Arrrgh. Anyone want to design me a custom theme so I don’t end up using one of the most popular (and attacked) themes?

I am not one of those people.

No, I prefer to discover something after it has been completed. I like book series that have already been completed, comics that have all been written, television series that have already had their grand finalies. To find something after it has been completed means that you are spared two of life’s great annoyances. First, you do not have to worry whether this new interest of yours will be completed. You know either that it has been completed, or that it never will be. Either way, you are spared the suspense and agony of, say, Robert Jordan dying. Second, you are spared the agony of suspense, and of waiting.

Now I know there are perhaps some aged folks reading this who may say that waiting and anticipation builds character, and there are things that I would agree with them about. Finding your perfect job or soulmate. Working your way through something until you have the breakthrough that brings true understanding. These are forms of waiting that are essential to the human condition. Waiting for the next installment of your favorite webcomic, however, does not instill character. It instills needless and possibly fatal frustration.

Thus, one of the reasons that the Hyperion Cantos has become perhaps my favorite series of all times is that I was able to read it in its entirety when I first discovered it. It helps you absorb and understand the story so much better when you complete it all at once.

Ironically, my chosen profession and much of my preferred past time (reading things on the intertubes) is in direct opposition to the prefence of not discovering things until they are complete. You see, the internet spreads information, and it does it very quickly. Thus, when new talent arises, the denizons of the net spread the word VERY rapidly. Even when you discover something late, you usually discover it long before it is ended. So it was, this last weekend, with my discovery of Looking For Group. I read through all the back archives…and now I’m left waiting like a starving child for the writer’s semi-weekly handouts.

Now, given that this is the web, it’s entirely possible that this comic will never have an end. Either it will stop, mid story, never to continue, or it will go on for the entire span of my life. But wouldn’t it be nice if it was just a story that was done, and I could read it, and know the whole arc of the story? As a curiousity, not really on either side, I do have a web-comic I read, Ctrl-Alt-Del, where the author claims to know what is going to happen with his whole story arc. Perhaps that is a web comic that will have a discrete ending. And that would be a wonderful thing.

I mean, life works in such a way that you have to wait for the story to end, and most of the stories are ever-going and never ending. Why should my entertainment have to work the same way?

It’s FLASH VIDEO. You’re just doing this to be bastards.

That is all.

This is what I always see in the potential of the web. This is what I see as the potential as the future. Because when it is understood, this brings the power of the sum of human knowledge to the fingertips of every human being with access to the web. It gives us hive mind capabilities combined with individual concentration and creativity. It is the hope for mankind that may manage to push us beyond the potential we also have to annihilate ourselves.

I don’t know that anyone else will see this in the video. But it resonated with me, resonated hard.

Anyone else find that?

Long story short, they need money for all that bandwidth and storage space that wikipedia takes up.  Their end goal is to catalog the sum of all human knowledge, for the love of pete!

So please, if you believe that humanity will be better served the more people can access good information for free, give a donation.

So today, I completed the process of putting my money where my mouth is.  I switched my internet service to speakeasy dsl, the provider recommended by the Open Source Development Labs.   They’re more expensive…almost doubly so.  But they don’t charge hidden fees (so they’re really only 1/3 more expensive or so), they give you a static IP, they do not block ports (so you can do whatever you want with your bandwidth and your static IP), they have *great* customer service…it knocks the absolute bejesus out of sbc/att.  Like you wouldn’t believe.  The dumbasses at At&T are clearly taking a page out of AOL’s book, and it took me 30 minutes just to get to the point where they’d actually let me put in the cancellation order.  They were appalled (appalled!) when I wanted to change my service provider just based on what their CEO said in a moment of weakness.  And did I know that I could get my mobile phone service on the same bill as my phone?  Wouldn’t that be great?  How much do you pay for your mobile phone service now.  Oh, we’d warn you months ahead of time if we were going to restrict your internet based on which content provider had ponied up the most cash, honest!  (Yeah…just like I got any information about that fake tax you were gonna replace the USF fee with, or those credit cards you lost and definitely ponied up on, or – well, the list just goes on and on).

Anyway, if you’ve any money to spare at all, and you believe in the sanctity and importance of the internet, you might just check out speakeasy.