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The Times sheds more light on the previously-denied Google/Verizon pact to strip net neutrality:

The proposal, however, carves out exceptions for Internet access over cellphone networks, and for potential new services that broadband providers could offer. In a joint blog post, the companies said these could include things like health care monitoring, “advanced educational services, or new entertainment and gaming options.”

Ah, look how the PR folks sell you a whopper. All indications are that more and more online access will be coming through mobile devices. Sooner rather than later most of us might well be getting most of our “online” information through cell networks. Coming up with different rules for mobile and traditional broadband today is simply ending Net Neutrality on a time-release loophole.

First off: Cringely doesn’t provide evidence. He’s guessing that a way of giving Google preferred access without technically violating net neutrality is to give them access to Verizon property for server farms, thus cutting out some of the hops on the internet backbone. Interesting theory. I wonder if/when we’ll get the real story of this secret pact.

To see how it could work, you need to know a little about Google’s network of data centers, those windowless buildings around the country containing the servers that answer search queries, show maps, provide e-mail service and download YouTube videos. Several years ago, the company found a way to build a data center quickly and easily by simply filling a warehouse with stacked shipping containers — each one filled with computers. You just plug the containers together and flip the switch. Clever.

Tracing Oil Reserves to Their Tiny Origins - NYTimes.com

The New York Times thinks Tumblr’s some new site and that we’re all early adopters. Egads.

Since Tumblr is currying favor among a young crowd, it could prove valuable for traditional companies and media outlets that are trying to build a relationship with that audience. And those companies are no doubt aiming to win points by being early adopters of a site that is on the rise.

Today when a patient comes with memory problems, doctors might say that the person has a chance of developing Alzheimer’s in the next decade, a chance of not getting much worse for several years, and a chance of actually getting better. Tests like brain scans, Dr. Petersen said, “will allow us to be much more definitive.” If the tests show changes characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, a doctor can say, “I think you are on the Alzheimer’s road.” That can be a difficult conversation, but it can allow patients and their families to plan. “At least it’s a conversation the physician can have with the patient,” Dr. Petersen said.

Kristian Hammond, quoted in Techmeme Offers Tech News at Internet Speed

Friendship in an Age of Economics (NYTimes)

Apple Acknowledges Flaw in iPhone Signal Meter - NYTimes.com

“Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong,” Apple said in the letter. “Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength.”

Apparently this is true for older models and has “gone undetected for at least two years if not more.” Apple, the obsessive Apple, hasn’t noticed that it’s gimmied the signal meter for years to make it look like reception was better than it really is. Yeah right.

In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions. His administration has taken actions that might have provoked sharp political criticism for his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was often in public fights with the press.

Demographer William H. Frey, in A Generation Gap Over Immigration (NYTimes). 

The article talks about how generations have had different exposures to immigrants. In 1970 only 4.7 percent of the country was foreign born and many grew up in segregated suburbs. Immigration is now at the level it was from the 1860s to 1920—the new normal is the old normal, creating a generation gap of expectations. Fascinating.

From GetReligion, The Church of the New York Times:

There are two kinds of people in the U.S. zip codes that really matter. There are people get up on Sunday morning and head off to church. Then there are people who arise and settle down to consume a different sacrament — a cup of coffee (or two) and the Sunday New York Times. Yes, there are people who do both. But, even then, which sacred rite comes first? Which rite defines and informs the other?

Is religious certainty a sin? Where’s the dialog and crossover between the “Sunday activities” of church and informed news reading? Here’s Kenneth L Woodward’s article in Commonweal that started the discussion.

Sounds like the oil could do more damage than Katrina. Is the Mississippi Delta doomed? Just a few days ago I was reading quotes from experts were saying that oil rig disasters are rare. But like nuclear accidents, just one “rare” accident can create catastrophic effects.

The imperiled marshes that buffer New Orleans and the rest of the state from the worst storm surges are facing a sea of sweet crude oil, orange as rust. The most recent estimate by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded on April 20 and sank days later, was gushing as much as 210,000 gallons of crude into the gulf each day. Concern is mounting that the flow may soon grow to several times that amount. The wetlands in the Mississippi River Delta have been losing about 24 square miles a year, deprived of sediment replenishment by levees in the river, divided by channels cut by oil companies and poisoned by farm runoff from upriver. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita took large, vicious bites. The questions that haunt this region are how much more can the wetlands take and does their degradation spell doom for an increasingly defenseless southern Louisiana?

Finally, some real Facebook organizing:

Some 18,000 students accepted the invitation posted last month on Facebook, the social media site better known for publicizing parties and sporting events. And on Tuesday many of them — and many others — walked out of class in one of the largest grass-roots demonstrations to hit New Jersey in years.

The mass walkouts were inspired by Michelle Ryan Lauto, an 18-year-old aspiring actress and a college freshman… until now, Ms. Lauto said, she has used Facebook only to keep in touch with friends and let them know when she is performing in shows. She alerted those 600 Facebook friends to her message calling for a student walkout and asked them to pass it on.

From the NYTimes:

So strong was the antibusiness sentiment for the first Earth Day in 1970 that organizers took no money from corporations and held teach-ins “to challenge corporate and government leaders.” Forty years later, the day has turned into a premier marketing platform for selling a variety of goods and services, like office products, Greek yogurt and eco-dentistry.