blake johnson

I read a scary article on Yahoo! this morning about a fight in Congress about whether or not to allow internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to provide fee-based services for access to certain internet sites. The scenario is like the following: if you get just the 'basic' service, you might browse to your favorite search engine, say Google, but it is horribly slow, or the site won't come up on your browser at all. However, Yahoo! search has partnered with your ISP, so their search site is instantly accessible even with the 'basic' service. If you upgrade to the ISP's 'silver' plan, then suddenly Google is is available to you again (sounds like cable television, doesn't it?). This scenario, where ISPs control what content is available to you over the Internet is at odds with the idea of Net Neutrality.

If the telcos get their way, get ready for a massive stifling of innovation. Sure, Google has deep enough pockets now that it could probably make arrangements with ISPs so that its search was available even with a 'basic' plan, but would Google have made it back in 1998 when it was competing with Lycos, Infoseek, and Yahoo!?

The first two weeks of June brought me to many places, including Boston for Margaret's graduation, Copenhagen for a Rotary convention, and San Diego for a wedding.

Harvard commencement was much like my own graduation two years ago. It was raining lightly most of the day, making Harvard's insistence on outdoor commencement oh-so-much fun! At least Dunster house did not cram everyone into as tight a spot as Currier did. I remember that my family could barely see; people were packed in that close. I also got a chance to sample the excellent scotch selection available at the Harvard Club. Rahul directed me to a 30 year old single-malt scotch which was super smooth going down. Yum!

Next was Copenhagen. You really have to love the feel of that city. The architecture is very modern, but somehow they missed all the concrete monstrocities of the 60s and 70s. I learned my lesson about avoiding the bicyclists the first time I was in Copenhagen, so I managed to escape any further near run-ins. I only brought my camera along for one day in whcih we toured 3 different castles on "main" island of Denmark where Copenhagen is located: Kronberg, something-berg, and something-else-berg Frederiksborg, and Fredensborg. One of these castles was located in the town of Elsinore, the setting for Shakespeare's Hamlet.

The final stop was in La Jolla, California for Hope and Dave's wedding. At right is a picture of my sister and her boyfriend Brandon. More pictures of all these events are available on my flickr account.