With something that seemed to pick up with Comcast limiting that amount of data their customers can access on the Internet, at about a 150GB/mo limit. We thought that was tough, now Time Warner is looking at implementing a measly 40GB/mo limit. The whole point these caps is so companies can meter the bandwidth and charge for additional bandwidth (and honestly, make it fairer to those who just check email and maybe visit a site or two). Could make sense, but 40GB/mo for about $55/mo (an even pathetic amount of 5GB/mo for $30/mo)? Seriously? In today’s world, people use a lot of bandwidth, more than they may even realize. Just from streaming videos on YouTube.com or Hulu.com, or downloading their music and movies on iTunes, or from Amazon, NetFlix, etc. Generally surfing the net, with pages filled with pictures, after a while, these things add up. And if you’re like me, they’ll add up fast. [To give you an idea, a full-length movie from iTunes is about 1-1.5GB in size, more if its a LONG movie. So three movie downloads can easily go over that 5GB plan].

And I have Time Warner, luckily they haven’t implemented it in my area yet, as they will start a test run in two locations in August: Greensboro, N.C. and Rochester, N.Y. Now they seem to still be working on the details, but in a nutshell, Time Warner may be fearing loss cable subscriptions (as they should, since I had cable, and I hate cable, no matter the company. Satellite is just cheaper with more channels and clearer and ALL digital).

Anyway, back on topic, this loss, could be one reason to the caps. Also, the overage charge seems to be $1 for each additional GB (or $2/GB for their cheaper solution of a slower connection (768kbps) and 1GB cap). And for about $150/mo, it’ll be virtually unlimited (so, if a person has the cable, the digital phone, and the internet (which to me is a bad idea, one fails, well, they all fail since its the same service)). Many people talk of the evil ways of Comcast, but their 250GB cap is less than $50/mo. Hmm?

Time Warner Capping Scheme | DVICE

Oh, and to add on to this stupidity, Wired.Com has an article showing that their earnings and such (they have graphs and everything) makes this whole thing make even LESS sense.

I just spent about two hours or so joining a few fanlistings (I have a long list of those I’m in process of joining, mostly all TV related, of course), while looking for some more to join later. I have this weird system set up, where I have, in my Firefox Bookmarks Toolbar, a folder for Fanlistings Joined, then a Need Join folder. Each one is separated into TV, Movie, Music, Etc, and Fanlistings Joined as the Pending folder (recently joined but not yet approved), and Need Join has the Ready to Join (which I will work on maybe next week, or if I get approved of about 4-5 more soon, I can quickly join and add the buttons to my site).

Of course, my site itself (www.awesomely-aloof.net), has the Joined listings pages separated into very simple categories (I don’t feel like separating them anymore with specifics), so they are just either TV, Movies, Music, Actors/Actresses, or Misc, although, I feel like I’m gonna have to split up the TV one, ’cause it’s getting mighty large. Then the home page has the little icons on the side, which I don’t want to take up the whole thing, but I don’t want to take off any I haven’t been approved of yet, ’cause having them right on the front makes it easier to find initially. I wish I just took the time to set up Enthusiast or something, but that’s more of a whole Collective kind of thing, and right now I only own two fanlistings (one for the band Tantric, the other for the song ‘Until the End’ by Breaking Benjamin, and I use BellaBuffs for those (BTW, feel free to join if you like, you don’t need a website, just an email)), for the most part, I just have an addiction to joining listings (I don’t know why, I just do).

Anyway, I’m keeping this post short, since it’s more of a rambling, and I am tired, ’cause a useful PHP script like Enthusiast would probably make the whole joining easier (and keep up with the codes too, I think, or maybe the CodeSort would have to be added?). I don’t know, don’t care.

So here’s to fanlistings, keeping up with people’s love of whatever is out there.

Sure it seems like the thing most people may have nowadays. All the cool kids have them, and all that blah, blah, blah. But you see, my main beef with MySpace, stems from bands now using them as the go-to place for information. It’s a hassle, since lots of people (average joes included), tend to bulk their pages with a shitload of crap. All these dumb widgets that clog up the screen, most very useless, and others downright annoying. I know most official sites to bands and artists tend to have music automatically play, so that’s not the main issue, but all these flash gadgets and hooplah, I guess you could say, makes it harder to find relevant information sometimes. It’s becomes highly congested, and a big waste of space and bandwidth, and my time.

I am forced to check out some from time to time, such as Tantric’s, only because that is their official “site” (the quotes is because anyone that uses MySpace and calls their little “space” a site, is completely misinformed. It, as far as I’m concerned, is nothing more than a page, part of a network of other pages. I site is a singular section on one subject. What I mean by this, you go to a MySpace page, there are links at the top to check other features and such of MySpace, meaning going away from the current subject you are on. I don’t define it as a site.

Anyway, it’s terrible more with non-technical groups. Average people who are most guilty with clogging their page with junk. Also, color schemes become huge problems, as I’m reminded of one from someone I’ve met that has light text and light background. It’s very tacky people. I don’t expect everyone to understand the basic concept of design, but I would like to think people could at least be smart enough to know that contrast is key. Afterall, don’t you want people to be able to, I don’t know, read the damn thing.

My sister-in-law actually signed up for an account, practically against her will, as her little brother and sister have their own and practically begged her to. She’s like me, finds it to be complete nonsense (plus, she’s one of the non-technical people).

Back to the idea of kids all pretty much having their own, this is where real problems occur. They mainly use them in communication with friends, and as long as they don’t allow it to be found to the public, then it’s not all too bad, I guess, but if they don’t know no better, what’s to stop a slip of information to their location. It’s also bad even if they are non-public. Their friends could easily crack their passwords (because it is like totally the hottest guy’s name, or whatever), and put very bad stuff on there. I’m talking nasty stuff that can ruin reputations. So kids, just because everyone else has one, doesn’t mean you need to too.

I went to school in web design, so I don’t need these kinds of services anyway. They were a quick and easy way to put a page up and have this little piece of the world wide web. MySpace is more on social networking, but also getting out there. Like I said, not everyone would or should buy a web host and install something like WordPress (awesome, BTW), and blog their troubles away, but MySpace is also a terrible way to go. When it comes down to it, not everyone should be out there on the Internet, as it is most definitely not for everybody.

You know the one thing I hate: Chain letters. Really, anything that tends to get forward, but I remember years ago when my cousin and some of my friends would send me those chain letters. Now, if I were a spammer and those things got to me, I would be the happiest person ever. Whenever things get forward, majority of people nicely stick those 10-15 names in the To: field, and forwards, always retain every email header of the previous lines of sent mail. Let me see if I can do a rough outline:

Alright, Person A gets a chain letter from her friend, which has been sent about 10 times before (the amount of email addresses would then build up), so something like this (I shortened it, but imagine about eight more Headers, and you’ll understand the idea of all those email addresses for the taking, and BTW, these are NOT real addresses, obviously (At least I hope it’s obvious).:

—Header—
To: xxxxg@xxxx.net, xxxx1g@xxxx.com, xxxxg@xxxx.biz, xxxx45g@xxxx.net, xxxx2g@xxxx.net, xxxx12g@xxxx.com, xxxx2g@xxxx.biz, xxxx3g@xxxx.net, xxxx4g@xxxx.net, xxxx3g@xxxx.com
From: xxxx@xxxx.net
Subject: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: Read this, it’s important!
–
Dude, check this out

Later dummy,
xxxx
—
Yo, I have a signature
—-

Original Message–
To: xxxx@xxxx.net, xxxx1@xxxx.com, xxxx@xxxx.biz, xxxx45@xxxx.net, xxxx2@xxxx.net, xxxx12@xxxx.com, xxxx2@xxxx.biz, xxxx3@xxxx.net, xxxx4@xxxx.net, xxxx3@xxxx.com
From: xxxHAHA@xxxx.com
Subject: Read this, it’s important!

—-
Read this whole story, and then sent to 10 people in 24 hrs or you’ll die, BLAH BLAH BLAH!

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
You’re a stupid person BTW if you get this far, I would’ve deleted just with the FWD: in the subject (actually, I have an email filter that send FWDS to trash, I don’t care if it’s legit, I find it just a horrible and lazy way to send mail.)

Now send to 10 people!!!

—-
Get the best email package known to man. Have a cool blahblah.whatever address, blah blah.

See, it can get pretty ridiculous, and also a note, the message is generally REALLY long, I’m just trying to keep things short. So, if you get these, just DELETE them. Because, it really makes sense that most of these were probably started by spammers knowing that eventually it’ll get back to them (and in terms of original chain letters of the paper mail system, just a person who played on peoples mind and convinced them to waste a stamp).

Here’s a good link on more on the subject, and how to continue a chain without feeding a spammer, if you’re just so superstitious and HAVE to hit the forward. Protect E-Mail Addresses from Spammers.

And if you’re lazy, and don’t want to click the link, I will do society a favor and at least mention one good way to do this, add addresses to the BCC: field, and just stick a dummy address in the regular To: field. If you got a forward, you can hit forward, but delete all the headers, well, everything, except the dumb message.

And I now leave you with more articles related to spam:
WKYT: Don’t forward my email address (dated Oct 2008)
Net Manners: 5 Rules for Forwarding Email (dated Oct 2008)
Slashdot: Where Do Dummy Email Addresses Go (dated 2004)

I ran into this video and figured I’ll share it.  Remember when Matt Damon said something about this whole Palin thing is like a bad Disney movie.  Well, CollegeHumor.com has a mock-up movie trailer.  Enjoy!