vonage, Facetime, etc) - Companies like Bell, Telus, Shaw, and Rogers provide phone, cable, and Internet services. - 1 gigabyte of bandwidth costs somewhere around 1 to 2 cents, we'll be paying around $1 to $4 per gigabyte. Right now, I pay about $80 or so per month to get 15Mbps up/1Mbps down with a 250GB limit. It might have actually dropped down to a 125GB limit now. But that $80 also includes unlimited home phone, caller ID, and whatever long distance plan it was. The ADSL alone is about $45/mo. Here are Bell's new service plans: Essential Plus 2Mbps down 800 Kbps up 2GB transfer $35.90 Performance/Fibe 6 6Mbps down 1 Mbps up 25GB transfer $45.90 Fibe 12 12Mbps down 1 Mbps up 50GB transfer $55.90 Fibe 16 16Mbps down 1 Mbps up 75GB transfer $65.90 Fibe 25 25Mbps down 7 Mbps up 75GB transfer $74.90 Here's some more fun facts: There's a petition out right now with over 70,000 signatures. You can sign it here if you don't want to pay out your ass for something worse than what you're getting now. http://openmedia.ca/meter Interesting reads: CRTC petitioned to stop usage-based billing as Netflix doubts Canadian future

i tried to watch american idol and it was just depressing.

dude have you seen madonna's arms? i'd hit up 1980's madonna but not current day. although she's still nice in her own way.

recreate that music video that justin timberlake did but with someone prettier than madonna.

did he say how long it was going to be?

found their wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polvo not sure what math rock was but maybe mg and co liked it too?

yeah, it was cancelled last month via twitter ;) it looks like they're trying to get on another channel though.

someone gifted me x3: terran conflict and it's really hard ;)

i saw black swan too, great stuff. the only good thing about scott pilgrim was the zelda music though.

just saw true grit, awesome.

got myself titan quest and battlefield bad company 2 on the stem sale. also had borderlands, x3: terran conflict, and a bunch of other games gifted to me. been playing mass effect 2 again though lol.

we'd probably see sodamntired's tits if this were 4chan too.

nobody can manage that.

this is the best sodamntired thread today. you guys are just jealous that you haven't achieved forum superstar status.

shaken baby syndrome is not a laughing matter.

i was planning on playing borderlands with 3 friends but i dunno if all of their computers will run on it. tried torchlight too, it was okay but no multiplayer ;)

true but dunno if it'll work on multiplayer that way.

pc since i don't have any of the new consoles. think it'll go for $10 on steam anytime soon?

other then that ;) someone suggested borderlands, is that game any good?

i need a multiplayer game like diablo that's cheap. any ideas?

everybody buy me presents please.

why didn't leno die instead?

he made a political blog on blogspot, i don't have the link handy at the moment but i'll post it when i can find it.