it's about regulating telecomms with one simple rule: "all traffic should be equal".

Except it isn't.

To paraphrase the old management joke: big, fast, cheap - pick two.
And not everybody is going to pick the same two. Especially politicians who don't care about your data.

Is your driving need...
Streaming/bulk data? a per-packet charge is going to cost you a LOT. The data difference between a Netflix-streaming couch potato and email-checking grandma is several orders of magnitude. Will your bill be four-five digits? or will her bill be pennies? Remember: "all traffic is equal" so you're going to pay per packet, and grandma's 'net bill isn't going to approach zero.
Time-sensitive data? you want low-latency pings for your multiplayer games, you'll have to pay for prioritization - or, well, you can't because "all traffic is equal". Get your packets in line behind a buffered movie.
Cheap data? since nobody can pay for prioritization even if they want to, you all get cheap data - and cheap does not necessarily mean inexpensive.

Careful what you ask for. You might get it.

Good! Straight news not re-written by desk-bound "reporters", and opinions devoid of leftist drivel.

If people spent half an hour thinking, dusting off their old PC, and hooking up cables, they'd be GODS of their media.

People, on the whole, haven't a clue how this stuff works. They're lucky if they can hook up color-coded cables for 3 boxes. Of those who can follow basic installation directions, they still don't see how the magic works, they're just satisfied that it does.

Absent from your obscenity-filled screed about how they're clueless vs. how easy it is, is the generous real-life insertion of "X doesn't work ... oh, that's easy, just do Y ..." Sure, the big pieces are pretty simple, but there's always some glue logic that must be cobbled together to make it all work - and THAT is the hard part for most people.
Anecdote: streaming "The Bachelorette" to the TV for my wife was easy. It's easy, right? Anyone can do it. Probably the easiest thing to do. Just go to the website (requiring clicking around until you find the "full episode" buried amid all the other tangential videos), plug in a $20 MiniDVI-to-Composite adapter on the MacBook (after going to the Apple store to buy one, and knowing which to buy), click 'play' on the notebook which is now sitting on the floor 10' from the couch (the wireless mouse is upstairs 'cuz that's where she usually uses the thing), click 'fullscreen', spend 10 minutes watching and wondering why something seems missing, realize (she didn't) that the allegedly fullscreen window is in fact much larger than the TV resolution so we've watched 1/4 the show with only 1/2 the image, discover after some experimentation of resizing/replugging multiple windows & cables that you have to plug in the adapter THEN open a new window THEN go to the website THEN play and fullscreen the video (wrong order = fractional image), and finally get a dirty look from the wife who wonders why we have to dork around with all this "but it's FREE!" technical bullsqueeze when we could just pay $60/month and watch whatever she wants with a simple remote control. "Oh, but now you've worked it all out, right?" you say. NOT. Next day she wants to see the next episode (like RIGHT NOW), and I have to explain how to do all that over the phone because we had to unplug the computer and attach the VCR because the little girl REALLY wanted to watch "Kipper" again, then explain again why it's stupid to pay $60/month for Cable when we could be, as you put it, "GODS of our media" for free.

Access the FULL internet? most people haven't a clue what's out there to access, much less know how.
Multitask? if it's not visible RIGHT NOW most people think it isn't running.
Share files? you explain media files, much less sharing them, to my mother-in-law.
Copy discs? better be as simple as "insert disc 1, insert disc 2, hit 'Copy'." Oh, right, it isn't.
Strip ads? most people don't care - or even view them as "public service announcements". ("How else will I know what's going on?")
Normalize volume? "normalize"? by this point you'd better know where this is going.
Bypass waste-of-time interfaces? Here's a way they like: for $XX/month, they can plug in a dedicated box with 6 buttons and access whatever they want - rather than hours of dorking around with confusing tech stuff for "free".

And that's why even Google is faltering at the task: Google TV is the culmination of what you describe, out-of-the-box pre-assembled stuff, and it's still to complicated for most people.
Apple seems the only one to get it right: $99 one-time cost, plug in two obvious cables, easy menu system to access huge (yes, limited, but EASY and there's enough to keep most people happy) array of options, and pay a mere $1 per episode for zero-hassle no-commercial on-demand viewing.

Sure, you and I know it's easy & free to do all this stuff. That's because we're NERDS - which most people aren't, so it's cost-effective for them to pay.

'nuf said.

Is this "news for nerds" or "news for lusers"?

There is a tech solution. Invent it. Build it. Patent/open-source it. Sell it. Get it out there.

But DON'T just sit there whining that ulterior-motive politicians and bureaucrats won't do things your way.

One solution:
Build a cheap, open, legal, spread-spectrum, compact, no-setup, easy network relay box. Set broadcast power within legal no-license limits. Make a gazillion of them, plug 'em in wherever you can. Make a giant ad-hoc network. You know what I'm getting at.

Heck, this should already be in place between the innumerable cellphones & wireless routers out there. Get the ad-hoc network big enough, and the individual load should be minimal and the total disruptions minimal. TCP/IP is intended to circumvent network failures, so long as there is a path. Make a path.

And stop expecting powermongers to give you freedom.

The "all packets must be treated equally, no exceptions" version

Bandwidth is a limited resource. When there isn't enough of it, what to do?

Those replacing their TV service with streaming video want great data quantity.
Those playing low-latency real-time games want great ping time.
Those using little of either want great prices.
Declaring "all packets must be treated equally" isn't realistic.

When there isn't enough bandwidth, what to do?
A per-packet charge creates an unrealistic >4-order-of-magnitude difference in price between couch-potato streaming video vs. email-checking grandma.
A latency-reduction charge violates "all treated equally".

Indeed, some packets are more equal than others.
What to do?

You can't find everything online, or discern it from all the other unwanted crap that shows up in a search for a popular high-turnover product category.

Try finding a particular Sony camcorder battery online. All too often you'll get flooded with wrong models, crappy knockoffs, and otherwise have difficulty finding what you want. Easier to walk into a big-box store and pay a bit more - you can confirm its not a POS cheat, and can return it pronto if it is.

A smart retailer will recognize what customers want, want now, and will have trouble locating online. Yes, the nature of brick-and-mortar must change ... for the better.

The issue with you is that you have an insane belief stuck in your head, that Obama is not a citizen, and nothing will shake it out of your head.

Funny, that's not the belief I see in my head. Thanks for telling me what I'm thinking is not what I'm thinking I'm thinking. Of course, you who knows nothing of me save one post knows more about me than I do.

You've blown right past the content of my post, having already decided what I've said therein even though it's not what I said.

The proof was shown.

Where? Show it. Don't tell me it was shown. SHOW IT.

And here we are, going around in circles again. My side saying "where's the proof?", your side saying "it was shown", repeated ad infinitum. There is no proof. No proof was shown. What has been shown isn't proof, it's claims proof exists. We'll shut up when it's shown; we're asking because it wasn't.

Can you articulate what the legal difference between the two categories of "citizen" in question are? No, you just spout your "shut up, idiot" line, deriding those who are asking for nothing more than a straight copy of one piece of paper - which you have not seen.

...and it doesn't fit. Send your opinion back, it doesn't suit you. Shows your bias _way_ too much.

ppl on /. think CNN, MSNBC, BBC, etc. are news?

obama is a citizen of the usa. really. it has been proven satisfactorily. really.

Who is the misinformed one here?

The birth certificate - not a reformatted reprinted redacted copy - has not been shown. really.
There are more than one category of citizen, not all of which are eligible to be President. really.
While there is little or no question that he is a citizen of the usa, there remains the question of whether he is in the category of eligible-to-be-President citizens. really.

Thus, it is not a legitimate conclusion to slam 63 percent of Fox viewers who believe Obama was not born in the US (or that it is unclear) as "misinformed" - fact is, the proof has not been shown. The "misinformed" ones are, in fact, the ones who do not comprehend the legal difference and interactions between country of birth vs. country of citizenship - you being one.

This "survey" has interesting timing, driven by hardcore leftists (see prior posts listing those behind this "survey") and coming out at the same time other hardcore leftists are pushing a variety of "new, improved, unbiased" approaches to manipulating social politics - when they are, upon easy analysis, highly biased & opinionated and simply declaring themselves unbiased and factual.

Lacking proof of legal and/or scientific form, one has only opinion.
Your stance, and that of the self-righteous group behind the "survey", is opinion.
Just because it is your opinion does not make it fact.
really.

Between Tron, Tron: Legacy, Tron: Ghost in the Machine, Tron: Derezzed, Tron 2.0, etc. ... does anyone have a coherent map of Tron media storyline/chronology? Poking around, it's starting to look like the Ender's Game graph. Thanks.

Many/most electricity bills are being split: one part is production, one part is delivery. While most consumers use the same company for both, many opt for an alternative producer of those kWh different from the company owning/installing/maintaining the wiring for delivery. That industry has worked out the division, and worked out the billing (often onto one bill few examine).

Internet already splits that: you pay (often $0) the producer of those bytes (Google, CNN, Netflix, whatever) separate from the compan[y|ies] providing delivery thereof (Comcast, Clear, various "backbone" networks, etc.). With more customers demanding cumulative bandwidth beyond capacity (or will soon), the delivery companies are balking at the all-you-can-eat model. At some point they must implement some billing changes which will account for Gramma's occasional receipt of emailed grandkid photos vs. local kids downloading anything they can find plus demanding low-ping response times vs. families ditching cable TV in favor of streaming video, all in a manner fair (yes, "to whom?" being the obvious question) to all.

Upshot: data delivery services must, at some point, switch to metered delivery - if only to implement fair distribution of limited services via supply-and-demand pricing.

Here ya go, net-neutrality proponents: a per-byte charge. Did you really expect otherwise?

The purpose of the Prize, supported by the Guillermo Cano Foundation, the Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation and JP/Politiken Newspapers LTD, is to honour a person, organization or institution that has made a notable contribution to the defence and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially if this involved risk.

Well, we know who most fits that description by far.
We'll need Assange's full/proper name, date/place of birth, nationality, address, and suitable brief biography (yes, most of that is known, but for formalities let's make sure proper, not popular, information is used) to fill in this form. I suggest lots of people submit the form, with "Candidate presented by" filled as "populous at large"; should not a large number of individuals all acting as interested-for-the-same-reason parties have their unanimous selection recognized as much as any formal organization, given the nature of the prize?