TheTechGeek Bargains

Tonight (Nov. 16, 2009) the Leonid meteor shower will be visible in the North American sky . While Asia is expected to see the most activity, North America is expecting an above average show. It also happens to be a new moon, which means very little lunar light to interfere with observance.

Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office expects 20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas, and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia. It is expected that we will pass through the debris field of this particular Leonid about 4am EST (1AM Pacific). This show is expected to be better than usual – this shower is an annual event – because earth is traveling in the opposite direction of the debris field. This means that the tiny specks of ice and rock will be passing through earth’s atmosphere at around 160,000 MPH.

If you are planning on viewing the show, scientists are giving a few recommendations. First, give yourself at least 15 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark. Second, Give the show at least a half an hour. The 20 to 30 meteors per hour entering over North America could happen in bursts and not through regular intervals.

Net neutrality is about to become reality according to the FCC Chairman Mr. Julius Genachowski. He announced a few days ago that he is going to formalize the ideas of net neutrality in an official FCC Policy. There are 6 basic principals that he would like to implement when drafting the new regulations.

1. Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.

2. Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.

3. Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.

4. Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

5. Broadband providers cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, favor certain content or applications over others and cannot “disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider.”

6.Broadband providers must be transparent about the service they are providing and how they are running their networks.
The rules may not seem like a big deal. I have never noticed a slow down on any service I have used with my ISP here in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, companies like Comcast have been known in the past to limit Bit Torrent traffic, and the fear is that high bandwidth companies like Hulu and Youtube may have to pay extra for favored or otherwise “untouched” traffic to be available to their site through consumer ISP’s. (continue reading…)