This covers my concern too... I barely get 1.5 Mbit/sec at my house and most of my neighbors CANNOT GET ANYTHING above dial-up. I love when people jump in and say that online required is fine, clearly they have no clue what network connectivity is available for a large portion of the population in the country. Most people in the country (myself included) can't watch a low-res youtube video without pausing it and letting the entire thing "buffer" before playing it. I have one realistic option... Centurylink DSL. I'm the last house on my road that can get it, everyone beyond my house is screwed. Did the petition thing and got "OK, we'll try to get service to be available in about 2 years". Call the cable company "Sorry, no plans to provide any service on your road".
Re:I really want XBMC-HD for PS3
on
PS3 Hacked?
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· Score: 1
There's a good PA Beer drinker... Yuengling ROCKS! Funny, a friend in Canada keeps asking if we can bring that Chinese beer when we visit (Ying-Ling).
Re:I really want XBMC-HD for PS3
on
PS3 Hacked?
·
· Score: 1
I've been using mediatomb for quite a while and love it. Once the import scripts are customized to really categorize music, movies and photos well, It's great. I have movies sorted by mature and family then either alphabetically or by genre. To me, Ubuntu, MediaTomb, Handbrake, K9Copy, and Atomic Parsley (with a custom GUI I've written) are a great setup. I now have movies in multiple genres and sorted by family versus mature based upon metadata tags while being stored in a normal and easily navigable directory structure. DVD->K9Copy->Handbrake->AtomicParsley->MediaTomb->PS3 = exactly what I need. Oh, and for $150, I got a WD HD Live TV box for another TV and it works just as well as the PS3 for movie/media playback.
Wow, ok... you're an angry bitter person huh? Truth is I'm bored with this discussion and know you're not going to acknowledge ANY point that differs from your own. I DO agree with you on the need for government to stay out of markets where there is natural competition (as already stated, point conceded). You really need to realize that not every market falls into your "Competition will appear when it's ready to" model. And apparently you didn't read the reference... the gov't didn't actually hand the companies $200 Billion, they de-regulated them so that they could increase costs across the board and re-invest the increased profits into expansion of fibre uniformly across the US , Urban and Rural, which never happened. Oh... and your great point about the electric grid spreading... guess what??? it was government subsidized and is to this day (http://www.govpro.com/News/Article/67939/). As for the lightbulb, Duh! hey, clothing spread too so did the great idea of "food". You are mastering the comparison of apples and oranges with that one. You cannot compare a 50 cent lightbulb that is, in this age, a requirement for life (OK, not really required for life to continue, but required for a "normal" modern human existence) with hundreds or thousands of miles of fibre optic cable and expect anyone to take you seriously.
I live in a place called reality. Further, I live in one of the largest concentrations of amish in the US... tell ya what, you come out and hook jebediah's abacus to the PinkUnicorn.camish and maybe there'll be enough people to drive the market that exists in your mind. Meanwhile I'll accept the fact that until the government intervenes I can call the telecos daily forever with the same result. I've inquired about actually paying for the cable run myself with the same result... "Sorry, but we're not expanding conectivity in your area".
In my world all politicians are now or soon will be scumbags but some are actually scummier and scarier than others. In my world, the last 8 years has been an even larger nightmare in government than before and ANYTHING is better than what's in office now (Speaking of human rights violations)... if only marginally. In my world, religion is a friggin joke that weak people use as a scapegoat. That doesn't prevent the weak minded sheep from actually supporting Sarah Palin and thinking she'd be ready to be president.
I've heard it said (Can't find the source right now) that GWBush has been the worst president for violating and removing individual freedoms, something I believe easily. As much as the two party system is a failure, IMHO, the past few years has shown clearly that the government can and will directly impact your life beyond taking your money. That said, I will vote for Obama... I'm not duped, I'm not deluded, I'm fully aware of what he is and that at the basest point, he's a politician. I'm not naive enough to think that both candidates are identical (I do have a choice even though it's only a a lesser of two evils choice) and I'm not naive enough to think that anyone other than McSame or Obama will possibly garner enough votes to win... therefore I will vote Obama to get Republican's out of power. I can dream of the time when the two party system is abolished and people have to run no personal merits, but that's not gonna happen in the next 25 days. You can live in a utopian dream world, refusing to participate in reality. I hope some of the dream comes true but I doubt it will in my lifetime. I'll do the best I can with what's available and change things if I can determine how to do so.
Oh, and I'm not wholly opposed to a single entity providing a service... assuming they actually do provide the service... which they do not in my case. I'm just amazed at your refusal to acknowledge that there are some places where a comp
Well, this has been fun. I see no comment on the $200 Billion the telcos walked away with. You're right, this is becoming tedious (and by the way, I've personally believed for at least 5 years that we were heading for a crash that would be kicked off by the McDonald's workers living in starter castles with no furniture and a Lexus SUV.) I am glad to hear that you don't support McSame... and it's also cool that you don't support Obama. I certainly don't love him but will vote for him simply to avoid McSame. My overall point, and I know you disagree, is that the government will absolutely have to intervene before rural areas will get decent broadband simply due to the monopolistic nature of telco presence in small town america combined with the relatively low ROI that can be obtained in this market. I'm not in favor of government interfering when the market does support natural competition in an area, a point on which we can agree.
I'll not waste any more time on this because obviously we'll disagree here. Oh, and I have identified your Invisible Pink Unicorn... it is a politician that doesn't support some sort of rights violations.
"Neigh... neigh..."
/
OK, self delusion on your behalf continues... here's your sourcing... http://www.tispa.org/node/14... I could provide many other references if you want. Your comment was "these services should not be provided by the government - any government". There is cable internet available about 1 mile from my house. There are not enough houses on my road to EVER make it financially justifiable without requiring a 10+ year contract from every resident on the road. You seem to think that a service should only be available if it's cost effective to the provider. I disagree. I pay the same taxes everyone else does and I pay the same rate for my crappy service as anyone in a city with 10MB/s service. I should be offered the same services and option everyone else gets for the price.
I am apparently missing your meaning on some points...
were screwed as soon as they handed their money over to another government
HUH? The government saw that it was not economically justifiable to roll out services to all rural areas and felt the areas should be covered by existing providers. The gov't acted on the part of the people living in rural areas WHILE ALSO ACTING ON BEHALF OF THE TELECOS by providing large cash incentives to providers to make servicing rural areas more financially beneficial. In this part, the gov't acted as it should, on behalf of everyone involved.
Your gov't wants to buy mortgages from idiots that are now amazed that blue collar workers cannot afford $500,000 homes, devalue the homes and re-negotiate mortgages to significantly lower principal costs and interest rates... passing the benefit only to the idiot who bought more than they could afford while passing the expense on to those who realize that $150,000 is all they can afford.
removing all meaning from the word "justify", and in the process you've ditched individual rights
Are you friggin serious? At this point in history, decent internet service is becoming more of a right, for one. Regardless, there are no individuals involved here... these companies and corporations will stop at nothing to ensure they have no competition (See the original article regarding a company suing the gov't to prevent the gov't from providing another, possibly better, option) which you seem to think is the cornerstone to better services. You speak out both sides of your mouth. Let me paraphrase you... "Competition is good... unless it's from the government... If there is no private competition apparently there's no demand and you, therefore do not deserve the services I have because I live in a city" Have you looked at a map of the US lately to see how many areas are NOT city? True about 80% of the population lives in urban areas with more than 2500 people but the other 20% still pay the same taxes the city folks do. By "Justified" I mean that the government tried to do things to the benefit of the telecos and the telecos screwed the people and the gov't. As a result, the gov't is justified in forcing competition upon the telecos in rural areas where non exists. The telecos lost this case when they took $200 million and didn't even try to follow through with their promise. I'm curious... where exactly did I
ditched individual rights in favor of what's convenient to yourself
? Your McSame is showing... let's deregulate everything, it worked so well in banking. The US should be embarrassed that we are 17th in world at broadband penetration. I'll guarantee that Iraq will be ahead of us once we're done moving the sand around and foot the bill to rebuild their country with new infrastructure. Oh, and in the Sept. 2008 study we're actually 19th... Move to where you can see a real forest and tell me the gov't shouldn't provide broadband.
Dude, America has one hell of a lot of rural areas where demand does not meet financial justification. This is exactly why the gov't passed a bill a few years ago to provide something like $200 million in incentives to have telecos service rural areas. The gov't recognized the criticality of decent internet service for US competition in world markets and therefore provided great financial benefits for telecos to run broadband to rural areas. The telecos took the cash and ran.
Why is it OK for the telecos to take cash dedicated to a specific cause and screw the taxpayers but it's evil for the government to say "if you don't do it, we will"?
There are some cases (and in this case, MANY very compelling cases) where the government is completely justified in offering services to force competition where none exists today and none is likely in the foreseeable future. If this teleco was the only decent game in town, they might wake up and realize that they are not immune from competition.
Invisible Pink Unicorn...
Get a clue on what rural America is like. Rail all you want against government competition but realize that probably most geographic area of the US has little to no competition in telecom. As of May, we were 17th in the world for Broadband penetration... this is precisely because there is NO competition in most areas. It was fine for the government to interfere when the interference was to provide hundreds of millions in incentives for servicing rural areas, but holding the providers to actually using the money as intended or forcing competition upon them is a no no? Your arguments would hold up if there actually was competition in all areas.
Again... talk to me about this when you live in a rural area and can only get shitty service from a low speed "high speed" service... max out at 512K DSL and realize that no other provider has any intention of servicing your area and therefore the current provider has no intention of upgrading you... then tell me how great no competition at all is.
This from someone who probably has decent internet service. I live at the end of a DSL run, cannot get cable, cannot get WiMax... 512K DSL is the fastest I can get. I've called many communications providers and always get "Sorry, we have no intentions of improving/offering services in your area".
No competition = no incentive to do anything better. I'm typically against gov't competition but in areas where there is a one provider monopoly (this covers ALOT of rural america), the consumer is screwed by this policy.
Slashdot Mirror
This covers my concern too ... I barely get 1.5 Mbit/sec at my house and most of my neighbors CANNOT GET ANYTHING above dial-up. I love when people jump in and say that online required is fine, clearly they have no clue what network connectivity is available for a large portion of the population in the country. Most people in the country (myself included) can't watch a low-res youtube video without pausing it and letting the entire thing "buffer" before playing it. I have one realistic option ... Centurylink DSL. I'm the last house on my road that can get it, everyone beyond my house is screwed. Did the petition thing and got "OK, we'll try to get service to be available in about 2 years". Call the cable company "Sorry, no plans to provide any service on your road".
There's a good PA Beer drinker ... Yuengling ROCKS! Funny, a friend in Canada keeps asking if we can bring that Chinese beer when we visit (Ying-Ling).
I've been using mediatomb for quite a while and love it. Once the import scripts are customized to really categorize music, movies and photos well, It's great. I have movies sorted by mature and family then either alphabetically or by genre. To me, Ubuntu, MediaTomb, Handbrake, K9Copy, and Atomic Parsley (with a custom GUI I've written) are a great setup. I now have movies in multiple genres and sorted by family versus mature based upon metadata tags while being stored in a normal and easily navigable directory structure. DVD->K9Copy->Handbrake->AtomicParsley->MediaTomb->PS3 = exactly what I need. Oh, and for $150, I got a WD HD Live TV box for another TV and it works just as well as the PS3 for movie/media playback.
I live in a place called reality. Further, I live in one of the largest concentrations of amish in the US ... tell ya what, you come out and hook jebediah's abacus to the PinkUnicorn.camish and maybe there'll be enough people to drive the market that exists in your mind. Meanwhile I'll accept the fact that until the government intervenes I can call the telecos daily forever with the same result. I've inquired about actually paying for the cable run myself with the same result ... "Sorry, but we're not expanding conectivity in your area".
In my world all politicians are now or soon will be scumbags but some are actually scummier and scarier than others. In my world, the last 8 years has been an even larger nightmare in government than before and ANYTHING is better than what's in office now (Speaking of human rights violations) ... if only marginally. In my world, religion is a friggin joke that weak people use as a scapegoat. That doesn't prevent the weak minded sheep from actually supporting Sarah Palin and thinking she'd be ready to be president.
I've heard it said (Can't find the source right now) that GWBush has been the worst president for violating and removing individual freedoms, something I believe easily. As much as the two party system is a failure, IMHO, the past few years has shown clearly that the government can and will directly impact your life beyond taking your money. That said, I will vote for Obama ... I'm not duped, I'm not deluded, I'm fully aware of what he is and that at the basest point, he's a politician. I'm not naive enough to think that both candidates are identical (I do have a choice even though it's only a a lesser of two evils choice) and I'm not naive enough to think that anyone other than McSame or Obama will possibly garner enough votes to win ... therefore I will vote Obama to get Republican's out of power. I can dream of the time when the two party system is abolished and people have to run no personal merits, but that's not gonna happen in the next 25 days. You can live in a utopian dream world, refusing to participate in reality. I hope some of the dream comes true but I doubt it will in my lifetime. I'll do the best I can with what's available and change things if I can determine how to do so.
Oh, and I'm not wholly opposed to a single entity providing a service ... assuming they actually do provide the service ... which they do not in my case. I'm just amazed at your refusal to acknowledge that there are some places where a comp
Nevermind ... Missed the Satire reference at the bottom
Oh, and PLEASE tell me you're Invisible Pink Unicorn Ministries website is a joke ... even if it isn't ...
Well, this has been fun. I see no comment on the $200 Billion the telcos walked away with. You're right, this is becoming tedious (and by the way, I've personally believed for at least 5 years that we were heading for a crash that would be kicked off by the McDonald's workers living in starter castles with no furniture and a Lexus SUV.) I am glad to hear that you don't support McSame ... and it's also cool that you don't support Obama. I certainly don't love him but will vote for him simply to avoid McSame. My overall point, and I know you disagree, is that the government will absolutely have to intervene before rural areas will get decent broadband simply due to the monopolistic nature of telco presence in small town america combined with the relatively low ROI that can be obtained in this market. I'm not in favor of government interfering when the market does support natural competition in an area, a point on which we can agree.
I'll not waste any more time on this because obviously we'll disagree here. Oh, and I have identified your Invisible Pink Unicorn ... it is a politician that doesn't support some sort of rights violations.
"Neigh... neigh..."
/
Oh, and by the way, the telecos took $200 BILLION, not Million, my mistake ...
I am apparently missing your meaning on some points ...
were screwed as soon as they handed their money over to another government
HUH? The government saw that it was not economically justifiable to roll out services to all rural areas and felt the areas should be covered by existing providers. The gov't acted on the part of the people living in rural areas WHILE ALSO ACTING ON BEHALF OF THE TELECOS by providing large cash incentives to providers to make servicing rural areas more financially beneficial. In this part, the gov't acted as it should, on behalf of everyone involved.
Your gov't wants to buy mortgages from idiots that are now amazed that blue collar workers cannot afford $500,000 homes, devalue the homes and re-negotiate mortgages to significantly lower principal costs and interest rates ... passing the benefit only to the idiot who bought more than they could afford while passing the expense on to those who realize that $150,000 is all they can afford.
removing all meaning from the word "justify", and in the process you've ditched individual rights
Are you friggin serious? At this point in history, decent internet service is becoming more of a right, for one. Regardless, there are no individuals involved here ... these companies and corporations will stop at nothing to ensure they have no competition (See the original article regarding a company suing the gov't to prevent the gov't from providing another, possibly better, option) which you seem to think is the cornerstone to better services. You speak out both sides of your mouth. Let me paraphrase you ... "Competition is good ... unless it's from the government ... If there is no private competition apparently there's no demand and you, therefore do not deserve the services I have because I live in a city" Have you looked at a map of the US lately to see how many areas are NOT city? True about 80% of the population lives in urban areas with more than 2500 people but the other 20% still pay the same taxes the city folks do. By "Justified" I mean that the government tried to do things to the benefit of the telecos and the telecos screwed the people and the gov't. As a result, the gov't is justified in forcing competition upon the telecos in rural areas where non exists. The telecos lost this case when they took $200 million and didn't even try to follow through with their promise. I'm curious ... where exactly did I
ditched individual rights in favor of what's convenient to yourself
? Your McSame is showing ... let's deregulate everything, it worked so well in banking. The US should be embarrassed that we are 17th in world at broadband penetration. I'll guarantee that Iraq will be ahead of us once we're done moving the sand around and foot the bill to rebuild their country with new infrastructure. Oh, and in the Sept. 2008 study we're actually 19th ... Move to where you can see a real forest and tell me the gov't shouldn't provide broadband.
If the demand is high enough
Dude, America has one hell of a lot of rural areas where demand does not meet financial justification. This is exactly why the gov't passed a bill a few years ago to provide something like $200 million in incentives to have telecos service rural areas. The gov't recognized the criticality of decent internet service for US competition in world markets and therefore provided great financial benefits for telecos to run broadband to rural areas. The telecos took the cash and ran. Why is it OK for the telecos to take cash dedicated to a specific cause and screw the taxpayers but it's evil for the government to say "if you don't do it, we will"? There are some cases (and in this case, MANY very compelling cases) where the government is completely justified in offering services to force competition where none exists today and none is likely in the foreseeable future. If this teleco was the only decent game in town, they might wake up and realize that they are not immune from competition.
Invisible Pink Unicorn ...
Get a clue on what rural America is like. Rail all you want against government competition but realize that probably most geographic area of the US has little to no competition in telecom. As of May, we were 17th in the world for Broadband penetration ... this is precisely because there is NO competition in most areas. It was fine for the government to interfere when the interference was to provide hundreds of millions in incentives for servicing rural areas, but holding the providers to actually using the money as intended or forcing competition upon them is a no no? Your arguments would hold up if there actually was competition in all areas.
Again ... talk to me about this when you live in a rural area and can only get shitty service from a low speed "high speed" service ... max out at 512K DSL and realize that no other provider has any intention of servicing your area and therefore the current provider has no intention of upgrading you ... then tell me how great no competition at all is.
This from someone who probably has decent internet service. I live at the end of a DSL run, cannot get cable, cannot get WiMax ... 512K DSL is the fastest I can get. I've called many communications providers and always get "Sorry, we have no intentions of improving/offering services in your area".
No competition = no incentive to do anything better. I'm typically against gov't competition but in areas where there is a one provider monopoly (this covers ALOT of rural america), the consumer is screwed by this policy.