I like this scheme because it allows me to help fund the websites which I enjoy and visit. A good website with good content is expensive, and if the site maintainer cannot make money, then those sites will go away or become less good. I'm happy to spend a few bucks a month knowing that it goes to the sites I like.
I hate advertising too, but I know enough economics to know that if everyone is a freeloader then the whole system goes to hell.
So you are saying that you should not help fund sites you like because you may accidentally send a fraction of a cent to a site you didn't mean to go to. Occasionally.
If Google ONLY does evil, then I assume that in your universe "good" companies are a rhetorical and theoretical device but cannot possibly exist? The money that Google donates is evil? Giving free-except-for-ads email is evil? Providing services for schools and non-profits is evil? Pushing back against over-broad governmental requests is evil?
Partisan policy aside, the government wants us to want them to regulate the nets.
Hmm, I'm pretty sure I already pay taxes on my FIOS line, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
I don't know what the government wants (and since it's made up of many thousands of people with differing opinions, I'm sure there is no one answer), but I want the government to regulate the ISPs (not the whole net) because the ISPs have amply demonstrated that when left on their own, they do a really really bad job. Verizon, Comcast, and the others have nobody else to blame for this; they caused it by their own actions.
Great indeed. So Obamacare has increased both the quantity and quality of health care for the poor, kept prices down (or at least not increased them faster than before), and is not a large burden on the US budget. By any reality which doesn't call our president a muslim from Kenya, it's a runaway success. I only wish Net Neutrality could be so successful.
So buy her a chromebook or something else (mostly) bulletproof.
I shouldn't have to be a mechanic to own a car, or be a doctor to manage my blood pressure, so others shouldn't need to be an IT guru to read email, watch cat videos, and chat with friends on facebook. If computers need years of training, that means that we as IT folk have failed. (And so far, we have failed.)
Which is why companies DO NOT WANT real critical thinking skills.
They want people who think like they do and who come to the same conclusions that they do based upon the same information that they have.
That doesn't follow. Pepsi wants us to buy more Pepsi, but nothing about their behavior says that they want us to think like they do. For those of you who are older, the "Pepsi Challenge" was hardly scientific but was still a reasonable attempt. And why would H&R Block want us to not use critical thinking skills? Why does the local supermarket care what I believe? Actually, most companies want to hire people who can think, because they are better at making money for the company.
Now, if you had said used "religions" rather than "companies" then you'd have a pretty strong case.
"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the studentâ(TM)s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
We shouldn't challenge student's fixed beliefs? Or undermine parental authority? Those sound like usual and desired outcomes of critical thinking skills.
Outcome-Based Education means, as far as I know, "teaching; then testing for those skills". It's not perfect (nothing is) but I'm not sure what the complaint is.
And I'll admit that "focus on behavior modification" sounds like a code phrase. You seem to like this statement; could you translate it into language that I can understand? Because you complained about the interpretation but did not explain how that interpretation doesn't come from those words. Actually, that paragraph sounds like it was written by people who have no idea what "Higher Order Thinking Skills" or "Outcome-Based Education" mean but are pretty sure they're designed to turn kids against their parents somehow? Or am I mis-interpreting it too?
Since the results of "define astronaut", "a person who is trained to travel in a spacecraft", don't appear in the wiikpedia page at all, you may be completely wrong. Otherwise, though, nice off-topic anti-google rant.
While I see a big difference between crew, scientists, and paying passengers, once I put aside my incredible envy of anyone who can leave this small rock I've got to admit that they all deserve the term "astronaut". Wow!
I didn't say government should be involved in any dispute between companies, so where do you come off claiming I advocate its involvement in all such disputes?
The solution is for government to take actions to eliminate its need for further involvement,.... It was not the local government that dealt with the mess, it was the Pennsylvania Insurance Department which should have prevented the issue 26 years ago.
I'm very confused about whether or not you believe government should get involved here? Or maybe you are saying that it should be involved in THIS dispute but not any other?
Regardless, the point I was replying to was the contention that you could avoid a corporation which misbehaved, but not government. The UPMC-vs-Highmark is a clear example that anyone with BCBS insurance in western PA (I have Anthem BCBS through my employer) is disadvantaged by UPMC. I can affect my government (a little bit and sometimes); I can have no effect on UPMC (even though my wife works for them). Government is led by people that I help elect; UPMC is led by the people who make it the most money and they make more money by behaving IMO badly.
Pittsburgh. UPMC has decided that Highmark (and thus all Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurers) can no longer use their facilities because Highmark is threatening UPMC's near-monopoly status in Western PA. UPMC is trying to crush all competition in this area.
If you think being able to vote for the people and policies in government is worthwhile, why does your city have the problems you have described?
So you dislike the government but believe that it should be used to solve every company-vs-company dispute? Huh. No, the local government is finally trying to clean the mess up but they can't really do much to interfere with private contracts between companies. Turns out that anti-competitive behavior is mostly legal, and the state and federal governments haven't gotten involved.
These problems exist because being anti-competitive is a good way to make money. Seriously, you are blaming a company-vs-company problem on the government... how does that make any sense? If I get mugged, I should blame the police and not blame the mugger?
I haven't looked closely at that link you posted, but every similar story I've looked into has gotten big "wasteful" numbers by adding together the entire IT budgets for multiple years and multiple projects, and then presenting it as a "OMG government waste! OMG OMG!!!" story.
And sadly people lap it up because everyone loves whining about things but refuses to verify the stories. Not that government is perfect, but it certainly won't get better when most individual "government failure" stories are full of lies and misinformation.
For example, the article you linked to says "As of November 2013, the federal exchange healthcare.gov. is estimated to have cost $677 million". Which is a complete lie: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2...
It's trivial to find that that figure is a lie, yet that article still listed it. And you believed it. And I bet you'll keep on reading that website and believing their lies.
In my city, one company owes 80% of the hospitals and doctors. The other 20% are owned by another company. The 80% company is now not letting the 20% insurance plans to use their facilities, to drive that one out of town. So in fact, if you want good health care choices, you have no real choice which insurance plan you use.
Also, 30% of the city has an ISP choice between fiber and cable; the rest has DSL or cable. Get a bit outside of town and DSL goes away. So there is almost no choice in ISPs, and when they have horrible policies they don't care at all what I say.
On the other hand, with government I can vote to change the people and policies. It's not perfect, and it doesn't always work (especially when most people whine about the govt but don't vote), but it often does work. We've gotten rid of a senator who ran on religious bigotry and hatred, for example.
Do you really think that studios would let their movies stream peer-to-peer, which would involve being stored on home-user's computers encrypted with a known key (aka "effectively not encrypted")? Plus, ISPs are rolling out CGN which makes peer-to-peer very difficult, and most residential connections have very slow upload speeds. Finally, this would just be a way to work around the fact that Verizon is not giving its customers what the customers have paid for: high-speed internet access. When there is a bully, you don't just sneak around behind the bully's back and hope he won't notice you.
No, Netflix (and Youtube and some others large ones) don't buy CDN hosting; they offer it. They offer free CDN servers which large ISPs can put in their datacenters. Doesn't matter how much Netflix offered to pay, I doubt if any existing CDN could handle Netflix's traffic along with their other customers.
Many ISPs take advantage of this, but Verizon would rather degrade Netflix's products so they can push their own products.
...because Netflix's provider (which is Level3) isnt paying for the bandwidth disparity between Level3 and Verizon on purpose.
The bandwidth disparity argument is bunk. I've love if Netflix or Level 3 would set up some data sinks in their network so I could use my FIOS to send them random data 24/7 and help even the disparity.
Thats how the internet is paid for. The sending provider pays the receiving provider for the bandwidth, and this is the only rational way it can be.
So... you're saying that Verizon should be paying me! I mean, they send me ALL THIS DATA (much of it sourced from Netflix), but I hardly send them anything. This makes me both a selfish person and someone who deserves a large monthly Verizon cheque.
Note that if Verizon doesn't want to pay a few grand for a few more 10GE ports and some short cables, they could pay even less and accept the caching servers that Netflix offers to all large ISPs; those cost just a few rack units and watts of power.
But Verizon would rather limit Netflix so that they can push their own video products.
Seems rather the opposite. We're very good at noticing when someone is looking at us (a leftover from being prey I suspect), but I always see people standing, holding their phone angled slightly (pointed nicely at any laptops at nearby tables). Add a fake game screen while the camera runs for extra stealth.
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I like this scheme because it allows me to help fund the websites which I enjoy and visit. A good website with good content is expensive, and if the site maintainer cannot make money, then those sites will go away or become less good. I'm happy to spend a few bucks a month knowing that it goes to the sites I like.
I hate advertising too, but I know enough economics to know that if everyone is a freeloader then the whole system goes to hell.
So you are saying that you should not help fund sites you like because you may accidentally send a fraction of a cent to a site you didn't mean to go to. Occasionally.
If Google ONLY does evil, then I assume that in your universe "good" companies are a rhetorical and theoretical device but cannot possibly exist? The money that Google donates is evil? Giving free-except-for-ads email is evil? Providing services for schools and non-profits is evil? Pushing back against over-broad governmental requests is evil?
Sure, it costs the user money, but none of the money goes to the site. Thus, you are a freeloader for the site.
Or are you saying "I snuck into the movie theater through the back door, but I paid money for gas to drive to the theater, so I'm not freeloading"?
Partisan policy aside, the government wants us to want them to regulate the nets.
Hmm, I'm pretty sure I already pay taxes on my FIOS line, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
I don't know what the government wants (and since it's made up of many thousands of people with differing opinions, I'm sure there is no one answer), but I want the government to regulate the ISPs (not the whole net) because the ISPs have amply demonstrated that when left on their own, they do a really really bad job. Verizon, Comcast, and the others have nobody else to blame for this; they caused it by their own actions.
Interesting. The Obamacare of X analogy is great.
Great indeed. So Obamacare has increased both the quantity and quality of health care for the poor, kept prices down (or at least not increased them faster than before), and is not a large burden on the US budget. By any reality which doesn't call our president a muslim from Kenya, it's a runaway success. I only wish Net Neutrality could be so successful.
I replied, "then cancel my account, and I'll give my money to your competitors"
Your ISP has competitors? Lucky you! I have Verizon and Comcast (who seem to have agreed to not compete much at all).
So buy her a chromebook or something else (mostly) bulletproof.
I shouldn't have to be a mechanic to own a car, or be a doctor to manage my blood pressure, so others shouldn't need to be an IT guru to read email, watch cat videos, and chat with friends on facebook. If computers need years of training, that means that we as IT folk have failed. (And so far, we have failed.)
Wow, you have clearly never talked to a Google senior VP before.
Which is why companies DO NOT WANT real critical thinking skills.
They want people who think like they do and who come to the same conclusions that they do based upon the same information that they have.
That doesn't follow. Pepsi wants us to buy more Pepsi, but nothing about their behavior says that they want us to think like they do. For those of you who are older, the "Pepsi Challenge" was hardly scientific but was still a reasonable attempt. And why would H&R Block want us to not use critical thinking skills? Why does the local supermarket care what I believe? Actually, most companies want to hire people who can think, because they are better at making money for the company.
Now, if you had said used "religions" rather than "companies" then you'd have a pretty strong case.
"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the studentâ(TM)s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
We shouldn't challenge student's fixed beliefs? Or undermine parental authority? Those sound like usual and desired outcomes of critical thinking skills.
Outcome-Based Education means, as far as I know, "teaching; then testing for those skills". It's not perfect (nothing is) but I'm not sure what the complaint is.
And I'll admit that "focus on behavior modification" sounds like a code phrase. You seem to like this statement; could you translate it into language that I can understand? Because you complained about the interpretation but did not explain how that interpretation doesn't come from those words. Actually, that paragraph sounds like it was written by people who have no idea what "Higher Order Thinking Skills" or "Outcome-Based Education" mean but are pretty sure they're designed to turn kids against their parents somehow? Or am I mis-interpreting it too?
Since the results of "define astronaut", "a person who is trained to travel in a spacecraft", don't appear in the wiikpedia page at all, you may be completely wrong. Otherwise, though, nice off-topic anti-google rant.
While I see a big difference between crew, scientists, and paying passengers, once I put aside my incredible envy of anyone who can leave this small rock I've got to admit that they all deserve the term "astronaut". Wow!
I didn't say government should be involved in any dispute between companies, so where do you come off claiming I advocate its involvement in all such disputes?
The solution is for government to take actions to eliminate its need for further involvement, .... It was not the local government that dealt with the mess, it was the Pennsylvania Insurance Department which should have prevented the issue 26 years ago.
I'm very confused about whether or not you believe government should get involved here? Or maybe you are saying that it should be involved in THIS dispute but not any other?
Regardless, the point I was replying to was the contention that you could avoid a corporation which misbehaved, but not government. The UPMC-vs-Highmark is a clear example that anyone with BCBS insurance in western PA (I have Anthem BCBS through my employer) is disadvantaged by UPMC. I can affect my government (a little bit and sometimes); I can have no effect on UPMC (even though my wife works for them). Government is led by people that I help elect; UPMC is led by the people who make it the most money and they make more money by behaving IMO badly.
You really don't believe me? Wow.
Pittsburgh. UPMC has decided that Highmark (and thus all Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurers) can no longer use their facilities because Highmark is threatening UPMC's near-monopoly status in Western PA. UPMC is trying to crush all competition in this area.
If you think being able to vote for the people and policies in government is worthwhile, why does your city have the problems you have described?
So you dislike the government but believe that it should be used to solve every company-vs-company dispute? Huh. No, the local government is finally trying to clean the mess up but they can't really do much to interfere with private contracts between companies. Turns out that anti-competitive behavior is mostly legal, and the state and federal governments haven't gotten involved.
These problems exist because being anti-competitive is a good way to make money. Seriously, you are blaming a company-vs-company problem on the government... how does that make any sense? If I get mugged, I should blame the police and not blame the mugger?
I haven't looked closely at that link you posted, but every similar story I've looked into has gotten big "wasteful" numbers by adding together the entire IT budgets for multiple years and multiple projects, and then presenting it as a "OMG government waste! OMG OMG!!!" story.
And sadly people lap it up because everyone loves whining about things but refuses to verify the stories. Not that government is perfect, but it certainly won't get better when most individual "government failure" stories are full of lies and misinformation.
For example, the article you linked to says "As of November 2013, the federal exchange healthcare.gov. is estimated to have cost $677 million". Which is a complete lie: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2...
It's trivial to find that that figure is a lie, yet that article still listed it. And you believed it. And I bet you'll keep on reading that website and believing their lies.
Why?
In my city, one company owes 80% of the hospitals and doctors. The other 20% are owned by another company. The 80% company is now not letting the 20% insurance plans to use their facilities, to drive that one out of town. So in fact, if you want good health care choices, you have no real choice which insurance plan you use.
Also, 30% of the city has an ISP choice between fiber and cable; the rest has DSL or cable. Get a bit outside of town and DSL goes away. So there is almost no choice in ISPs, and when they have horrible policies they don't care at all what I say.
On the other hand, with government I can vote to change the people and policies. It's not perfect, and it doesn't always work (especially when most people whine about the govt but don't vote), but it often does work. We've gotten rid of a senator who ran on religious bigotry and hatred, for example.
Welfare to the poor: bad because it removes the incentive to improve oneself. Welfare to the rich: fantastic!
Do you really think that studios would let their movies stream peer-to-peer, which would involve being stored on home-user's computers encrypted with a known key (aka "effectively not encrypted")? Plus, ISPs are rolling out CGN which makes peer-to-peer very difficult, and most residential connections have very slow upload speeds. Finally, this would just be a way to work around the fact that Verizon is not giving its customers what the customers have paid for: high-speed internet access. When there is a bully, you don't just sneak around behind the bully's back and hope he won't notice you.
No, Netflix (and Youtube and some others large ones) don't buy CDN hosting; they offer it. They offer free CDN servers which large ISPs can put in their datacenters. Doesn't matter how much Netflix offered to pay, I doubt if any existing CDN could handle Netflix's traffic along with their other customers.
Many ISPs take advantage of this, but Verizon would rather degrade Netflix's products so they can push their own products.
The bandwidth disparity argument is bunk. I've love if Netflix or Level 3 would set up some data sinks in their network so I could use my FIOS to send them random data 24/7 and help even the disparity.
Thats how the internet is paid for. The sending provider pays the receiving provider for the bandwidth, and this is the only rational way it can be.
So... you're saying that Verizon should be paying me! I mean, they send me ALL THIS DATA (much of it sourced from Netflix), but I hardly send them anything. This makes me both a selfish person and someone who deserves a large monthly Verizon cheque.
Note that if Verizon doesn't want to pay a few grand for a few more 10GE ports and some short cables, they could pay even less and accept the caching servers that Netflix offers to all large ISPs; those cost just a few rack units and watts of power.
But Verizon would rather limit Netflix so that they can push their own video products.
Seems rather the opposite. We're very good at noticing when someone is looking at us (a leftover from being prey I suspect), but I always see people standing, holding their phone angled slightly (pointed nicely at any laptops at nearby tables). Add a fake game screen while the camera runs for extra stealth.
In related news,scientists have discovered a correlation between "thinks that signing up for experiments is fun" and "extrovert".
Selling your eyeballs and your habits are pretty strictly in Google's and Microsoft's purview.
Yeah, not so much. Though based on news reports they're not not very good at it yet.
Only ego stands in the way of backing down from that and shifting the core of Android C++.
Depends. Who owns the C API?
Oh dear. This could be a problem for anyone who uses a C compiler. Who owns the original C APIs anyways? Dennis Ritchie maybe?
I wonder who owns the SQL APIs? Oracle may have a problem here...