My Beard Is Not a Common Carrier

About this Episode

This is the one about the internet, that which is neither truck nor tube. Christina Mulligan joins us to talk about our beloved cable companies, Netflix, network neutrality, regulation, monopolies, common carriers, sunken and ancient computers, and her super-secret new project (which Christian suggests could yield an excellent new conspiracy theory that would make Logan Sawyer cry). Also we answer viewer mail. Because this is a super-sized show (pour a beverage), we also mention bonobos, Schweddy Balls, Candy Crush, Candyland, the odd shape of either my coffee mugs or Joe’s face, whether we should change our name to improve our Google search position, packets spewing from unicorn horns, and the pronunciation of Smaug. Christian announces the sale of his body parts.

This show’s links:

• Christina Mulligan’s faculty profile, writings, and Twitter
• The Kythera Mechanism
• Kaiju
• Bonobos
• Owen Jones bio and writing
• Candy Crush cease and desist letters and recent trademark withdrawal
• Gramma Nutt, of Candyland fame
• Background on net neutrality, which has nothing to do, we are told, with this kind of neutrality
• Verizon v. FCC, the DC Circuit’s net neutrality case
• Content delivery networks
• Joshua Brustein, Netflix and YouTube Dominate Online Video. Can Amazon Catch Up? (Businessweek.com)
• Timothy Lee, Comcast’s deal with Netflix makes network neutrality obsolete (Washington Post)
• Traffic shaping
• Common carrier regulations
• Jon Brodkin, Make ISPs into "common carriers," says former FCC commissioner (arstechnica.com)
• Wikipedia on natural monopoly
• Steve Perlman’s pCell (also see this presentation)
• John McDuling, People hate Comcast and Time Warner Cable even more now that they’re merging (Quartz)
• About BitTorrent
• Uber’s surge pricing
• Athens’ drought-inspired tiered water rates and the general idea
• Yves Smith, The Myth of Maximizing Shareholder Value
• Jonathan Owen, The Pronunciation of Smaug
• The Death Star conspiracy