Obviously the SCOTUS decision, Citizen's United vs FEC is WRONG. With that said, your points seem off to me.
1.. They are not protected from "infringement" by a corporation or individual you willingly enter a contract with. IOW, you are on private property, you have no rights.
Perhaps this part of your statement gives some insight into why the 1% who control 95% of the world wealth spent 30 or 60 years (different perspectives) getting it passed. Why the worked so hard to get Supremes confirmed that would lie (say they would not over-reach nor legislate from the bench during confirmation hearings and do just that once seated) and give them that case. The entire case is both an over reach and legislating from the bench, like over 60 others over the last 100 years.
Are you saying that an individual can take away your birth right (Constitution, Amendments, Bill of Rights) because they are individuals and private, simply because you entered a contract with them....really?
2.. Don't like it? Don't sign. My internet and wireless service are both contract-free. When they change the rules in a way I can't live with, I switch.
You mistakenly assume that you will have a choice, most Americans do not have another choice. In fact most Americans, I am guessing well over 90%, can not escape censorship and fraud with their bandwidth via throttling.
3.. 3. #1 and #2 in mind, they have every right to manage their network however they see fit. They may not have a first amendment right on the network, not being people and all, but you definitely have no such right when using their property -- unless your contract says otherwise.
The infrastructure is not only NOT their property, based on their non performance under contractual law it should be taken away from them and given back to the citizens of the community.
Back in the 1990s, most, if not all, of the existing telcos received one or all of these three for one thing...Fiber To The Home.
~ outright grants of millions of dollars for fiber
~ ability to add fees to customers bills for fiber
~ ability to add additional taxes to customers bills for fiber.
WTF? Where's the Fiber?
Americans should demand their money (via taxes) back because the fiber that was agreed to and promised was never delivered, they did not deliver, they did not perform. And just because one company declares bankruptcy and reinvents itself as a different entity they should not be allowed to keep the infrastructure and not deliver on these past promises. They inherited the promise when they inherited the infrastructure and became common carriers for the area for which the Fiber was promised.
WTF? Where's the Fiber?
I will not even get into the FRAUD perpetuated on the American people by 100% of Cable Providers and probably over 95% of Internet providers that declare they provide broadband. FCC defines broadband as a minimum of 756Kbps (yea way too slow but that is the official definition).
Perhaps you can explain whey a provider can throttle bandwidth (especially upstream) to below 756 Kbps and fraudulently claim they provide broadband. Based on my DD-WRT firmware enabled firewall router, I NEVER see BROADBAND speeds EXCEPT during the lying SPEED TEST, immediately following that test, the microsecond it ends, my bandwidth (promised up to 16MB / 4Mb) is throttled to below 101Kb/30Kb. If I say negative things about the cable provider on Twitter, whenever I access that twitter account, my bandwidth is throttled to less than 100Kb/8Kbps.
And they have the nerve to assert that their net neutrality is somehow violated, really?
Its not Americans fault they decided to take our tax dollars and not build out their Fiber networks to the point that throttling is unnecessary. And they somehow want to blame others for their obvious business incompetence. Oh wait, they are making loads o
Yes. You omitted the part about coming up witht he money for your solution.
I was NOT the anonymous poster...FYI.
Drilling wells ~ not sure what he was going after here... my guess is either water or gas... Fracking must be stopped, as 100% of fracking pollutes ground water which we MUST have to live. I can get my power from other sources...but clean fresh drinkable water...that is more precious. Many just do not realize this fact yet. But they will in the near future.
geothermal ($10K - 20K pipes in ground, less than $5K if you do it yourself, renting a ditch witch type digger) requires burying pipes (cooling heated water with ambient ground temperatures, having water returned for A/C usage) Cost of device to transfer heat I have not checked into.
Solar Powered roofs (I would like to know, esp the newer 3D solar cells that work when its cloudy)
Battery packs to store energy...cost?
Hardware to convert to/from home...cost?
Wind power $800 (barrel type) - $15K (vertical type, blades wrapped around vertical pole, not normal windmill type). All the device I have researched have in excess of a 20 year life...which makes even $20K cheap. $1,000 per year / 12 months = $83.33 per month. I know many people with $300 plus per month electric bills for both heating and A/C....12 months per year.
Hydrogen ($1K - ??K) Big cost is the storage tanks (propane type storage tanks, in a cold climate for heating you might need 6 or 7 tanks to have enough Hydrogen to get you through a winter without sun light. Of course that would depend on how many units you have separating hydrogen from water (clean water not required) and how long it takes you to fill up a tank. If you had enough hydrogen extractors to fill up a tank in 1 day, you would have to have a tank big enough to provide heat for 48 hours and you would only need 3 tanks to meet your demands.
Worth repeating...NO FRACKING ~ as 100% of fracking sites pollute ground water and make it un-drinkable unless you wish to die.
No Nuclear Plants ~ They are NOT cheaper and they are NOT safe. As proved by Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and even in spite of Fukushima some liars attempt to spin it. An "thoreum(sp?)" is as insane as Nuclear...its still a radiated material that has to be stored for over 200,000 years at what cost? And this crap CAN NOT be stored safely, cheaper than ALL alternatives, as the dry casks rated at 100 years, start to crack within 30 - 50 years. How much does it cost to re-cask one dry cask? How is that cheaper? It is NOT.
Cesium-137 is documented to have a half life of 30 years, meaning it should take 10 to 20 halflifes (10 X 30 ~ 20 X 30) to get close, but not exactly, zero radiation wise. Yet 25 years after Chernobyl, scientists have determined that Cesium 137 does not appear to be going away at the rate expected...either that or there was much more radiation released than reported....either way its unlivable within 200 miles of the plant for multiple generations.
Finally keep in mind that we know that over 4,000 energy patents have been secretized, which means the person who imagined it can not create it, can not sell it, can not do anything with it. If you have a new energy device, forget seeking government approval to use as the corporations have locked that avenue down as those 4,000 secret energy patents prove. Just use it yourself, share it with family and friends and warn them to keep it secret or risk losing it for their posterity.
Run for office and remove any impediments to individuals and families from owning their own power, getting off the grid and becoming 100% energy independent.
Before you can help others, you must help yourself, and by all means share it with others.
Monthly, please... Like in "No fee this month and your game won't be able to pull some needed scripts from my site".
Full Disclosure, I would have never purchased your product/service in the first place for this reason alone. Better give me some other payment option other than monthly or forget it.
The first time your company used a forced auto-upgrade or auto-update process to attach my bank account (via credit card) or require a phone number (with no way to opt out) to your bottom line (whether by phone number, credit card, paypal, etc..) I would churn from your product forever..so fast your head would spin. Loved PaintShop Pro, however their attempt to force me to use Windows Vista back in the day, resulted in me churning from them forever...and I loved their product.
And they were not trying to get access to my bank account, credit card or phone number.
P.S. I used a friend's Windows Vista installed laptop, installed the new version of PaintShop Pro (that I purchased) to a USB Micro SD card. Yes they tried to stop me, Sys Admin skills came in handy. It ran just fine on Windows 2000 after that from the micro SD thumb drive, what a joke. Granted I am sure there are some specific features of the product that would go out and re-check for the latest/greatest version of Windows software, but I did not use those features. However the writing was on the wall, time to churn to Gimp and never look back. After learning Gimp's menus there is nothing I can't do that I needed to do with PaintShop Pro, c'est la vie. Basically the same learning curve that comes with each new version of the Windows operating system...
LMAO, a monthly fee, no thank you unless its very, and I mean extremely engaging...come to think of it, can not think of anything that is that engaging....
True freedom comes from minimizing re-occurring payments of any kind. If your ONLY method of monetizing is to force your customer into a monthly fee and deny them access if that fee does not come, you have already failed. You just don't know it yet.
I buy it, I own it, I do with it what I want.
There is a much more customer friendly and intelligent method of earning your customers hard earned money (in addition to building your brand) than forcing them to pay you again, and again and again and again.... usually without offering them anything of value.
1) You simply offer your game for sale. One payment, they own the game. They can play it as much as they want. If its good they will buy more of your products.
2) Than you offer modules (add-ons that enhance the gaming experience) for an additional price.
Finally, If you build a decent MMORPG and can entice your customers to join and pay a monthly fee...in addition to the cost of the game Then you have the holy grail and supposedly are giving your customers something they are willing to get locked into a monthly fee to get. Of course fail to innovate and engage your customers each month and risk losing them, as it should be.
As to us cord cutters, if you want to entice us back, offer a quarterly or yearly fee. Do not require a phone number or updated credit card
Skype attempts to do this, for the first time in 6 years this year ~ 2012 ~ though when you ignore them not providing the required credit card information, the money will come out of your Skype account as you intended, though they will tell you that your service will be canceled without giving them the credit card. Guess writing is on the wall here as well, anyone know of a Linux VoIP solution that will allow phone calls to/from North American telephone and cell phones? Still its a FEAR porn a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt" alt="Fear, uncertainty and doubt">FUD tactic in a vain attempt at securing your personal information, in this case a current credit card number (never mind that
I had a project a few years ago to try and recover some working code from an Apple 2, and last year I was asked to try and find a way to read some CP/M disks. Those problems *can* be solved. But you're looking at a huge amount of time to try and solve them.
I once was called upon to convert a Surge Tide Data (ocean) program from Cobol to Fortran 77, thankfully had access to the source, so could do it.
Which got me to thinking, How many other programming Language compilers are there for a pure Linux computer (not so much concerned with the distro, but rather is this even possible and if so, which distro might be more likely...better yet if you have done this, please point me in the right direction.
If I wanted to write the Towers of Hanoi programming problem in every possible programming language and do so on a Linux computer, how many languages do you think I could get compilers for on Linux? (A friend of mine did this in college, He wrote it in Assembler, C, Pascal, Fortran, Cobol, C++(I think), and many others, but he had access to both PCs and Mini/Mainframes, thus he did not do this on a single machine as I would like to do. He said the hardest language to do it in was DOS Batch, he had to cheat and use files to do the recursion...I thought it was funny, perhaps one or two of you will as well.
I would like to take a PC from either ZaReason or System 76 (thus no proprietary problems of any kind) and install the compilers/software and do this on a Linux PC...would be interesting to revisit some of the legacy languages I have used over the years just for the kick, just do not want to have to purchase anything to do so.
Can it be done? Where do I find compilers for legacy languages that will run on Linux?
A great book for those that don't understand that since the hardware is never 100% completely free of errors, the software can never be assumed to be 100% of errors either.
Here is a link to it on Amazon (Soul of a New Machine, paperback) (and no I do not make a penny for the link, put it for informational purposes...though the cover of my copy (in storage so can not provide it) was very different than the one listed here. If memory serves, it was white primarily with some blue and silver, (found an image, I was close, enjoy) but I am guessing, it was back in the late 1980s or early 1990s when I read it. Actually an enjoyable read.
Also no company will pay anyone or any software development house enough money to check for every possible error, it would not be considered smart business and/or cost effective. Not saying I agree or disagree with that, just stating as a fact based on my experience working both in larger Fortune 100 software development and Small Office Home Office (SOHO) software development.
If you can get paid for it, do it, else that is what a maintenance contract (as many others have pointed out) should be for.
Profit margins for restaurants are usually around 3-4%. So, if they paid more, they'd probably just eliminate staff and automate more.
This is so not true. In Australia, the staff are paid more (a lot more), and the restaurant meals are cheaper. How can this be possible? The answer is worker productivity. I have worked in the restaurant industry in both Australia and Canada/USA, so I have first hand experience with this. The Canada/USA labour-force is poor in comparison -- both training and work ethic.
There is an interesting bit of history for why Australia has higher minimum wages and greater productivity for minimum-wage workers. It is because of a deal the unions made with industry back in the early 80s, called the Accord. If a workers increase their productivity, then businesses couldn't refuse passing on some of the revenue as a pay raise.
So unions became responsible for worker productivity (otherwise they couldn't obtain pay rises), and then everyone benefited.
Go figure.
Great post, love first hand experience.
This missing piece here in America is very counter-intuitive. When taxes were HIGH (though I am not in favor of that, have to acknowledge the truth of it) business owners would re-invest in their business in order to shelter their wealth. As the tax rates fell lower (below 50%) the intended effect was if business owners made more they would pay their workers more and hire more workers creating jobs.
That never happened. Instead they paid politicians to drop taxes on investments to even lower levels (15%) where they do not create jobs or wealth for anyone but themselves. Now don't get me wrong, its their money, they can do what they want.
Its just that I would rather be rich in a wealth society than rich in a poor society. With a healthy, wealthy middle class you can have this. Much of President Reagan and President Clinton successes is now understood to be a result of a very robust and strong economy.
Had America had the current economy (depression and recession) much of their policies would never have worked. One need look no farther than the current economy to see what has taken over 50 years to create.
Until politicians get off the corporate tet (lobbyist money) nothing will change. Just a fact.
Its counter intuitive to understand that the tax implications (over 50% tax rates, instead of 15%) was the real driving force that resulted in business owners keeping the money in their business, rather than pulling it out and putting it anywhere else, including overseas.
Unequal trade, tariff policy along with paying companies to take jobs overseas has not helped us either.
Its no mistake that the 1% shelter their profits from taxes overseas and plan to retire overseas in countries like Costa Rica that does NOT have a military. They can afford to leave, where most Americans can not. Me personally, I would rather stay here, secure the vote, retake the state and the national legislatures and fix it for our children than leave.
The most important thing is what we have been doing IS NOT WORKING. And the definition of insanity applies.
Until we have 3rd, 4th and 5th parties to break the legislative strangle hold that is our two party system, nothing will get fixed because they are paid NOT TO FIX IT.
Not sure how you got rated up, given that I did include links to the article and knew it was for a family of four, which still comes to over $4,000 per person...and it is no great health care plan, they simply do not exist today.
Furthermore, objectively, health care costs for a family of four should maybe be $1000/year, including illness and preventive care. All the rest of the money is spent because people like you want gold plated medical plans and then want others to pay for them.
I too would like to know where you are getting your numbers, I provided you with links where I got my numbers, wish you would have given us the same in return for your $1,000 dollar figure.
I shudder to think what is NOT covered. The truth about any voucher system is that it will never be enough to cover what you use to get for less.
Also turning the insurance company into the death panel is not good for any of us. And it does not justify the hospital policy dictated by the insurance carrier. The only hospital chain that I have ever heard of pushing back (when Insurance company refused to pay the bill to the hospital) was a chain in Texas that had over 40% of the market in that area...they basically told the Insurance company, yes you will pay or we will stop taking any of your insurance plans in any of our hospitals. The Insurance company paid.
Knowing doctors personally, I would prefer to allow them to be in charge of my health care assuming they would honor their oath to do no harm.
I find no comfort in knowing that the health care companies MUST provide me health care as I understand that they can keep inflating the premiums until it is NOT affordable to me or anyone else. While Obama's plan sucks, its hugely better than the Republican's non existent plan. Neither serves the needs of Americans, so Democrats should NOT be patting themselves on the back.
Health care started going down hill around 1975/1976 and has only gotten worse. My whole family was in medicine, so I know this first hand also. How many Doctors and pharmacists have you lived with?
The common misconception, often repeated, always wrong. The profits margins are much, much higher than that in most verticals, though I am sure there is one or two verticals in the industry that are suffering, but 3-4%, that is way low.
First that was not our experience and second (and most important) I call foul on the article based on this comment alone...
Those with checks under $15 showed a profit of 3 percent. Those with checks from $15 to $24.99 boasted the highest profit margin at 3.5 percent. Finally, those with checks of $25 and over had the lowest profits, at 1.8 percent.
Never in the history of any Industry has the high end, more expensive per sale resulted in lower profits. Its hardly a well kept secret that a high end business, with high ticket prices, whether a restaurant or flower shop, make higher profits in spite of less sales volume. Also those price ranges, under $15; $15-$24.99 and $25 and up do not address the high end market at all, were the per plate price is in excess of $25 with the per check amount in the $150 - $250 range. Who did that study anyway. A dinner with one bottle of wine...what about two...now you are in the high end and profits are above the low percentages you and the link are reporting.
The truth is that those patrons that can afford to pay more typically do not experience a recession/depression as patrons who are not as wealthy...so those with higher end shops, do less sales for higher profits and end up making more money...more profits. They are smart enough to avoid price wars that drive most retail businesses profits to the basement.
They do not pay BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE TOO!
Yes, and they don't have to because they can get lots of people willing to work for them for a low price and without health insurance. It's called a labor market and supply and demand.
Supply and Demand...based on the history we have and are currently experiencing that is total BS, there is no FREE Market and you know it. That is another myth. Just look at what corporations spend of their shareholder wealth to pass legislation so that Supply and Demand will not work. come on already.
Next you will be telling me that you still believe in trickle down economics ala Reagan, we are living that wet dream and I too bought into it back in the day...the difference between conservatives and I on that, trickle down economics, is that I can admit that I (and Reagan) was WRONG. Nothing trickles down, if it did, we would be awash in jobs, high paying jobs as those with wealth would shelter their wealth in the company by building the company as they did for 100s of years before laws were changed.
Where are the jobs promised for the lower taxes. Those manging investments only pay around 15%, the rest of us who can't afford or do not have the deductions pay 36%...both far below the 50% or more tax rates of yesteryears....
WHERE ARE THE PROMISED JOBS?
And please keep in mind the reality of lower taxes over the last 50 years (from over 50% to under 36%) and policy changes that drive jobs overseas and higher paying jobs to other countries, to be replaced by lower paying jobs. This is the reality that leads to Fascism... what most conservatives call capitalism today. Which will become a clear reality to the few not awake as military and police are used to enforce bad political policies that help corporations at the expense of the true job creators, small business.
Heck they even go after their own as witnessed by attacks on Ron Paul supporters at Republican meetings from state to state. By now everyone reading this has seen the video of the Republican Rules committee chair whose hip was dislocated by police and the other member of the
I lived in a very large Chicago high-rise with an HOA. They decided to go with the fractional fiber-optic approach with a small provider/reseller/whatever. I'd have to say, the service was incredible. Haven't had anything like it before or since. The best part was that the tech support didn't skip a beat when he asked me about my OS and I said "Ubuntu."
Then again, this was the same building that told me I couldn't have orange drapes in my 15th floor unit. Whatever...
Nothing like a positive real life example and in the same town as the person asking the question no less. Having read through almost the entire thread, loved the truth of an entire building or an entire group using their combined bargaining power to get the best deal for everyone.
Whoever set that up for that building did a great job as your response shows.
Best solution for others, move to one of the less than 30 FTTH US communities. With true FTTH, ALL the bandwidth plans offer the same bandwidth upstream and downstream.
If you are unfortunate enough to live in a city like most of us where the service is spotty and not consistent, find out who the backbone providers are in your area and where their networks / telco switching stations are located. Find a home/apartment closer to one of these. The closer you are, the more likely you will get great bandwidth at an affordable monthly rate. And if you must run a local loop, you have that option, though it will cost you each and every month.
If too far away from the telcos, DSL is not available. You may not have options, which means the one provider to your area has you and they know it. DSL is often better than Cable for Internet, as you do not share the line (as with FTTH). (Often due to throttling of bandwidth, you would be better off with DSL over Cable Internet that is throttled...all cable Internet is throttled hard, Speed Tests only tell you what you could get, not what they will allow you to have, thus they lie.) Since DSL usually costs 1/3 the price of Cable, you could in reality get two different DSL providers and use both cheaper than 1 Cable provider. Imagine streaming content on one, while doing other things on the other.
DD-WRT, OpenWRT and tomato firmware on a supported firewall/router is your best method to determine actual throughput, bandwidth in real time 24 X 7. Cable providers that offer 20Mb/4Mb and 16Mb/4Mb plans, always throttle, reduce. limit, restrict bandwidth to much lower levels. It is common to see bandwidth as low as 200kbs/40Kbs, 100Kbs/30Kbs and 100Kbs/10Kbs...rarely do Cable providers provide the FCC definition for broadband, 768Kbps, rarely if ever upstream will you see above 100Kbps...which is what you really need to stream content...an upstream bandwidth guarantee.
Some DSL providers will offer bandwidth guarantees, no.. up to.. BS. Cable Internet providers will NEVER offer a guarantee and if they do, get it in writing, because they are lying. I can imagine them twisting the marketing in order to mislead and not lose customers as competition starts to destroy their failed tiered pricing model.
Have you been living under a rock? In the U.S. every major city has 100mbit+ net service offered by many providers to residents and business alike. It would more difficult to not find 100mbit in a major urban area than it would be to find it. Even one of my several detractors on this thread offered a link to $50/mo 100/100 [localtel.net]. I got FIOS as do many people. Cox and Charter offer 100mbit.. So.... There's that for ya.
There are less than 30 communities that offer both Fiber To The Home (FTTH) and the same bandwidth upstream as downstream.
With FTTH, No bandwidth caps are necessary as your plan becomes the cap. A 10Mb/10Mb connection provides 10Mb X 24 hours X 365 Days both upstream and downstream without caps, without restrictions. With Fiber done right, FTTH, there is no need to screw over your customers. American consumers have been getting abused since the 1990s.
Your link did not work. The one for $50/mo 100/100
Enough FRAUD. FCC says Broadband = 768Kbps, yet 100% of cable Internet users are throttled to below 768Kbps, in fact 100% are restricted to much, much lower bandwidths than the FCC definition both upstream and downstream. Why is this not FRAUD?
100% of Cable companies throttle bandwidth to below the FCC definition of BROADBAND (768 Kbps), except during the Speed Test. Speed Tests lie. On my DD-WRT firewall/router I see bandwidth throttled immediately after the Speed test finishes to as low as 100Kbs/30Kbs. My guess is if the cable providers allowed for the FCC definition of BROADBAND upstream, most streaming problems would cease to exist. Of course they need the scarcity myth to drive up a customers monthly rates paid to them. Pathetic.
While FIOS offers the same bandwidth upstream in some locations as downstream, it does NOT offer the same bandwidth upstream as downstream on all its plans.
Splitting hairs...means, intent, whatever nuance, the reality, the way patents are being used today, IS NOT who, what, when, why or how the law (that created patents) intended for them to be used. No where in the history of patent law do you see references to multiple companies joining together, pooling patents to prevent competition and innovation. except in the last 20 - 50 years.
Pre US History also shows us that originally exclusive rights (equivalent of a patent) started at 1 year and varyied from 10 years to 20 years in most other countries. Samual Winslows 1641 US patent was for 14 years. In 1861 the term was 17 years. In 1995 the term became 20 years.
Include me in the ranks of those that believe the 2009 patent law, assigning patents to "first to file" instead of the historically "first to invent" will hurt individual inventors and small businesses more than corporations. This too is not what patent laws was designed and/or meant to do.
Cord cutting is just the start, already have done that....saving well over $1,500.00 per year. Plan to save even more by creating my own electricity and auto fuel sometime in the next 3 - 5 years.
Love Voice Over IP (VoIP)
I cut the cord years ago, both phone (landline way back and cellular in 2006) and cable TV. I will ONLY purchase Cable Internet if its my only option...of course I hate the Cable company for their monopoly and the way they treat their customers. Just makes me want to move to one of the 26 - 28 communities with synchronous bi-directional bandwidth plans. And the day I do that, I will NEVER ever purchase Cable TV.
Remember back in the 1980s when your BASIC (TV ONLY) cable bill went from $15 per month to over $30 per month and they would tell you but the cable channels only cost you $1.00 more instead of $15.00. Lost on them (Cable) was the fact that I had not subscribed to any premium channels. Or rather that was the point of the price change. Charging more for less. I have never forgotten and will never forgive, have felt cheated ever since. FYI, I did not know that you can FORCE, via county officials, the Cable company to give you TV ONLY cable service...they will tell you that its not available...they lie. Counties require them to offer it by law for the lower income in your county...but of course they want everyone to pay at least $50 per month, preferably $100 per month.
The Cable company has treated its customers so poorly for the last 20+ years, why should we want to use them. I can not wait to be rid of them. I am only reacting to their customer no-service policies and handling of my service over the years.
Bandwidth throttling ~ anti American.
It does not make me like them more that I pay for 20Mb/4Mb or 16Mb/2MB (Internet Bandwidth download/upload) and they throttle, limit, restrict, reduce my bandwidth (in real time as shown by DD-WRT) to lower than 300Kb/30Kbps, often as low as 100Kb/4Kbps.
Bandwidth Caps ~ anti American.
And to add insult to injury they add in bandwidth caps that are below the expected monthly usage of a typical family (300 GB per month). Remember the first cap they wanted, 50 Gb per month, when people screamed they settled on 200 - 250 Mb per month...still below the 300 GB per month they knew we would need circa 2006.
Hulu, but not if Cable Subscription is required.
Hulu is good with the buffering, however even with Hulu, the cable internet bandwidth is so severely throttled that its skips and sputters. I am guessing that if the companies gave us the FCC definition for broadband upstream, 768Kbps that all streaming content would just work great. Of course they reduce it because they can, not because they have to. Now if Hulu requires a Cable TV subscription, than I will stop using them. Not going to go back to Cable, ever, would rather stop watching TV or any content.
Fiber To The Home is the ONLY answer! (Get FTTH HERE)
Once I relocate to one of the FTTH communities where I can get 10Mb/10Mb; 15Mb/15Mb; 20Mb/20Mb; 30Mb/30Mb; 50Mb/50Mb; 100Mb/100Mb or 1Gb/1Gb than and only than will I subscribe to Hulu....and than only if they DO NOT require any other related subscriptions(no cable subscription) and the price does not exceed $10 per month. I would have become a paid Hulu subscriber a year or two ago if I could get a Broadband bandwidth guarantee and verify that they did not restrict me.
My plan is to move within 2 - 3 years to one of those cities. Thankfully they are growing fast, companies are relocating for the FTTH infrastructure and jobs are being created, so that should help me in the move. An added plus that a FTTH link to a home increases the homes value by $5,000.00. Its #1 on my new home shopping list, the next home I purchase will be my 5th and probably my last, and I will only
No, my guess is they would try to sign it. If enough resistance, they would shelve it for later....like they have done with other laws, Like REALID and NAFTA.
Actually, US States do have their own army. The National Guard units, when not Federalized, are under the direct command of the state Governor, who can call them out on his own authority for various tasks. I grant you, this does not mean they get to run their own foreign policy, but they are the same units that go to Iraq and Afghanistan, so they are definitely real soldiers. They even get tanks and F-22s.
Of course, I don't agree with the idea that EU countries are states. That's silly. However, they could end up that way pretty easily, given enough time.
Very well said. The Governor of each state in the USA could use PUBLIC LAW 105 85, bio warfare or population reduction funded by the Dept of Defense to stop chemtrailing, GMOs and more today. The Gulf States could go after the oil companies as well. No need to pass a law, just start knocking them down, if you want to warn them first, fine but make it clear that no further violation of the state's airspace by unsanctioned and non-air-controlled flyovers will be allowed, should said plane, unmarked aircraft (FFA violation perhaps?) cross the state line a second time, no warning will be offered. F22s, drones, whatever it takes, shoot one or two down and the others will stop. Sorry, not a war monger here, but understand that its the only way to stop the BS.
Remember that 1000 ppm of Aluminum is deemed toxic by the EPA, we are getting multiple thousands every day, quantifiable and measurable in soil, air and water samples, don't take my word for it, start measuring. And GMOs, come on already, do your homework, eat them if you want cancer and illness so that you will die younger...again research, I have...GMOs suck the life out of you.
So Corporations want to be people, while I do not agree with this legislative, court ordered lie, any corporation whose actions kill a person should receive the same legislative and judicial punishment as that of any other person that kills another based on that state's laws. If the death penalty applies, so be it, that corporation should cease to be allowed to do business in that state, granted that does not go far enough IMO. How many Corporations are already mass murders based on the body count alone?
BTW, this is another reason I stopped voting Republican and/or Conservative, they are too quick to get in bed with Corpers, take their money and kill off their own population one experiment at a time, pathetic. They say they stand for family, yet their actions destroy the family. Liberals are not much better. Conservatives say they stand for truth, but their talking points are full of half-truths and lies....pathetic. Don't take my word for it, during the 2012 election listen to Rush Limbaugh, than Randi Rhodes and Thom Hartmann every day for two weeks and decide for yourself who is truthful and who is lying...trust me it will be obvious. It was to me.
Thankfully there is much hope, Conservatives (19%) and LIberals (9%) add up to less than 30% of Americans, so the rest of us just need to stop allowing THEM to divide us and work together...this is their worst FEAR. That we will wake up, unite and re-take our birthrights.
Also you need strong politically independent county sheriffs to stand between county citizens and unlawful and illegal search and seizures by Corper agents masquerading as Government regulatory and enforcement agencies. Just have the armed citizens, the swat and the sheriff stand between these Corper agents (whatever their form) and County citizens, small business owners who are trying to help their communities.
Of course the Governor of the state and the National Guard should support the County Sheriffs and vice versa. As the citizens must stand with them all to affect change. Do it for all our children.
Everything must start locally, secure your vote, town, city and county. Paper trail, if the vote can not be verified, it m
I understand why this was rated informative, thank you for posting. I do not understand how it became a negative however....perhaps because you posted as AC. This post is obviously under-rated.
Here in the Netherlands Internet has become a primary good (A good that is required to be living in the Netherlands). Maybe this is not encoded yet officially in law; but the government requires its citizens to file their taxes through the Internet.
If you would be cut off the internet by a law like ACTA you would have a good case of not having to pay income tax anymore since you would not be able to file them. *This would only work for people who are self employed, since people who work for a boss already pay all their income taxes.
In case you are wondering; it is not possible to use a paper form to fill in your income taxes anymore.
I love it, "cut off the internet by a law like ACTA you would have a good case of not having to pay income tax anymore", not that I believe it would work in practice.
You have one thing very, very right, Internet should be a right, based on birth, for every citizen. Today its the only way to stay informed. As too many other media channels are payed, extremely well, to lie to people...and do it regularly.
There are so many excellent examples where the news media has tried and failed to suppress news,
~ Fukushima (well over 10X worse than Chernobyl (85 X if building collapses) and unstoppable for next 10 years minimum, radiation spreading worldwide through precipitation, currents and winds. Oh that building, not a matter of IF only WHEN it will fall.);
~ US Bank Bailouts (Check out Rolling Stones reporter Matt Taibbi's many articles about how Americans have been bamboozled by all players);
~ Wall Street protests (99% vs 1%, this Spring the crack down will be harsh...its a presidential election year after all);
~ Worldwide financial reform (All nations should take Icelands lead and kick out the World Bankers and Corpers, of course Iceland had a law that allowed its citizens to oppose politicians that do not vote their will, unique in the world.);
~ Oil/gas/fracking pollution
Some OIl/Gas/Fracking Examples:
~ Exxon Valdez - fines still not paid as of 2012, company using courts to wait until claimants die off.;
- Deep Water Oil Spill in 2000 in Norway; proves BP lied when they said an event like this had never happened before...and the whole oil industry knew this simple fact, of course they police, err protect their own, even if their methods and very business kill billions of consumers. I agree its not logical, but you can not dispute their actions.
~ BP Oil continuing to spill and kill off industries/people all over Southeastern US, Mexico, Cuba, South America. Eastern USA coast, the Caribbean and the entire Atlantic. The article, May 21, 2010, was only reporting 70,000 barrels leaking per day, which we now know is much lower than reality, the amount of oil does not matter, the Gulf has been poisoned and it can NOT be completely cleaned out, watch the video, learn how the underwater plumes (rarely talked about) literally strip the ocean of life. How long will it take the micro-organisms that supposedly eat this poison to eat it all, if they even can and what are the ramifications of that? (Disclaimer: The oil companies are saying that there is a micro-organism that eats oil...so grain of salt)
~ cancerous Dispersants (used to hide truth, sink oil, no other value at all but to hide the truth); OIl can be cleaned if it reaches the surface
The continuing problem with the DMCA is the unwillingness to enforce penalties on people or companies who fraudulently submit takedown notices over things that aren't infringing (see today's related Techdirt story).
If you submit a takedown notice, and you sign or check a box saying "I swear under penalty of perjury", and you're wrong, then where are all the perjury charges?
You are right on the money here. Too many (most paid to do so) are using DMCA and DRM to censor speech. Its pathetic. Shame you posted Anonymously and got rated down...probably for that alone.
I don't have the link in front of me or I would post it, but when I read about how many are using Youtube's DMCA / DRM complaint button to censor speech and getting rewarded with Google with Free Adsense ads (which have a value), a light bulb went off. I finally understood why someone who wants to suppress information, beyond the simple censorship issue, they are rewarded for doing so.
I remember a person who posted their original content, no video from anyone else, no music at all, but he was talking about things that obviously someone else wished to censor. And they succeeded to censor him for 24 - 72 hours, when his message would have had the most impact news wise, which was obviously the censors intent. By the time Google reinstated the Video, its impact had been minimized, the censoring entity had won, without fear of repercussions. It would be a no-brainer to imagine people doing this immediately before a big vote and/or election to suppress the truth.
Given the scenario above, why is one person who wrongly accused another of violation of DCMA/DRM, allowed to do so again, and again and again?
Does the provider, in this example, not have a responsibility to the community to prevent this abuse?
I know my usage of Youtube dramatically decreased after this event, went from a daily/nightly user to a few times a month....just killed the community, the channel for me. Any historical/news list that pointed to that video is now damaged, their is a hole in it, where the video use to be...and if the poster re-posts the video, more time is wasted recreating a link that should never have been removed to begin with, pathetic. Even worse if someone has hundreds of videos, posted over multiple years, removed.
If you are not going to fine them, than at least suspend their account, let them defend their lie and when they can't, log THEIR IP address for future reference. When that IP next issues a DCMA takedown notice, first have a real person verify the complaint is legitimate or at least let the person who posted the video respond BEFORE taking down more of their content after they have been previously wrongly accused. The AC was correct, the system will remained flawed until the system thwarts, prevent and punishes those that would use DCMA / DRM as club against FREE SPEECH.
Privacy is the killer app, the site/social network app should be configured from day one with the customer in mind, not politicians, corporations or advertisers. Ultimately they shoot themselves in the foot by ignoring their community and putting money first.
Hint to companies, bring in and build the community, the advertisers will follow. Don't be afraid to tell them (advertisers, politicians and Corpers) to take a hike when they make unreasonable demands....especially if they attempt to censor speech and violate privacy. That is not forgivable. Never was. How DARE they, whoever they are.
2) Trickle effect causing pay raises across the board. Simple fact is some jobs are seen by the economy as being less valuable, less essential, more replaceable, etc. The more valuable you are, the more you make.
How can anyone believe in trickle down economics today, the current economy, high paying job loss and industries going overseas prove beyond doubt that its been a HUGE failure.
In short increasing minimum wage is the only way most Americans, you suggest 30%, but given todays economy, its probably closer to 60%, seriously....but I digress.... The only way most Americans will get a pay increase is if the companies are forced to do so.
If trickle down worked, in light of taxes dropping from over 50% to between 15% - 36%, than America would be at full employment.
Where are the jobs? Not only has America lost more jobs than its created, those jobs pay so much less that is laughable to even attempt to compare them as people like Rick Perry and the current Republican nominee do. pathetic. When you look at the industries that Mitt Romney invested in and is claiming created jobs, look at when he invested and when he sold his investment...he was out of them BEFORE massive numbers of jobs were created. Just another get-me-elected lie.
I am NOT a Democrat...none of the current political parties honestly represent approx 60% or more of Americans today. Not that the MainStream Media wants you to realize that. You might write in someone they do not want elected. Yea you know who I am talking about. There are a few things I do not like about Ron Paul as well, but in total, there is more to like in comparison to the others....just saying.
Imagine what the rest of us, neither liberal (19%) or Cosnervative (9%) could do if we ignored everyone and worked together to secure the vote locally (city, county) and state, change state legislation to make it viable for a 3rd, 4th, 5th party to have a shot at the presidency, and forever break the stranglehold of the current two party system that is paid to vote against our best interest. Imagine what we could do over say the next 20 - 30 years.In light of this thought, neither SCOTUS nor the Presidency matters...just take back control of the states and the House first and remove all the BS that has and is ruining this country in favor of the world's 1%, not even all Americans...ugh. Yes, this is what they HONESTLY FEAR, that we will all work together. Does not matter what they do, it can all be undone. We are closer to this today than we have ever been.
Of course part of me says give Obama 4 more years and give him the House in addition to the Senate, break the road blocks and perhaps he will throw off the shackles he has demonstrated by retaining allot of Bush people in important positions and actually surprise us. After all he can run a 3rd time, why not go for it. He can not do more damage than has already been done to America, of that I am certain. It would be refreshing to see our legislators (all parties) doing their jobs with no guaranteed way to block, they would be forced to work instead of just raising money for political campaigns. Yea probably too wishful...
Profit margins for restaurants are usually around 3-4%. So, if they paid more, they'd probably just eliminate staff and automate more.
This is so not true. In Australia, the staff are paid more (a lot more), and the restaurant meals are cheaper. How can this be possible? The answer is worker productivity. I have worked in the restaurant industry in both Australia and Canada/USA, so I have first hand experience with this. The Canada/USA labour-force is poor in comparison -- both training and work ethic.
There is an interesting bit of history for why Australia has higher minimum wages and greater productivity for minimum-wage workers. It is because of a deal the unions made with industry back in the early 80s, called the Accord. If a workers increase their productivity, then businesses couldn't refuse passing on some of the revenue as a pay raise.
So unions became responsible for worker productivity (otherwise they couldn't obtain pay rises), and then everyone benefited.
Go figure.
I am no longer in that industry, but if I were, I would check out California Pizza Kitchen and In-N-Out.
At California Pizza Kitchen, the managers were encouraged and told to work a 40 hour week (at least 15 years ago they were). You see the Restaurant chain realized that the turnover in Management was actually hurting revenues. By insisting that their Managers made time for their families or just time away from work, everyone benefited...imagine that.
At In-N-Out it is my understanding that a Store Manager can earn 6 figures. If you do not know what you want to do, I would beat a door to their door and get hired and do everything in my power to excel so that they would make me a store manager, remember they are expanding and they are an excellent company from everything I have seen, heard, read and experienced.
Some companies just get it.
I am very much against capitalizing the upside and socializing the downside, like the US did via the bank bailouts.
livable wages, not just minimum wage...if In-N-Out Burger can pay $10.00 per hour to a high schooler getting his first job, what is the excuse for McDonalds, Wendys, Burger King, etc... They could but they do not want too.
Profit margins for restaurants are usually around 3-4%. So, if they paid more, they'd probably just eliminate staff and automate more.
The common misconception, often repeated, always wrong. The profits margins are much, much higher than that in most verticals, though I am sure there is one or two verticals in the industry that are suffering, but 3-4%, that is way low.
I know first hand with second hand verification that by basing the manager's bonus, pay increases and profit sharing on paying workers less is one of the most important factors in most restaurant chains. Of course they apply it to controlling all expenses across the board as any good manager does. The hotel industry is similar, only the Store/Hotel Managers make really great money and it gets real bad, real fast from there.
They do not pay BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE TOO!
Become a manager as my friend and I have and learn this first hand.
Another heads up, meet the targets set and start getting bonused based on performance and the chain will change the policy to prevent and/or minimize future bonuses. Say not only increasing sales by a certain percentage more than the the last two months, but over a larger percentage versus a year earlier. You see they know you can not keep increasing profits and reducing expenses for ever, you always will meet a point of diminishing returns where nothing you do can possibly improve in either direction. At which time you will be pressured to leave so that they can hire in someone to run what you have done for less money per year. The fact that the newbie usually fails miserably does not matter as they have removed your higher salary from their balance sheet and are profiting more anyway.
Also check out any large retail chain and you will find not only that, but that the hours are tightly controlled to prevent the minimum wage workers from qualifying for health care...You see one of them might actually be able to afford the premiums and that would cost the store more money.
livable wages, not just minimum wage...if In-N-Out Burger can pay $10.00 per hour to a high schooler getting his first job, what is the excuse for McDonalds, Wendys, Burger King, etc... They could but they do not want too
McD was founded in 1940 and today has a revenue of 24 Billion USD
InNOut was founded in 1948 and today has a revenue of 565 Million USD.
McD exists in 119 countries.
InNOut exists only in the Western United States.
If you were a shareholder and you had a choice, would you like to grow - like McD or like InNOut.
Definitely In-N-Out, especially now that they are building their supply chain and expanding east. More profit potential. I expect McDonald's revenue and stock price to pretty much stay flat, especially after it cost me $1.40 for their dollar burger, just saying.
When ATT split up, I held on to all seven of the baby bells, ended up being the right choice as they all went up.
Sold that stock (and some other) to use as a down payment on my second house.
The next house I own, will be paid off, no bank note, as I do not want it to be taken from me due to job loss, being lied too, or some other circumstance beyond my control. Probably buy the land for cash before I have a home built on it... however no more bank notes. I was lucky, sold my house before the market tanked. The biggest heads up for me was the fact that friends who were mortgage brokers, real estate agents knew the down turn was coming over 4 years ahead of time...amazing. if you are reading this, make friends with a few reliable people in that industry and buy them drinks on a regular basis, become friends so you will be clued in at the next bubble...oh there will be more bubbles, before things improve, that we can count on.
Hint to all, the housing market will not completely turn around for the next 10 - 15 years, if you want a house, do NOT fall in love with any of them, find an area and low ball them off, figure 700 percent or more markup on the homes that were stolen from others...and buy for the long term 20 - 30 years or more....plan for it to go to your kids. Cut the bank and the financial industry out as they would not hesitate and do cut you out.
In-N-Out is not comparable to McDonalds et al. Most McDonalds are franchises; wages are not set by the corporation. In-N-Out sells a premium product. The In-N-Outs I've seen are drivethrough only.
My experience has been just the opposite, all had inside seating, though they all did have drive-thrus. Once you have had In-N-Out, those other burgers just do not taste as good, something about everything, and I mean everything fresh, nothing frozen philosophy with their supply chain. And the prices are excellent, even in this economy.
And I have never been charged an additional fee for eating inside, to sit down, as I was at McDonalds in the last two weeks...I needed a place to do some work (and there was no In-N-Out nearby, sadly) while waiting on an appointment, had a $1.00 burger (off dollar menu) that cost $1.40, so much for the dollar menu. Did not notice the fee for eating inside the place until after, next time, even if I intend to sit down, I will just tell them that its "to go" and dare them to come say something to me. That will be an interesting conversation. "But sir you did not pay to eat inside." "Please sir can you talk in a lower voice so our other patrons don't look at their receipts and realize we are ripping them off." or perhaps "Were are the linens and silver ware..."
Ford's high wages achieved the goal of acquiring only the best workers. If all manufacturers had started to pay the same as Ford, Ford would not have gotten the best workers, the competitive advantage would disappeared, and Ford's experiment might have failed.
The only reason that they do not pay more is they do not have too. Period. And I repeat as in the original post, Ford was no saint, just a smart businessman, he was reportedly pretty brutal on the shop floor, especially if anyone dared to mention the word union. They were literally beaten according to what I have read.
Health costs are not paid for out of nothing. If a person's living expenses exceed the value of what he produces, he is a net burden on society. He then lives either on charity or theft (one form of theft is getting support from the government.)
There are some, esp the 1%, that like to throw that out there, net burden on society, I think I have heard useless breathers or useless eaters as well...as if those saying that would know what its like to plow a field, gather the eggs from chickens they shucked corn for; bring in the tobacco and hang it in the barn to dry, pick the cotton, clean out the outhouse or my favorite, slop the hogs (have done most of those first hand and I still voted Republican in my first election...later Democrat...now I see the system for what it is and how most (including me at one time) are misled. But I digress.
No they are not paid out of nothing, but the way they game the system, the amount spent on Administration, the amount spent on lobbying all current elected leaders from all parties is just SICK. More than enough to cover health care 100% for every American for the next 10 years without anyone losing their jobs. Not only is the current Health care system SICK, its pervertedly evil, squeezing doctors, patients, everyone involved in every possible way and for what, bonuses for people that know what is in their drugs and thanks to this knowledge will never allow any of their family to take them. Have you watched the Doctors, Nurses and Pharmacists get squeezed from one period to the next over time as has happened in my family. When Reagan was elected, the economy was still doing well people had money to spend, so it was easy to blame everything on malpractice insurance, which while a problem, was THE PROBLEM back in the day....now its just one more problem.
If you thought Oracle vs Google was perfidious, wait until Rockstar here takes aim at Android. It's only a matter of time, and to me it seems like Android was the reason this abomination was formed. They've sealed up the LTE patents, so they'll surely squeeze them on that front, while trying keep on adding layer after layer of patent licenses, with the penultimate target of drowning it and scaring the manufacturers away.
I do believe you are on to something there. Use of the patent system to stifle innovation, especially with rootable devices. By rootable I mean admin or root access so you can install whatever software you want on the device, not to be limited to what is in one company's proprietary store.
I had a Nokia N800 before it got dropped and broke. It was a phenomenal almost fully rootable embedded computer that ran HD H.264 quality videos, had two SD Slots (put two micro SD cards in and expanded it to 8GB), WiFi, AM/FM Radio, Touch Screen, GPS optional, and more. I have been looking at the current Android devices and thinking that if it had at least 500MB RAM (most have more), was fully rootable, that I could pretty much install anything on it. With HTML 5's ability to run web applications offline (while not connected to the Internet) there is literally no excuse for each succeeding device not to run all the older applications but a slew of new applications. Thus your application base, assuming its rootable, should only increase over time. My guess is that the current crop of Cellular handset providers, who keep thwarting root-ability with proprietary chip sets, would definitely use the patent system to stifle innovation in order to maintain their current system of forcing users to purchase new devices prematurely in order to keep them under a virtual perpetual monthly contract.
Seems like they push only 2 and 3 year contracts with new handhelds any more.
Today the good embedded handhelds and tablets are not only rootable, but they have both USB2 and USB3 ports, Ethernet (10/100/1000) port, WiFi, at least one Micro SD slot (two would be better...put one internal under the battery or GPS and have one external would be ideal), HD x.264 quality video, and more.
The next device I purchase will allow root, which will allow me to install PHP and have access to all the PHP applications out there day one. Imagine how many more apps you will have access to with the ability to install Python and Ruby as well.
I am starting to think that if a device has less applications available day one than the last version, its total BS and a sign the device is not in reality very smart. No doubt the freedom of a rootable handheld scares these companies because they understand they have lost control and can not force you into their next yearly plan where you pay more for less. (i.e the Cable Company model with bandwidth, caps, restrictions, etc... only government intervention will stop them, why let embedded devices get to that same place?) Kind of messes with their preferred monetizing strategy. They should simply innovate. They should not only innovate when they are forced too.
Of course with every application, there comes a point where there is no room for significant innovation to spur additional investments, just look at wordprocessors and spreadsheets if you need examples, thus how can they "force" you to upgrade becomes their mantra instead of innovation, thus their focus on patents....pathetic. Forced upgrades, automatic updates, paying a monthly fee for something that would be more economical to own outright, etc...
It would serve them right if everyone not only refused to purchase their new non-rootable device but penalized that company for the next 3 to 7 years by stopping all purchases until they regain their common sense and innovate. A no purchase for 3 years for minor violations and a no purchase for 7 years (any product or device) for major and repeated minor violations.
How long will it be before the politicians see the problem of software patents as harming their countries own industries? Guess it will never happen, as most politicians are educated as sleazy lawyers, and they are only interested in personal gain.
They are paid very well to look the other way, I believe most if not all not only see, but understand exactly what the issues are, they are just jockeying for position to be in the group of politicians to be paid off to vote the way the patent trolls (and the 1%) want them to vote.
As important, if not more, to what they are paid to look the other way, is the amount of money that can be spent against them in any upcoming election via negative campaigning and ads, if they dare to go up against the 1%. And this is specifically thanks to Citizens United ruling increased spending more than 400% over the 2006 mid-term election. Expectation no matter who wins in 2012, Mitt Romney (the long shot) vs President Obama (incumbent), that overall spending will dwarf all past 4-year elections. We can expect assessments about spending to be revealed sometime after the election, it will be an eye-opener.
Even more important, start supporting local businesses with local products and stop feeding the 1% machine that is destroying all of us. It really is that simple.
It would be wrong of anyone to assume that the politicians do not understand exactly what they are doing. Granted what some of them say is really, really stupid and they still get the funding, that should be a heads up. If We the people, voted based on a politicians past actions ONLY, not what they say, the negative campaigning that has allowed the 1% to control the current 2-party system would cease to work.
Most laws today and for the last 20 years have slowly made it more difficult for the average sheeple to see what is being done to them...work harder for less and still lose your savings, your home, your retirement, everything.
I remember when one income would support a household of 4, today most two income families are already underwater and the few that are not are only one medical emergency (or bank bailout) from losing their homes. Hard to pay attention to what politicians are doing to you when you can not put food on the table and keep a roof over your head...the politicians controlled by the 1% have understood this for well over 100 years. Slowly, they have been working toward what we have today. Today there are just more of them (bought and paid for) thus nothing good will ever come out of the current slate of elected officials while the money controls them.
They know, oh they know.
We will know that WE THE PEOPLE have learned when politicians do not DARE to suggest legislation that goes against the Constitution, Its Amendments and the Bill of Rights....RIGHTS by BIRTH. Any law that restricts, removes reduces and eliminates any rights or freedom should never have even been suggested. The fact that they are re-introduced after the FAIL, is more proof that the politicians believe they can do as they please. How DARE they.
When a politician presents, signs on to or votes for laws that go against the above mentioned documents and are re-elected in the very next term, it shows that WE THE PEOPLE are indeed still sheeple and asleep. This applies to all current political parties in the USA, do not mistakenly assume I support one party or another...they all fail based on that last sentence alone...think about it. They voted on it and still they got re-elected, pathetic.
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Obviously the SCOTUS decision, Citizen's United vs FEC is WRONG. With that said, your points seem off to me.
1.. They are not protected from "infringement" by a corporation or individual you willingly enter a contract with. IOW, you are on private property, you have no rights.
Perhaps this part of your statement gives some insight into why the 1% who control 95% of the world wealth spent 30 or 60 years (different perspectives) getting it passed. Why the worked so hard to get Supremes confirmed that would lie (say they would not over-reach nor legislate from the bench during confirmation hearings and do just that once seated) and give them that case. The entire case is both an over reach and legislating from the bench, like over 60 others over the last 100 years.
Are you saying that an individual can take away your birth right (Constitution, Amendments, Bill of Rights) because they are individuals and private, simply because you entered a contract with them....really?
2.. Don't like it? Don't sign. My internet and wireless service are both contract-free. When they change the rules in a way I can't live with, I switch.
You mistakenly assume that you will have a choice, most Americans do not have another choice. In fact most Americans, I am guessing well over 90%, can not escape censorship and fraud with their bandwidth via throttling.
3.. 3. #1 and #2 in mind, they have every right to manage their network however they see fit. They may not have a first amendment right on the network, not being people and all, but you definitely have no such right when using their property -- unless your contract says otherwise.
The infrastructure is not only NOT their property, based on their non performance under contractual law it should be taken away from them and given back to the citizens of the community.
Back in the 1990s, most, if not all, of the existing telcos received one or all of these three for one thing...Fiber To The Home.
WTF? Where's the Fiber?
Americans should demand their money (via taxes) back because the fiber that was agreed to and promised was never delivered, they did not deliver, they did not perform. And just because one company declares bankruptcy and reinvents itself as a different entity they should not be allowed to keep the infrastructure and not deliver on these past promises. They inherited the promise when they inherited the infrastructure and became common carriers for the area for which the Fiber was promised.
WTF? Where's the Fiber?
I will not even get into the FRAUD perpetuated on the American people by 100% of Cable Providers and probably over 95% of Internet providers that declare they provide broadband. FCC defines broadband as a minimum of 756Kbps (yea way too slow but that is the official definition).
Perhaps you can explain whey a provider can throttle bandwidth (especially upstream) to below 756 Kbps and fraudulently claim they provide broadband. Based on my DD-WRT firmware enabled firewall router, I NEVER see BROADBAND speeds EXCEPT during the lying SPEED TEST, immediately following that test, the microsecond it ends, my bandwidth (promised up to 16MB / 4Mb) is throttled to below 101Kb/30Kb. If I say negative things about the cable provider on Twitter, whenever I access that twitter account, my bandwidth is throttled to less than 100Kb/8Kbps.
And they have the nerve to assert that their net neutrality is somehow violated, really?
Its not Americans fault they decided to take our tax dollars and not build out their Fiber networks to the point that throttling is unnecessary. And they somehow want to blame others for their obvious business incompetence. Oh wait, they are making loads o
>> NEED I SAY MORE
Yes. You omitted the part about coming up witht he money for your solution.
I was NOT the anonymous poster...FYI.
Drilling wells ~ not sure what he was going after here... my guess is either water or gas... Fracking must be stopped, as 100% of fracking pollutes ground water which we MUST have to live. I can get my power from other sources...but clean fresh drinkable water...that is more precious. Many just do not realize this fact yet. But they will in the near future.
geothermal ($10K - 20K pipes in ground, less than $5K if you do it yourself, renting a ditch witch type digger) requires burying pipes (cooling heated water with ambient ground temperatures, having water returned for A/C usage) Cost of device to transfer heat I have not checked into.
Solar Powered roofs (I would like to know, esp the newer 3D solar cells that work when its cloudy)
Battery packs to store energy...cost?
Hardware to convert to/from home...cost?
Wind power $800 (barrel type) - $15K (vertical type, blades wrapped around vertical pole, not normal windmill type). All the device I have researched have in excess of a 20 year life...which makes even $20K cheap. $1,000 per year / 12 months = $83.33 per month. I know many people with $300 plus per month electric bills for both heating and A/C....12 months per year.
Hydrogen ($1K - ??K) Big cost is the storage tanks (propane type storage tanks, in a cold climate for heating you might need 6 or 7 tanks to have enough Hydrogen to get you through a winter without sun light. Of course that would depend on how many units you have separating hydrogen from water (clean water not required) and how long it takes you to fill up a tank. If you had enough hydrogen extractors to fill up a tank in 1 day, you would have to have a tank big enough to provide heat for 48 hours and you would only need 3 tanks to meet your demands.
Worth repeating...NO FRACKING ~ as 100% of fracking sites pollute ground water and make it un-drinkable unless you wish to die.
No Nuclear Plants ~ They are NOT cheaper and they are NOT safe. As proved by Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and even in spite of Fukushima some liars attempt to spin it. An "thoreum(sp?)" is as insane as Nuclear...its still a radiated material that has to be stored for over 200,000 years at what cost? And this crap CAN NOT be stored safely, cheaper than ALL alternatives, as the dry casks rated at 100 years, start to crack within 30 - 50 years. How much does it cost to re-cask one dry cask? How is that cheaper? It is NOT.
Cesium-137 is documented to have a half life of 30 years, meaning it should take 10 to 20 halflifes (10 X 30 ~ 20 X 30) to get close, but not exactly, zero radiation wise. Yet 25 years after Chernobyl, scientists have determined that Cesium 137 does not appear to be going away at the rate expected...either that or there was much more radiation released than reported....either way its unlivable within 200 miles of the plant for multiple generations.
Finally keep in mind that we know that over 4,000 energy patents have been secretized, which means the person who imagined it can not create it, can not sell it, can not do anything with it. If you have a new energy device, forget seeking government approval to use as the corporations have locked that avenue down as those 4,000 secret energy patents prove. Just use it yourself, share it with family and friends and warn them to keep it secret or risk losing it for their posterity.
Run for office and remove any impediments to individuals and families from owning their own power, getting off the grid and becoming 100% energy independent.
Before you can help others, you must help yourself, and by all means share it with others.
Monthly, please... Like in "No fee this month and your game won't be able to pull some needed scripts from my site".
Full Disclosure, I would have never purchased your product/service in the first place for this reason alone. Better give me some other payment option other than monthly or forget it.
The first time your company used a forced auto-upgrade or auto-update process to attach my bank account (via credit card) or require a phone number (with no way to opt out) to your bottom line (whether by phone number, credit card, paypal, etc..) I would churn from your product forever..so fast your head would spin. Loved PaintShop Pro, however their attempt to force me to use Windows Vista back in the day, resulted in me churning from them forever...and I loved their product.
And they were not trying to get access to my bank account, credit card or phone number.
P.S. I used a friend's Windows Vista installed laptop, installed the new version of PaintShop Pro (that I purchased) to a USB Micro SD card. Yes they tried to stop me, Sys Admin skills came in handy. It ran just fine on Windows 2000 after that from the micro SD thumb drive, what a joke. Granted I am sure there are some specific features of the product that would go out and re-check for the latest/greatest version of Windows software, but I did not use those features. However the writing was on the wall, time to churn to Gimp and never look back. After learning Gimp's menus there is nothing I can't do that I needed to do with PaintShop Pro, c'est la vie. Basically the same learning curve that comes with each new version of the Windows operating system...
LMAO, a monthly fee, no thank you unless its very, and I mean extremely engaging...come to think of it, can not think of anything that is that engaging....
True freedom comes from minimizing re-occurring payments of any kind. If your ONLY method of monetizing is to force your customer into a monthly fee and deny them access if that fee does not come, you have already failed. You just don't know it yet.
I buy it, I own it, I do with it what I want.
There is a much more customer friendly and intelligent method of earning your customers hard earned money (in addition to building your brand) than forcing them to pay you again, and again and again and again.... usually without offering them anything of value.
1) You simply offer your game for sale. One payment, they own the game. They can play it as much as they want. If its good they will buy more of your products.
2) Than you offer modules (add-ons that enhance the gaming experience) for an additional price.
Finally, If you build a decent MMORPG and can entice your customers to join and pay a monthly fee...in addition to the cost of the game Then you have the holy grail and supposedly are giving your customers something they are willing to get locked into a monthly fee to get. Of course fail to innovate and engage your customers each month and risk losing them, as it should be.
As to us cord cutters, if you want to entice us back, offer a quarterly or yearly fee. Do not require a phone number or updated credit card
Skype attempts to do this, for the first time in 6 years this year ~ 2012 ~ though when you ignore them not providing the required credit card information, the money will come out of your Skype account as you intended, though they will tell you that your service will be canceled without giving them the credit card. Guess writing is on the wall here as well, anyone know of a Linux VoIP solution that will allow phone calls to/from North American telephone and cell phones? Still its a FEAR porn a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt" alt="Fear, uncertainty and doubt">FUD tactic in a vain attempt at securing your personal information, in this case a current credit card number (never mind that
Good response
I had a project a few years ago to try and recover some working code from an Apple 2, and last year I was asked to try and find a way to read some CP/M disks. Those problems *can* be solved. But you're looking at a huge amount of time to try and solve them.
I once was called upon to convert a Surge Tide Data (ocean) program from Cobol to Fortran 77, thankfully had access to the source, so could do it.
Which got me to thinking, How many other programming Language compilers are there for a pure Linux computer (not so much concerned with the distro, but rather is this even possible and if so, which distro might be more likely...better yet if you have done this, please point me in the right direction.
If I wanted to write the Towers of Hanoi programming problem in every possible programming language and do so on a Linux computer, how many languages do you think I could get compilers for on Linux? (A friend of mine did this in college, He wrote it in Assembler, C, Pascal, Fortran, Cobol, C++(I think), and many others, but he had access to both PCs and Mini/Mainframes, thus he did not do this on a single machine as I would like to do. He said the hardest language to do it in was DOS Batch, he had to cheat and use files to do the recursion...I thought it was funny, perhaps one or two of you will as well.
I would like to take a PC from either ZaReason or System 76 (thus no proprietary problems of any kind) and install the compilers/software and do this on a Linux PC...would be interesting to revisit some of the legacy languages I have used over the years just for the kick, just do not want to have to purchase anything to do so.
Can it be done? Where do I find compilers for legacy languages that will run on Linux?
Here is a link to it on Amazon (Soul of a New Machine, paperback) (and no I do not make a penny for the link, put it for informational purposes...though the cover of my copy (in storage so can not provide it) was very different than the one listed here. If memory serves, it was white primarily with some blue and silver, (found an image, I was close, enjoy) but I am guessing, it was back in the late 1980s or early 1990s when I read it. Actually an enjoyable read.
Also no company will pay anyone or any software development house enough money to check for every possible error, it would not be considered smart business and/or cost effective. Not saying I agree or disagree with that, just stating as a fact based on my experience working both in larger Fortune 100 software development and Small Office Home Office (SOHO) software development.
If you can get paid for it, do it, else that is what a maintenance contract (as many others have pointed out) should be for.
Profit margins for restaurants are usually around 3-4%. So, if they paid more, they'd probably just eliminate staff and automate more.
This is so not true. In Australia, the staff are paid more (a lot more), and the restaurant meals are cheaper. How can this be possible? The answer is worker productivity. I have worked in the restaurant industry in both Australia and Canada/USA, so I have first hand experience with this. The Canada/USA labour-force is poor in comparison -- both training and work ethic. There is an interesting bit of history for why Australia has higher minimum wages and greater productivity for minimum-wage workers. It is because of a deal the unions made with industry back in the early 80s, called the Accord. If a workers increase their productivity, then businesses couldn't refuse passing on some of the revenue as a pay raise. So unions became responsible for worker productivity (otherwise they couldn't obtain pay rises), and then everyone benefited. Go figure.
Great post, love first hand experience.
This missing piece here in America is very counter-intuitive. When taxes were HIGH (though I am not in favor of that, have to acknowledge the truth of it) business owners would re-invest in their business in order to shelter their wealth. As the tax rates fell lower (below 50%) the intended effect was if business owners made more they would pay their workers more and hire more workers creating jobs.
That never happened. Instead they paid politicians to drop taxes on investments to even lower levels (15%) where they do not create jobs or wealth for anyone but themselves. Now don't get me wrong, its their money, they can do what they want.
Its just that I would rather be rich in a wealth society than rich in a poor society. With a healthy, wealthy middle class you can have this. Much of President Reagan and President Clinton successes is now understood to be a result of a very robust and strong economy.
Had America had the current economy (depression and recession) much of their policies would never have worked. One need look no farther than the current economy to see what has taken over 50 years to create.
Until politicians get off the corporate tet (lobbyist money) nothing will change. Just a fact.
Its counter intuitive to understand that the tax implications (over 50% tax rates, instead of 15%) was the real driving force that resulted in business owners keeping the money in their business, rather than pulling it out and putting it anywhere else, including overseas.
Unequal trade, tariff policy along with paying companies to take jobs overseas has not helped us either.
Its no mistake that the 1% shelter their profits from taxes overseas and plan to retire overseas in countries like Costa Rica that does NOT have a military. They can afford to leave, where most Americans can not. Me personally, I would rather stay here, secure the vote, retake the state and the national legislatures and fix it for our children than leave.
The most important thing is what we have been doing IS NOT WORKING. And the definition of insanity applies.
Until we have 3rd, 4th and 5th parties to break the legislative strangle hold that is our two party system, nothing will get fixed because they are paid NOT TO FIX IT.
Not sure how you got rated up, given that I did include links to the article and knew it was for a family of four, which still comes to over $4,000 per person...and it is no great health care plan, they simply do not exist today.
Furthermore, objectively, health care costs for a family of four should maybe be $1000/year, including illness and preventive care. All the rest of the money is spent because people like you want gold plated medical plans and then want others to pay for them.
I too would like to know where you are getting your numbers, I provided you with links where I got my numbers, wish you would have given us the same in return for your $1,000 dollar figure.
I shudder to think what is NOT covered. The truth about any voucher system is that it will never be enough to cover what you use to get for less.
Also turning the insurance company into the death panel is not good for any of us. And it does not justify the hospital policy dictated by the insurance carrier. The only hospital chain that I have ever heard of pushing back (when Insurance company refused to pay the bill to the hospital) was a chain in Texas that had over 40% of the market in that area...they basically told the Insurance company, yes you will pay or we will stop taking any of your insurance plans in any of our hospitals. The Insurance company paid.
Knowing doctors personally, I would prefer to allow them to be in charge of my health care assuming they would honor their oath to do no harm.
I find no comfort in knowing that the health care companies MUST provide me health care as I understand that they can keep inflating the premiums until it is NOT affordable to me or anyone else. While Obama's plan sucks, its hugely better than the Republican's non existent plan. Neither serves the needs of Americans, so Democrats should NOT be patting themselves on the back.
Health care started going down hill around 1975/1976 and has only gotten worse. My whole family was in medicine, so I know this first hand also. How many Doctors and pharmacists have you lived with?
The common misconception, often repeated, always wrong. The profits margins are much, much higher than that in most verticals, though I am sure there is one or two verticals in the industry that are suffering, but 3-4%, that is way low.
First, here are the facts:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/average-profit-margin-restaurant-13477.html [chron.com]
First that was not our experience and second (and most important) I call foul on the article based on this comment alone...
Those with checks under $15 showed a profit of 3 percent. Those with checks from $15 to $24.99 boasted the highest profit margin at 3.5 percent. Finally, those with checks of $25 and over had the lowest profits, at 1.8 percent.
Never in the history of any Industry has the high end, more expensive per sale resulted in lower profits. Its hardly a well kept secret that a high end business, with high ticket prices, whether a restaurant or flower shop, make higher profits in spite of less sales volume. Also those price ranges, under $15; $15-$24.99 and $25 and up do not address the high end market at all, were the per plate price is in excess of $25 with the per check amount in the $150 - $250 range. Who did that study anyway. A dinner with one bottle of wine...what about two...now you are in the high end and profits are above the low percentages you and the link are reporting.
The truth is that those patrons that can afford to pay more typically do not experience a recession/depression as patrons who are not as wealthy...so those with higher end shops, do less sales for higher profits and end up making more money...more profits. They are smart enough to avoid price wars that drive most retail businesses profits to the basement.
They do not pay BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE TOO!
Yes, and they don't have to because they can get lots of people willing to work for them for a low price and without health insurance. It's called a labor market and supply and demand.
Supply and Demand...based on the history we have and are currently experiencing that is total BS, there is no FREE Market and you know it. That is another myth. Just look at what corporations spend of their shareholder wealth to pass legislation so that Supply and Demand will not work. come on already.
Next you will be telling me that you still believe in trickle down economics ala Reagan, we are living that wet dream and I too bought into it back in the day...the difference between conservatives and I on that, trickle down economics, is that I can admit that I (and Reagan) was WRONG. Nothing trickles down, if it did, we would be awash in jobs, high paying jobs as those with wealth would shelter their wealth in the company by building the company as they did for 100s of years before laws were changed.
Where are the jobs promised for the lower taxes. Those manging investments only pay around 15%, the rest of us who can't afford or do not have the deductions pay 36%...both far below the 50% or more tax rates of yesteryears....
WHERE ARE THE PROMISED JOBS?
And please keep in mind the reality of lower taxes over the last 50 years (from over 50% to under 36%) and policy changes that drive jobs overseas and higher paying jobs to other countries, to be replaced by lower paying jobs. This is the reality that leads to Fascism... what most conservatives call capitalism today. Which will become a clear reality to the few not awake as military and police are used to enforce bad political policies that help corporations at the expense of the true job creators, small business.
Heck they even go after their own as witnessed by attacks on Ron Paul supporters at Republican meetings from state to state. By now everyone reading this has seen the video of the Republican Rules committee chair whose hip was dislocated by police and the other member of the
I lived in a very large Chicago high-rise with an HOA. They decided to go with the fractional fiber-optic approach with a small provider/reseller/whatever. I'd have to say, the service was incredible. Haven't had anything like it before or since. The best part was that the tech support didn't skip a beat when he asked me about my OS and I said "Ubuntu." Then again, this was the same building that told me I couldn't have orange drapes in my 15th floor unit. Whatever...
Nothing like a positive real life example and in the same town as the person asking the question no less. Having read through almost the entire thread, loved the truth of an entire building or an entire group using their combined bargaining power to get the best deal for everyone.
Whoever set that up for that building did a great job as your response shows.
Best solution for others, move to one of the less than 30 FTTH US communities. With true FTTH, ALL the bandwidth plans offer the same bandwidth upstream and downstream.
If you are unfortunate enough to live in a city like most of us where the service is spotty and not consistent, find out who the backbone providers are in your area and where their networks / telco switching stations are located. Find a home/apartment closer to one of these. The closer you are, the more likely you will get great bandwidth at an affordable monthly rate. And if you must run a local loop, you have that option, though it will cost you each and every month.
If too far away from the telcos, DSL is not available. You may not have options, which means the one provider to your area has you and they know it. DSL is often better than Cable for Internet, as you do not share the line (as with FTTH). (Often due to throttling of bandwidth, you would be better off with DSL over Cable Internet that is throttled...all cable Internet is throttled hard, Speed Tests only tell you what you could get, not what they will allow you to have, thus they lie.) Since DSL usually costs 1/3 the price of Cable, you could in reality get two different DSL providers and use both cheaper than 1 Cable provider. Imagine streaming content on one, while doing other things on the other.
DD-WRT, OpenWRT and tomato firmware on a supported firewall/router is your best method to determine actual throughput, bandwidth in real time 24 X 7. Cable providers that offer 20Mb/4Mb and 16Mb/4Mb plans, always throttle, reduce. limit, restrict bandwidth to much lower levels. It is common to see bandwidth as low as 200kbs/40Kbs, 100Kbs/30Kbs and 100Kbs/10Kbs...rarely do Cable providers provide the FCC definition for broadband, 768Kbps, rarely if ever upstream will you see above 100Kbps...which is what you really need to stream content...an upstream bandwidth guarantee.
Some DSL providers will offer bandwidth guarantees, no .. up to .. BS. Cable Internet providers will NEVER offer a guarantee and if they do, get it in writing, because they are lying. I can imagine them twisting the marketing in order to mislead and not lose customers as competition starts to destroy their failed tiered pricing model.
Have you been living under a rock? In the U.S. every major city has 100mbit+ net service offered by many providers to residents and business alike. It would more difficult to not find 100mbit in a major urban area than it would be to find it. Even one of my several detractors on this thread offered a link to $50/mo 100/100 [localtel.net]. I got FIOS as do many people. Cox and Charter offer 100mbit.. So.... There's that for ya.
There are less than 30 communities that offer both Fiber To The Home (FTTH) and the same bandwidth upstream as downstream.
With FTTH, No bandwidth caps are necessary as your plan becomes the cap. A 10Mb/10Mb connection provides 10Mb X 24 hours X 365 Days both upstream and downstream without caps, without restrictions. With Fiber done right, FTTH, there is no need to screw over your customers. American consumers have been getting abused since the 1990s.
Your link did not work. The one for $50/mo 100/100
Enough FRAUD. FCC says Broadband = 768Kbps, yet 100% of cable Internet users are throttled to below 768Kbps, in fact 100% are restricted to much, much lower bandwidths than the FCC definition both upstream and downstream. Why is this not FRAUD?
100% of Cable companies throttle bandwidth to below the FCC definition of BROADBAND (768 Kbps), except during the Speed Test. Speed Tests lie. On my DD-WRT firewall/router I see bandwidth throttled immediately after the Speed test finishes to as low as 100Kbs/30Kbs. My guess is if the cable providers allowed for the FCC definition of BROADBAND upstream, most streaming problems would cease to exist. Of course they need the scarcity myth to drive up a customers monthly rates paid to them. Pathetic.
While FIOS offers the same bandwidth upstream in some locations as downstream, it does NOT offer the same bandwidth upstream as downstream on all its plans.
Splitting hairs...means, intent, whatever nuance, the reality, the way patents are being used today, IS NOT who, what, when, why or how the law (that created patents) intended for them to be used. No where in the history of patent law do you see references to multiple companies joining together, pooling patents to prevent competition and innovation. except in the last 20 - 50 years.
Pre US History also shows us that originally exclusive rights (equivalent of a patent) started at 1 year and varyied from 10 years to 20 years in most other countries. Samual Winslows 1641 US patent was for 14 years. In 1861 the term was 17 years. In 1995 the term became 20 years.
Include me in the ranks of those that believe the 2009 patent law, assigning patents to "first to file" instead of the historically "first to invent" will hurt individual inventors and small businesses more than corporations. This too is not what patent laws was designed and/or meant to do.
Cord cutting is just the start, already have done that....saving well over $1,500.00 per year. Plan to save even more by creating my own electricity and auto fuel sometime in the next 3 - 5 years.
Love Voice Over IP (VoIP)
I cut the cord years ago, both phone (landline way back and cellular in 2006) and cable TV. I will ONLY purchase Cable Internet if its my only option...of course I hate the Cable company for their monopoly and the way they treat their customers. Just makes me want to move to one of the 26 - 28 communities with synchronous bi-directional bandwidth plans. And the day I do that, I will NEVER ever purchase Cable TV.
Remember back in the 1980s when your BASIC (TV ONLY) cable bill went from $15 per month to over $30 per month and they would tell you but the cable channels only cost you $1.00 more instead of $15.00. Lost on them (Cable) was the fact that I had not subscribed to any premium channels. Or rather that was the point of the price change. Charging more for less. I have never forgotten and will never forgive, have felt cheated ever since. FYI, I did not know that you can FORCE, via county officials, the Cable company to give you TV ONLY cable service...they will tell you that its not available...they lie. Counties require them to offer it by law for the lower income in your county...but of course they want everyone to pay at least $50 per month, preferably $100 per month.
The Cable company has treated its customers so poorly for the last 20+ years, why should we want to use them. I can not wait to be rid of them. I am only reacting to their customer no-service policies and handling of my service over the years.
Bandwidth throttling ~ anti American.
It does not make me like them more that I pay for 20Mb/4Mb or 16Mb/2MB (Internet Bandwidth download/upload) and they throttle, limit, restrict, reduce my bandwidth (in real time as shown by DD-WRT) to lower than 300Kb/30Kbps, often as low as 100Kb/4Kbps.
Bandwidth Caps ~ anti American.
And to add insult to injury they add in bandwidth caps that are below the expected monthly usage of a typical family (300 GB per month). Remember the first cap they wanted, 50 Gb per month, when people screamed they settled on 200 - 250 Mb per month...still below the 300 GB per month they knew we would need circa 2006.
Hulu, but not if Cable Subscription is required.
Hulu is good with the buffering, however even with Hulu, the cable internet bandwidth is so severely throttled that its skips and sputters. I am guessing that if the companies gave us the FCC definition for broadband upstream, 768Kbps that all streaming content would just work great. Of course they reduce it because they can, not because they have to. Now if Hulu requires a Cable TV subscription, than I will stop using them. Not going to go back to Cable, ever, would rather stop watching TV or any content.
Fiber To The Home is the ONLY answer! (Get FTTH HERE)
Once I relocate to one of the FTTH communities where I can get 10Mb/10Mb; 15Mb/15Mb; 20Mb/20Mb; 30Mb/30Mb; 50Mb/50Mb; 100Mb/100Mb or 1Gb/1Gb than and only than will I subscribe to Hulu....and than only if they DO NOT require any other related subscriptions(no cable subscription) and the price does not exceed $10 per month. I would have become a paid Hulu subscriber a year or two ago if I could get a Broadband bandwidth guarantee and verify that they did not restrict me.
My plan is to move within 2 - 3 years to one of those cities. Thankfully they are growing fast, companies are relocating for the FTTH infrastructure and jobs are being created, so that should help me in the move. An added plus that a FTTH link to a home increases the homes value by $5,000.00. Its #1 on my new home shopping list, the next home I purchase will be my 5th and probably my last, and I will only
Are we sure that the senate would reject ACTA?
No, my guess is they would try to sign it. If enough resistance, they would shelve it for later....like they have done with other laws, Like REALID and NAFTA.
Actually, US States do have their own army. The National Guard units, when not Federalized, are under the direct command of the state Governor, who can call them out on his own authority for various tasks. I grant you, this does not mean they get to run their own foreign policy, but they are the same units that go to Iraq and Afghanistan, so they are definitely real soldiers. They even get tanks and F-22s.
Of course, I don't agree with the idea that EU countries are states. That's silly. However, they could end up that way pretty easily, given enough time.
Very well said. The Governor of each state in the USA could use PUBLIC LAW 105 85, bio warfare or population reduction funded by the Dept of Defense to stop chemtrailing, GMOs and more today. The Gulf States could go after the oil companies as well. No need to pass a law, just start knocking them down, if you want to warn them first, fine but make it clear that no further violation of the state's airspace by unsanctioned and non-air-controlled flyovers will be allowed, should said plane, unmarked aircraft (FFA violation perhaps?) cross the state line a second time, no warning will be offered. F22s, drones, whatever it takes, shoot one or two down and the others will stop. Sorry, not a war monger here, but understand that its the only way to stop the BS.
Remember that 1000 ppm of Aluminum is deemed toxic by the EPA, we are getting multiple thousands every day, quantifiable and measurable in soil, air and water samples, don't take my word for it, start measuring. And GMOs, come on already, do your homework, eat them if you want cancer and illness so that you will die younger...again research, I have...GMOs suck the life out of you.
So Corporations want to be people, while I do not agree with this legislative, court ordered lie, any corporation whose actions kill a person should receive the same legislative and judicial punishment as that of any other person that kills another based on that state's laws. If the death penalty applies, so be it, that corporation should cease to be allowed to do business in that state, granted that does not go far enough IMO. How many Corporations are already mass murders based on the body count alone?
BTW, this is another reason I stopped voting Republican and/or Conservative, they are too quick to get in bed with Corpers, take their money and kill off their own population one experiment at a time, pathetic. They say they stand for family, yet their actions destroy the family. Liberals are not much better. Conservatives say they stand for truth, but their talking points are full of half-truths and lies....pathetic. Don't take my word for it, during the 2012 election listen to Rush Limbaugh, than Randi Rhodes and Thom Hartmann every day for two weeks and decide for yourself who is truthful and who is lying...trust me it will be obvious. It was to me.
Thankfully there is much hope, Conservatives (19%) and LIberals (9%) add up to less than 30% of Americans, so the rest of us just need to stop allowing THEM to divide us and work together...this is their worst FEAR. That we will wake up, unite and re-take our birthrights.
Also you need strong politically independent county sheriffs to stand between county citizens and unlawful and illegal search and seizures by Corper agents masquerading as Government regulatory and enforcement agencies. Just have the armed citizens, the swat and the sheriff stand between these Corper agents (whatever their form) and County citizens, small business owners who are trying to help their communities.
Of course the Governor of the state and the National Guard should support the County Sheriffs and vice versa. As the citizens must stand with them all to affect change. Do it for all our children.
Everything must start locally, secure your vote, town, city and county. Paper trail, if the vote can not be verified, it m
I understand why this was rated informative, thank you for posting. I do not understand how it became a negative however....perhaps because you posted as AC. This post is obviously under-rated.
Here in the Netherlands Internet has become a primary good (A good that is required to be living in the Netherlands). Maybe this is not encoded yet officially in law; but the government requires its citizens to file their taxes through the Internet.
If you would be cut off the internet by a law like ACTA you would have a good case of not having to pay income tax anymore since you would not be able to file them. *This would only work for people who are self employed, since people who work for a boss already pay all their income taxes.
In case you are wondering; it is not possible to use a paper form to fill in your income taxes anymore.
I love it, "cut off the internet by a law like ACTA you would have a good case of not having to pay income tax anymore", not that I believe it would work in practice.
You have one thing very, very right, Internet should be a right, based on birth, for every citizen. Today its the only way to stay informed. As too many other media channels are payed, extremely well, to lie to people...and do it regularly.
The continuing problem with the DMCA is the unwillingness to enforce penalties on people or companies who fraudulently submit takedown notices over things that aren't infringing (see today's related Techdirt story).
If you submit a takedown notice, and you sign or check a box saying "I swear under penalty of perjury", and you're wrong, then where are all the perjury charges?
You are right on the money here. Too many (most paid to do so) are using DMCA and DRM to censor speech. Its pathetic. Shame you posted Anonymously and got rated down...probably for that alone.
I don't have the link in front of me or I would post it, but when I read about how many are using Youtube's DMCA / DRM complaint button to censor speech and getting rewarded with Google with Free Adsense ads (which have a value), a light bulb went off. I finally understood why someone who wants to suppress information, beyond the simple censorship issue, they are rewarded for doing so.
I remember a person who posted their original content, no video from anyone else, no music at all, but he was talking about things that obviously someone else wished to censor. And they succeeded to censor him for 24 - 72 hours, when his message would have had the most impact news wise, which was obviously the censors intent. By the time Google reinstated the Video, its impact had been minimized, the censoring entity had won, without fear of repercussions. It would be a no-brainer to imagine people doing this immediately before a big vote and/or election to suppress the truth.
Given the scenario above, why is one person who wrongly accused another of violation of DCMA/DRM, allowed to do so again, and again and again?
Does the provider, in this example, not have a responsibility to the community to prevent this abuse?
I know my usage of Youtube dramatically decreased after this event, went from a daily/nightly user to a few times a month....just killed the community, the channel for me. Any historical/news list that pointed to that video is now damaged, their is a hole in it, where the video use to be...and if the poster re-posts the video, more time is wasted recreating a link that should never have been removed to begin with, pathetic. Even worse if someone has hundreds of videos, posted over multiple years, removed.
If you are not going to fine them, than at least suspend their account, let them defend their lie and when they can't, log THEIR IP address for future reference. When that IP next issues a DCMA takedown notice, first have a real person verify the complaint is legitimate or at least let the person who posted the video respond BEFORE taking down more of their content after they have been previously wrongly accused. The AC was correct, the system will remained flawed until the system thwarts, prevent and punishes those that would use DCMA / DRM as club against FREE SPEECH.
Privacy is the killer app, the site/social network app should be configured from day one with the customer in mind, not politicians, corporations or advertisers. Ultimately they shoot themselves in the foot by ignoring their community and putting money first.
Hint to companies, bring in and build the community, the advertisers will follow. Don't be afraid to tell them (advertisers, politicians and Corpers) to take a hike when they make unreasonable demands....especially if they attempt to censor speech and violate privacy. That is not forgivable. Never was. How DARE they, whoever they are.
2) Trickle effect causing pay raises across the board. Simple fact is some jobs are seen by the economy as being less valuable, less essential, more replaceable, etc. The more valuable you are, the more you make.
How can anyone believe in trickle down economics today, the current economy, high paying job loss and industries going overseas prove beyond doubt that its been a HUGE failure.
In short increasing minimum wage is the only way most Americans, you suggest 30%, but given todays economy, its probably closer to 60%, seriously....but I digress.... The only way most Americans will get a pay increase is if the companies are forced to do so.
If trickle down worked, in light of taxes dropping from over 50% to between 15% - 36%, than America would be at full employment.
Where are the jobs? Not only has America lost more jobs than its created, those jobs pay so much less that is laughable to even attempt to compare them as people like Rick Perry and the current Republican nominee do. pathetic. When you look at the industries that Mitt Romney invested in and is claiming created jobs, look at when he invested and when he sold his investment...he was out of them BEFORE massive numbers of jobs were created. Just another get-me-elected lie.
I am NOT a Democrat...none of the current political parties honestly represent approx 60% or more of Americans today. Not that the MainStream Media wants you to realize that. You might write in someone they do not want elected. Yea you know who I am talking about. There are a few things I do not like about Ron Paul as well, but in total, there is more to like in comparison to the others....just saying.
Imagine what the rest of us, neither liberal (19%) or Cosnervative (9%) could do if we ignored everyone and worked together to secure the vote locally (city, county) and state, change state legislation to make it viable for a 3rd, 4th, 5th party to have a shot at the presidency, and forever break the stranglehold of the current two party system that is paid to vote against our best interest. Imagine what we could do over say the next 20 - 30 years.In light of this thought, neither SCOTUS nor the Presidency matters...just take back control of the states and the House first and remove all the BS that has and is ruining this country in favor of the world's 1%, not even all Americans...ugh. Yes, this is what they HONESTLY FEAR, that we will all work together. Does not matter what they do, it can all be undone. We are closer to this today than we have ever been.
Of course part of me says give Obama 4 more years and give him the House in addition to the Senate, break the road blocks and perhaps he will throw off the shackles he has demonstrated by retaining allot of Bush people in important positions and actually surprise us. After all he can run a 3rd time, why not go for it. He can not do more damage than has already been done to America, of that I am certain. It would be refreshing to see our legislators (all parties) doing their jobs with no guaranteed way to block, they would be forced to work instead of just raising money for political campaigns. Yea probably too wishful...
Profit margins for restaurants are usually around 3-4%. So, if they paid more, they'd probably just eliminate staff and automate more.
This is so not true. In Australia, the staff are paid more (a lot more), and the restaurant meals are cheaper. How can this be possible? The answer is worker productivity. I have worked in the restaurant industry in both Australia and Canada/USA, so I have first hand experience with this. The Canada/USA labour-force is poor in comparison -- both training and work ethic. There is an interesting bit of history for why Australia has higher minimum wages and greater productivity for minimum-wage workers. It is because of a deal the unions made with industry back in the early 80s, called the Accord. If a workers increase their productivity, then businesses couldn't refuse passing on some of the revenue as a pay raise. So unions became responsible for worker productivity (otherwise they couldn't obtain pay rises), and then everyone benefited. Go figure.
I am no longer in that industry, but if I were, I would check out California Pizza Kitchen and In-N-Out.
At California Pizza Kitchen, the managers were encouraged and told to work a 40 hour week (at least 15 years ago they were). You see the Restaurant chain realized that the turnover in Management was actually hurting revenues. By insisting that their Managers made time for their families or just time away from work, everyone benefited...imagine that.
At In-N-Out it is my understanding that a Store Manager can earn 6 figures. If you do not know what you want to do, I would beat a door to their door and get hired and do everything in my power to excel so that they would make me a store manager, remember they are expanding and they are an excellent company from everything I have seen, heard, read and experienced.
Some companies just get it.
I am very much against capitalizing the upside and socializing the downside, like the US did via the bank bailouts.
Profit margins for restaurants are usually around 3-4%. So, if they paid more, they'd probably just eliminate staff and automate more.
The common misconception, often repeated, always wrong. The profits margins are much, much higher than that in most verticals, though I am sure there is one or two verticals in the industry that are suffering, but 3-4%, that is way low.
I know first hand with second hand verification that by basing the manager's bonus, pay increases and profit sharing on paying workers less is one of the most important factors in most restaurant chains. Of course they apply it to controlling all expenses across the board as any good manager does. The hotel industry is similar, only the Store/Hotel Managers make really great money and it gets real bad, real fast from there.
They do not pay BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE TOO!
Become a manager as my friend and I have and learn this first hand.
Another heads up, meet the targets set and start getting bonused based on performance and the chain will change the policy to prevent and/or minimize future bonuses. Say not only increasing sales by a certain percentage more than the the last two months, but over a larger percentage versus a year earlier. You see they know you can not keep increasing profits and reducing expenses for ever, you always will meet a point of diminishing returns where nothing you do can possibly improve in either direction. At which time you will be pressured to leave so that they can hire in someone to run what you have done for less money per year. The fact that the newbie usually fails miserably does not matter as they have removed your higher salary from their balance sheet and are profiting more anyway.
Also check out any large retail chain and you will find not only that, but that the hours are tightly controlled to prevent the minimum wage workers from qualifying for health care...You see one of them might actually be able to afford the premiums and that would cost the store more money.
McD was founded in 1940 and today has a revenue of 24 Billion USD InNOut was founded in 1948 and today has a revenue of 565 Million USD.
McD exists in 119 countries. InNOut exists only in the Western United States.
If you were a shareholder and you had a choice, would you like to grow - like McD or like InNOut.
Definitely In-N-Out, especially now that they are building their supply chain and expanding east. More profit potential. I expect McDonald's revenue and stock price to pretty much stay flat, especially after it cost me $1.40 for their dollar burger, just saying.
When ATT split up, I held on to all seven of the baby bells, ended up being the right choice as they all went up.
Sold that stock (and some other) to use as a down payment on my second house.
The next house I own, will be paid off, no bank note, as I do not want it to be taken from me due to job loss, being lied too, or some other circumstance beyond my control. Probably buy the land for cash before I have a home built on it... however no more bank notes. I was lucky, sold my house before the market tanked. The biggest heads up for me was the fact that friends who were mortgage brokers, real estate agents knew the down turn was coming over 4 years ahead of time...amazing. if you are reading this, make friends with a few reliable people in that industry and buy them drinks on a regular basis, become friends so you will be clued in at the next bubble...oh there will be more bubbles, before things improve, that we can count on.
Hint to all, the housing market will not completely turn around for the next 10 - 15 years, if you want a house, do NOT fall in love with any of them, find an area and low ball them off, figure 700 percent or more markup on the homes that were stolen from others...and buy for the long term 20 - 30 years or more....plan for it to go to your kids. Cut the bank and the financial industry out as they would not hesitate and do cut you out.
In-N-Out is not comparable to McDonalds et al. Most McDonalds are franchises; wages are not set by the corporation. In-N-Out sells a premium product. The In-N-Outs I've seen are drivethrough only.
My experience has been just the opposite, all had inside seating, though they all did have drive-thrus. Once you have had In-N-Out, those other burgers just do not taste as good, something about everything, and I mean everything fresh, nothing frozen philosophy with their supply chain. And the prices are excellent, even in this economy.
And I have never been charged an additional fee for eating inside, to sit down, as I was at McDonalds in the last two weeks...I needed a place to do some work (and there was no In-N-Out nearby, sadly) while waiting on an appointment, had a $1.00 burger (off dollar menu) that cost $1.40, so much for the dollar menu. Did not notice the fee for eating inside the place until after, next time, even if I intend to sit down, I will just tell them that its "to go" and dare them to come say something to me. That will be an interesting conversation. "But sir you did not pay to eat inside." "Please sir can you talk in a lower voice so our other patrons don't look at their receipts and realize we are ripping them off." or perhaps "Were are the linens and silver ware..."
Ford's high wages achieved the goal of acquiring only the best workers. If all manufacturers had started to pay the same as Ford, Ford would not have gotten the best workers, the competitive advantage would disappeared, and Ford's experiment might have failed.
The only reason that they do not pay more is they do not have too. Period. And I repeat as in the original post, Ford was no saint, just a smart businessman, he was reportedly pretty brutal on the shop floor, especially if anyone dared to mention the word union. They were literally beaten according to what I have read.
Health costs are not paid for out of nothing. If a person's living expenses exceed the value of what he produces, he is a net burden on society. He then lives either on charity or theft (one form of theft is getting support from the government.)
There are some, esp the 1%, that like to throw that out there, net burden on society, I think I have heard useless breathers or useless eaters as well...as if those saying that would know what its like to plow a field, gather the eggs from chickens they shucked corn for; bring in the tobacco and hang it in the barn to dry, pick the cotton, clean out the outhouse or my favorite, slop the hogs (have done most of those first hand and I still voted Republican in my first election...later Democrat...now I see the system for what it is and how most (including me at one time) are misled. But I digress.
No they are not paid out of nothing, but the way they game the system, the amount spent on Administration, the amount spent on lobbying all current elected leaders from all parties is just SICK. More than enough to cover health care 100% for every American for the next 10 years without anyone losing their jobs. Not only is the current Health care system SICK, its pervertedly evil, squeezing doctors, patients, everyone involved in every possible way and for what, bonuses for people that know what is in their drugs and thanks to this knowledge will never allow any of their family to take them. Have you watched the Doctors, Nurses and Pharmacists get squeezed from one period to the next over time as has happened in my family. When Reagan was elected, the economy was still doing well people had money to spend, so it was easy to blame everything on malpractice insurance, which while a problem, was THE PROBLEM back in the day....now its just one more problem.
One good definition deserves another...
fascism ~ ( sometimes initial capital letter ) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing
If you thought Oracle vs Google was perfidious, wait until Rockstar here takes aim at Android. It's only a matter of time, and to me it seems like Android was the reason this abomination was formed. They've sealed up the LTE patents, so they'll surely squeeze them on that front, while trying keep on adding layer after layer of patent licenses, with the penultimate target of drowning it and scaring the manufacturers away.
I do believe you are on to something there. Use of the patent system to stifle innovation, especially with rootable devices. By rootable I mean admin or root access so you can install whatever software you want on the device, not to be limited to what is in one company's proprietary store.
I had a Nokia N800 before it got dropped and broke. It was a phenomenal almost fully rootable embedded computer that ran HD H.264 quality videos, had two SD Slots (put two micro SD cards in and expanded it to 8GB), WiFi, AM/FM Radio, Touch Screen, GPS optional, and more. I have been looking at the current Android devices and thinking that if it had at least 500MB RAM (most have more), was fully rootable, that I could pretty much install anything on it. With HTML 5's ability to run web applications offline (while not connected to the Internet) there is literally no excuse for each succeeding device not to run all the older applications but a slew of new applications. Thus your application base, assuming its rootable, should only increase over time. My guess is that the current crop of Cellular handset providers, who keep thwarting root-ability with proprietary chip sets, would definitely use the patent system to stifle innovation in order to maintain their current system of forcing users to purchase new devices prematurely in order to keep them under a virtual perpetual monthly contract.
Seems like they push only 2 and 3 year contracts with new handhelds any more.
Today the good embedded handhelds and tablets are not only rootable, but they have both USB2 and USB3 ports, Ethernet (10/100/1000) port, WiFi, at least one Micro SD slot (two would be better...put one internal under the battery or GPS and have one external would be ideal), HD x.264 quality video, and more.
The next device I purchase will allow root, which will allow me to install PHP and have access to all the PHP applications out there day one. Imagine how many more apps you will have access to with the ability to install Python and Ruby as well.
I am starting to think that if a device has less applications available day one than the last version, its total BS and a sign the device is not in reality very smart. No doubt the freedom of a rootable handheld scares these companies because they understand they have lost control and can not force you into their next yearly plan where you pay more for less. (i.e the Cable Company model with bandwidth, caps, restrictions, etc... only government intervention will stop them, why let embedded devices get to that same place?) Kind of messes with their preferred monetizing strategy. They should simply innovate. They should not only innovate when they are forced too.
Of course with every application, there comes a point where there is no room for significant innovation to spur additional investments, just look at wordprocessors and spreadsheets if you need examples, thus how can they "force" you to upgrade becomes their mantra instead of innovation, thus their focus on patents....pathetic. Forced upgrades, automatic updates, paying a monthly fee for something that would be more economical to own outright, etc...
It would serve them right if everyone not only refused to purchase their new non-rootable device but penalized that company for the next 3 to 7 years by stopping all purchases until they regain their common sense and innovate. A no purchase for 3 years for minor violations and a no purchase for 7 years (any product or device) for major and repeated minor violations.
If we all did this, they WOULD NOT DARE.
This is in clear violation of the original intent of patents.
I do not understand why you were voted down, this is very, very true and my understanding as well. Where are the mod points when you need them. Ugh.
How long will it be before the politicians see the problem of software patents as harming their countries own industries? Guess it will never happen, as most politicians are educated as sleazy lawyers, and they are only interested in personal gain.
They are paid very well to look the other way, I believe most if not all not only see, but understand exactly what the issues are, they are just jockeying for position to be in the group of politicians to be paid off to vote the way the patent trolls (and the 1%) want them to vote.
As important, if not more, to what they are paid to look the other way, is the amount of money that can be spent against them in any upcoming election via negative campaigning and ads, if they dare to go up against the 1%. And this is specifically thanks to Citizens United ruling increased spending more than 400% over the 2006 mid-term election. Expectation no matter who wins in 2012, Mitt Romney (the long shot) vs President Obama (incumbent), that overall spending will dwarf all past 4-year elections. We can expect assessments about spending to be revealed sometime after the election, it will be an eye-opener.
Even more important, start supporting local businesses with local products and stop feeding the 1% machine that is destroying all of us. It really is that simple.
It would be wrong of anyone to assume that the politicians do not understand exactly what they are doing. Granted what some of them say is really, really stupid and they still get the funding, that should be a heads up. If We the people, voted based on a politicians past actions ONLY, not what they say, the negative campaigning that has allowed the 1% to control the current 2-party system would cease to work.
Most laws today and for the last 20 years have slowly made it more difficult for the average sheeple to see what is being done to them...work harder for less and still lose your savings, your home, your retirement, everything.
I remember when one income would support a household of 4, today most two income families are already underwater and the few that are not are only one medical emergency (or bank bailout) from losing their homes. Hard to pay attention to what politicians are doing to you when you can not put food on the table and keep a roof over your head...the politicians controlled by the 1% have understood this for well over 100 years. Slowly, they have been working toward what we have today. Today there are just more of them (bought and paid for) thus nothing good will ever come out of the current slate of elected officials while the money controls them.
They know, oh they know.
We will know that WE THE PEOPLE have learned when politicians do not DARE to suggest legislation that goes against the Constitution, Its Amendments and the Bill of Rights....RIGHTS by BIRTH. Any law that restricts, removes reduces and eliminates any rights or freedom should never have even been suggested. The fact that they are re-introduced after the FAIL, is more proof that the politicians believe they can do as they please. How DARE they.
When a politician presents, signs on to or votes for laws that go against the above mentioned documents and are re-elected in the very next term, it shows that WE THE PEOPLE are indeed still sheeple and asleep. This applies to all current political parties in the USA, do not mistakenly assume I support one party or another...they all fail based on that last sentence alone...think about it. They voted on it and still they got re-elected, pathetic.