"My personal opinion is that it will come in the form of drastic economic and research decline as the older (and currently poorer) nations start to evolve to fill the gaps a US withdrawal from the field will create."
Some say this has already happened. Have you noticed how the US dollar has been replaced by rocks and small twigs as a more trustworthy and widely-accepted medium of exchange? Or how New York is filled with Europeans spending their depleted-uranium pounds and euros?
Welcome to the third world!
Dibs on making the quaint native trinkets for the tourists from India!
And all historical sciences are based on circumstantial evidence, since we have no witnesses.
Exposing one of the fundamental flaws of the "creationist" position.
That is, nobody "witnessed" any gods of any kind creating anything. Therefore, we cannot ever know such a thing happened. If one upends historical sciences because "you weren't there, you don't know", that ends this whole idea of the Bible. You weren't there, you don't know it's true at all. The whole thing could be fiction from one end to the other.
It's some amazing double-think they've got going.
Oh and so much for a criminal justice system. If you weren't there, you can't say anybody broke the law so we have to shut down the jails...
They are categorically ignoring the MOUNTAINS OF EVIDENCE for evolution
Very very small mountains. More like molehills, compared to what we should have been able to find by now. What we have been unable to find is far more telling than what we have found. And given past indiscretions, it's difficult to see any current evidence as particularly trustworthy.
A century and a half of evidence, entire departments in universities necessary to cover the scope of it all, the foundation of all biology now, but it's "small" mountains.
Actually, I think those two discussions would make for great mental exercises. Ask the kids what it would take for 2+2=5 or 1+1+1=1 (which another poster even provided a possible answer). Ask what the implications of the universe revolving around the earth would be. Explore the process by which we came to our current understanding, with glass spheres, epicycles, etc.
You may think questioning the fundamentals is a pointless exercise, but there is a lot to be learned by doing it. We'd be doing a disservice to our children by not allowing them this freedom.
And, of course, elementary school children are certainly equipped to deal with such matters. Isn't it absurd that I, as a major in Mathematics, was not introduced to Set Theory and other abstracts until I was a Junior in college? Only then did they begin to explain why you couldn't divide by zero! After all those years!
Let's do away with silly things like the "multiplication tables" and start them on the abstract fundamentals first. I, for one, look forward to second graders having debates about non-Euclidean geometries...
Isn't the real goal that children learn to think for themselves and make up their own minds?
Yeah, we should teach children to discuss and question popular ideas like the world orbits the sun. After all, surveys show a significant minority believes the sun orbits the earth! We shouldn't deny alternatives to the heliocentric model. We should study and debate them! Common sense observations contradict the tyrannical model imposed by "scientists". Let's open an honest debate on the matter. After all, it takes a great leap of faith to believe in the heliocentric model. Yet we have allowed this atheistic, naturalistic model to be accepted as "correct" and any other answer is "incorrect".
Further, by what right do the schools say "2 + 2 = 5" is "wrong"? Children should be able to explore alternatives to the popular theories of "math". It's religious discrimination as some believe that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1.
At least (for now) most people have several ISP's to choose from.
Bzzt. Wrong. Most areas have local-government-mandated sole cable ISPs. Ie, this neighborhood is given to TWC, this neighborhood is given to Cablevision, this neighborhood is given to comcast. Sometimes it's more like towns instead of neighborhoods, but the concept remains the same. Your basic choice is: Cable for decent speeds, DSL for shitty speeds. And if you're very, very lucky you can opt for FiOS. Heh. Fiber. Yeah, just don't live more than five feet outta town. You'll be seeing fiber about the time Kirk and Spock are toodling about at warp speed...
The very reason that companies like Google have been told that they are "freeloaders" by the telecoms and ISPs is Is because they can never get enough billions in profit. Google "freeloads" by paying them for bandwidth. Everybody who uses Google is paying them for bandwidth. The problem they see in this equation is that they have to actually provide the bandwidth.
The ideal is to reduce the corporation to a billing department, upper management, and a board. This relieves them of pesky issues such as hiring employees to maintain their system, spending money to expand, all that nonsense.
Remember, they're in business to make money. Not provide goods nor services.
because the access providers wouldn't point their fingers at their own policies and customers. Unlimited broadband is ridiculous at this stage of the game. There simply is not enough infrastructure to allow everyone to consume whatever they want, whenever they want, without making them pay for it. Especially if you don't bother with silly things like upgrading your infrastructure because, you see, that cuts into profits. And that's just wrong.
Besides, it's not about "unlimited bandwidth". It's about being able to use what they freaking sold you, you know, the thing you're giving them money for each month?
"Super! Fast! You gotta have it! Cheap! Do everything you ever wanted on the Intertubes and more! Watch video! Play games! BUY NOW OR YOUR CHILDREN WON'T LOVE YOU!"
...a month or so goes by...
"Whaddya mean you wanna use it? We didn't say you could do that. You want us to invest in expanding our business or something? The CEO would have forgo his two billion dollar bonus you bastard! Never mind those silly Asians or Europeans you've been chatting with. 100 meg fiber lines for $20 a month are just a myth. They're lying to you! You have the best possible connection ever! You should kiss our feet! Now send money!"
The fact is, metered bandwidth is good for our own freedom because it gives us a greater argument for demanding a hands-off approach to regulating protocols. If you pay for the bandwidth itself, rather than just a simple monthly access fee, it's easier to argue that it's your bandwidth now and the ISP needs to piss off if they think they'll tell you how to use it, the law notwithstanding. Do tell, are you enjoying your visit to planet Earth?
You'll get metered bandwidth, bandwidth caps, manipulated protocols, and you'll like it Citizen!
Sheesh. It's almost like you think the consumer gets choices or something. That's so 20th century.
What was that deal that the telecoms got in the 90's called. I tried to bring it up in conversation, and when I was asked for a citation, I couldn't find it.
Fastest growing county in the entire state. Must be Williamson County.
Nope. That's "fastest foreclosing county". The foreclosure rate up there is astonishing. Doubled over last year's rate which was a hefty increase from the previous year.
(Yeah, I'm always evasive about my exact off-line location, but some years back, I was actually stalked by some loonies in a cult I ran into online. Stunned the hell outta me. If anybody had told me my story before I lived it, I would have laughed at them for being paranoid.)
Yep, you can believe that when (not if) Time Warner implements metering for everyone that your current monthly fee will remain the same, and they'll charge you extra. Gotta pay for them politicians somehow. And instead of AT&T trying to differentiate by not metering, they'll jump on the bandwagon, too, since you can't let the other guy make more money. Well, yeah! I mean, who ever got rich providing goods and services?
And we'll just continue to sit in this technical backwater we call the most advanced country in the world, waving our flags and screaming God Bless America thinking that it will make everything better. I'm reminded sometimes of that Chinese dynasty all those years ago that ended their exploration of the world and turned inward. They just walked away.
Some days, I have this image of alien archaeologists digging our civilization up and being utterly baffled.
Back in the 90s, the telecom companies swore up and down if we just deregulated them and gave them all kinds of tax incentives, they'd wire the country like crazy. Actually promised us--get this--45 meg symmetric, not just download, to 80% of US households by (wait for it)...
2006
Of course, the deal was meant to be enforced by the FCC which under Bush said, "Whatever you want, we're taking a nap." Okay, I admit, Bush has been a pretty.... vacant president. But where do you get off blaming him for a deal made in the 90's that *he* didn't follow through on? Wouldn't that be...Clinton's job? Feel free to mod me flamebait, I'm just asking. Last I checked, the duty to enforce the laws of the United States was assigned by the Constitution to the President. I don't recall anything about the ex-President being given the authority nor power nor charge to enforce laws passed during his administration.
"No, really? Gee, maybe you ought to freaking think about building out in the, you know, fastest growing county in the entire blasted state BEFORE you call me again."
(slam phone) Marketer: Wow, what a jerk. I was going to put in a request to get a line out there, but forget that. I hope he never gets DSL. Wanna bet?
For a county they keep telling us is the fastest growing in the state, we're going in reverse on broadband. There's coax all over my neighborhood. Word is it used to be a competitive phone and broadband provider. The coax is falling--I mean literally in many cases--off the poles.
The answer to running lines out here (I'm not the first to ask) is "no". I have a relative that's lived here for over ten years. He lives in a high priced addition along a major highway. The phone company hasn't even built out there.
The only wireless is a small company that I expect to see go belly up eventually. They must be getting charged a fortune to connect to a backbone. 1.5 meg downstream costs you $250 per month and you pay for the equipment and tower.
Not only that but it took some three hours to get POTS turned on here. The guy from AT&T apologized but it took him that long to follow lines back to find one that actually worked.
The copper infrastructure is rotting away. My landline does work. But if the weather is breezy or misty, you're going to have to do some shouting over the static. Oh and there are those lovely shrieks that happen randomly during the conversation.
Makes dial-up entertaining. Before getting Dish WB satellite, I was tooling around at a blazing 33K on a really, really--I mean REALLY--good day.
They're not laying new lines. They're not even maintaining the ones they have.
2) CLEC lines are often more expensive (if they even service your area). Big "if" that one. As I said in another post, there apparently was a rush to wire the area at one point. The abandoned coax is sagging off the poles and a big section came down in my yard when the power company was clearing tree limbs and brush away from their lines.
I can remember the day when you could check DSL Reports online and watch the changes at the COs as DSL was being slapped in all over the place.
Well, those days are over. The map of the COs in this area are stuck at almost pre-DSL state and haven't changed in years.
I have heard rumors if you live in town, close to the CO, you can get a moderate speed DSL line. I haven't, however, actually met anybody with one.
My landline is with them so every couple of months
Why are you giving those bastards money for a POTS line if they won't even bother to build out DSL in your area? Ditch them for a cellular-only lifestyle or get VoIP/CLEC landline provider if you really can't live without the fixed phone.
I did call them to pull the plug. They whined and wheedled and wiggled until they offered a $10 per month basic line. Which I could live with. For one thing, I have Dish Network and they insist on--don't ask me why--charging $5 per month if you don't connect your receiver to a phone line. So I was down to only being able to save $5 more bucks a month.
Besides, it's the number I give out to businesses. This way, since they have a loophole in the DNC list where anybody you do business with gets to market at you, they get nothing but an answering machine. The ringer isn't even on. I just check it every now and again if I see the little light blinking.
So that's worth $5 a month to me.
Far as going to the competition, there are a couple of small providers in my area.
They won't come out here either.
The only non-dial up broadband is satellite. VoIP is a lost cause.
Oddest little thing that happened recently when the power company (The Power Company, we also don't get that "competition" thing in electricity here) had their guys clearing tree limbs and brush away from the power lines. This sagging coax cable came down while they were working and one of them came to my door asking about my phone. I told him far as I knew, the phone lines were buried, not on the poles.
His comment was "that must have belonged to I-forget-the-name-now" and they threw the coax away.
See, I-forget-the-name-now during the day we had actual competition, before the incumbents began screwing with everybody with the COs and running them all out of business, apparently did build out here. But that coax is basically abandoned now and is in many places literally falling off the poles.
There is a wireless available around here. $250 per month for 1.5 meg. No, don't ask me how they stay in business. Desperation maybe? I liked to choked over the prices they wanted. One wonders what AT&T is charging them to connect.
Okay, so this is a somewhat rural area. But within thirty miles of a city. The freaking capitol of the state at that. And it's the fastest growing county in the state.
But I had to switch to AT&T from Sprint even for my cell service. Nobody's building towers. That "3G" they keep yapping about is a half hour drive away before you get a connection. Everybody has AT&T everything here (hell, half the people I see in town have the exact same phone I have).
I remember growing up in Texas when Ma Bell was The Phone company. I recall in my college days when I had trouble with them, the people in their local office actually said, "So go to the competition" with a sneer.
I cannot understand how the country where the internet was born is going this way... Looks like there is either no competition, or no incentive to upgrade the network. Competition is so 20th century. In the Bush era, we've learned that the purpose of government is to give corporations whatever they want.
This has boosted us to the dizzying heights of... 16th in broadband penetration in the industrialized world.
And falling.
Back in the 90s, the telecom companies swore up and down if we just deregulated them and gave them all kinds of tax incentives, they'd wire the country like crazy. Actually promised us--get this--45 meg symmetric, not just download, to 80% of US households by (wait for it)...
2006
Of course, the deal was meant to be enforced by the FCC which under Bush said, "Whatever you want, we're taking a nap."
So we end up with situations like the one I'm in. I live in a small town outside the capitol of Texas where folks fleeing the city have been moving for some years so they could have an actual tree in their yard but it's not too long a commute into the city.
Fastest growing county in the entire state. Tons of people from the city with jobs and money. What's AT&T (or whatever they're calling themselves this week) done about DSL?
Nothing. Flat out nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Not a single upgrade to the CO in years, no build out, nothing.
It doesn't even make good business sense. But, there it is.
They do, however, spend tons on advertising. My landline is with them so every couple of months, I get marketed at about DSL. It's great! It's wonderful! It's fast! Get it! Get it now!
I always say, "Sure! Sign me up!"
The marketeer happily tippy taps his keyboard then slows down and finally says, "Um... you can't get DSL."
"No, really? Gee, maybe you ought to freaking think about building out in the, you know, fastest growing county in the entire blasted state BEFORE you call me again."
million billion times stronger than the magnetic field of the Earth In cgs units, that's about 0.5 PG (petagauss) or, in SI, 50 GT (gigatesla). Definitely watch your credit cards around that one. But watch them what? Rocket outta your wallet, blast through the bridge and scorch Kirk's toupe?
I mean, can you imagine being sued by Google AND Microsoft AND Amazon AND Sun AND... well, you know, Earth. This is a threat to the entire Internet and every business that has a website. That bunch isn't just going to get sued, they're going to be plowed under and the ground where they once were will be salted so nothing ever grows there again.
Yeah, that sure is a problem for him. Also, I can't take Stephen king's novels, improve on them and resell them without the viral nature of copyright laws taking over. Gates is just being two-faced. He wants to make a profit selling copyrighted software, but he doesn't want to pay the people developing copyrighted GPL software their required fee (any code added and distributed in future). Really.
I wonder, would Mr. Gates have a problem with someone getting hold of the code for Windows Vista, improving on it, and reselling it?
Moore-izing? I've yet to see the movie, but if it's what I epect it to be then it's no better or no worse than what Moore has one. And other than Roger and Me, not of Moore's films were worth my time -- I doubt Stein's will be either. What on Earth does Moore have to do with this? The facts are that "Expelled" is based on bald faced lies. It's not a matter of bias or opinion or lack of balance, it's good old fashioned lying.
Take the case of Caroline Crocker, Stein in "Expelled" says:
"After she simply mentioned Intelligent Design in her cell biology class at George Mason University, Caroline Crocker's sterling academic career came to an abrupt end."
Except she wasn't fired. Nor did she merely "mention" ID. She was teaching creationism, including creationist canards that are blatantly false, and was not curriculum for the course. Yet she finished her non-tenure contract without being terminated.
Yes, the school did not renew her contract but that happens to thousands of non-tenure track professors all the time.
She says (in the film):
"[My supervisor] said 'nonetheless you have to be disciplined', and I lost my job."
Except she didn't.
The "discipline" amounted to be instructed to teach the curriculum of the course for which she'd been hired to teach. How shocking. She was told to fulfill the contract which she signed. How oppressive.
Stein says (in the movie):
"Not only did she lose her job at George Mason, this highly qualified researcher suddenly found herself blacklisted, unable to find a job anywhere."
Except that after GMU, she taught at Northern Virginia Community College then Uniformed Services University then went to work for the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center.
Slashdot Mirror
"My personal opinion is that it will come in the form of drastic economic and research decline as the older (and currently poorer) nations start to evolve to fill the gaps a US withdrawal from the field will create."
Some say this has already happened. Have you noticed how the US dollar has been replaced by rocks and small twigs as a more trustworthy and widely-accepted medium of exchange? Or how New York is filled with Europeans spending their depleted-uranium pounds and euros?
Welcome to the third world!
Dibs on making the quaint native trinkets for the tourists from India!
And all historical sciences are based on circumstantial evidence, since we have no witnesses.
Exposing one of the fundamental flaws of the "creationist" position.
That is, nobody "witnessed" any gods of any kind creating anything. Therefore, we cannot ever know such a thing happened. If one upends historical sciences because "you weren't there, you don't know", that ends this whole idea of the Bible. You weren't there, you don't know it's true at all. The whole thing could be fiction from one end to the other.
It's some amazing double-think they've got going.
Oh and so much for a criminal justice system. If you weren't there, you can't say anybody broke the law so we have to shut down the jails...
They are categorically ignoring the MOUNTAINS OF EVIDENCE for evolution
Very very small mountains. More like molehills, compared to what we should have been able to find by now. What we have been unable to find is far more telling than what we have found. And given past indiscretions, it's difficult to see any current evidence as particularly trustworthy.
A century and a half of evidence, entire departments in universities necessary to cover the scope of it all, the foundation of all biology now, but it's "small" mountains.
Talk about an argument from abysmal ignorance...
Actually, I think those two discussions would make for great mental exercises. Ask the kids what it would take for 2+2=5 or 1+1+1=1 (which another poster even provided a possible answer). Ask what the implications of the universe revolving around the earth would be. Explore the process by which we came to our current understanding, with glass spheres, epicycles, etc.
You may think questioning the fundamentals is a pointless exercise, but there is a lot to be learned by doing it. We'd be doing a disservice to our children by not allowing them this freedom.
And, of course, elementary school children are certainly equipped to deal with such matters. Isn't it absurd that I, as a major in Mathematics, was not introduced to Set Theory and other abstracts until I was a Junior in college? Only then did they begin to explain why you couldn't divide by zero! After all those years!
Let's do away with silly things like the "multiplication tables" and start them on the abstract fundamentals first. I, for one, look forward to second graders having debates about non-Euclidean geometries...
Isn't the real goal that children learn to think for themselves and make up their own minds?
Yeah, we should teach children to discuss and question popular ideas like the world orbits the sun. After all, surveys show a significant minority believes the sun orbits the earth! We shouldn't deny alternatives to the heliocentric model. We should study and debate them! Common sense observations contradict the tyrannical model imposed by "scientists". Let's open an honest debate on the matter. After all, it takes a great leap of faith to believe in the heliocentric model. Yet we have allowed this atheistic, naturalistic model to be accepted as "correct" and any other answer is "incorrect".
Further, by what right do the schools say "2 + 2 = 5" is "wrong"? Children should be able to explore alternatives to the popular theories of "math". It's religious discrimination as some believe that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1.
TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!
The ideal is to reduce the corporation to a billing department, upper management, and a board. This relieves them of pesky issues such as hiring employees to maintain their system, spending money to expand, all that nonsense.
Remember, they're in business to make money. Not provide goods nor services. because the access providers wouldn't point their fingers at their own policies and customers. Unlimited broadband is ridiculous at this stage of the game. There simply is not enough infrastructure to allow everyone to consume whatever they want, whenever they want, without making them pay for it. Especially if you don't bother with silly things like upgrading your infrastructure because, you see, that cuts into profits. And that's just wrong.
Besides, it's not about "unlimited bandwidth". It's about being able to use what they freaking sold you, you know, the thing you're giving them money for each month?
"Super! Fast! You gotta have it! Cheap! Do everything you ever wanted on the Intertubes and more! Watch video! Play games! BUY NOW OR YOUR CHILDREN WON'T LOVE YOU!"
...a month or so goes by...
"Whaddya mean you wanna use it? We didn't say you could do that. You want us to invest in expanding our business or something? The CEO would have forgo his two billion dollar bonus you bastard! Never mind those silly Asians or Europeans you've been chatting with. 100 meg fiber lines for $20 a month are just a myth. They're lying to you! You have the best possible connection ever! You should kiss our feet! Now send money!" The fact is, metered bandwidth is good for our own freedom because it gives us a greater argument for demanding a hands-off approach to regulating protocols. If you pay for the bandwidth itself, rather than just a simple monthly access fee, it's easier to argue that it's your bandwidth now and the ISP needs to piss off if they think they'll tell you how to use it, the law notwithstanding. Do tell, are you enjoying your visit to planet Earth?
You'll get metered bandwidth, bandwidth caps, manipulated protocols, and you'll like it Citizen!
Sheesh. It's almost like you think the consumer gets choices or something. That's so 20th century.
thanks. It's the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Also known as "The $200 Billion Rip-Off"
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html
Nope. That's "fastest foreclosing county". The foreclosure rate up there is astonishing. Doubled over last year's rate which was a hefty increase from the previous year.
(Yeah, I'm always evasive about my exact off-line location, but some years back, I was actually stalked by some loonies in a cult I ran into online. Stunned the hell outta me. If anybody had told me my story before I lived it, I would have laughed at them for being paranoid.) Yep, you can believe that when (not if) Time Warner implements metering for everyone that your current monthly fee will remain the same, and they'll charge you extra. Gotta pay for them politicians somehow. And instead of AT&T trying to differentiate by not metering, they'll jump on the bandwagon, too, since you can't let the other guy make more money. Well, yeah! I mean, who ever got rich providing goods and services? And we'll just continue to sit in this technical backwater we call the most advanced country in the world, waving our flags and screaming God Bless America thinking that it will make everything better. I'm reminded sometimes of that Chinese dynasty all those years ago that ended their exploration of the world and turned inward. They just walked away.
Some days, I have this image of alien archaeologists digging our civilization up and being utterly baffled.
"But... but... they went to their moon!"
2006
Of course, the deal was meant to be enforced by the FCC which under Bush said, "Whatever you want, we're taking a nap." Okay, I admit, Bush has been a pretty
Or did we change that?
(slam phone) Marketer: Wow, what a jerk. I was going to put in a request to get a line out there, but forget that. I hope he never gets DSL. Wanna bet?
For a county they keep telling us is the fastest growing in the state, we're going in reverse on broadband. There's coax all over my neighborhood. Word is it used to be a competitive phone and broadband provider. The coax is falling--I mean literally in many cases--off the poles.
The answer to running lines out here (I'm not the first to ask) is "no". I have a relative that's lived here for over ten years. He lives in a high priced addition along a major highway. The phone company hasn't even built out there.
The only wireless is a small company that I expect to see go belly up eventually. They must be getting charged a fortune to connect to a backbone. 1.5 meg downstream costs you $250 per month and you pay for the equipment and tower.
Not only that but it took some three hours to get POTS turned on here. The guy from AT&T apologized but it took him that long to follow lines back to find one that actually worked.
The copper infrastructure is rotting away. My landline does work. But if the weather is breezy or misty, you're going to have to do some shouting over the static. Oh and there are those lovely shrieks that happen randomly during the conversation.
Makes dial-up entertaining. Before getting Dish WB satellite, I was tooling around at a blazing 33K on a really, really--I mean REALLY--good day.
They're not laying new lines. They're not even maintaining the ones they have.
I can remember the day when you could check DSL Reports online and watch the changes at the COs as DSL was being slapped in all over the place.
Well, those days are over. The map of the COs in this area are stuck at almost pre-DSL state and haven't changed in years.
I have heard rumors if you live in town, close to the CO, you can get a moderate speed DSL line. I haven't, however, actually met anybody with one.
Why are you giving those bastards money for a POTS line if they won't even bother to build out DSL in your area? Ditch them for a cellular-only lifestyle or get VoIP/CLEC landline provider if you really can't live without the fixed phone.
I did call them to pull the plug. They whined and wheedled and wiggled until they offered a $10 per month basic line. Which I could live with. For one thing, I have Dish Network and they insist on--don't ask me why--charging $5 per month if you don't connect your receiver to a phone line. So I was down to only being able to save $5 more bucks a month.Besides, it's the number I give out to businesses. This way, since they have a loophole in the DNC list where anybody you do business with gets to market at you, they get nothing but an answering machine. The ringer isn't even on. I just check it every now and again if I see the little light blinking.
So that's worth $5 a month to me.
Far as going to the competition, there are a couple of small providers in my area.
They won't come out here either.
The only non-dial up broadband is satellite. VoIP is a lost cause.
Oddest little thing that happened recently when the power company (The Power Company, we also don't get that "competition" thing in electricity here) had their guys clearing tree limbs and brush away from the power lines. This sagging coax cable came down while they were working and one of them came to my door asking about my phone. I told him far as I knew, the phone lines were buried, not on the poles.
His comment was "that must have belonged to I-forget-the-name-now" and they threw the coax away.
See, I-forget-the-name-now during the day we had actual competition, before the incumbents began screwing with everybody with the COs and running them all out of business, apparently did build out here. But that coax is basically abandoned now and is in many places literally falling off the poles.
There is a wireless available around here. $250 per month for 1.5 meg. No, don't ask me how they stay in business. Desperation maybe? I liked to choked over the prices they wanted. One wonders what AT&T is charging them to connect.
Okay, so this is a somewhat rural area. But within thirty miles of a city. The freaking capitol of the state at that. And it's the fastest growing county in the state.
But I had to switch to AT&T from Sprint even for my cell service. Nobody's building towers. That "3G" they keep yapping about is a half hour drive away before you get a connection. Everybody has AT&T everything here (hell, half the people I see in town have the exact same phone I have).
I remember growing up in Texas when Ma Bell was The Phone company. I recall in my college days when I had trouble with them, the people in their local office actually said, "So go to the competition" with a sneer.
And damned if the bitch isn't back.
Looks like there is either no competition, or no incentive to upgrade the network. Competition is so 20th century. In the Bush era, we've learned that the purpose of government is to give corporations whatever they want.
This has boosted us to the dizzying heights of... 16th in broadband penetration in the industrialized world.
And falling.
Back in the 90s, the telecom companies swore up and down if we just deregulated them and gave them all kinds of tax incentives, they'd wire the country like crazy. Actually promised us--get this--45 meg symmetric, not just download, to 80% of US households by (wait for it)...
2006
Of course, the deal was meant to be enforced by the FCC which under Bush said, "Whatever you want, we're taking a nap."
So we end up with situations like the one I'm in. I live in a small town outside the capitol of Texas where folks fleeing the city have been moving for some years so they could have an actual tree in their yard but it's not too long a commute into the city.
Fastest growing county in the entire state. Tons of people from the city with jobs and money. What's AT&T (or whatever they're calling themselves this week) done about DSL?
Nothing. Flat out nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Not a single upgrade to the CO in years, no build out, nothing.
It doesn't even make good business sense. But, there it is.
They do, however, spend tons on advertising. My landline is with them so every couple of months, I get marketed at about DSL. It's great! It's wonderful! It's fast! Get it! Get it now!
I always say, "Sure! Sign me up!"
The marketeer happily tippy taps his keyboard then slows down and finally says, "Um... you can't get DSL."
"No, really? Gee, maybe you ought to freaking think about building out in the, you know, fastest growing county in the entire blasted state BEFORE you call me again."
(slam phone)
Yeah, it's petty. But it makes me feel better.
Hail Whoever! Nah, they're building a giant electric generator for peaceful purposes.
Honest!
Businessman: Because people want it.
Just in case you were wondering why businessmen run the world. Yeah. I remember all the protests in the streets of people marching to demand DRM...
Now wait a minute ! I have a business model to patent ! Snork!
Okay, isn't it about time we all got together and got a patent on the process of obtaining a patent?
... I've waited long enough. Now, after years of silence, it's time to reveal that I own the patent:
"Use something to do something"
I think a trivial $.01/use is an acceptable royalty. Start paying up. :)
Unfortunately for you, I have the patent on using combinations of symbols constrained by a defined syntax for the purpose of communication.So if you try to tell anybody about your patent...
I have patented separating words by white space to enhance readability.
Consider this your cease and desist!
(Or, rather, ceaseanddesist)
Not. Gonna. Happen.
I mean, can you imagine being sued by Google AND Microsoft AND Amazon AND Sun AND... well, you know, Earth. This is a threat to the entire Internet and every business that has a website. That bunch isn't just going to get sued, they're going to be plowed under and the ground where they once were will be salted so nothing ever grows there again.
And the first message we get is a cease and desist order from the Glactic Neutrino Communication Industry Association of Andromeda...
Hello, I represent the estate of King S'fluffil of planet Bleamgeria...
I wonder, would Mr. Gates have a problem with someone getting hold of the code for Windows Vista, improving on it, and reselling it?
Hmm....
Moore-izing? I've yet to see the movie, but if it's what I epect it to be then it's no better or no worse than what Moore has one. And other than Roger and Me, not of Moore's films were worth my time -- I doubt Stein's will be either. What on Earth does Moore have to do with this? The facts are that "Expelled" is based on bald faced lies. It's not a matter of bias or opinion or lack of balance, it's good old fashioned lying.
Take the case of Caroline Crocker, Stein in "Expelled" says:
"After she simply mentioned Intelligent Design in her cell biology class at George Mason University, Caroline Crocker's sterling academic career came to an abrupt end."
Except she wasn't fired. Nor did she merely "mention" ID. She was teaching creationism, including creationist canards that are blatantly false, and was not curriculum for the course. Yet she finished her non-tenure contract without being terminated.
Yes, the school did not renew her contract but that happens to thousands of non-tenure track professors all the time.
She says (in the film):
"[My supervisor] said 'nonetheless you have to be disciplined', and I lost my job."
Except she didn't.
The "discipline" amounted to be instructed to teach the curriculum of the course for which she'd been hired to teach. How shocking. She was told to fulfill the contract which she signed. How oppressive.
Stein says (in the movie):
"Not only did she lose her job at George Mason, this highly qualified researcher suddenly found herself blacklisted, unable to find a job anywhere."
Except that after GMU, she taught at Northern Virginia Community College then Uniformed Services University then went to work for the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center.
http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth/crocker
These are lies. Flat out, bald faced lies.
See also:
http://tinyfrog.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/ode-to-caroline-crocker/