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No, Netflix's pipe size is irrelevant. My pipe size is irrelevant. $isp arbitrarily restricting $provider's packets because they can is the problem.

Netflix go out of their way to make their pipe bigger and packet delivery easier for isp's. I pay the isp to deliver whatever packets I request as fast as they can within the limits of mine and the senders pipe (and bits in between). If that hits the limit of my or netflix's pipe, sobeit, not their fault. If it hits the limit of the isp's pipe before hitting the limit of mine or netflix's pipe, I'll grudgingly accept that as a reason provided they're doing something about it* and they don't unfairly slow down particular packets. But them unfairly/artificially slowing down any packet just because they can is definitely not what I pay them for.

*Different argument for a different day.

Elip would be working for those shareholders wishing to get BillG & SteveB out of the scene entirely. If it means some firesales and layoffs sobeit.

These shareholders want all that stored up cash. Now. And they will kill the Golden Goose to get it. If MSFT is a viable entity afterwards, then ok. But 5-year outcome is just predicated on "give us our 'shareholder value'. Now."

Personally, I run MAME (have done for years) and I run Chrome, but apart from a quick look to satisfy my inquisitive geekness, I doubt I will use this long term.

No, it's not standard, but neither are the plugins that you can run in Firefox, Chrome, etc. that give you themes, adblocking, download management, etc.

And not that I own a single Apple device either (or plan to) but I assume this will be of interest to Apple users who currently can't load MAME onto their iP*ds/iPhones unless they jailbreak - as far as I'm aware, any emulation is a strict no-no on the App Store (and one of the main reasons I don't give Apple stuff a second glance).

But I assume they can run Chrome and therefore can run MAME in it now. And if it's non-standard in this case then sobeit - it's for a minority of the populace that use Apple devices AND want to retrogame.

Look at all the Surface Area those Chinese nervous-systems cover
over the entire world: they are most sensitive, even more than
India,but maybe not as sensitive as Sobeit Russuh where sensitivity
Feels you.

This or
was that too graphic?

I do know that the inspiration for many aircraft are stolen by mother nature. NASA should and Sobeit Rusha should sue mother nature for making flies all these thousands of years using stolen IP!

I agree with you, piracy, for the most part, is wrong. But, on the other hand, DRM, for the most part, is also wrong. If a signinifgant portion of pirates wouldn't have purchased the product in the first place, then DRM is only punishment for those who DO buy the product, it is treating EVERYONE as guilty. The cure is worse than the disease.

I can easily argue that DRM is wrong, without ever touching on the idea that piracy is fine and dandy.

I also find it odd that these companies with draconian DRM, and large rants about how piracy is killing the industry are still making money hand over fist (I'm guessing that most of the gaming industry are making record profits right now, inspite of piracy). They are just mad that they aren't making as much money as they like. This springs from a mindset that they are entitled to my money, which isn't correct.

You broke the rights and wishes of the owners of the game... You don't have a right to use anyones software without permission.

This is where your diatribe breaks down. I have no obligation whatsoever to respect the wishes of the people who produce a product. I don't give one crap about what you, as a producer, want. I have no reason to. If I was to use your product in a way against your wishes, tough. I bought it, it is mine, I can do what I want with it. If I want to hack it so all of your carefully designed characters are naked Hillary Clintons, sobeit. If I want to hack it so I can play it on unsupported hardware, sobeit. If I want to use it to go skeet shooting, sobeit.

Imagine buying a book with a EULA saying you can only read it in a darkly lit room, past 7pm, and only while listening to Pink Floyd. Absurd, correct? Why isn't it equally absurd for software companies to have such silly restrictions?

Your hopes, dreams, and wishes are completely inconsequential to me.

As for piracy, I admit to being guilty of it from time to time. I use piracy (not so much anymore since there are relatively few things even worth that amount of effort) to try before I buy. My laptop had a strange GPU, so it was very hard to know whether any game in particular would work on it, and pretty much no stores allow returns. Thus I either pirated the game on a limited basis, or didn't buy at all. If the game ran, and was actually worth the money, I would give them cash, and generally keep the pirated copy since it was stripped (against someones silly wishes) of DRM and other flaws.

Did I do anything wrong? Legally, perhaps, ethically, though, I have no problem sleeping at night.

Lately I pirated Torchlight and Audiosurf, to see if they were worth forking over money for. I bought them both roughly a week later. Still not losing much sleep. If your game is crap, I might not buy it in the end. Which is fine by me too.

I personally don't give a crap if anyone makes money off of me. They have to work for it. I am not obligated to give anyone anything. If the full software industry died tomorrow, I wouldn't lose a tiny bit of sleep. Though I'm pretty sure that will never happen, no matter how bad piracy is.

But, if AGW is true and we do nothing, then the consequences would be worse than if AGW is wrong and we do something.

Ignoring AGW, most of the solutions for global warming are also good things on their own, even without the added kick of preventing hypothetical warming.

I personally am on the fence about AGW, though I do see evidence for global warming itself. I just am not sure if humans can be attributed to it. But I am fully in favor of limiting our impact, developing sustainable, weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels, and generally being good stewards of our environment. If this causes the CEO of Exxon-Mobile to cry, sobeit. We have a greater obligation to our planet, and future generations than we do to keeping some rich buggers rich.

Solutions to AGW are good, even if AGW turns out to be wrong.

I would rather have done something than nothing. When dealing with consiquences as grand as those of AGW (if true), then I'd rather opt for the "better safe than sorry" solution. It is, in my opinion, too much to gamble.

Outside of being around 7'5", no one can weigh 300lbs and be healthy. Attractiveness is generally correlated (in an evolutionary sense) with the health of our mates, therefore someone who is 300lbs, on the whole, will not be attractive. If that is attractive to you, sobeit, but it is more a fetish than normal.

Your average supermodel also falls into this category of "not healthy = not attractive", the people who find supermodels hot are the same people who think the airbrushed-to-the-point-where-it-might-as-well-be-fake Maxim models are hot (same for Playboy, sometimes I wonder if they stopped having actual women in them, and settle for 3D models and CGI). But then again these are the same people who probably love cartoon women. Its called "hyper sexuality" where you take normal "sexual organs" and over emphasize them.... Actually most run-way models fall into the "legal pedophile" mode, since they look like adolescents as far as their features go.

In the middle you, of course, have healthy women who may or not be attractive based on features other than weight (mostly symmetry, it turns out, which oddly, is another sign of health).

That said, if my girlfriend started to gain weight rapidly, I'd insist she go to a doctor, to make sure it isn't a medical issue. If it wasn't, I would tell her to watch her weight/behavior, since obesity that isn't based on glandular problems generally represents a personality problem or character flaw, and often a mental illness. If that failed I would dump her, since our lifestyles, and personalities, drifted apart. The weight, in this case, is nothing more than a symptom of deeper problems.

And yes, my girlfriend is 5'3, and no, she doesn't weight 90lbs.

I'll run through this bit by bit:

It might be that if more jails/prisons were run this way, we might have fewer return trips.

That depends upon whether you view imprisonment as a form of punishment or rehabilitation. I personally like to keep a cautiously optimistic view on humanity, and opt for the latter. On the logical side of the coin, harsh/humiliating imprisonment is highly likely to breed violent qualities in nonviolent criminals, while retrenching sociopathic tendencies in inmates.

I wonder what his repeat statistics are in comparison to other places that run taxpayer funded country clubs.

Spend a weekend in county jail, and I'll bet you won't use that analogy again.

What is it about the words -Criminal- and -Illegal- alien that is so hard for slashdotters to fathom.

They're exactly that -- words -- abstract concepts. A "criminal" could be somebody who drove 5mph over the speed limit. The constitution is also extremely explicit about the treatment of so-called "criminals." (In fact, it's arguably more explicit about this subject than anything else in the document.) This not only serves to protect the rights of criminals (particularly minor offenders, or perpetrators of 'political' crimes), but also to protect the wrongfully accused. One only needs to look at the number of prisoners that were set free once DNA testing was introduced to prove that our justice system is not perfect.
Illegal immigration is a particularly tricky issue, given that the American people and government turned their backs to the large number of immigrants entering the US illegally. Once this practice stopped suiting our own interests, we began imprisoning these people, denying them basic human rights, and threatening to deport them to a country that has no more capacity to support them than the US does. The fact that children are almost always tied up in illegal immigration cases makes the matter even more difficult and troubling.
It's also worth mentioning that the illegal immigration debate is rife with unfiltered racism and xenophobia.

I dont think that prisoners should have access to TV or weight lifting equipment or be allowed to form gangs or get drugs while in prison. I suspect those activities are pretty limited under his command.

Agreed. Inmates shouldn't be allowed to form gangs or get drugs in prison. I'm not aware of any prison that explicitly allows or encourages such behavior in the United States.
Not sure why weights or TV are bad. Gives them something to pass the time, rather than spending their days breeding hatred and anger. (Wouldn't you be angry at the people who put you in jail?)

If it is so demeaning to dignity to be in jail, sobeit.

See my first point.

It should NOT be a badge of honor like it is treated.

Outside of street gangs, I can assure you that it's not. It's extraordinarily difficult to secure any sort of employment with a criminal record, and American society has intentionally placed quite a few roadblocks in the way of criminal rehabilitation.

I am not against immigration or work permits but I am against paying for (via taxes) medical and infrastructure expenses for those who do not contribute and merely send money out of the country. If they pay their fair share and are here legally, good on them and they are welcome.

(so much for karma in this thread)

Sounds fine to me!

It might be that if more jails/prisons were run this way, we might have fewer return trips. I wonder what his repeat statistics are in comparison to other places that run taxpayer funded country clubs.

What is it about the words -Criminal- and -Illegal- alien that is so hard for slashdotters to fathom.

I dont think that prisoners should have access to TV or weight lifting equipment or be allowed to form gangs or get drugs while in prison. I suspect those activities are pretty limited under his command.

If it is so demeaning to dignity to be in jail, sobeit. It should NOT be a badge of honor like it is treated.

I am not against immigration or work permits but I am against paying for (via taxes) medical and infrastructure expenses for those who do not contribute and merely send money out of the country. If they pay their fair share and are here legally, good on them and they are welcome.

(so much for karma in this thread)

Perhaps he did, and perhaps he didn't. Perhaps YOU are Twitter bringing attention to Twitter, AC. Perhaps I am Twitter bringing attention to Twitter's AC call to attention to Twitter. Perhaps Twitter is everywhere, and we are all but merely his sock puppets working his terrible twisted will.

My comment still stands, falling for it or not. I really don't care who said it, he had a good point. Just because he is the reviled Twitter doesn't matter much if he had a point.

If it was just Twitter posting AC to make Twitter look better, sobeit. I admit, I don't much like his tactics, and he does appear to be a dubious individual, but this is Slashdot, and a lot of our "minor celebrities" fall into this mold.

We all know that the Internet is THE computer. Why should anyone care where the app lives. If it's on your desktop and serves your needs, sobeit. It is I.T.'s job to provide a sustainable application platform regardless of proximity.

Hyperbole much?

And here is my stock question to anyone who says the word "right"; What the hell is a right, and where the hell do they come from? I'm sick of all this "rights" talk, which is generally just a cover for greed and Ayn Randian egotism.

I'd prefer health to be a so-called "right" over "me having tons of extra money". Since A) Health precludes all other things; B) health has a larger impact on the general well-being of society than you owning an extra plasma TV; and C) it is an essential quality to being, as opposed to "the right to lots of money". You can live without excess money, but you can't, obviously, live without your health.

Yes, you are an individual, and you might be blessed with enough money for decent health insurance (is there such a thing in America anymore?), but millions of others are not. Those people count in the equation too, since government exists for them as well. Government actually exists on the behalf of ALL of society, rich and poor, insured or not. Government does not exist to benefit you specifically, it exists to benefit ALL of us. It, in a sense, exists to keep you from stepping on my toes, and visa versa. Thus if there is millions of people with a problem, it is the governments job to help, by its very existence. If this requires a little pain (not equal to the millions of others suffering) to the rich, then sobeit, as long as it results in a net gain of happiness, well-being, or such.

I digress. Generally the terms "rights" is replaced in my brain with the phrase "prepare for some borderline sociopathic ad-hoc justification for greed and egotism"

And I never said that we SHOULD incarcerate people for growing a harmless plant. Nice strawman

You misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm saying that if we can afford to incarcerate people for growing a harmless plant (and last I saw something like 70% of our prisoners were there for drugs; a friend of mine just got out or Dwight for her drug use) we can afford to incarcerate people who are here ILLEGALLY. I never said you condoned incarcerating pot farmers. My point was if you release the nonviolent drug offenders you then have more than enough resources to incarcerate illegal aliens.

It may seem like a non-choice to you (a person's life vs your pride)

My pride has nothing to do with it. Illegal aliens are doing jobs that US citizens should be doing, and those jobs should pay more than they do. If you have to pay more for Tyson chicken, sobeit.

BTW, I refuse to buy that brand of chicken since they burned a hundred or so Mexicans alive in one of their processing plants. They had the doors chained shut to keep the minimum wage workers from stealing chicken parts. The plant manager got two years in prison for killing all those people in the name of profit.

The people who own and run Tyson's are the kind of people who don't want the border closed. They're making money hand over fist exploiting the Mexicans. I'd like to see Mexico do something to raise their citizens' standard of living; you don't see many Canadians crossing illegally. Unfortunately since Mexico has been a defacto one party rule for most of the last century, it's about as likely to raise its standard of living as the old USSR. The US government didn't cause Mexico's problems, the Mexican government did.

We have plenty of poor people in our own country; I know a lot of them. Poverty is something we as a nation don't need to import, even though its rich people think we do, in fact, not have enough poor people here to exploit. It's supply and demand.

If you are happy to run licenced software that you never own, and have a computer that you do not control (the software controls what you can do), sobeit - but there is no way you can use that argument to support MS products vs GNU/Linux - not in a million years. Trying to herd cats is one thing, being a sheep is another.

Except that the book we're commenting on here offers evidence that this was not what happened, and in fact it was fraud that won Bush his second term. If you would like to dispute the data, then sobeit, but making pronouncements like that doesn't make them true.

America voted Bush in. The first time because he was a friendly likable guy and the Lewinsky scandal scoured them on Clinton/Gore.

He won the second time because they felt he was protecting them from danger and wanted to give him a chance to win the war. Bush won. Both times. Get over it.

In 2008 you'll have a shot at the White House again, and it'll be be your election to lose.

Sheesh whatever will these technos dream up next? ... Maybe a device built into this that kindly shakes 'hands' with the user after they have finished their 'business' before it gets its blow-dry ... or maybe for the home or discerning user, some kind of speed control based, perhaps, on the volume and/or tone(s) of the sittee? I suppose one way of putting is could be loo-dicrous ... but then again, if you can afford it and have money to burn, then sobeit. :D

Actually, it's on my shopping list here as a home entertainment system with major TIVO like features as well as the Blu-Ray feature. True, I'd like it as a writer, but that's down the road. However sobeit, that's the feature I'm looking for here. I don't do FPS, I'm incompetant in that regard due to nerve damage. Give me those other features that I'd have to pay major money for here to add to my main machine, which has other purposes here (read beta testing the next stuff down the line) and I'll be happy.

Then again, ya'll know I'm already crazy here givin' my past posting about how and what I use my machines for. Someone's gotta be crazy to abuse machines this way though ;-).

Their commitment will be throughput burstable to 6 MBps down, 1 Mbps up, 24/7connectivity. The keyword here is burstable. If you want to use that bandwidth all the time, feel free to buy a T1 or better.

The idea that continous bandwidth is not available is neither advertised nor indicated anywhere (service contract or otherwise). Nobody even implied that this service was sold on a burstable basis. Further, a T1's strength is mainly in the SLA, which residential services don't have (business cable/DSL also lack an SLA). The cable/DSL services are considered 'best effort', where the buyer has no recourse if a enterprise line fails (unlike a T).

The idea that persistent use of a service implicitly violates service terms which were never expressed is totally laughable. They do, however, generally forbid running services (like mail and web) using a residential connection. The fact is that ISP's sold service with the expectation that their clients weren't going to use it. Now, technology is catching up with the bandwidth offered by ISP's, and they're going to have to compensate. This sounds like a case of the ISP blaming an evolving marketplace for the problem -- even though the evloving marketplace is the reason for the ISP's existance. If staying afloat invloves raising rates over the long term in order to make up for market rates, sobeit. However, bulk bandwidth costs are still dirt cheap. IIRC, the real cost is in last-mile delivery -- I think that cable and DSL broadband is starting to show its age with its pooled bandwidth. This gives providers like Verizon (with FIOS) a real shot at competing with the established (Cable/DSL) players.