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Is Cheap Broadband UnAmerican?
Reader Ant wrote to mention the article entitled Is Cheap Broadband UnAmerican? The author argues that media companies are systematically ruining the MuniWiFi efforts across the country, likening the community initiatives to a form of communism. From the article: "Telecommunications giants have mobilized a well-funded army of coin-operated think tanks, pliant legislators and lazy journalists to protect their Internet fiefdoms from these municipal internet initiatives, painting them as an affront to American innovation and free enterprise"
Because we take the word of the conglomerates as the word of God, that's why. People see a price tag and they just accept it as reality. Most people are uninterested in shopping around for better service, better prices, etc. It's just easier to plop the good old CC down and have it paid automatically every month.
When one is presented with a single high-speed internet access option (as happened to me in BOTH of the previous places I used to live), all one can do is choose the existing option or stick with dial-up.
Eight years ago, when I first signed up for it, USWests's 640k RADSL was the only option, and it was a HUGE jump forward from a V.90 modem connection (and the static IP was also a nice touch).
When I subsequently moved four years ago from one Minneapolis suburb to another to a townhouse which had TimeWarner RoadRunner available but which had no COs within range for DSL, the cablemodem option was a much better deal for me than dropping back to a modem connection.
People don't realize that 1500/256 is crappy service for DSL and that 5000/384 is just as bad.
When compared to what could bemade available in a perfect world, you're right. But those are very good compared to what we had previously).
People say, ooooh, Cable is faster than DSL and less money! They don't bother looking into the hidden restrictions and commonplace bullshit that the ISPs pull (such as UNLIMITED SERVICE - as long as you don't pass over our unknown bandwith usage threshold).
There was no such threshold when I was a customer with TimeWarner, and I have no such limit with my current Charter account. Don't map your negative experiences to the entire universe...
Some people say, "but there is no alternative." Sure there is... Become active and do something about it. Oooh, but that would take away from your time watching Survivor and The Apprentice. Perhaps the Cable company would even come and shut off your precious mind-numbing TV delivered drugs. Wah.
I DID do something about it -- that's one reason why Qwest finally corrected the DSL situation at my second residence. However, all things considered, I found my cable connection to be a better deal overall than the DSL connection, so I stayed with cable.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
You asshat. He wasn't comparing anything to the war. He was comparing a Republican Junket trumping a democratic appointee destroying classified documents. It has NOTHING to do with President Bush or the war in Iraq. This just shows how irrational and politically biased you are Mr. AC.
I went to public school.
I thought that my public school had a few shortcomings. Despite high scores on acceptance tests, I never made it into the gifted program... I did go to regional science fairs, got into a few national programs, and won a few national awards however.
I'm in graduate school at Cornell now. Hey, look at all of those international students... I bet that they wanted to come to this nifty American school.
I still think that it is dumb to call all of your countrymen dumb. If you dislike them so much, and think that residing in this country speaks so poorly of you, why don't you move to another country?
I'm not saying that to be aggressive. I mean it. If I thought that America was all that bad, I'd move.
No, you are blinded by your own rage towards the current administration.
I can't stand the garbage that is thrown at people through the TV these days. I avoid it and watch very little if any TV now. I am disgusted by the office talk of the latest "reality" show. My point was you attacked the post using an argument about the war. I don't give a flying shit about he war in this discussion, it doesn't pertain. What does pertain is the fact that the media would rather report about republican junkets (which both sides take quite liberaly) than about the destruction of classified documents by an official of the previous administration. If Rice or Hadley had been convicted of this, the media would have been in uproar over it. It would have been headline news. I would also guess that you would have been shouting for them to be hanged.
Uh huh. Worked real good last September, didn't it?
It did. It was a close one for awhile, but we did manage to make sure that the best of the two candidates got into the White House.
Actually, I was amazed at the Democrat's poor showing. I mean, with Dean being the best they had, is it really any wonder that Kerry managed to steal the limelight (and lose)?
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Yeah, because picking between a republican and a democrat is real Democracy.
The fact that you think either candidate can be described as the "best" leads me to believe that you don't really understand the question.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!