Sent this letter to Rogers, don’t expect a reply, but thought it worth posting here .as well ..

Hello Rogers:

I have just discovered your Internet 25 plan whereby people can get 450GB/month for a mere $70.  I live three hours north of Toronto; the only plan available to me is 7GB/month for pretty much the same $70 ($60, actually).  I pay $20 for every additional 10GB, which is to say I’d pay almost $1000 for the same 450GB.  Not only that, my 7GB comes at a snail’s pace of 0.1-2.4mbps, compared to, probably, something closer to 50mbps.

I understand the difference in speed; I access through space, not fibre.  And I understand that due to the low population density where I live, fibre’s not gonna happen.  (Pity you can’t piggyback on the electrical or phone lines that already exist.)

What I don’t understand is the difference in GBage.  It doesn’t cost you any more whether I get/use 7GB or 100GB, does it?  The tower is the same; you don’t pay for more air for the GB to travel through.

So, could you please explain the rationale for this gross inequality of service?

A list well worth reading:

Jane Smith’s Translation Dictionary of Everyday Lies, Insults, Manipulations, and Clueless Comments
NOW AVAILABLE and FREE TO SITE VISITORS (just send a request, specifying your preference of epub or pdf)

Jane Smith is a character In my novel A Philosopher, a Psychologist, and an Extraterrestrial Walk into a Chocolate Bar (blurb below). And she started this dictionary. I’ve continued it. And everyone else is supposed to finish it. Well, add to it. (It’s unlikely it’ll ever be finished.) Send additions – new definitions to the entries already listed and/or completely new entries – for future editions to me at . (Additionally, you can add your entries to the tumblr page I set up, hoping it would become viral like “Everyday Sexism” and “Why I’m a Feminist” and #MeToo. Sadly, it did not.)

Jane also started a list titled “And here’s something else that would never happen to a man …” – which I include at the end of the dictionary (it’s also in Sexist Shit that Pisses Me Off, 2e). I created a tumblr page for this as well, similarly hoping it would become viral, but, similarly, it did not. Pity. (But it’s not too late! Add your additions to the page and send them to me for future editions of the Dictionary.)

*

A Philosopher, a Psychologist, and an Extraterrestrial Walk into a Chocolate Bar: When a self-appointed independent activist and her office-temp-with-a-doctorate buddy embark on a quest for a chocolate bar (a bar that serves not alcohol, but chocolate – in all its deliciously decadent forms), they pick up a hitchhiking extraterrestrial who’s stopped on Earth to ask for directions. Trying to explain Earl (Earth), confronting sexism (rather like bashing your head against a jellyfish), and committing assorted outrageous acts and everyday rebellions, they help “X” find the information she needs to get back home – and go with her – to become chocolate bartenders. A (way) off-the-beaten-path first contact story.

from her speech at the 2019 UN climate action summit in New York (just reading this now) (yeah, I know …)

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.  We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth – how dare you!”

(complete transcript here)