Pulp Free

This past week has been full of chaos. Am I talking about the revolts happening in Egypt? Nope – closer to home. Canada. Political unrest? Nope – Internet bandwidth metering.

You see, the Canadian Radio-Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved UBB (usage based billing) for the incumbent carrier Bell Canada in September. Competitive ISPs, which connect to Canada’s top telco for last-mile copper connections to customers, will also be metered by Bell.

More background from my favorite tech news Web site:

Starting on March 1, Ontario TekSavvy members who subscribed to the 5Mbps plan have a new usage cap of 25GB, “substantially down from the 200GB or unlimited deals TekSavvy was able to offer before the CRTC’s decision to impose usage based billing,” the message added.

Ouch! 25GB a month? It’s time to take to the streets!

So news of this effort started populating the news channels the first of this week. It didn’t take long for a lot of comparisons to begin with Comcast’s 250GB cap nor for a simple reminder of my own fears, here, here, and oh yeah… most recently here (granted, this was talked about almost 2 years ago and has been pretty quiet around Charter-land for some time…)

While my previous calculations based on these overages was just a bit under $500, I was curious to see how my own bandwidth usage was being shaped over the years. Could I see a pattern? More usage? Less usage?

So there you have about four and a half years of my Internet bandwidth habits. Last May 2010 had a pretty good go at the 900GB mark. With my 30Mb/s peak usage (DL), I’m now capable of pulling in almost 10TB of data a month. So I’m using 10% of my capacity? (That made me chuckle.)

To be fair, I’ve now been working from home for the last 3 years and my job requires me to download hundreds of gigs of data every few months. So even if I average out my consumption (uploads & downloads), I’m looking at 260GB a month. Even more interesting is that when I do queue up those large downloads, I’m full speed (30Mb/s) the whole time. So I’m not if there’s a capacity issue where I’m at to begin with… And Charter is already offering double that speed (60Mb/s) – which means you would pass a 250GB cap in less than 10 hours… whoa.

So now that Canada started their own Internet Bandwidth riots, a few days after the first news story – the Canadian government stepped in and provided a bit of feedback to the whole situation.

The Harper government will overturn the CRTC’s decision that effectively ends “unlimited use” Internet plans if the regulator doesn’t rescind the decision itself.

Sounds good to me… We certainly don’t need such talks making more noise for us here in the States. Those bandwidth limitation ideas – NIMBY.

I had the chance to catch a recent 60 Minutes episode that aired this past Sunday with a story about Bloom Energy. For a quick recap:

Essentially Bloom Energy is making the statement that:

The Bloom Box is a solid oxide fuel cell made by Bloom Energy that can use fossil fuel, bio-fuel or solar power to produce electricity on the site where it will be used. The current cost for each hand-made Bloom Box of the business size is $700,000-800,000. In the next stage, which will likely be mass production of home-sized units, Sridhar is hoping to bring down the cost of each of these home sized bloom boxes to under $3000.

Tomorrow is Bloom Energy’s product announcement after almost 10 years in development and over $400 million in start-up funding. With mostly successful tests with the likes of Google, eBay, and FedEx, it should be interesting to see exactly how this pans out… Almost as exciting as when I first heard about hydrogen-producing algae or oil-producing trash.

Stay tuned…

It sure has been an interesting week for sure. The passing of so many celebrities has many specifically say… “Death Comes In Threes”. Well – I surely remember Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. But today marks another passing for somebody that I felt was more enjoyable than all of them. Billy Mays passed away this morning.

Tremendously famous for this latenight product endorsement of OxiClean, Orange-Glo, and many others – I’ve recently been truely enjoying his latest reality show called “Pitchmen” on Discovery channel with friend and fellow pitchman Anthony Sullivan. In fact, we were just catching up on the last three episodes on TiVo last night when I mentioned to my wife that I’d love to dress up like Billy Mays for Halloween… (I also said that with the required hand movements and “I’m Billy Mays” monologue)

RIP, Billy Mays.

From Associated Press, June 28, 2009

TAMPA, Fla. – Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50.

Tampa police said Mays was found unresponsive by his wife Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m.

There were no signs of a break-in, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn’t answer any more questions about how Mays’ body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner’s office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

Mays’ wife, Deborah Mays, told investigators that her husband had complained he didn’t feel well before he went to bed some time after 10 p.m. Saturday night, Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

“Although Billy lived a public life, we don’t anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days,” Deborah Mays said in a statement Sunday. “Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times.”

Born William Mays in McKees Rocks, Pa., on July 20, 1958, Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other “as seen on TV” gadgets on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. For years he worked as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s, Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network.

Commercials and informercials followed, anchored by the high-energy Mays showing how it’s done while tossing out kitschy phrases like, “Long live your laundry!”

Recently he’s been seen on commercials for a wide variety of products and is featured on the reality TV show “Pitchmen” on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs. He’s also been seen in ESPN ads.

His ubiquitousness and thumbs-up, in-your-face pitches won Mays plenty of fans. People line up at his personal appearances for autographed color glossies, and strangers stop him in airports to chat about the products.

“I enjoy what I do,” Mays told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview. “I think it shows.”

Mays liked to tell the story of giving bottles of OxiClean to the 300 guests at his wedding, and doing his ad spiel (“powered by the air we breathe!”) on the dance floor at the reception. Visitors to his house typically got bottles of cleaner and housekeeping tips.

As part of “Pitchmen,” Mays and Sullivan showed viewers new gadgets such as the Impact Gel shoe insert; the Tool Band-it, a magnetized armband that holds tools; and the Soft Buns portable seat cushion.

“One of the things that we hope to do with ‘Pitchmen’ is to give people an appreciation of what we do,” Mays told The Tampa Tribune in an interview in April. “I don’t take on a product unless I believe in it. I use everything that I sell.”

Discovery Channel spokeswoman Elizabeth Hillman released a statement Sunday extending sympathy to the Mays family.

“Everyone that knows him was aware of his larger-than-life personality, generosity and warmth,” Hillman’s statement said. “Billy was a pioneer in his field and helped many people fulfill their dreams. He will be greatly missed as a loyal and compassionate friend.”

In about a week’s time, Charter Communication will no longer be carrying the Saint Louis CBS affiliate KMOV television signal. I stumbled across this tidbit of fairly relevant information just today as EngadgetHD had an article about the new HDTV channels arriving shortly.

So a possible upside to this would be no longer being subjected to the daily Guiding Light obsession that my wife has had for the last 20 years… However, WE are big fans of How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Gary Unmarried, Flashpoint, and Rules of Engagement… Well – you get the idea. (I suppose grabbing downloaded episodes after they air might work in a pinch but very annoying and very specific…)

Having already been annoyed with Charter over not carrying the HD lineup for CBS, not carrying the entire channel is just ridiculous. Our family spends a good deal of money with phone service, HD and digital cable along with 16Mbs broadband… With rumors of Charter running low on cash – what options are there? Being that their HQ is just a few blocks from our house – there’s been little incentive for other options to present themselves… (I’m not going to say monopoly… but maybe I’ll hint at it…)

So KMOV has their side of the story… But I’ve yet to find any information on Charter’s side of the story… A quick search of Google will give you plenty of links to other newsworthy information…

“For more than two years, KMOV has been trying to reach an agreement with Charter Cable to have KMOV’s signal available to Charter cable customers,” KMOV leaders said in a written statement. “We have made offers, Charter has not responded. We want Channel 4 on Charter, but effective Dec. 31st, Charter will no longer carry KMOV.

Feel like letting off a bit of steam about your favorite shows? Give Charter a call…

Charter Communications offices: 314-965-0555
Charter Customer Service: 1-888-GET CHARTER (1-888-438-2427)
Charter E-mail: SteveGM@chartercom.com

Just as I was actually getting to like Charter after years of crappy customer support, technical support and dodgy quality, I have to wonder if other broadcast channels are going to be going static…

A nice article from Matt Apuzzo, AP Writer floated up on Yahoo News this morning that prompted me to share my distrust of our $800 billion nightmare the tax payers have already been swindled by. Heck – I worked at Citi for close to 10 years and didn’t think they should get a dime for their lax efforts… And while not specific to Citi alone – I am wondering why there’s no accountability for this… It was made apparent in the rush to hand over these billions of dollars that fiscal responsibility should be attached to these “loans”. What’s happened in just a few short months?

“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?

None of the banks provided specific answers.

“We’re not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking,” said Barry Koling, a spokesman for Atlanta, Ga.-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.

An inspiration for others for sure…

There has been no accounting of how banks spend that money. Lawmakers summoned bank executives to Capitol Hill last month and implored them to lend the money — not to hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses, junkets or to buy other banks. But there is no process in place to make sure that’s happening and there are no consequences for banks who don’t comply.

So surely some corporate entity could rise above the others and appreciate the gift that my taxpayer dollars provided them?

Nearly every bank AP questioned — including Citibank and Bank of America, two of the largest recipients of bailout money — responded with generic public relations statements explaining that the money was being used to strengthen balance sheets and continue making loans to ease the credit crisis.

Guess not. Hey – sign me up George W. Bush. I wouldn’t mind having a few billions to get mixed into my checking account…

Warren, the congressional watchdog appointed by Democrats, said her oversight panel will try to force the banks to say where they’ve spent the money.

“It would take a lot of nerve not to give answers,” she said.

But Warren said she’s surprised she even has to ask.

“If the appropriate restrictions were put on the money to begin with, if the appropriate transparency was in place, then we wouldn’t be in a position where you’re trying to call every recipient and get the basic information that should already be in public documents,” she said.

Garrett, the New Jersey congressman, said the nation might never get a clear answer on where hundreds of billions of dollars went.

Now I wonder how well the Big 3 auto industry (I mean – Detroit specific car companies) will disclose their spending of the recently approved $17.4 billion bailout… Stay tuned for more clarity and transparency…