Don't you mean the Clinton years? While there was certainly a lot that happened between 2000 and 2008, there was at least as much between 1992 and 2000. Point being - which party is in power doesn't matter.
Yeah, those horrible Clinton years when we had peace and prosperity, a budget surplus over 218 Billion dollars, poverty at an all time low, and income at an all time high.
Anyone who claims that both parties are the same is an idiot.
Again, we are talking about a DARPA project that spanned over ten years, as well as all the costs involved in implementing the High Performance Computing Act of 1991. But your question is a red herring and a straw man anyway, since there would be NO internet to invest in, if it hadn't been for the DARPA project.
It is hard for me to believe the short sightedness demonstrated by the uninformed astroturfers on this site. At this point, The Reg looks better and better.
I can get a BS in many things from respectable online schools that are just as legit as actually being on campus.
Roflmao. I have attempted to try this myself. I got good grades (because I called the "instructors" on their bullshit), but found myself teaching the teacher and taking the teachers part in the online discussion, because all they did was cut and paste crappy discussion questions from past classes that didn't even pertain to what was being discussed. They would grade hard at the beginning of the class ( often counting things wrong that were not wrong, such as when a teacher tried to tell me that drivers and applications were not software) and easy at the end of the class to simulate improvement. They would cut and paste previous feedback on assignments that either didn't match the assignment or were completely general, almost like a John Edward routine. It was ridiculous. And it was a well known online school, who charge MORE for this crap than a conventional university and continue to take Pell grants and federally subsidized loans despite horrid drop out rates as students realize what a joke it is.
I won't hire people who think they're hot shit but haven't gone to college to get the ignorance schooled out of them..
Talk about bullshit. Yeah, you're management all right.
So you will hire people who are humble and have practical experience? That is inferred from your statement, however I somehow seriously doubt that is the case. In the last ten years I have seen companies fall over themselves to hire college graduates who think they're hot shit and have no practical knowledge or experience. The employee is clearly useless, and has to have their hand held and trained by someone with practical experience, then the trainer is let go.
What!? Widespread consolidation of ownership of everything that happened during the Bush years wasn't good for consumer choices? And the supposedly omnipotent free market actually does nothing in this situation because no start up can compete against established monopolies and cartels? (sarcasm)
I live in a rural area. I have one realistic choice for high speed (a WISP that bought up all the surrounding WISPS in the last 5 years.) This company already prioritizes it's voip solution's traffic, to the detriment of my connection's bandwidth and latency. Under current law it will only get worse. What incentive do they have in ensuring my voip solution's traffic has even baseline QOS? NONE. What recourse do I have? NONE. The article is blatant astroturf meant to capitalize on current tea-bagger idiocy.
So having Gitmo just as bad as it was is "better" than before?
Hardly as bad as it was. I have heard of no one pissing on a prisoners Koran, etc. under Obama. He has even done all he could to close it down, but was shut down by the Party of NO and the chickenshit idiots who somehow believed we couldn't safely hold prisoners in supermax prisons and try them in the US. They basically said BOO! terrorists! 911!
Gutting the part of the Justice Department that prosecutes abuse of law concerning monopolistic business practices, in order to ratchet up frivolous "civil rights" prosecutions, is "better" than before?
What are you talking about? Did you see this on Glenn Becks show or something? Sounds pretty tin-foil hat to me,
Ramping-up of "targeted killings" by the Obama administration is "better" than before?
Yes. I'm assuming you're talking about drones in Pakistan. I have zero problems with that. Bush should have done Afghanistan right, while he had the worldwide political capital to do so, then went right into Pakistan. I consider Pakistan to be among our most dangerous threats to national security, especially as opposed to what Iraq was.
Having a "state secrets" policy that treats FOIA requests like toilet paper and lets political staff vet them is "better" than before?.
No. But then, that's what they get for agreeing to cover up Bush's crimes. In order to 'forget the past and move forward,' they have had to cover up the past. I hope they regret it every day until they die.
Doing nothing when North Korea runs missile tests is "better" than before?
So you are claiming to be in the loop of NSA and CIA briefings and so know we are doing "nothing" about North Korea? Ridiculous claim. And even if it wasn't, what do you want Obama to do? You DO realize that any action would re-start the Korean war, with many of our troops in the DMZ getting caught in the crossfire?
Wasting money suing states that try to get a handle on the illegal alien problem, while simultaneously refusing to prosecute sanctuary cities (despite the fact that it is against federal law - 8 U.S. Code, sections 1324 and 1325; Immigration and Naturalization Act sections 274 and 275, Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA)) - that's somehow "better" than before?
I should have known you're some kind of Tancredo wannabe. Please describe to me exactly what "the illegal alien problem" is, and why it's so urgent that Arizona had to pass an unconstitutional law that did nothing but place undue burden on local police, when they can and do already turn over illegal aliens to the INS, who are much better equipped to deal with them.
I'd hate to see what you think would qualify as worse!
The Republicans controlling all three branches of government and setting us back for decades. Just about every idiotic policy from start to finish, from encouraging outsourcing and engaging in what his own father called "voodoo" economics (creating a huge deficit by cutting taxes for the rich and claiming it will somehow trickle down and create jobs (Republicans created exactly ZERO jobs in Bush' s two terms, despite controlling all three branches for a large portion)) to not even half-assing Afghanistan, to largely abandoning the few troops he left after said half-assing, to an unjustified/able war in Iraq, to half-assing Iraq (which he barely stabilized in the end with his surge, but which will still be a sore in our ass for at least decades), to endorsing torture, to creating the environment that encouraged the horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib, etc, etc, etc.
My first reaction is similar to yours and the other similar posts, in that there is at least an implied responsibility to being a journalist. But let me play devil's advocate here.
Wikileaks is all about publishing documents. Many "news" organizations use many different rationales (some more valid than others) for holding back information or not publishing a story. In many cases this causes a spin or bias on the news that has gotten out of hand in recent times. The current journalistic environment has created and somewhat encouraged an endeavor such as Wikileaks by losing the public trust. If we could rely on the major news organizations to reliably perform the public service of responsible investigative journalism, wikileaks would likely lose it's appeal and relevancy. Finally, if they released redacted documents. they would lose the credibility they have gained by releasing ALL the facts, no matter the consequences. Then people could (rightfully) question what they redacted and why.
Mr. Assange probably should have made this point himself.
The quiet could be the problem, actually. When it's quiet, then every little noise (and thought) is more prevalent. Some people even have tinnitus and are not conscious of it, and that keeps them awake. I would recommend trying white noise, as it performs a similar service as the "brain static" mentioned in the article. I personally use a fan. Or you can pay a fair bit of money for a more precise white noise generator.
Straw man. Of course your mega-mart has different prices than the mom and pop. On the other hand, the mega marts (most cities with more than one traffic light have more than one mega mart) have remarkably similar prices on products of similar quality and value. (mega mart for this discussion= Safeway, Albertsons, Walmart, King Soopers(Kroger), Piggly Wiggly, Mega Target, Costco, etc.)
And this does not even mean that the stores themselves are the ones engaging in anti competitive activity. It very well might be their suppliers, especially since a great many of them have been involved in mega-mergers in the Bush years. Especially when it comes to meat-packing.
You seem to want to even deny that the ADM price fixing occurred (which directly affected meat and other food prices) Or that there weren't HUGE mergers occurring in the last ten years that have drastically reduced competition in many instances.
While I am an advocate of the pursuit of rehabilitation, I would argue that the first and foremost justifiable purpose of imprisonment is to protect society from antisocial individuals. Furthermore, most people in the US think of prison as punishment. To us, punishing is more important than any kind of purposeful action. We don't even care if the punishment actually discourages future anti social behavior. Sadly a majority of us (mostly those on the right in my opinion) would bite off their nose to spite their face.
Yeah, accuse me of being unreasonable when you obviously have no reply to the fact that you plainly claimed that the CD cartel "erased the profits they had earned" with the ~100 million dollar fine when they didn't even come close to erasing the illicit profits (based on YOUR and the RIAA's numbers) of 10 BILLION just for the year 1999-2000. And you clearly have no reply for the fact that Toshiba and Samsung (who are involved in the price fixing mentioned in TFA) were found guilty by multiple entities of price fixing of DRAM, and here they are again doing the same with LCD's.
All you can do is bring out fallacious argument. One is the intellectually challenged straw man that the mega-mart prices differently than a mom and pop. Well, duh. But the Walmarts, Safeways, and King Soopers' (or whatever your local brand of mega-mart) all have the same prices on many products. Your other fallacy is accusing me of endorsement of government control of pricing. I have made no such endorsement, explicit or implied in any way, shape or form. To act as if I did is just plain underhanded and dishonest.
What I DO endorse, as can be easily sussed from my posts is that the government should aggressively investigate and prosecute anti competitive practices by enforcing long standing antitrust laws.
You're not alone. Ultranova posted a great link below on Poe's Law. I am amazed it wasn't modded up. Wish I had some points to do so myself. Personally, I often add something like (heavy sarcasm) to anything that might possibly get misconstrued.
First off, let me commend you for bringing an interesting idea to the discussion. I certainly think the idea has merit.
At the same time, we have to get even progressive administrations to do more than just give lip service to enforcing current antitrust laws (primarily the Sherman Act.) We also need to ensure people know exactly what neoconservatives and their ideological allies the right wing libertarians (closet neocons) think about ALL antitrust laws and litigation. You merely have to look at the Bush admin for an example. They didn't see a merger they didn't like, and only the most egregious acts of antitrust got prosecuted at all under that regime. For the most part the right wing's whole anti-trust philosophy boils down to caveat emptor (buyer beware.)
From ADM and their price-fixing of lysine and other food and feed additives, which literally robbed everyone in America of hundreds of millions, to the music industry, who robbed billions, to the memory makers Toshiba, Samsung, Mitsubishi, and Hynex, to this LCD price fixing, to very likely your local grocery and liquor stores (haven't you ever noticed how their prices are almost identical on a majority of items?) price fixing and collusion is commonplace. There is no such thing as a free market. The corporations decide how much you are going to pay. Even Newegg and Tiger Direct now have all but identical pricing. People need to open their eyes.
For what it's worth, yes, they gave out checks. I got one as well. But then I was young, single, and working on my CD collection. I literally spent thousands of dollars in those years on music CDs. I know of many others who spent as much or more, and did not find out about the settlement until it was too late to file. By your own admission, they overcharged 10$ per CD. The RIAA's own figures say they shipped 1 Billion units in the last year covered by the suit, 1999-2000. And the cash settlement was 64 million. So that's 64 million out of ten billion. You make my argument for me.
In theory perhaps, but it could be a bitch in practice. Manufacturing costs are ultimately at the whim of commodity prices, which in case you haven't noticed, have in some instances been quite dynamic with the current [ rampant speculation by a criminally deregulated financial system which resembles Las Vegas gambling more than any actual investment in future potential.]
>>>(2) There's no need for such extremes. When the record companies were caught price-fixing CDs (thereby forming an illegal cartel), they were ordered by the courts to refund ~$25 to all their customers, so that erased any illicit profits they had earned.
If you really believe they came anywhere NEAR paying out what they gained by even just the five years of price fixing that they got caught for, you're delusional. The industry shipped over one billion units in the year 2000. Their settlement of 64 million cash to consumers and 75 million in CD's (at a likely actual cost of a few percent of the 75 million) distributed to non-profit organizations was nowhere near the billions they profited.
And just because when they came up with a lower price fix eventually thereafter is hardly evidence of the 'free market left to it's own devices' adjusting correctly. You'd have to be a total tool to believe these things.
The bottom line is that at least two of these companies (Samsung and Toshiba) were directly involved and found guilty of memory price fixing at least once in recent times by multiple courts, and neither the governmental remedies nor the supposed hand of the free market impacted them enough to stop them from doing it again with LCDs. Nothing will stop them and millions of other companies from continuing to screw the consumer in the future. Your premise fails in both theory and application.
One last thing, read your own link. Fidonet's tertiary purpose was to route e-mail to ARPANET (and related networks) in the mid 80's. The ARPANET project had e-mail in 1971. It developed telnet in 1972 and FTP in 1973. BBS's and their primitive networks were civilian attempts to duplicate and link to the technologies they saw in college and in the military.
My guess is that private investment far exceeds government funding.
Yeah, because large scale DARPA projects that last over ten years are notoriously inexpensive. And one that resulted in a fail-safe communications network that could reroute information around a large network outage was childs-play. Innovations such as e-mail, telnet, ftp, and (11 years after the invention of e-mail) TCP/IP probably just invented themselves. (extreme sarcasm)
Yes, I used to traverse the world of BBS's on my smoking fast 9 Baud modem, attached to a RS232/HPIL interface, which was daisy chained to my HP9875C and Mountain States 80 column display interface (the 9875C only had a single line LCD.) It was barely above sneaker net with 5 1/4" floppies, in fact such a sneaker net might have been faster. I'd hardly compare that with TCP/IP and DARPANET.
Is this thread tangential? Yes. Is it completely off topic? No. Is anyone forcing you to read it? No. Are you acting like a drama queen by threatening to go to some other site? Yes. Would anyone care if you left? No.
They aren't pre-crime laws. In fact, just the opposite. They are there BECAUSE some idiot did something stupid and hurt a lot of people, the populace demanded something be done to prevent it from happening again and / or in widespread fashion.
Oops, got in a hurry there. My FAIL. While parts of that bill were passed in other legislation, that bill ultimately failed. What I was thinking of was actually:
Slashdot Mirror
So you are saying that Valerie Plame Wilson's name should have been kept secret? And that the leak of her name and status is a crime?
Don't you mean the Clinton years? While there was certainly a lot that happened between 2000 and 2008, there was at least as much between 1992 and 2000. Point being - which party is in power doesn't matter.
Yeah, those horrible Clinton years when we had peace and prosperity, a budget surplus over 218 Billion dollars, poverty at an all time low, and income at an all time high.
Anyone who claims that both parties are the same is an idiot.
Again, we are talking about a DARPA project that spanned over ten years, as well as all the costs involved in implementing the High Performance Computing Act of 1991. But your question is a red herring and a straw man anyway, since there would be NO internet to invest in, if it hadn't been for the DARPA project.
It is hard for me to believe the short sightedness demonstrated by the uninformed astroturfers on this site. At this point, The Reg looks better and better.
I can get a BS in many things from respectable online schools that are just as legit as actually being on campus.
Roflmao. I have attempted to try this myself. I got good grades (because I called the "instructors" on their bullshit), but found myself teaching the teacher and taking the teachers part in the online discussion, because all they did was cut and paste crappy discussion questions from past classes that didn't even pertain to what was being discussed. They would grade hard at the beginning of the class ( often counting things wrong that were not wrong, such as when a teacher tried to tell me that drivers and applications were not software) and easy at the end of the class to simulate improvement. They would cut and paste previous feedback on assignments that either didn't match the assignment or were completely general, almost like a John Edward routine. It was ridiculous. And it was a well known online school, who charge MORE for this crap than a conventional university and continue to take Pell grants and federally subsidized loans despite horrid drop out rates as students realize what a joke it is.
I won't hire people who think they're hot shit but haven't gone to college to get the ignorance schooled out of them. .
Talk about bullshit. Yeah, you're management all right.
So you will hire people who are humble and have practical experience? That is inferred from your statement, however I somehow seriously doubt that is the case. In the last ten years I have seen companies fall over themselves to hire college graduates who think they're hot shit and have no practical knowledge or experience. The employee is clearly useless, and has to have their hand held and trained by someone with practical experience, then the trainer is let go.
What!? Widespread consolidation of ownership of everything that happened during the Bush years wasn't good for consumer choices? And the supposedly omnipotent free market actually does nothing in this situation because no start up can compete against established monopolies and cartels? (sarcasm)
I live in a rural area. I have one realistic choice for high speed (a WISP that bought up all the surrounding WISPS in the last 5 years.) This company already prioritizes it's voip solution's traffic, to the detriment of my connection's bandwidth and latency. Under current law it will only get worse. What incentive do they have in ensuring my voip solution's traffic has even baseline QOS? NONE. What recourse do I have? NONE. The article is blatant astroturf meant to capitalize on current tea-bagger idiocy.
So having Gitmo just as bad as it was is "better" than before?
Hardly as bad as it was. I have heard of no one pissing on a prisoners Koran, etc. under Obama. He has even done all he could to close it down, but was shut down by the Party of NO and the chickenshit idiots who somehow believed we couldn't safely hold prisoners in supermax prisons and try them in the US. They basically said BOO! terrorists! 911!
Gutting the part of the Justice Department that prosecutes abuse of law concerning monopolistic business practices, in order to ratchet up frivolous "civil rights" prosecutions, is "better" than before?
What are you talking about? Did you see this on Glenn Becks show or something? Sounds pretty tin-foil hat to me,
Ramping-up of "targeted killings" by the Obama administration is "better" than before?
Yes. I'm assuming you're talking about drones in Pakistan. I have zero problems with that. Bush should have done Afghanistan right, while he had the worldwide political capital to do so, then went right into Pakistan. I consider Pakistan to be among our most dangerous threats to national security, especially as opposed to what Iraq was.
Having a "state secrets" policy that treats FOIA requests like toilet paper and lets political staff vet them is "better" than before?.
No. But then, that's what they get for agreeing to cover up Bush's crimes. In order to 'forget the past and move forward,' they have had to cover up the past. I hope they regret it every day until they die.
Doing nothing when North Korea runs missile tests is "better" than before?
So you are claiming to be in the loop of NSA and CIA briefings and so know we are doing "nothing" about North Korea? Ridiculous claim. And even if it wasn't, what do you want Obama to do? You DO realize that any action would re-start the Korean war, with many of our troops in the DMZ getting caught in the crossfire?
Wasting money suing states that try to get a handle on the illegal alien problem, while simultaneously refusing to prosecute sanctuary cities (despite the fact that it is against federal law - 8 U.S. Code, sections 1324 and 1325; Immigration and Naturalization Act sections 274 and 275, Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA)) - that's somehow "better" than before?
I should have known you're some kind of Tancredo wannabe. Please describe to me exactly what "the illegal alien problem" is, and why it's so urgent that Arizona had to pass an unconstitutional law that did nothing but place undue burden on local police, when they can and do already turn over illegal aliens to the INS, who are much better equipped to deal with them.
I'd hate to see what you think would qualify as worse!
The Republicans controlling all three branches of government and setting us back for decades. Just about every idiotic policy from start to finish, from encouraging outsourcing and engaging in what his own father called "voodoo" economics (creating a huge deficit by cutting taxes for the rich and claiming it will somehow trickle down and create jobs (Republicans created exactly ZERO jobs in Bush' s two terms, despite controlling all three branches for a large portion)) to not even half-assing Afghanistan, to largely abandoning the few troops he left after said half-assing, to an unjustified/able war in Iraq, to half-assing Iraq (which he barely stabilized in the end with his surge, but which will still be a sore in our ass for at least decades), to endorsing torture, to creating the environment that encouraged the horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib, etc, etc, etc.
My first reaction is similar to yours and the other similar posts, in that there is at least an implied responsibility to being a journalist. But let me play devil's advocate here.
Wikileaks is all about publishing documents. Many "news" organizations use many different rationales (some more valid than others) for holding back information or not publishing a story. In many cases this causes a spin or bias on the news that has gotten out of hand in recent times. The current journalistic environment has created and somewhat encouraged an endeavor such as Wikileaks by losing the public trust. If we could rely on the major news organizations to reliably perform the public service of responsible investigative journalism, wikileaks would likely lose it's appeal and relevancy. Finally, if they released redacted documents. they would lose the credibility they have gained by releasing ALL the facts, no matter the consequences. Then people could (rightfully) question what they redacted and why.
Mr. Assange probably should have made this point himself.
The quiet could be the problem, actually. When it's quiet, then every little noise (and thought) is more prevalent. Some people even have tinnitus and are not conscious of it, and that keeps them awake. I would recommend trying white noise, as it performs a similar service as the "brain static" mentioned in the article. I personally use a fan. Or you can pay a fair bit of money for a more precise white noise generator.
I spent over a decade and almost $70,000 of my own money on personal growth.
I'm trying really hard not to be cynical here, but how does somebody spend $70K on personal growth?
My guess would be L Ron Hoover's First Church of Appliantology.
Straw man. Of course your mega-mart has different prices than the mom and pop. On the other hand, the mega marts (most cities with more than one traffic light have more than one mega mart) have remarkably similar prices on products of similar quality and value. (mega mart for this discussion= Safeway, Albertsons, Walmart, King Soopers(Kroger), Piggly Wiggly, Mega Target, Costco, etc.)
And this does not even mean that the stores themselves are the ones engaging in anti competitive activity. It very well might be their suppliers, especially since a great many of them have been involved in mega-mergers in the Bush years. Especially when it comes to meat-packing.
You seem to want to even deny that the ADM price fixing occurred (which directly affected meat and other food prices) Or that there weren't HUGE mergers occurring in the last ten years that have drastically reduced competition in many instances.
While I am an advocate of the pursuit of rehabilitation, I would argue that the first and foremost justifiable purpose of imprisonment is to protect society from antisocial individuals. Furthermore, most people in the US think of prison as punishment. To us, punishing is more important than any kind of purposeful action. We don't even care if the punishment actually discourages future anti social behavior. Sadly a majority of us (mostly those on the right in my opinion) would bite off their nose to spite their face.
Yeah, accuse me of being unreasonable when you obviously have no reply to the fact that you plainly claimed that the CD cartel "erased the profits they had earned" with the ~100 million dollar fine when they didn't even come close to erasing the illicit profits (based on YOUR and the RIAA's numbers) of 10 BILLION just for the year 1999-2000. And you clearly have no reply for the fact that Toshiba and Samsung (who are involved in the price fixing mentioned in TFA) were found guilty by multiple entities of price fixing of DRAM, and here they are again doing the same with LCD's.
All you can do is bring out fallacious argument. One is the intellectually challenged straw man that the mega-mart prices differently than a mom and pop. Well, duh. But the Walmarts, Safeways, and King Soopers' (or whatever your local brand of mega-mart) all have the same prices on many products. Your other fallacy is accusing me of endorsement of government control of pricing. I have made no such endorsement, explicit or implied in any way, shape or form. To act as if I did is just plain underhanded and dishonest.
What I DO endorse, as can be easily sussed from my posts is that the government should aggressively investigate and prosecute anti competitive practices by enforcing long standing antitrust laws.
That's logical, sort of, in a military-intelligence oxymoron kinda way. But as another example of the oxymoron, why don't they just declassify it?
You're not alone. Ultranova posted a great link below on Poe's Law. I am amazed it wasn't modded up. Wish I had some points to do so myself. Personally, I often add something like (heavy sarcasm) to anything that might possibly get misconstrued.
First off, let me commend you for bringing an interesting idea to the discussion. I certainly think the idea has merit.
At the same time, we have to get even progressive administrations to do more than just give lip service to enforcing current antitrust laws (primarily the Sherman Act.) We also need to ensure people know exactly what neoconservatives and their ideological allies the right wing libertarians (closet neocons) think about ALL antitrust laws and litigation. You merely have to look at the Bush admin for an example. They didn't see a merger they didn't like, and only the most egregious acts of antitrust got prosecuted at all under that regime. For the most part the right wing's whole anti-trust philosophy boils down to caveat emptor (buyer beware.)
From ADM and their price-fixing of lysine and other food and feed additives, which literally robbed everyone in America of hundreds of millions, to the music industry, who robbed billions, to the memory makers Toshiba, Samsung, Mitsubishi, and Hynex, to this LCD price fixing, to very likely your local grocery and liquor stores (haven't you ever noticed how their prices are almost identical on a majority of items?) price fixing and collusion is commonplace. There is no such thing as a free market. The corporations decide how much you are going to pay. Even Newegg and Tiger Direct now have all but identical pricing. People need to open their eyes.
For what it's worth, yes, they gave out checks. I got one as well. But then I was young, single, and working on my CD collection. I literally spent thousands of dollars in those years on music CDs. I know of many others who spent as much or more, and did not find out about the settlement until it was too late to file. By your own admission, they overcharged 10$ per CD. The RIAA's own figures say they shipped 1 Billion units in the last year covered by the suit, 1999-2000. And the cash settlement was 64 million. So that's 64 million out of ten billion. You make my argument for me.
In theory perhaps, but it could be a bitch in practice. Manufacturing costs are ultimately at the whim of commodity prices, which in case you haven't noticed, have in some instances been quite dynamic with the current [ rampant speculation by a criminally deregulated financial system which resembles Las Vegas gambling more than any actual investment in future potential.]
Fixed that for you.
>>>(2) There's no need for such extremes. When the record companies were caught price-fixing CDs (thereby forming an illegal cartel), they were ordered by the courts to refund ~$25 to all their customers, so that erased any illicit profits they had earned.
If you really believe they came anywhere NEAR paying out what they gained by even just the five years of price fixing that they got caught for, you're delusional. The industry shipped over one billion units in the year 2000. Their settlement of 64 million cash to consumers and 75 million in CD's (at a likely actual cost of a few percent of the 75 million) distributed to non-profit organizations was nowhere near the billions they profited.
And just because when they came up with a lower price fix eventually thereafter is hardly evidence of the 'free market left to it's own devices' adjusting correctly. You'd have to be a total tool to believe these things.
The bottom line is that at least two of these companies (Samsung and Toshiba) were directly involved and found guilty of memory price fixing at least once in recent times by multiple courts, and neither the governmental remedies nor the supposed hand of the free market impacted them enough to stop them from doing it again with LCDs. Nothing will stop them and millions of other companies from continuing to screw the consumer in the future. Your premise fails in both theory and application.
One last thing, read your own link. Fidonet's tertiary purpose was to route e-mail to ARPANET (and related networks) in the mid 80's. The ARPANET project had e-mail in 1971. It developed telnet in 1972 and FTP in 1973. BBS's and their primitive networks were civilian attempts to duplicate and link to the technologies they saw in college and in the military.
My guess is that private investment far exceeds government funding.
Yeah, because large scale DARPA projects that last over ten years are notoriously inexpensive. And one that resulted in a fail-safe communications network that could reroute information around a large network outage was childs-play. Innovations such as e-mail, telnet, ftp, and (11 years after the invention of e-mail) TCP/IP probably just invented themselves. (extreme sarcasm)
Yes, I used to traverse the world of BBS's on my smoking fast 9 Baud modem, attached to a RS232/HPIL interface, which was daisy chained to my HP9875C and Mountain States 80 column display interface (the 9875C only had a single line LCD.) It was barely above sneaker net with 5 1/4" floppies, in fact such a sneaker net might have been faster. I'd hardly compare that with TCP/IP and DARPANET.
Is this thread tangential? Yes. Is it completely off topic? No. Is anyone forcing you to read it? No. Are you acting like a drama queen by threatening to go to some other site? Yes. Would anyone care if you left? No.
They aren't pre-crime laws. In fact, just the opposite. They are there BECAUSE some idiot did something stupid and hurt a lot of people, the populace demanded something be done to prevent it from happening again and / or in widespread fashion.
Case in point for pool chemicals:
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/021366.html
and dirty swimming pools:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/20/health/main6503076.shtml
The evidence for empty heads is overwhelming.
You make my point for me.
Oops, got in a hurry there. My FAIL. While parts of that bill were passed in other legislation, that bill ultimately failed. What I was thinking of was actually:
High Performance Computing Act of 1991
http://www.nitrd.gov/congressional/laws/pl_102-194.html [nitrd.gov]