You're with Comcast because they charge less than other companies (presumably there are competitors around, since you say there are no other options within your budget).
Practices like these enable Comcast to charge less than other companies, whilst still providing service levels acceptable to many users.
Overselling their bandwidth allows Comcast to charge less per customer since they're essentially getting money for doing mostly the same thing they would be without overselling.
Providing degraded service to classes of connections which tend to take up a large amount of their bandwidth allows better service to be provided to other commonly used classes of connections.
Comcast's practices are not entirely ineffective at degrading services to bandwidth-hungry servces whilst having less impact on less bandwidth-hungry ones.
It seems to me you're getting cheap service, then complaining about the things that enable that service to be provided at such a cheap price (cheap compared to others in the area). If you want a better quality of service, it'll cost you more than whatever Comcast is charging you at the moment. The mere fact that you're still with them only serves to reinforce what they're doing. As long as you are still with them, you continue to increase their profit—something their managers will see as indicating that their practices are good for the company.
I'm not defending Scientology, but I think if you are going to make such strong claims, a few credible links are in order. Otherwise, you're doing the same thing they are, publicly smearing them as being evil. I could have made the same claim against the Tongan Government and few people would have known without serious research whether I was just making it up.
"Just Google It" won't suffice; hardly anyone will seriously research the allegations of every unsubstantiated, inflammatory piece of writing they come across.
It appears that some of the things you mention aren't problems with Vista itself, but rather problems in other things, not necessarily Microsoft's fault, brought to the fore by Vista's new way of doing things.
UAC: In Linux, if an application kept bugging the user for sudo privileges, users would blame the application for being horribly written. In Vista, this same situation somehow gets blamed on Microsoft for bothering to ask users at all. When some of the alternative approaches to the problem include just failing with an Access Denied error, or giving users full admin privileges, it is not immediately obvious that UAC is the worst solution. The fact that Linux users would be asked to type in their password rather than just clicking through does not change things much; users could just as easily be trained to blindly type in their passwords. In fact, you could argue this would be even more harmful to security than indoctrinating them to just click OK. Its implementation may not be perfect, but it's a little more useful for privilege minimisation than the "Run As" context menu XP has.
Drivers: On Linux, a bad driver can cause a kernel panic just as on Windows. Building a repository of drivers might not be practical given the massive amount of hardware whose manufacturers only bother trying to support Windows. Where should that repository be? If you package them with the kernel, how should Microsoft handle driver updates? Should Microsoft push an update when NVIDIA updates their graphics drivers? What if Intel releases new hardware requiring custom drivers? Should Microsoft push a Windows Update just to support that specific hardware? If they did, people would start complaining of the number of extraneous update patches requiring a reboot. If they didn't, people would have to go off hunting for drivers like they do now.
Productivity: I guess Microsoft would disagree with you about where to strike the looks/productivity balance (to the extent that a compromise between the two is necessary). Vista's UI may make it slower for new users to do stuff efficiently, but it shouldn't impact seasoned users' productivity too much (aside from initially getting distracted by it). All the old productivity tricks employed by serious users are still available. Who hunts through the start menu for programs they often use? Serious users learn to love Win+R and Quick Launch. Or they just drag the program shortcuts to their desktop for quick, permanent access without crowding the task bar. Keyboard shortcuts aren't going anywhere soon, either. If I was a new Windows user, or someone who uses it rarely, the fact that it looks pretty will leave a stronger impression than the few extra seconds it might take me to get something done.
Your last two points about performance and XP being its biggest competitor are valid, but could equally have applied to XP when it was released.
Evolution is not just the proliferation of random mutations. Mutations which don't in any way affect an organism's reproductive ability aren't the concern of evolution. Natural selection will tend to make mutations which do enhance an organism's ability to reproduce more prevalent through the simple fact that those organisms will be able to reproduce more. The population dynamics associated with natural selection don't prevent evolution, they facilitate it. All the adaptations observed through evolution are ultimately ways of ensuring more effective reproduction.
Also, the significance of this study appears to be that it provides data to suggest that evolution is driven mostly by the recombination of beneficial genes, rather than random, novel mutations. It seems (from the article) to have little to do with the randomness of mating encounters.
I must profess not to know the situation in the US, but in Australia it is possible to outpace inflation by depositing money in a bank. Just taking a quick look at what might be a typical savings account[1] from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (a major bank here in Australia), you can earn an annual effective interest rate of 3.04% p.a. as long as you make one deposit each month and no withdrawals (a reasonable practice for a savings account). If I were to put my money in an ING Term Deposit for 1 year, I could earn 7.5% p.a.[3] By comparison, the current CPI inflation rate according to the Reserve Bank of Australia[2] is 1.9% p.a. and has not gone above 4% for the last 3 years.
It is true that money under the mattress is a terrible investment strategy, as money is the only financial instrument that depreciates over time. A good way to save your money would be to put it into something of actual value, be it commodities like gold, or an interest-bearing bank account (which has actual value because the bank can use your money to finance profitable ventures, giving real value back). But that does not change the fact that money is a great medium for the measure and transfer of value across space (not time).
Having something used only for measuring value, and nothing else, allows us to decouple the measure of value from unrelated market forces which may be operating on a commodity currency. The money value of a meat pie today is unrelated to the supply and demand of gold, or any other metal you might use to back a currency. I would consider that a good thing. Fiat currency also has a nice side-effect of letting governments exploit market inefficiencies to stimulate the economy during hard times.
The argument applies equally to oil or any other useful commodity. Supply increases would decrease the value of the commodity backing the currency, effectively resulting in inflation across the market (unless you change the exchange rate between the currency and the commodity, in which case you have a fiat currency which only pretends to be backed by a commodity).
Central banks must be secretive about monetary policy because its effectiveness depends on the central bank's ability to surprise the market (deviation from market's expectations). If the market was able to anticipate monetary policy changes, they would act to neuter them. If monetary policy was even loosely based on some deterministic measure, the market would act to partially neuter the effect of monetary policy (the part that's predictable). For that reason, it's not possible to have an open, deterministic and effective monetary policy.
Perhaps the solution is to ensure you have strong processes in place for appointing people to your ivory tower. It seems to work fine for us here in Australia.
As opposed to using it for jewelery and circuitry. I miss those days when a rise in demand for jewelery would cause your economy to slow down because people would rather save their now-appreciating gold than spend it today. I miss those days when, during hard times, the only way for government to stimulate the economy was to increase government spending, leading to an increase in interest rates at a time when it would hurt most, to say nothing about the issues of gratuitous government spending that arise.
Having fake money gives governments the useful tool of monetary policy, which lets governments exploit inertia in the economy to increase production, without having to spend (as much of) your hard-earned taxes. It also has the nice effect of making money *only* useful for measuring value, leaving other precious materials to be put to better uses than padding bank accounts.
You'd have to be stupid to put $30,000 in a bank account that doesn't pay interest. Sure, in 10 years time the value of a single $1 may be much reduced, but if you put your money in a variable-interest account (or a fixed-interest one if you want to gamble with your savings), you'll be able to buy (slightly) more with the $30,000 + interest than you could with the original $30,000. Contrast that with putting 1 metric ton away in 1910. According to the US Geological Survey[1], 1T of gold in 1910 gave you as much buying power as $10,600,000 would in 1998. 10 years later, that same 1T you put away would give you almost half the buying power ($5,370,000 in 1998 dollars). Pick another 10-year span and you might get the opposite effect. The point is, even putting away precious metals won't guarantee you the same buying power 10 years later. With real currency, you're subjecting your savings to the market.
This all shows there is no absolute measure of value. The value of something depends on what you can do with it, which changes as society and technology changes. At least with fake money, you're not tying measurement of value with the results of market forces for the commodity backing the currency.
Lastly, inflation doesn't make having debts any more attractive since you'll have to pay interest in the future anyway. Any serious lender will factor inflation into the interest rate. Inflation just makes things more uncertain, since a drop in the inflation rate means you'll have to give up more restaurant dinners to meet your interest payments.
I assume by hard currency, you mean commodity currency (like gold, instead of dollars). There are good economic reasons for measuring prices in terms of something used only for that purpose. It's nice not suffering an inflation hike every time a new gold mine is discovered.
Also, in the real world at least, if government is to be able to exert any influence over prices,[1] it can't have its efforts being negated by someone else with a printing press. Monetary policy only works if you can actually control the money.
But that's off-topic, the article is not about other parties creating L$ out of thin air, it's about banks shifting them around in dodgy ways.
-----
[1] whether it should is a whole other debate, let's just say it's useful to have the ability
Perhaps part of the reason why IE still occupies space in the ecosystem, despite its massive sucktitude, is because normal users don't experience a tangible benefit from switching away from it. Web developers spend countless hours to ensure the experience is (almost) exactly the same whether the client is using IE or a more standards compliant browser. While there are good reasons for this, it just reinforces the current situation.
So what does switching to Firefox or Opera mean to most normal users? They have to download this new program, install it somewhere. They have to break the habit of clicking on the blue "e" whenever they want to go online. Some users might have changed some settings to make IE behave the way they like. And all this for what? So they can view the web exactly the same way as they did before?
Security is good, but if people really cared about security, Windows wouldn't be so dominant on the desktop. Extensions are cool, but not everyone likes to spend so much time configuring their browser. Features like SVG and MathML support are quite nice, but to a normal user they might as well not exist. When's the last time you came across either during a google search?
Maybe what's needed is less discussion and more demonstration. If web visitors using standards compliant browsers were presented with prettier/more functional interfaces which are not practical to hack in IE, they would have a real reason to stop using IE. If web coders stopped lusting after the latest standards support like a new geek's toy, and showed real benefits flowing from it, people will start caring about standards support.
Ultimately, if you can't show a tangible benefit from all this, then maybe all the benefits of a standards compliant browser aren't as significant as you think. After all, you're being paid to do something, and as long as the task remains difficult, the paycheques will keep coming.
The point may be moot, as the MPAA can always get another licence in a roundabout way. 1. Get a third party to redistribute the software in question. Make sure that third party complies with the GPL. 2. License the software from that third party (i.e. claim that the MPAA's software was based off that third party's distribution). 3. As long as that third party remains in compliance with the GPL, the fact that the MPAA's original licence to distribute the software was revoked becomes irrelevant.[1] They are now licensing the right to redistribute from the third party.
The MPAA could even provide the resources for the third party. They only need somebody to stand up as a figurehead and say "I grant MPAA a licence to use my redistribution of this software".
------- [1] At least, until the third party's licence to the software gets revoked. As long as the third party complies with the GPL, revoking their licence opens up a whole different bunch of issues which I won't go into.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me you're getting cheap service, then complaining about the things that enable that service to be provided at such a cheap price (cheap compared to others in the area). If you want a better quality of service, it'll cost you more than whatever Comcast is charging you at the moment. The mere fact that you're still with them only serves to reinforce what they're doing. As long as you are still with them, you continue to increase their profit—something their managers will see as indicating that their practices are good for the company.
Please do. We want to have our turn at being superpowers too. Quit hogging the spotlight!
- The Rest of the World.
I'm not defending Scientology, but I think if you are going to make such strong claims, a few credible links are in order. Otherwise, you're doing the same thing they are, publicly smearing them as being evil. I could have made the same claim against the Tongan Government and few people would have known without serious research whether I was just making it up.
"Just Google It" won't suffice; hardly anyone will seriously research the allegations of every unsubstantiated, inflammatory piece of writing they come across.
It appears that some of the things you mention aren't problems with Vista itself, but rather problems in other things, not necessarily Microsoft's fault, brought to the fore by Vista's new way of doing things.
Your last two points about performance and XP being its biggest competitor are valid, but could equally have applied to XP when it was released.
Evolution is not just the proliferation of random mutations. Mutations which don't in any way affect an organism's reproductive ability aren't the concern of evolution. Natural selection will tend to make mutations which do enhance an organism's ability to reproduce more prevalent through the simple fact that those organisms will be able to reproduce more. The population dynamics associated with natural selection don't prevent evolution, they facilitate it. All the adaptations observed through evolution are ultimately ways of ensuring more effective reproduction.
Also, the significance of this study appears to be that it provides data to suggest that evolution is driven mostly by the recombination of beneficial genes, rather than random, novel mutations. It seems (from the article) to have little to do with the randomness of mating encounters.
I must profess not to know the situation in the US, but in Australia it is possible to outpace inflation by depositing money in a bank. Just taking a quick look at what might be a typical savings account[1] from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (a major bank here in Australia), you can earn an annual effective interest rate of 3.04% p.a. as long as you make one deposit each month and no withdrawals (a reasonable practice for a savings account). If I were to put my money in an ING Term Deposit for 1 year, I could earn 7.5% p.a.[3] By comparison, the current CPI inflation rate according to the Reserve Bank of Australia[2] is 1.9% p.a. and has not gone above 4% for the last 3 years.
It is true that money under the mattress is a terrible investment strategy, as money is the only financial instrument that depreciates over time. A good way to save your money would be to put it into something of actual value, be it commodities like gold, or an interest-bearing bank account (which has actual value because the bank can use your money to finance profitable ventures, giving real value back). But that does not change the fact that money is a great medium for the measure and transfer of value across space (not time).
Having something used only for measuring value, and nothing else, allows us to decouple the measure of value from unrelated market forces which may be operating on a commodity currency. The money value of a meat pie today is unrelated to the supply and demand of gold, or any other metal you might use to back a currency. I would consider that a good thing. Fiat currency also has a nice side-effect of letting governments exploit market inefficiencies to stimulate the economy during hard times.
Money does not store value, it only measures it.
-----
[1] http://www.commbank.com.au/personal/accounts/awardsaver/rates-fees/default.aspx
[2] http://www.rba.gov.au/
[3] http://ingdirect.com.au/savings/our_products/term_deposits.htm
The argument applies equally to oil or any other useful commodity. Supply increases would decrease the value of the commodity backing the currency, effectively resulting in inflation across the market (unless you change the exchange rate between the currency and the commodity, in which case you have a fiat currency which only pretends to be backed by a commodity).
Central banks must be secretive about monetary policy because its effectiveness depends on the central bank's ability to surprise the market (deviation from market's expectations). If the market was able to anticipate monetary policy changes, they would act to neuter them. If monetary policy was even loosely based on some deterministic measure, the market would act to partially neuter the effect of monetary policy (the part that's predictable). For that reason, it's not possible to have an open, deterministic and effective monetary policy.
Perhaps the solution is to ensure you have strong processes in place for appointing people to your ivory tower. It seems to work fine for us here in Australia.
As opposed to using it for jewelery and circuitry. I miss those days when a rise in demand for jewelery would cause your economy to slow down because people would rather save their now-appreciating gold than spend it today. I miss those days when, during hard times, the only way for government to stimulate the economy was to increase government spending, leading to an increase in interest rates at a time when it would hurt most, to say nothing about the issues of gratuitous government spending that arise.
Having fake money gives governments the useful tool of monetary policy, which lets governments exploit inertia in the economy to increase production, without having to spend (as much of) your hard-earned taxes. It also has the nice effect of making money *only* useful for measuring value, leaving other precious materials to be put to better uses than padding bank accounts.
You'd have to be stupid to put $30,000 in a bank account that doesn't pay interest. Sure, in 10 years time the value of a single $1 may be much reduced, but if you put your money in a variable-interest account (or a fixed-interest one if you want to gamble with your savings), you'll be able to buy (slightly) more with the $30,000 + interest than you could with the original $30,000. Contrast that with putting 1 metric ton away in 1910. According to the US Geological Survey[1], 1T of gold in 1910 gave you as much buying power as $10,600,000 would in 1998. 10 years later, that same 1T you put away would give you almost half the buying power ($5,370,000 in 1998 dollars). Pick another 10-year span and you might get the opposite effect. The point is, even putting away precious metals won't guarantee you the same buying power 10 years later. With real currency, you're subjecting your savings to the market.
This all shows there is no absolute measure of value. The value of something depends on what you can do with it, which changes as society and technology changes. At least with fake money, you're not tying measurement of value with the results of market forces for the commodity backing the currency.
Lastly, inflation doesn't make having debts any more attractive since you'll have to pay interest in the future anyway. Any serious lender will factor inflation into the interest rate. Inflation just makes things more uncertain, since a drop in the inflation rate means you'll have to give up more restaurant dinners to meet your interest payments.
-----
[1] http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/
I assume by hard currency, you mean commodity currency (like gold, instead of dollars). There are good economic reasons for measuring prices in terms of something used only for that purpose. It's nice not suffering an inflation hike every time a new gold mine is discovered. Also, in the real world at least, if government is to be able to exert any influence over prices,[1] it can't have its efforts being negated by someone else with a printing press. Monetary policy only works if you can actually control the money. But that's off-topic, the article is not about other parties creating L$ out of thin air, it's about banks shifting them around in dodgy ways. ----- [1] whether it should is a whole other debate, let's just say it's useful to have the ability
Perhaps part of the reason why IE still occupies space in the ecosystem, despite its massive sucktitude, is because normal users don't experience a tangible benefit from switching away from it. Web developers spend countless hours to ensure the experience is (almost) exactly the same whether the client is using IE or a more standards compliant browser. While there are good reasons for this, it just reinforces the current situation.
So what does switching to Firefox or Opera mean to most normal users? They have to download this new program, install it somewhere. They have to break the habit of clicking on the blue "e" whenever they want to go online. Some users might have changed some settings to make IE behave the way they like. And all this for what? So they can view the web exactly the same way as they did before?
Security is good, but if people really cared about security, Windows wouldn't be so dominant on the desktop. Extensions are cool, but not everyone likes to spend so much time configuring their browser. Features like SVG and MathML support are quite nice, but to a normal user they might as well not exist. When's the last time you came across either during a google search?
Maybe what's needed is less discussion and more demonstration. If web visitors using standards compliant browsers were presented with prettier/more functional interfaces which are not practical to hack in IE, they would have a real reason to stop using IE. If web coders stopped lusting after the latest standards support like a new geek's toy, and showed real benefits flowing from it, people will start caring about standards support.
Ultimately, if you can't show a tangible benefit from all this, then maybe all the benefits of a standards compliant browser aren't as significant as you think. After all, you're being paid to do something, and as long as the task remains difficult, the paycheques will keep coming.
The point may be moot, as the MPAA can always get another licence in a roundabout way.
1. Get a third party to redistribute the software in question. Make sure that third party complies with the GPL.
2. License the software from that third party (i.e. claim that the MPAA's software was based off that third party's distribution).
3. As long as that third party remains in compliance with the GPL, the fact that the MPAA's original licence to distribute the software was revoked becomes irrelevant.[1] They are now licensing the right to redistribute from the third party.
The MPAA could even provide the resources for the third party. They only need somebody to stand up as a figurehead and say "I grant MPAA a licence to use my redistribution of this software".
-------
[1] At least, until the third party's licence to the software gets revoked. As long as the third party complies with the GPL, revoking their licence opens up a whole different bunch of issues which I won't go into.