I just created a page on the best Drupal modules. I will update this page a lot, mostly adding links to reviews and tutorials as I find them.

A software development project that has kep me busy lately: Progressive Erotica. Expect a launch in early 2011.

I am pleased to announce the launch of Virtuarte.com. The site allows artists from Africa, South America, and Asia to sell their art worldwide. These pieces of art are expressions of traditions and customs that, in some places, are at risk of slowly dying out. A goal of the site is to revive these traditional arts. The founder of Virtuarte, Deborah E. Myers, came from an international development background and founded the site out of a desire to improve the economic quality of life for women and children.

Joint Concepts, a local justice oriented multimedia firm, managed the development of the site. My company, Inner File Software, was brought in to assist with the final details before launch. The project was nearly complete and we essentially just lent our Drupal expertise to help tidy things up for launch. The launch was flawless and Joint Concepts was a pleasure to work with.

Google, which has been a leading defender of net neutrality over the years, is now, along with Verizon, leading the attack on net neutrality. Today, while reading through old posts on Slashdot, I discovered that Google published a terribly misleading weblog post on the subject over at their Public Policy Blog.

Their post was written in a MYTH/FACT framework, but nearly all of the "facts" seem to validate, instead of contradict, the "myths." This is an attempt at explaining that post, which was designed to obfuscate Google's reversal.

Google wiggles around the facts

MYTH: Google has “sold out” on network neutrality.

FACT: [...] given political realities [...] we decided to partner with a major broadband provider on the best policy solution we could devise together. We’re not saying this solution is perfect, but [...]

Net neutrality is like a light with an on/off switch. The Internet either is neutral or it isn't. Once certain web sites/applications/services are prioritized over others, there is no more net neutrality. When Google gave in in to "political realities" it "sold out" on net neutrality.

But I don't believe Google (and you shouldn't either) when they say that political realities -- whatever those are -- forced their hand. There is a simpler answer, touched on below: Google stands to make a lot of money under the anti-neutrality framework it is now advocating.

MYTH: This proposal represents a step backwards for the open Internet.

FACT: [...] Here are some of the tangible benefits in our joint legislative proposal:

• Prohibitions against blocking or degrading wireline Internet traffic
• Prohibition against discriminating against wireline Internet traffic in ways that harm users or competition
• Presumption against all forms of prioritizing wireline Internet traffic
• [...]

The curious term "wireline Internet" is key to understanding what is happening here. Google's proposal is to only have legal protections for net neutrality on the wireline Internet, despite (actually, because) wireless connections are the future of the Internet. Which leads us to:

MYTH: This proposal would eliminate network neutrality over wireless.

FACT: [...] It’s true that Google previously has advocated for certain openness safeguards to be applied in a similar fashion to what would be applied to wireline services. However, in the spirit of compromise, [Ted's note: selling out] we have agreed to a proposal that allows this market to remain free from regulation for now, while Congress keeps a watchful eye.

What does it mean to allow "this market to remain free from regulation?" That there will be no rules enforcing net neutrality over wireless Internet. Is this eliminating net neutrality over wireless? Yes, unless telecommunications companies do the right thing, instead of the profitable thing. So, yes.

MYTH: This proposal will allow broadband providers to “cannibalize” the public Internet.

FACT: Another aspect of the joint proposal would allow broadband providers to offer certain specialized services to customers, services which are not part of the Internet. So, for example, broadband providers could offer a special gaming channel, or a more secure banking service, or a home health monitoring capability – so long as such offerings are separate and apart from the public Internet. Some broadband providers already offer these types of services today. The chief challenge is to let consumers benefit from these non-Internet services, without allowing them to impede on the Internet itself. [emphasis added]

There is one Internet, not many Internets. Google simply made up a couple new terms: "public Internet" and "non-Internet services" to describe the part of the Internet they don't care about and the part they want to control, respectively. Under the Google/Verizon proposal, telecommunications companies will be able to prioritize their offerings above, say, the Center for Torture Accountability. Does this change the Internet? Yes; it gives large corporations more control. Does it cannibalize the public Internet? I build web applications for a living and I have no idea what the term "public Internet" even means. Does it cannibalize the Internet? Yes.

MYTH: Google is working with Verizon on this because of Android.

FACT: This is a policy proposal – not a business deal. Of course, Google has a close business relationship with Verizon, but ultimately this proposal has nothing to do with Android. Folks certainly should not be surprised by the announcement of this proposal, given our prior public policy work with Verizon on network neutrality, going back to our October 2009 blog post, our January 2010 joint FCC filing, and our April 2010 op-ed.

Google and Verizon's partnership on Android actually slightly pre-dates the October 2009 weblog post they reference, not that it matters. Even if the corporate executives at Google were thinking about destroying net neutrality before they knew who they would partner with on Android, they still knew they were going to partner with someone and then destroy net neutrality. Dropping early hints wouldn't have made it less egregious. But they didn't even do that.

MYTH: Two corporations are legislating the future of the Internet.

FACT: [...] We’re simply trying to offer a proposal to help resolve a debate which has largely stagnated after five years.

Ignoring the fact that those five years have been five years of net neutrality, all they did was change the words "legislating the future of the Internet" to "help resolve a debate."

Google ended the post by saying that they "hope this helps address some of the inaccuracies that have appeared about our proposal." But all of the or myths are actually true. How do I know? Because Google published a list of facts to support each one.

Google is a typical corporation and will do evil, if evil is profitable

When Google was not a telecommunications company it was for net neutrality and the telecommunications companies were against it. Morally, Google was on the right side of the issue but it was only there because it stood to make a lot of money on the right side of the issue.

Today, Google is a telecommunications company and it is now against net neutrality, and the public interest. Why? Because it now stands to make a lot of money on the wrong side of the issue.

My friend Lacey MacAuley, was assaulted by Canadian police, while documenting them, then charged with assault on police. She returns to Canada next week for trial.

My prediction: they drop charges and Lacey sues. Too many pictures.

Police hate pictures. Police in my neighborhood hate pictures so much, they (illegally) arrested an elected official, and dear friend of mine, Nancy Shia, for photographing questionable police behavior.

What did they charge Nancy with? Assault on police. Notice a pattern?

Update: My local police also seem to have destroyed videotapes exonerating those charged, and proving that police lied, in the the now notorious 2002 mass arrests at the World Bank protest in Pershing Park. Again, a pattern. Police lie.

Neal Pollack published an utterly sexist post on Salon.com about his experience at a yoga class above his level, involving a talk on ethics. During the talk on ethics, he threw a temper-tantrum because he thought the yoga instructor was dumb and brainwashed. This is how he described her:

You've had many yoga instructors who've looked like her, except that she was hotter by a degree of ten.*

Why does Neal Pollack think the yoga teacher's rating as a sex object is the important detail for the readers' understanding of this interaction? His weblog post about her, which he chose to title Die, smug yoga teacher, die, doesn't offer many hints.

Her "hotness" was mentioned just once more in the post (which is only an excerpt from, regrettably, an entire book Neal Pollack decided to write on yoga, fart jokes, and gender dynamics), in the context of her teaching assistants:

[F]or the love of Krishna, if you're a sexy Manhattan broad at the height of your powers, don't pawn your extra vinyasas off on underlings!

Those "underlings," as Neal Pollack is sure you are wondering, “looked kind of like massage therapists” to him.

Shorter** Neal Pollack:

I got stoned, went to a yoga class, stared at the yoga teacher's tits, and found her intellectually lacking. To counter her anti-intellectualism, I yelled bullshit and stormed out. After engaging in self-examination for about six months, I realized that yoga teacher was a smug, preachy bitch.

* I think Neal Pollack meant a factor of ten.

** The ‘Shorter’ concept was created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. I stole the concept from Roy Edroso. This is my first attempt.

Update: a review of Neal Pollack's book, Stretch.

Patent Absurdity is a film I just finished watching about software patents. The film is overflowing with topics that I have long planned on exploring on this very weblog, including:

• the concept of patenting mathematics and algorithms
• the impacts of software patents on individual software developers
• the vampire like nature of companies who buy software patents, don’t build software, and sue software developers

After watching Patent Absurdity, I now plan on adding this item to that list:

• the problems with the open source movement’s leadership being dominated by elitist white men and an examination of the voices excluded

Patent Absurdity was funded and created by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), an organization whose work I have consistently admired. A representative from almost every organization linked to under the heading 'Free software advocates' in the sidebar of this very weblog was featured.

Why, given the diversity of the open source movement, did the this coalition produce a film made up of white men lecturing the viewer? The list of narrators consists of over a dozen white males, only one woman (Karen Sandler, of the Software Freedom Law Center, who rocked it by the way), and not a single person of color. In addition to the exclusion of women and people of color, there was not a single software developer affected by a software patent showcased, despite us being the individuals most affect by software patents.

I would much prefer this to be a post about how open source software was used for all the post-production work of the film, highlighting the maturity of open source software, yadda, yadda, yadda, instead of a post about the lack of diversity of the open source software movement. But, well, the lack of diversity is perhaps the biggest patent absurdity I learned about from the movie.

Here is a somewhat decent article from my local paper, filled with phenomenally enlightening quotes – particularly when contrasted – about another pointless cross-cultural dialogue program.

"My only knowledge of Israelis was bombings, checkpoints and not being able to come to school."
-Palestinian participant describing the conflict

“[I]t's like elevator music”
-Israeli participant describing the conflict

The issue is land, power, and occupation. The issue is not dialogue.

Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a concentration camp, which it regularly bombs. It is true, as the quotes above highlight, that Israelis and Palestinians experience the conflict differently. But what, exactly, is dialogue between college students supposed to do? And why is my local paper focusing on that?

Seven and a half years in, betting on perpetual war seems pretty safe.

My local paper writes a glowing, power worshipping obituary and finds 'sad ironies.'

Sad ironies surround Stevens's death. He survived a private Learjet crash in Anchorage in 1978 that killed his first wife, Ann, and four others, a tragedy that friends say haunted him. He was a former World War II pilot with a fondness for aviation projects, yet he told acquaintances of a premonition that he would die in one of the small, tinny airplanes that traverse Alaska's wilderness. He also survived a bout with prostate cancer. [emphasis added]

Not mentioned in the obit is that Ted Stevens affirmatively voted for torture. Sad ironies? He should have died in shame, perhaps in prison, for crimes against humanity. Instead, he died in a private plane on his way to a "salmon fishing camp." But that isn't really ironic. Just sad.