Here’s a neat and easily digestible animation from the folks over at Common Craft.

…Build one! The blog over at makezine.com has a list of gift ideas all stemming from open source hardware that are sure to bring joy to the ones you love this holiday season…

…From mp3 players to mini guitar amps to wi-fi bean bag computers (huh ?) Makezine has posted dozens of schematics and how-to pages for DIY extremists looking to take gift-giving challenges into their own hands. Please note: we’d like folks to refrain from bringing the following item into our studio…

High-power TV-B-Gone Kit - Turn TVs off from 100 feet away, the open source hardware way! Tired of all those LCD TVs everywhere? Want a break from advertisements while you’re trying to eat? Want to zap screens from across the street? No one ever says at the end of their life they wished they watched more TV – this is a life saver!

The TV-B-Gone kit is what you need! This ultra-high-power, open source hardware kit version of the popular TV-B-Gone is fun to make and even more fun to use. This version is best used in countries with NTSC: North America & Asia.This kit comes with all parts necessary. Tools and batteries are not included. This is a very simple kit and great for people who have never soldered anything before.

If anyone decides to construct any of these items (Jeff Botas perhaps ??) please consider documenting the process on digital video so we can admire your handy work. As you all know we’re more than happy to provide the video resources for such a project. Happy gift building everyone!

On October 31st, the FCC made some decisions concerning media ownership and franchising rules that could adversely affect public, educational and government access centers nationwide. It’s one more push towards a cliff that PEG centers have been inching closer to over the last several years. Basically, the FCC is attempting to remove rules that permit local franchising authorities (in this case, the Vermont Public Service Board) from requiring cable companies to set aside funds for PEG services.

If that sounds confusing at all, Toward Freedom has published an excellent piece on the various threats facing PEG centers that spells it all out in plain English. If you care at all about VCAM, local media, free speech or empowering the citizenry with technology, please take a minute and read the article. Here’s a snip…

Cue unsettling music that foreshadows ominous events: The Telcos, eyeing television as their next mile marker, have “determined that local franchises are just too troublesome for their business model,” according to SaveAccess.org. Instead, the phone companies want a national franchise agreement, which would allow them to enter communities without negotiating with municipalities, thereby gutting any local control over channels and rights-of-way, or public spaces.

“The municipalities have a lot at stake, primarily with rights-of-way,” Eisenmenger said. “When that telephone or cable company comes in and digs up the streets [and put in cable boxes], having the municipalities have control… to make sure those go in appropriate places, that the streets are cleaned up and repaved.”

The Telcos tried first to tip Congress in its favor, but a national franchise bill died in the Senate in 2006, though frighteningly, the House passed the bill. Always a survivor, the phone companies have switched gears, now pursuing state video franchises – comprehensive state-wide agreements negotiated at the state level which usually circumnavigate local governments.

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In a separate court, the supposed referee, the FCC, is taking sides. In 2006, the agency made its own order to allow for a national video franchise. Several PEG advocacy groups have sued the FCC, including the Alliance for Communications Democracy and the Alliance for Community Media.

SaveAccess.org also reported in September that the agency is expected to “rule that existing cable operators can, under certain circumstances, back out of key provisions in their current franchise contracts with local governments, renegotiate lower municipal fees, and reduce the benefits they currently provide to the public.”

The AP is reporting that Comcast is actively blocking certain peer-to-peer file sharing connections.

NEW YORK (AP) — Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.

The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.

If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.

The principle of equal treatment of traffic, called “Net Neutrality” by proponents, is not enshrined in law but supported by some regulations. Most of the debate around the issue has centered on tentative plans, now postponed, by large Internet carriers to offer preferential treatment of traffic from certain content providers for a fee.

Comcast’s interference, on the other hand, appears to be an aggressive way of managing its network to keep file-sharing traffic from swallowing too much bandwidth and affecting the Internet speeds of other subscribers.

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Comcast’s technology kicks in, though not consistently, when one BitTorrent user attempts to share a complete file with another user. Each PC gets a message invisible to the user that looks like it comes from the other computer, telling it to stop communicating. But neither message originated from the other computer — it comes from Comcast. If it were a telephone conversation, it would be like the operator breaking into the conversation, telling each talker in the voice of the other: “Sorry, I have to hang up. Good bye.”