Time Warner has announced that it will conduct a trial run of tiered pricing for high-speed internet later this year.

The company, the second-largest cable provider in the United States, will start a trial in Beaumont, Texas, in which it will sell new Internet customers tiered levels of service based on how much data they download per month, rather than the usual fixed-price packages with unlimited downloads.

Company spokesman Alex Dudley said the trial was aimed at improving the network performance by making it more costly for heavy users of large downloads. Dudley said that a small group of super-heavy users of downloads, around 5 percent of the customer base, can account for up to 50 percent of network capacity.

All your internet are belong to us.

More: This type of service will probably affect me less than I fear. I don't download much video, except a movie off iTunes every once in a while. Still, I play an awful lot of Halo 3 on Xbox Live and I have absolutely no idea how much data up and down that takes.

But hardly matters. Y'know how much of a pain it is to buy the right amount of minutes for your cell phone? Feel like doing that with your internet, too?

Yeah, me neither.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:46 AM | Comments (24)
Post contains 226 words, total size 1 kb.

who Ross "The Boss" Perot would endorse in the 2008 Presidential election?

If you are like me, your nights are one long series of soul-torturing moments, characterized by insomnia, cold sweat, and repetitive praying for the peace of mind that only death's sweet, sweet release can bring.

Not from pondering the above question, though. But since Suzanne Sena stopped doing the FOX overnight newsbreaks, I just really hate late night TV.
Except for Red Eye, of course.

But if you do, in fact, occasionally worry about who has earned Ross Perot's support. I'm here to tell you.

Ross Perot hates John McCain. Who does that benefit? Mitt Romney, of course.

Perot's deep thoughts after the jump: more...

Posted by: Jack M. at 09:42 AM | Comments (106)
Post contains 433 words, total size 3 kb.

A case that got some interest from legal blogs back in December hit the front page of the Washington Post yesterday. Folks often complain that the courts overlawyer what should be simple questions and this case falls into one area where courts' decisions are based on quite subtle distinctions of precedent. I'm not interested in discussing all that here; rather, I'm just curious to know what you guys think the right answer should be in the case and why.

The facts are these: more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:50 AM | Comments (153)
Post contains 563 words, total size 3 kb.

Back in November I directed folks to an Edwards campaign ad showing Clinton flip-flopping on Iraq, on Social Security, and on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants all within the space of a single debate. It left her tied in such a giant knot of ambiguity, vulnerable to unrelenting requests to clarify her statements, that she was forced to come along a week later and explicitly abandon her earlier support for Governor Spitzer's plan.

It isn't quite on the same scale, but ABC's Jake Tapper was looking through Tuesday's Democratic debate transcript and discovered some more confusion from Clinton:

RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, you voted for the same 2001 bankruptcy bill that Senator Edwards just said he was wrong about. After you did that, the Consumer Federation of America said that your reversal on that bill, voting for it, was the death knell for the opponents of the bill. Do you regret that vote?

CLINTON: Sure I do, but it never became law, as you know. It got tied up. It was a bill that had some things I agreed with and other things I didn't agree with, and I was happy that it never became law. I opposed the 2005 bill as well.

Am I reading that right? Did Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, say she's happy a bill she voted for didn't become law?

Um Â… then why did she vote for it?

Also --- what's with the "as well" at the end there? Is that like -- 'In addition to voting for a bill then being happy it didn't become law I also voted against a similar bill?'

Maybe she needs to take a poll before she answers that.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:59 AM | Comments (12)
Post contains 289 words, total size 2 kb.

You all know me. I'm an idiot. The last time I dared to criticize the tone of this sacred Idol of the Right, I got my ass savagely bitten seven ways to Sunday by Coulter defenders.

Back at it, I'm afraid.

Retired Geezer (aka Man of Substance) sends me puddin' cups from time to time.

Few if any of us here are fond of either Huckabee or McCain. And we aren't fond of the reasoning of wide swaths of their supporters.

Regardless, we try to be more gracious about our differences than this.

Are you too busy boning up on Consumer Reports' reviews of microwave ovens to spend one day thinking about who should be the next leader of the free world? Are you familiar with our "no exchange/no return" policy on presidential candidates? Voting for McCain because he was a POW a quarter-century ago or Huckabee because he was a Baptist preacher is like buying a new car because you like the color.

Way to reach out with logic and emotion, Ann.

Take note, kids: when you disagree with someone, the best way to get them to see your side of things (or at least keep them on your team), is through sarcastic hectoring and insults.

Posted by: LauraW. at 08:51 PM | Comments (157)
Post contains 221 words, total size 1 kb.

It's been showing signs of renewed activity since 2004.

And recently just kicked it up a notch.

Pallister, a private pilot who works in the hazards section of the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascades Volcano Observatory, noticed a line of steam coming from a zipper-like fracture line atop the growing lava dome in the crater of the southwest Washington volcano.

He was flying over the volcano at the time.

The last precise measurements, drawn from images in July, indicated the latest eruptive phase has pumped 123 million cubic yards of material into the crater. The rate has slowed considerably, but the episode Sunday showed that could change at any time, Pallister said.

"Rumors of an early end of this eruption are once again shown not to be the case," he said. "It's still got some surprises."

Scientists are saying that the chances of a serious eruption seem low. But they've suspended their own visits to the crater.

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:38 PM | Comments (29)
Post contains 166 words, total size 1 kb.

Look, I don't care about this shit. But I know there are, among you giggling tapioca-savants, some fellows who get excited for sciencey stuff.

Seem to remember one or more of you guys getting your Spidey Underoos all sweat-soaked over this whole nano-tube business.

So this is for you.

US researchers say they have made the darkest material on Earth, a substance so black it absorbs more than 99.9 per cent of light.

Made from tiny tubes of carbon standing on end, this material is almost 30 times darker than a carbon substance used by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology as the current benchmark of blackness.

And the material is close to the long-sought ideal black, which could absorb all colours of light and reflect none.

Lessee....solar energy conversion, astronomy, blah frickety blah, OOOH, wait.

Possible uses in stealth and defense. That's pretty cool.

Posted by: LauraW. at 05:57 PM | Comments (51)
Post contains 151 words, total size 1 kb.

Mild content warning. Here's one of the least graphic pics:

See how prominent and easily identified that, um, pillow is? If only. If that couch were at all realistic that pillow would be hidden under three comforters and a pile of old sweaters in a nearby keepsake chest.

Act now and you can get a matching buttock-ottoman and a standing lamp shaped like a speculum.

Thanks to Brian.

Posted by: Ace at 02:11 PM | Comments (88)
Post contains 80 words, total size 1 kb.

Didn't you as a kid? Don't you now?

How can it be that every adult knows clowns are pathetic and a little frightening and yet we keep forcing these freaks on children? Who wants to see grown men painted in garish make-up outside of a drag club?

A hospital decorated a children's ward in clown decor, and then, afterwards, bothered asking them what they thought of it.

The results were surprising. It wasn't 90% of the kids who reacted negatively. Nor 95%. Nor 99%. A bit higher. Just one notch higher than that.

Posted by: Ace at 01:47 PM | Comments (53)
Post contains 105 words, total size 1 kb.

AP: Energy, Food Costs Balloon US Inflation
Inflation Up by Largest Amount in 17 Years, Industrial Production Flat in December

Bloomberg: U.S. Economy: Inflation Slows, Production Unchanged

I imagine they're both true, but it's interesting how AP seizes on the "we're doomed" factoid while Bloomberg notes that inflation has actually slowed, despite being higher than it's been recently.

There's a lot of emotional space between industry being "flat" and "unchanged," too.

Posted by: Ace at 01:03 PM | Comments (43)
Post contains 91 words, total size 1 kb.