You forgot to add "Get off my lawn" at the end of your post, bub.
All kidding aside.. you're probably about the same age as I am (I'm 43). I was unemployed between August last year and February this year. Job hunting with broadband was tough enough; if I'd've had to use dialup for that, I'd've been completely sunk. Between paying $20/month for the crappy dialup service, and $20/month for the landline (I otherwise only have a cellphone) I'm not convinced I'd've found a job at all. Oh, and if you do the math, that's a total of $40/month for (maybe!) 2.5kbps dialup (56k digital won't even work where I live!), when I can pay $50/month for always-on 8Mbps/768kbps broadband (even if it IS crappy Comcast). Which do you really think I'm going to choose?
Still, I can totally understand where people who won't switch to broadband are coming from. If I had no use for it whatsoever, I wouldn't have it either, and if they read and understand tech news stories, then nothing they hear about companies like Verizon and Comcast will persuade them to think any differently.
Does the E.U. really think it can bully the rest of the world into obeying it's laws? More to the point, does it think that it can in effect annex the U.S., forcing it to conform to it's laws? I think they're completely out of their minds.
Very true. I live in a duplex, and the roof is mostly flat. There's enough room up there for enough solar panels to make me independent of external power, at least during daylight hours. I don't own this house, but even if I did, the cost would be high to do that at current prices; it would probably be 10 years before I'd see a real savings from the installation -- even if I did the work myself.
Cynical, but I can't argue with you either. The "average" person can't manage to do simple home repair jobs without making a mess of it; ask them to do anything involving electricity, and they'll shy away from it.
A bit, perhaps, but I view it as a practicality: They thoughtfully provide her with a replacement for what used to be her computer, but now is a smoking, virus- and trojan-infected hole in her desk..
Actually.. clue #1 is that someone called YOU and asked for personal information. My counter to that (assuming I ever am confronted by it)? Get their name and tell them I must call them back, then call back to that company's main number. Chances are that once I ask this scammer his name, he hangs up on me.
The RIAA more and more resembles a senile old dictator who has fallen irrevocably into despotism. I'm sure that if they had the technology, they'd monitor people's THOUGHTS and charge a fee for everyone who so much as remembers what a song sounds like, and jail anyone who so much as hums a song under their breath; they'd have executed any orchestra that dared to perform the works of Mozzart, Bach, Beethoven, and so on.
MEMO TO RIAA: Get into the 21st century, you old fucks! The more you try to clamp down on the world, the more of what you're trying to screw us for will slip through your fat, greasy fingers! Nobody likes you, especially the artists you're claiming to "protect"!
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean everyone is NOT out to get me.;-)
I'm all for safety, sure.. but I'm NOT for having things forced down my throat ala-nanny-state, and I'm NOT for having otherwise useful systems abused by corrupt people in positions of power and responsibility -- and you can't sit there and tell me that it hasn't been happening for decades in our own (U.S.) government.
..but I can tell you what to avoid. My GF bought an Airlink-101 NAS, and it killed the drive put in it. Near as I can tell, heat build-up is what killed the drive. Furthermore, the firmware is not very flexible.
I decided to NOT have a hardline phone at home because it didn't make sense to pay for two phones.
Then the telcos decide to discontinue public pay telephones.
Meanwhile, the EU decides to make it a law that cellphones have GPS in them, "for safety reasons" of course.
Now, I read stories about big business tracking people by their cellphones.
Even without GPS, someone can track me with a fair degree of accuracy, and I'm sure someone has some rather fancy software out there that we haven't heard about yet, that can make my location within a few dozens of meters accuracy.
Add to this the fact that currently, Telcos aren't held accountable for wiretapping and other otherwise-illegal activities.
I don't know about the rest of you people, but I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm better of with NO phone of any kind, or to just give up and go back to a hardline phone at home with an answering machine, and screw wireless. It's not like I get many calls all month anyway.
This sort of technology is an incredibly, impossibly bad, bad idea.
Aside from the more mundane abuses by police and government that will (not may, but will) happen, there is of course the obvious (to anyone with a brain, at least) and immediate threat of enemies of this country (of which we have many; thanks so much for that, Bush!) and that of bad hackers (as opposed to good hackers) and organized crime. Where is your OnStar now, that carjackers can just push a button on a keyboard and disable your car, walk right up to it, put a bullet in your brain, and drive off with your car without so much as a scratch on it? Where is your "privacy" when someone who knows how to hack the network can listen in on your most intimate conversations inside your car and post them to the internet for their own amusement -- or perhaps use them to blackmail you? Or better yet, have the Black Bag squad show up at your house in the middle of the night because your political views don't suit the current regime? Do you really want to have your exact position, within a few meters, tracked by the government? For the moment anyways, the Telcos have immunity from prosecution for what would (should!) otherwise be the crime of wiretapping without a court order; ALL THESE THINGS ARE NOW POSSIBLE. If you don't have a problem with all the above, then you're either not paying attention, or you're a mental deficient who is incapable of understanding the threat, or worse than that, you just don't care (which amounts to the same thing). If you're willing to accept all this as "OK", then I guess you won't have a problem with it when they decide to put CCTV cameras in your house so they can watch you having sex (to make sure you're not doing anything "illegal", meaning anything that's not missionary position) and watch you taking a dump (so you don't waste paper or water, of course).
Again, I say: This crap has to be nipped in the bud right now, before it gets any further!
No, asshole, I'm NOT. You're making an assumption that I:
a) Talk while driving, and
b) Talk loudly while in public (as you suggest)
while neither are true. I don't approve of EITHER activity, but dickheads like the guy in this article make cellphones more difficult to use for EVERYONE.
I hope him and Al Gore enjoy blowing each other. I couldn't care less if this guy worked for ARPA or not, doesn't mean any of his opinions mean squat to me or should to anyone else. If he's who he claims to be, then ARPANET was something completely different than what the internet has become today -- and besides all that, he's just trying to peddle his 'wares and pandering to the IPSs -- so he can effing bite me. Get lost, grandpa; go tend to your lawn and leave the rest of us alone.
Damnit, It's not fair to mod me down for that! While greenhouse gasses have something to do with it, there is also a theory that claims that solar output is cyclic which may have contributed, for instance, to ice age(s) in the distant past! Solar energy patterns cause the El Nino phenomenon, don't they? Couldn't it be possible that higher solar energy output over a long period of time could also cause partial or even complete melting of polar icecaps? Main point is, can anybody claim they definitively know that one or the other is causing the global climate changes we're seeing?
I disagree. Life doesn't have to be a "medium" if it continues. There are always new things to do and learn, new interests to pursue. Stagnation == Death. People stagnate as they get older because our culture tells us that you slow down as you get older, and most people stupidly accept it without question. Not I.
Slashdot Mirror
All kidding aside.. you're probably about the same age as I am (I'm 43). I was unemployed between August last year and February this year. Job hunting with broadband was tough enough; if I'd've had to use dialup for that, I'd've been completely sunk. Between paying $20/month for the crappy dialup service, and $20/month for the landline (I otherwise only have a cellphone) I'm not convinced I'd've found a job at all. Oh, and if you do the math, that's a total of $40/month for (maybe!) 2.5kbps dialup (56k digital won't even work where I live!), when I can pay $50/month for always-on 8Mbps/768kbps broadband (even if it IS crappy Comcast). Which do you really think I'm going to choose?
Still, I can totally understand where people who won't switch to broadband are coming from. If I had no use for it whatsoever, I wouldn't have it either, and if they read and understand tech news stories, then nothing they hear about companies like Verizon and Comcast will persuade them to think any differently.
I've obviously been modded down by 1 as a "troll" by someone from France. Geez, stop taking everything so seriously!
France will just surrender to the pirates, so nothing they decide will matter in the end.
You can't stop the signal, Mal.
As I keep saying to people lately: Look to the U.K. for a vision of the future -- unless we put a stop to it, now.
Does the E.U. really think it can bully the rest of the world into obeying it's laws? More to the point, does it think that it can in effect annex the U.S., forcing it to conform to it's laws? I think they're completely out of their minds.
Now with 100% more spyware!
(for your protection/convenience/whatever, of course!)
Very true. I live in a duplex, and the roof is mostly flat. There's enough room up there for enough solar panels to make me independent of external power, at least during daylight hours. I don't own this house, but even if I did, the cost would be high to do that at current prices; it would probably be 10 years before I'd see a real savings from the installation -- even if I did the work myself.
Cynical, but I can't argue with you either. The "average" person can't manage to do simple home repair jobs without making a mess of it; ask them to do anything involving electricity, and they'll shy away from it.
Dude, that's harsh.
I'll bet they didn't go to the site of TFA. Talk about pop-ups! :-/
A bit, perhaps, but I view it as a practicality: They thoughtfully provide her with a replacement for what used to be her computer, but now is a smoking, virus- and trojan-infected hole in her desk..
Actually.. clue #1 is that someone called YOU and asked for personal information. My counter to that (assuming I ever am confronted by it)? Get their name and tell them I must call them back, then call back to that company's main number. Chances are that once I ask this scammer his name, he hangs up on me.
MEMO TO RIAA: Get into the 21st century, you old fucks! The more you try to clamp down on the world, the more of what you're trying to screw us for will slip through your fat, greasy fingers! Nobody likes you, especially the artists you're claiming to "protect"!
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean everyone is NOT out to get me. ;-)
I'm all for safety, sure.. but I'm NOT for having things forced down my throat ala-nanny-state, and I'm NOT for having otherwise useful systems abused by corrupt people in positions of power and responsibility -- and you can't sit there and tell me that it hasn't been happening for decades in our own (U.S.) government.
..but I can tell you what to avoid. My GF bought an Airlink-101 NAS, and it killed the drive put in it. Near as I can tell, heat build-up is what killed the drive. Furthermore, the firmware is not very flexible.
Couldn't bittorrent be rewritten to use UDP instead of TCP, and therefore bypass their whole throttling technique?
Then the telcos decide to discontinue public pay telephones.
Meanwhile, the EU decides to make it a law that cellphones have GPS in them, "for safety reasons" of course.
Now, I read stories about big business tracking people by their cellphones.
Even without GPS, someone can track me with a fair degree of accuracy, and I'm sure someone has some rather fancy software out there that we haven't heard about yet, that can make my location within a few dozens of meters accuracy.
Add to this the fact that currently, Telcos aren't held accountable for wiretapping and other otherwise-illegal activities.
I don't know about the rest of you people, but I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm better of with NO phone of any kind, or to just give up and go back to a hardline phone at home with an answering machine, and screw wireless. It's not like I get many calls all month anyway.
Oh, and one more thing: Take a look at Britain right now, if you want a preview of things to come.
Aside from the more mundane abuses by police and government that will (not may, but will) happen, there is of course the obvious (to anyone with a brain, at least) and immediate threat of enemies of this country (of which we have many; thanks so much for that, Bush!) and that of bad hackers (as opposed to good hackers) and organized crime. Where is your OnStar now, that carjackers can just push a button on a keyboard and disable your car, walk right up to it, put a bullet in your brain, and drive off with your car without so much as a scratch on it? Where is your "privacy" when someone who knows how to hack the network can listen in on your most intimate conversations inside your car and post them to the internet for their own amusement -- or perhaps use them to blackmail you? Or better yet, have the Black Bag squad show up at your house in the middle of the night because your political views don't suit the current regime? Do you really want to have your exact position, within a few meters, tracked by the government? For the moment anyways, the Telcos have immunity from prosecution for what would (should!) otherwise be the crime of wiretapping without a court order; ALL THESE THINGS ARE NOW POSSIBLE. If you don't have a problem with all the above, then you're either not paying attention, or you're a mental deficient who is incapable of understanding the threat, or worse than that, you just don't care (which amounts to the same thing). If you're willing to accept all this as "OK", then I guess you won't have a problem with it when they decide to put CCTV cameras in your house so they can watch you having sex (to make sure you're not doing anything "illegal", meaning anything that's not missionary position) and watch you taking a dump (so you don't waste paper or water, of course).
Again, I say: This crap has to be nipped in the bud right now, before it gets any further!
No, asshole, I'm NOT. You're making an assumption that I:
a) Talk while driving, and
b) Talk loudly while in public (as you suggest)
while neither are true. I don't approve of EITHER activity, but dickheads like the guy in this article make cellphones more difficult to use for EVERYONE.
I hope him and Al Gore enjoy blowing each other. I couldn't care less if this guy worked for ARPA or not, doesn't mean any of his opinions mean squat to me or should to anyone else. If he's who he claims to be, then ARPANET was something completely different than what the internet has become today -- and besides all that, he's just trying to peddle his 'wares and pandering to the IPSs -- so he can effing bite me. Get lost, grandpa; go tend to your lawn and leave the rest of us alone.
Damnit, It's not fair to mod me down for that! While greenhouse gasses have something to do with it, there is also a theory that claims that solar output is cyclic which may have contributed, for instance, to ice age(s) in the distant past! Solar energy patterns cause the El Nino phenomenon, don't they? Couldn't it be possible that higher solar energy output over a long period of time could also cause partial or even complete melting of polar icecaps? Main point is, can anybody claim they definitively know that one or the other is causing the global climate changes we're seeing?
Fucking morons like this are making cellphone use more and more restrictive for the rest of us who have a brain.
I disagree. Life doesn't have to be a "medium" if it continues. There are always new things to do and learn, new interests to pursue. Stagnation == Death. People stagnate as they get older because our culture tells us that you slow down as you get older, and most people stupidly accept it without question. Not I.