There are mechanisms to charge you different rates based on your usage - they already exist. There are various tiers for your alloted download / upload amounts - it is not as "Unlimitted" as you might think it is. If your brother in law goes over 100GB a month and isn't on fibre optic - he probably pays more than his monthly plan is set for.
They treat it more like television currently - and I'd rather it stay like that as opposed to being charged for every bit of traffic I use. ISP's will find ways to abuse that - like phone providers do with data packages. "You opened your browser and closed it immediately. That initial request for your homepage costs you 1MB"
Sounds like they contacted her family members or co-workers through Facebook notes, so it doesn't look as bad as posting it to the wall, but still - bringing up that they are a debtor is like you said, usually against the law.
I also had some 'debt collection agency' call me about my phone bill, from months prior. They seemed very pushy that they could "Get it sorted out real easily over phone" - meaning they wanted my credit card number.
I don't really understand the whole debt collection business, but I would find it fairly odd that my phone company would send debt collectors after me having A) Never tried to contact me and B) Continue giving me service.
I told the guy over the phone, that if I had outstanding bills with the phone company, that they should cut me off and I'll deal with them in person. I reported the phone number to the RCMP as suspicious (Because I live in Canada), and never heard any more on the subject matter.
I would hope that you are doing something similar - I assume you have your suspicions that its just a scam, right?
Or make existing methods more accessible or easier to use?
I know that if there was a simple phone number to call, and all I had to do is call in and say "Hi, I live here, don't bring me a phonebook, thanks" I would do that and be done with it.
Than you surely wouldn't like much of quantum physics either. It'll all seem like a bunch of straw man arguments because you simply have to take their word that what they're saying is happening is actually happening.
I'm just asking the question, because I don't have a great deal of knowledge about this, but could an alternative explanation be that our theory of gravity is wrong?
Kind of.
In all other experiments, our understanding of Gravity works just fine. In this one situation however, it does not. Someone proposes the idea of Dark Matter - which fits the bill almost perfectly, as it accounts for what we've seen.
Alternatively, our understanding is wrong. We don't know how its wrong, or why its wrong, it's just not working. When we look at hundreds of other examples, it works. When we look at this one, it doesn't.
Is it more plausible to discount our theory based on the 1 case where it doesn't hold up, or assume there is something special about that one case that seperates it from the others.
Thats why Dark Matter holds some water. But - by all means, it is entirely possible that we don't have it quite right, we could be missing some variables that simply are negligable at a non-cosmic scale.
Well - MMORPG's are still in development and making their way to be games, perhaps the "Subscribe to play" MMORPG bubble has popped. I mean, DND online and LotR online and Warhammer all kind of adopted more "free to play" methodologies (even if only up to a certain level on some titles). And all the ones that were free to play from the start are still doing alright (Like Guild Wars). There's a few other subscription based ones besides WoW that are doing alright (Like Eve is steadily growing, I don't know how the Final Fantasies are doing but last I heard they were alright).
Perhaps we reached critical mass - and its in the stage of popping - none of the real MMO bubble companies seem to have gone under, this just sounds like a story of a failed game, which there are plenty of in every genre. You know Gamestop used to have a Desperate Housewives game on the shelf for 10 dollars? I can't find it anymore, I am ever curious as to how bad it was.
no amount of 'equality' legislation in the political arena, can offset this economic power; the one with the gold makes the rule.
As an interesting side note - Canada has some wacky ways regarding that. In order to work on government contracts the government may specify that you meet certain criteria to call you an "equal opportunity employer". Basically meaning, do you have enough female managers, have you employed enough visible minorities, do you have anyone disabled in the company - that kinda stuff.
However, none of these are requirements that any actual arm of the government has to abide by. Just a company working with the government. Doesn't that seem strange?
It's very easy to look at the short story and go "The government wants to read my packets?!?!? Oh Noes this must be bad!" Usually that can get a +5 insightful.
I opened the Article to find it was another one from Michael Geist. Now, normally he puts me off, it seems like there was a week or two there where he kept flooding the world with news about ACTA, and I was getting tired of hearing about it because it was the same old thing, bad bad bad. So I started reading the article and the bills that were being proposed - and he actually seems to be on the mark with this one. Basically what the whole thing boils down to is this:
The Law Enforcement Agencies want to be able to read internet traffic, real time, and have access to the information the ISP has on whoever is in that conversation. While some of these details are already within the ISP's ability to give out voluntarily should the Police ask for it, basically they want it set in stone that they MUST. Makes me wonder if there was an issue where an ISP refused to hand over data recently, or if they simple said "We can't sniff their traffic".
Now - I have a strong feeling that this will fail. Why? It seems that they want ISP's to foot the bill. An ISP isn't going to want to pay any more money than they have to. They won't be getting any kind of a kickback from the government - law enforcement isn't exactly a money making industry. So I see Telus and Shaw and Bell and whoever probably starting to grease some palms to make sure this thing doesn't pass.
Unless there is some odd reason that ISP's would willingly want to comply with this (which would mean they're likely getting refunded somehow) then I would be a little more worried. If Geist can find evidence of that, well, that'd be quite a story!
I can't imagine Blizz releasing a game without Battle.net support for multiplayer and achievements though. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft will allow that. B.net is as fully featured as Live is these days so this could be a major sticking point that pushes Blizzard content towards the PS3 similar to what happened with Steam.
I can't imagine them not working out some kind of deal - there'd be no real difficulty to tie a Bnet account to an Xbox live account, they've already shown they can tie Bnet with WoW accounts - Facebook accounts - and whatever else they want. So Achievements can be both Xbox live and Bnet achievements - the system is pretty much just a mirror'd reference to each other.
And if other games can get their own servers, like forcing all Call of Duty Multiplayer traffic through a few servers, why wouldn't Blizzard get the same treatment?
The only way I see Blizzard not doing business on the 360 is if Microsoft goes and makes some ludicrous demand like an exclusive. Otherwise I see PS3 and 360 Ports of D2 & D3 in the potential future.
Lucky break they got, recovering the capsule themselves.
That kind of stuff is usually figured out pretty easily logistically. There's really only a small window where re-entry can be done with enough safety to preserve whatever it is you're bringing back. So you know the weight - and the speed it's currently at - and you use that to calculate the angle for re-entry and then its a simple high school physics problem to find out where it'll land.
Slashdot Mirror
There are mechanisms to charge you different rates based on your usage - they already exist. There are various tiers for your alloted download / upload amounts - it is not as "Unlimitted" as you might think it is. If your brother in law goes over 100GB a month and isn't on fibre optic - he probably pays more than his monthly plan is set for.
They treat it more like television currently - and I'd rather it stay like that as opposed to being charged for every bit of traffic I use. ISP's will find ways to abuse that - like phone providers do with data packages. "You opened your browser and closed it immediately. That initial request for your homepage costs you 1MB"
Sounds like they contacted her family members or co-workers through Facebook notes, so it doesn't look as bad as posting it to the wall, but still - bringing up that they are a debtor is like you said, usually against the law.
I also had some 'debt collection agency' call me about my phone bill, from months prior. They seemed very pushy that they could "Get it sorted out real easily over phone" - meaning they wanted my credit card number.
I don't really understand the whole debt collection business, but I would find it fairly odd that my phone company would send debt collectors after me having A) Never tried to contact me and B) Continue giving me service.
I told the guy over the phone, that if I had outstanding bills with the phone company, that they should cut me off and I'll deal with them in person. I reported the phone number to the RCMP as suspicious (Because I live in Canada), and never heard any more on the subject matter.
I would hope that you are doing something similar - I assume you have your suspicions that its just a scam, right?
Ed Vaizey went on further to say "The Internet is not something that you just lump something on. It's not a big train. It's a series of pipes"
If you thought the best way to score points was simply A to B as fast as possible, you missed the concept of the game.
You got more points for being an unscrupulously DANGEROUS driver and JUST making the time than you did by getting there asap.
Mine never have. So yes - I feel quite sheepish now.
Apparently I'm living in the stone age - other people's phones work when the power is uot.
Your phone works in a power outage?
When did this happen? I must be living in the stone age.
We didn't have a problem with the cost all throughout the past decade - Did paper get exceedingly expensive this decade?
The Yellow pages are mostly covered in cost by advertising.
...
You lost me.
Are you using a mobile phone? Then why aren't the numbers in your phone...
Are you using a landline? YOUR POWER IS OUT!
Create some method for people to opt out?
Or make existing methods more accessible or easier to use?
I know that if there was a simple phone number to call, and all I had to do is call in and say "Hi, I live here, don't bring me a phonebook, thanks" I would do that and be done with it.
This is clearly an attack on Adobe somehow!
I don't understand the logistics of it, but I'm sure it somehow ruins flash on the iPhone.
In a sane society
Sounds like you too believe in fairy tales.
Than you surely wouldn't like much of quantum physics either. It'll all seem like a bunch of straw man arguments because you simply have to take their word that what they're saying is happening is actually happening.
I'm just asking the question, because I don't have a great deal of knowledge about this, but could an alternative explanation be that our theory of gravity is wrong?
Kind of.
In all other experiments, our understanding of Gravity works just fine. In this one situation however, it does not. Someone proposes the idea of Dark Matter - which fits the bill almost perfectly, as it accounts for what we've seen.
Alternatively, our understanding is wrong. We don't know how its wrong, or why its wrong, it's just not working. When we look at hundreds of other examples, it works. When we look at this one, it doesn't.
Is it more plausible to discount our theory based on the 1 case where it doesn't hold up, or assume there is something special about that one case that seperates it from the others.
Thats why Dark Matter holds some water. But - by all means, it is entirely possible that we don't have it quite right, we could be missing some variables that simply are negligable at a non-cosmic scale.
So, the MMORPG bubble has officially popped?
Well - MMORPG's are still in development and making their way to be games, perhaps the "Subscribe to play" MMORPG bubble has popped. I mean, DND online and LotR online and Warhammer all kind of adopted more "free to play" methodologies (even if only up to a certain level on some titles). And all the ones that were free to play from the start are still doing alright (Like Guild Wars). There's a few other subscription based ones besides WoW that are doing alright (Like Eve is steadily growing, I don't know how the Final Fantasies are doing but last I heard they were alright).
Perhaps we reached critical mass - and its in the stage of popping - none of the real MMO bubble companies seem to have gone under, this just sounds like a story of a failed game, which there are plenty of in every genre. You know Gamestop used to have a Desperate Housewives game on the shelf for 10 dollars? I can't find it anymore, I am ever curious as to how bad it was.
There is the odd word here and there that I can't quite make out.
I would tell you which words those are but...
no amount of 'equality' legislation in the political arena, can offset this economic power; the one with the gold makes the rule.
As an interesting side note - Canada has some wacky ways regarding that. In order to work on government contracts the government may specify that you meet certain criteria to call you an "equal opportunity employer". Basically meaning, do you have enough female managers, have you employed enough visible minorities, do you have anyone disabled in the company - that kinda stuff.
However, none of these are requirements that any actual arm of the government has to abide by. Just a company working with the government. Doesn't that seem strange?
Exactly.
Here's me, Joe Nobody, I just uploaded all the Harry Potters to my Google Docs and spread it all over.
It's weird, when I tried the "Last Known Good" configuration it booted up Windows 98!
And do a little thrust while they're down there.
And drop a few lines like "Hey, aren't you gonna at least buy me dinner first?"
the less willing the public will be to entrust power to them.
Problem is - you're trained from day 1 to entrust your power to them. Most everyone doesn't believe there is any other way.
It's very easy to look at the short story and go "The government wants to read my packets?!?!? Oh Noes this must be bad!" Usually that can get a +5 insightful.
I opened the Article to find it was another one from Michael Geist. Now, normally he puts me off, it seems like there was a week or two there where he kept flooding the world with news about ACTA, and I was getting tired of hearing about it because it was the same old thing, bad bad bad. So I started reading the article and the bills that were being proposed - and he actually seems to be on the mark with this one. Basically what the whole thing boils down to is this:
The Law Enforcement Agencies want to be able to read internet traffic, real time, and have access to the information the ISP has on whoever is in that conversation. While some of these details are already within the ISP's ability to give out voluntarily should the Police ask for it, basically they want it set in stone that they MUST. Makes me wonder if there was an issue where an ISP refused to hand over data recently, or if they simple said "We can't sniff their traffic".
Now - I have a strong feeling that this will fail. Why? It seems that they want ISP's to foot the bill. An ISP isn't going to want to pay any more money than they have to. They won't be getting any kind of a kickback from the government - law enforcement isn't exactly a money making industry. So I see Telus and Shaw and Bell and whoever probably starting to grease some palms to make sure this thing doesn't pass.
Unless there is some odd reason that ISP's would willingly want to comply with this (which would mean they're likely getting refunded somehow) then I would be a little more worried. If Geist can find evidence of that, well, that'd be quite a story!
The ISPs.
I can't imagine Blizz releasing a game without Battle.net support for multiplayer and achievements though. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft will allow that. B.net is as fully featured as Live is these days so this could be a major sticking point that pushes Blizzard content towards the PS3 similar to what happened with Steam.
I can't imagine them not working out some kind of deal - there'd be no real difficulty to tie a Bnet account to an Xbox live account, they've already shown they can tie Bnet with WoW accounts - Facebook accounts - and whatever else they want. So Achievements can be both Xbox live and Bnet achievements - the system is pretty much just a mirror'd reference to each other.
And if other games can get their own servers, like forcing all Call of Duty Multiplayer traffic through a few servers, why wouldn't Blizzard get the same treatment?
The only way I see Blizzard not doing business on the 360 is if Microsoft goes and makes some ludicrous demand like an exclusive. Otherwise I see PS3 and 360 Ports of D2 & D3 in the potential future.
Lucky break they got, recovering the capsule themselves.
That kind of stuff is usually figured out pretty easily logistically. There's really only a small window where re-entry can be done with enough safety to preserve whatever it is you're bringing back. So you know the weight - and the speed it's currently at - and you use that to calculate the angle for re-entry and then its a simple high school physics problem to find out where it'll land.