After the Great Internet Slowdown Life Becomes a drudge, even with alcohol.
The great new Internet buzz is that the our providers are planning to slowdown everyone's connection unless we pay more for service.
That sounds much like a conspiracy theory for many reasons.
What they may be offering is a speed-up for higher paying customers. That's nothing new. Many Internet suppliers offer it or more megabytes of data at higher megabit rate for higher priced plans. It's one of the reasons our house stays away from cable internet offerings that charge on varying scales the result may not be prices we want to pay, but will be obligated to. It's like giving a credit card to someone you can't trust and then dealing with the results. Very wealthy people might do that, but working class folks like my family can't afford to.
Personally I am using DSL (Verizon) I don't expect a slow down at all. I've had some bad ones with Verizon over the last year. But they fixed the problems by various means.
In February the DSL completely shut off. We called that night, but nothing could be done until the next day. Luckily there was a lot of Olympics stored on the television's DVD. The repair man worked on the lines specifically for our house for a few hours and we were back to normal which wasn't very good.
A couple of months later trucks pulled up (not specifically labled Verizon) and reran some wires along the telephone, etc lines for the whole neighborhood. I didn't realize it until the Internet started recovering from the funk it was in for months that it was likely a more extensive fix for the whole area's phone and DSL lines. (They all look alike to me).
Still occasionally my contact with the Internet slogged till it seemed like the Devil had a choke hold. I complained again via Twitter and mentioned Verizon as my provider.
Verizon tweeted back to explain to them what was happening. I hadn't a clue so ignored it, but a couple of weeks later in another slog a message popped up telling me my computer resources were overused and that may be why my Internet was slow. It was specifically a message from Verizon.
And Big Brother was right. Okay creepy but what can you do when someone publicly complains and then ignores your offer of help? Opening Task Manager I saw I was using a lot of CPU, and I mean a lot, like 60-90% when I get the messages from Verizon. Closing programs or restarting the computer has always fixed the problem since. I like restarting and opening what I want fresh I'm not sure all programs let go of their space when just closed.
Another way I've able to speed up the Internet a bit is by linking to the modem via cord instead of WIFI. I know not all can do it, but if you can it is a bit faster.
I'm going to wait and see what happens at the least. It would make more sense to add speed to those who pay more than to subtract speed from the rest of us.
Many people grab attention wailing about gloom and doom for our Internet connections. Even Amy Goodman is on the bandwagon as I see from Twitter. I stopped listening to her when she helped some wacko push conspiracy theories against President Obama.
I use Speakeasy speed test as I have for years to check my line speed.
As liberals we need to keep grounded in reality and not run after crazy prognostications or link any and all problems to "them" whether the government, fat cats, politicians, or other unnamed entities because we need to be able to convince people of a whole lot more than Internet speed warnings. We all know the story about crying wolf. Apparently though many groups and individuals still think its a viable option and woe to those who ignore them. That's why all of us on the West Coast are dead from Fukushima radiation. We ignored the crazies that worked off a You Tube video of guy with a Geiger counter on a Cali beach getting pings (they always produce pings) when folks from Russia and New York told us we're all gonna die!
Like I did with Amy Goodman, people learn not to trust you if you cry gloom and doom a lot.
Check your line speed (Speakeasy). Check your resources (Task Manager). Restart your computer if things are slowing down. You'll be a lot happier in the end if you can fix a slowdown rather than complain about it. (I think). If you are having real problems, complain to your provider and see what they can do to help. We have real problems in this nation as was exposed by the police murder of Michael Brown in Missouri. Playing around with conspiracies is just a waste of time.
A lot of bad things happen out there. We need to keep focused on the real bad things and ignore crazy stuff. It's going to be a tough fight as it is.
If we're all pushed to a slow line except for those who pay more, then it will be time to complain and make a fuss. I suspect another tier of speed will open for high payers. It might have been part of the reason for the rewiring of the lines. In fact if Netflix, etc. get a special path that might free up more space for the rest of us in the slower lanes.
And BTW its about slowing down Internet at the worst (which I don't believe), not blocking info from you no matter what posturing Send Money! bloggers want you to believe.
It's a greedy, duplicitous Internet/Pundit world out there, Grasshopper. Don't believe everything you hear/read. BTW, many of the most outraged and vocal were the most outraged and vocal over Ferguson last month. It's beginning to look like this group just latches onto the biggest outrage to collect donations (I do not believe everyone mad about Mike's Brown murder was doing it for donations. Most do not have blogs and others, like me have no, way for you to donate and we still care about what happens in St Louis County and whether they will be unshackled from their racist police complex that targets minorities (as easily discernible lower income citizens) for prosecution of many minor crimes to pay or their big salaries while keeping "taxes" low.
Many people receive more in donations if they spread the crazy. Just let them prove this one before we repeat it, Okay?
Picture above clipped using Windows Snipping Tool and used via Creative Commons License Attribution (CC by 2.0) thanks to flickr user Mike Licht of notionscapital.com at Flickr.com who appears to have adapted it from a painting by Jean Beraud. Full Licht pic here.
