In addition to being a great translation, the ESV guys are very high-tech…my favorite combination Christians and geeks 
They even have a blog. It’s terrific that they can weave Perl, XML, and Bible quotes in the same post! Check out their use of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in this entry, ESV Bible Blog » Blog Archive » Mechanical Turk Recap.
I’m in no way an expert on Net Neutrality, but I sent the following letter to Jim DeMint. In the words of a wise man, “I don’t have to be able to lay an egg, to smell a rotten one.” In other words, I can choose to side with the best or the worst innovators of the last 30 years.
Senator DeMint,
I was very disappointed to read your opinion piece on Net Neutrality at http://news.com.com/2010-1028_3-6088253.html. I am a software engineer who has actively used the Internet since 1992. I’ve worked for the Department of Defense, publicly traded IT companies, and run a small IT consulting company. All of these organizations made heavy use of the Internet well before my parents had email. As such, I’m well acquainted with the business and engineering aspects of the Internet. I am also a conservative Republican that voted for you, Senator Graham, and President Bush.
I strongly disagree with your statement that Net Neutrality discourages competition. As the owners of the backbone of the Internet are all former Baby Bells, I would argue that today there is little to no competition in the network services market. We are still victims of the anti-competitive practices of AT&T. This statement becomes even clearer when one sees that Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T are pitted against Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, service providers verses their customers.
In addition, Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft are synonymous with innovation. In contrast, my local and long distance provider, Vonage, has in a period of less than 5 years delivered more consumer services and innovation at a lower price than Verizon, Comcast, or AT&T combined. The cable and telecommunications companies are very good at delivering reliable utility services, but they do not produce the innovations necessary to grow and sustain the U.S. economy. To enable the telecommunication companies to penalize the innovators is incredibly detrimental to our economy. In this specific instance, the argument that government regulation hurts the competitive marketplace is simply a red herring. Government regulation may very well enable competition.
Finally, it is no mistake that this engine of commerce is termed the “Internet Super Highway.” Just as Eisenhower’s Interstate System is a federally funded enabler of traditional personal and commercial traffic, the Internet is the enabler of digital personal and commercial traffic. If you are a supporter of federal funding and regulation of our highway system, then many of the same benefits apply to federal funding and regulation of the Internet.
I agree that this is a difficult subject, but I would ask that you weigh the opinions of both AT&T and Google, the established utility and the darling of Wall Street and geeks. The network services market is a commodity market. In the words of Harvard economics Professor Clayton Christensen, the value in the market has shifted upstream. There is no substantial profit in the commodity market; new more profitable markets are emerging. To enable Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft is to enable competition. If you must take sides, side with innovation.
It’s true; ordinary, everyday living can be very entertaining. Here are a couple of sites that prove this point.
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