Today, I attended the FCC public hearing on Net Neutrality at Harvard Law School as a videographer for FreePress.net and CCTV. The event provided a pretty excellent opportunity for anyone to learn more about the issue from different perspectives: panelists included Daniel E. Bosley, State Representative of Massachusetts, David Cohen, the executive vice president of Comcast, David Clark, from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and a whole host of other professors, engineers, and policy makers who tried to sway the commission in either one direction or another on the topic.
Here's what I thought were the day's highlights:
There is an upcoming "bandwidth crisis" due to the popularity of video uploading/downloading. And we're not only talking about YouTube: this crisis looms large, especially as the internet is quickly becoming the channel of distribution for TV and film. Also contributing to the crisis are VOiP services and apps that allow for precise synching of live audio and visual data (i.e. the swanky 8-way video conferencing apps big corporations are so fond of...)
The way the ISPs are currently structured is, if you're just surfing the internet while your neighbor is bit-torrenting, you-tubing, or netflixing or something, you're suffering, because he/she is sucking up the available bandwidth on the network. So, according to the talking heads at the ISPs, you should be mad that you're paying the same amount of money as the next person, but are receiving diminished service due to their "abuse" of the network.
So, bearing that in mind, certain ISPs and their proponents propose a tiered internet, where the ISPs limit certain applications from sucking up the resources on the network. Which boils down to everyone having capped access to applications and services (already practiced by some ISPs in a sense: it's called "network management"). And also, the proposed system includes forcing commercial web services to pay premiums to allow the consumer easier access to their sites. So under this system, you'll be able to access YouTube (hopefully), but it'll be a lot slower than, say, Hulu or whatever else NBC is sponsoring. They expect the consumer to chose to patronize the sites that are easiest for them to access-- a fair assumption.
But is this by any means just? No, not quite. When listening to David Cohen, the VP at Comcast, speak, it was quite clear whose interests he had in mind. First off, why does his camp claim the right to impose this new system? Because "competitive broadband providers have responded with massive private investment in broadband infrastructure... with no goverment subsidies, and no assurance of success". So... we owe them a favor? So... we should just lie down and let them restructure the internet after TV's existing (and failing) model?
The anti-neutrality camp was very quick to vilify certain services and apps; those whose very existence pose a great threat to established media conglomerates. Here's his entire testimony before the commission. It's kind of dry, and not much to look at, so I tried to fill the vacuum with shots of audience members with wacky haircuts as well.
YouTube is a threat to the big broadcasters, Skype is a threat to telephone companies, and of course, they all love to jump on BitTorrent's back for being a virtual speakeasy for pirated movies, tv shows, music, and software. Given the ISPs' heavy stake in media distribution, it's only natural that their proposed tiered internet will punish those services who pose the greatest threat. Other engineers and professors testified that there are more reasonable alternatives to tackling this problem, including better network structure, or just basically allowing the consumer to decide which apps or services get priority on their network (which is the idea I like the most).
As for the citizens who were willing to testify for our cameras, a lot of them showed deeper knowledge of the debate than I would have expected. Going into it, I thought I might encounter a lot of people whose main gripe is that they won't be able to download stuff for free. (A prevailing view among many, really!) However, today's group brought up some issues that were both informed and local in scope. One man I interviewed brought an interesting perspective on how these proposed actions would hurt small businesses that rely on e-commerce to keep their overhead costs down. (On a personal note, his daughter runs a small business selling yoga mats over the internet. She wouldn't be able to stay afloat if she had to pay up to make her site as easily accessible as a competitor's with deeper pockets.)
So yeah, exciting stuff! I'm sure there is/will be more coverage all over the internets (including all of the interviews filmed by CCTV, SCAT, and Boston Indy Media on vuze.com), so please check it out if you're interested. Full coverage of the event can be found here at FreePress.net,
and at CCTV, where Susan did a great job making all that information comprehensible!
Monday, February 25, 2008
The FCC Net Neutrality hearing at Harvard Law
FCC Hearing on Net Neutrality
Friday, February 22, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
My last visit to DE Shaw
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Phoenix stole Noah's picture!
I picked up a copy of the latest Boston Phoenix on my way to work this morning, and found this article about Dorkbot Boston, the multimedia art collective Noah and I belong to (whose tagline is "people doing strange things with electricity"). Looks like they were writing-up the Halloween show to promote the Presidents Day show DB has planned for the 19th. While it was good to see DB finally getting some press, it was *bad* to see that they had used a pilfered picture of Noah's Flora Mortis to advertise it.
Bad for two reasons.
First off, the article itself mentioned nothing of Noah's project, not even in the list-three-examples-of-dorkbot-projects-in-order-to-give-the-reader-a-feel-of-
what-it's -all-about line. Which is kind of a slap in the face, I think. I find it hard to believe that the author couldn't come up with a succinct caption that would explain the piece pictured, and as far as the printed version of the article goes, there was plenty of room to have done so.
Secondly: what? No credit to Noah? As an artist first-and-foremost, but, I mean, failing that, they could have at least been decent enough to credit the photographer (in this case, also the artist). I think she was just being lazy. I mean, the photo that was lifted from his flickr account wasn't even taken at the Dorkbot show-- it's actually a photo of his submission mounted in his bedroom as he was working on it. The journalist didn't even have to be at the event: the contextual discrepancy (a picture taken in someone's own bedroom as opposed to at the actual event) is only one manifestation of a growing trend.
So essentially, it's okay for journalists to outsource, or rather crowdsource, key aspects of their jobs to the population at large. And for the most part, I'm all for it. But just because his photos are part of the Make pool doesn't make them fair game. This was definitely an example of the typically good-natured 2.0/copyfighting/Creative Commons community being taken advantage of by the media we loyally support. Better luck next time.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Cartilage Head.jpg
at home again
I had quite a weekend last weekend. Went to NYC to shoot part I of my feature on DJ Rupture for the first episode of Share.tv. Rupture has a pretty sweet space in Sunset Park: cozy and neat, with not nearly as much intimidating stuff/gear as I would have expected. In fact, Rupture was a real adult, which was a relief. I'm editing now-- there's plenty of good bits in our interview about beat-matching and dj-ing, software, and what's more exciting, intellectually stimulating discussion about the need for visual feedback in electronic music, emotionally honest performance, and risk vs. spectacle onstage. This should be good! Tune into the show on February 17th to see it in its entirety. Big thanks to Thenji for her expertise on the shoot, and I hope I get to work with her again...
I stayed with Craniv, which was so much fun. Craniv and I have been friends since we were 4 years old: our parents are best friends, and we grew up in eachother's households together-- one of our parents holding tight to both of our hands as they whizzed us around the city everyday from one afterschool program to another (piano, German, painting, dance, circus arts).
Craniv was there when I got the chicken pox, when the house caught on fire, when the dog died, when I started smoking, when I graduated, when I graduated from the next thing, and now here we are today. Cranny Boy is an amazing painter and sculpter, who just returned from his first residency at this gallery in Maine, where he spent one month getting paid to paint and be adored. (His website is in the works, but here's where it's temporarily parked. Better pics of his works will be up within a few weeks.)
It was an incredibly positive weekend. I got our parents together, who spent all of Saturday evening giggling like two schoolgirls. Not only was that adorable, but I was so unspeakably moved to see my mother so happy. On Sunday, Craniv introduced me to his friend, fellow painter and video artist Kevin Yang, and we went to an opening on East Broadway.
Nothing much was happening there, except for a free beer, so the three of us chilled on the couch (which was the installation... all of it...) and watched some of Kevin's vids on his computer. (Was this rude?) They were pretty good, so I whipped out my thumb drive, and took them for my show. The transaction was unnaturally zippy and no-fuss: I wondered if he thought I was being pushy. But maybe that's just how Civilization 2.0 is supposed to work.
Got to catch up with old friends, and meet new ones. Was totally surprised to see Kentl at the Odessa Cafe, and glad to know her arm is healing nicely, foot-and-a-half long scar notwithstanding.
Next weekend, I come back. This time to shoot at MTAA's Over the Opening, where Kreigspiel premieres. Also, it's WYNA's BIRTHDAY so we're probably going to eat lots of meat in celebration!!!
Oh and BTW, I got the best shoes evar.
Bis bald...
Saturday, February 2, 2008
dinner with mom and Fatu.jpg
Friday, February 1, 2008
microHoo
Well, this is actually the most exciting news in awhile. Microsoft has (once again) made Yahoo a $45B offer to allow Microsoft to swallow them whole. Makes me wonder what will (would) happen to Flickr and Del.icio.us... Will MS push too hard to monetize these communities? And end up destroying them? But what's most exciting here, is the prospect of a merging-of-the-names (YahSoft? MicroHoo?) How about a Jon Squire-esque anagram of names* to usher in the rebirth? The Internet Anagram Server has served up a few good ones:
- Airy Foot Smooch
- root/fiasco/oh my!
- it's coma for yo ho
- Oh, I moo coy farts
...and although it's not using all the letters, I think the best name for this monster is MacroFist.
*John Squire was the former guitarist of the band The Stone Roses, and upon the bands tumultuous break-up, started another band, The Seahorses, rumored to be an anagram of "He Hates Roses"
