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boyko.at.netqos writes “Timothy B. Lee (no relation to Tim Berners-Lee), a frequent contributor to Ars Technica and Techdirt, has recently written ‘The Durable Internet,’ a paper published by the libertarian-leaning CATO institute. In it, Lee argues that because a neutral network works better than a non-neutral one, the Internet’s open-ended architecture is not likely to vanish, despite the fears of net neutrality proponents, (and despite the wishes of net neutrality opponents.) For that reason, perhaps network neutrality legislation isn’t necessary — or even desirable — from an open-networks perspective. In addition to the paper, Network Performance Daily has an interview and podcast with Tim Lee, and Lee addresses counter-arguments with a blog posting for Technology Liberation Front.”

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As shares of Boston Scientific Corp. traded at their lowest value in more than 13 years, a UBS analyst began coverage with a "Buy" rating, due to the price and the company’s cost cuts.

FanIQ, a sports site that focuses more on entertaining its users than bogging them down with the stats and opinion pieces found on the likes of ESPN, has had a landmark year. The site launched in 2006, but hasn’t really hit its stride until now: since January, the site has grown by over 2000%, recently hitting as many as 2.4 million unique users and 1.5 million registered members. These figures pale in comparison to the larger sports sites and popular fantasy leagues, but the rate of growth is very impressive nonetheless.

FanIQ differentiates itself from other sports sites by offering a set of casual games and community features alongside more traditional sports headlines. To encourage participation, the site has a points system that rewards users who write blog posts and play the site’s integrated trivia game. These points are just for show (though CEO Ty Shay says that many users are still intensely competitive about them), but in the future the site will offer virtual goods and other rewards in exchange for points.

The site has raised around $3-5 million in funding (the exact amount was not disclosed), with investors including Vantage Point Ventures, Peter Thiel, Paul Martino, Keith Rabois, and Jeff Fluhr. Other startups in this space include Open Sports (which has a similar web portal) and Watercooler and Citizen Sports, both of which design sports oriented applications for social networks.

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Real Girls Media, a San Francisco-based online publishing company specializes in—you guessed it—social communities for women, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding led by Meredith Corporation, which took a minority stake in the company. RGM, which was founded in 2006, had previously raised $6 million in Series A funding from 3i and WaldenVC.

The agreement adds Real Girls Media Network’s traffic (which comes primarily from flagship community site DivineCaroline) to Meredith’s network, which the company claims increases Meredith’s unique visitors to an admirable 15 million uniques each month. Meredith and Real Girls Media will combine their ad inventory and sales forces, Meredith has a new way to distribute relevant content to their target audience, plus they get to use RGM’s proprietary technology platform for advertising.

Sounds like a mother-daughter thing to us.

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Fashion is an expensive business I tend to avoid. For me, some denim jeans and a t-shirt from Macy’s will suffice. For others, fashion designers like Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Chanel provide outrageously priced and strangely designed fashion wear. A price some people are willing to pay just to get attention.

Louis Vuitton also makes custom one-of-a-kind cases for special clients. Correction, special clients who are loaded. For Chanel’s head designer Karl Lagerfeld, Vuitton has fashioned this iPod trunk made of black Taiga leather with brass fittings and a red microfiber interior. An interior case within the truck can hold 20 iPods and one power charger. We get it, Karl. You’re rich.

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Remember that show The Incredible Crash Test Dummies? It makes you wonder: what’s so incredible about crash test dummies, anyway? It’s probably because they come in all different shapes and sizes. Short ones, fat ones, little ones and even tall ones plant their ass in a driver seat and brace for impact.

Oobject must be fans of the 1993 Dummies cartoon show, because it’s posted a collection of crash test dummies used in a variety of different situations. Bet you didn’t know that a motorcycle-riding crash test dummy is made up differently than that of a pedestrian crash test dummy just waiting to be run over at a crosswalk.

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It’s not easy being a wrestler. Inside the ring your pounding an opponent’s head against the corner post, but outside the ring it’s hard to meet people. Nobody really wants to be your friend. Not even on MySpace. They say their your friends, but they are not really your friends.

Wrestlers aren’t stupid. They know everybody thinks they are just a bunch of clowns. That’s why the company that employs all the wrestlers you see on TV, World Wrestling Entertainment, created WWE Universe, a social network just for them and their fans. Okay, it’s not really a social network. It’s just a craptastic promotional vehicle. And some of those wrestlers aren’t so bright. But they are lonely.

Just because Mark Henry is the “world’s strongest man” doesn’t mean he doesn’t cry at night when all he has to keep him company is his pit bull, Theodore, and a can of beans. Or Zack Ryder. The poor guy might be a tag team champion, but when he goes home all he has to look forward to are watering his plants and watching reruns of Smackdown with his cat, Fluffy. Be friends with them. Don’t block them out of your life. They need you.

The only person who needs to be scared of these guys is Mark Zuckerberg. I sent Mark and Zack a message explaining that nobody is going to sign up to be their friends on the WWE Universe because everybody is over at Facebook. They didn’t respond so well to that news. Be scared Zuckerberg. Be very, very scared.

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Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner fastener glitch, which now has mechanics finding and replacing thousands of fasteners on every one of the new planes, was caused by a Boeing engineering error made in Everett.

Cedar Park Assembly of God Church in Bothell is starting a new “embryo adoption” service, where couples who have gone through in vitro fertilization donate any leftover embryos to infertile couples. While that practice is, in itself, not particularly controversial, the question of what’s to be done with some 400,000 frozen embryos in storage nationwide touches on some of the most controversial issues of the day, from abortion to embryonic stem-cell research.

Officials say the Massachusetts public pension fund lost about 13 percent of its value or about $5 billion last month, but still outperformed similar funds.