3) People will be enraged by the compromises and demand the congress enact stronger NN rules (ones that will include wireless traffic)! The congress, being contributor-minded, will give the plan lip service but dawdle around until after the election, at which point they will gut it to the liking of their favorite lobbies and declare mission accomplished.
Google's idea was to hand Congress a ready-made compromise with industry support on a silver platter, and hope like hell they will do something with it, because whenever Congress tries to make compromises by themselves they always cave to the biggest elephant in the room.
I agree that 100% is impossible, but what should we push for, 80%? 90%? What's wrong with starting at 90% and pushing for 93%? The only problem with the "100% safe" people is that they go about it the wrong way. No amount of ads or lecturing or age limits or interlocks will stop people from driving drunk. Only giving them convenient alternatives--that might even make sense to them when they are drunk--will get them off the road.
And remember, this is not for the safety of the idiot drunks but for the safety of everyone else. Think about that the next time you're driving home at 2am and see someone swerving in front of you.
So? Isn't this whole discussion about statistics? And preventing people from becoming them? It's a fact that even professional transit operators do stupid shit sometimes, but when that happens it winds up on the front page. Most of the time nobody bothers to mention the millions of auto accidents and thousands of auto deaths that happen each year because they are so routine. Let's not get so nihilistic we give up a good excuse to bash an activist organization for not activising properly.:D
It is completely correct. When you start coming with the attitude of "People need to be at 100% behind the wheel," you discover that you are talking bullshit. Many things impair driving ability including age, reaction time, and certainly inexperience.
People's abilities vary per person, per day, per year and so on. Nobody is "100%" all the time.
Well guess what, you just gave an argument for no one driving anywhere, ever. Which is not an option, to be sure, but it points out the fundamental truth that driving in general is never "safe" and should be reduced as much as reasonably possible. That's why we need more MASS TRANSIT--it is way safer to have 3 million people on professionally-run subways and buses than in amateur-operated vehicles. Especially when they are drunk, or tired, or distracted. Giving people useful mass transit options at all hours of the day makes it way easier to avoid driving while impaired by anything, including alcohol. I'm surprised MADD is so focused on causing more problems for people and not giving people solutions.
I mean, it's not like 3D television is a niche technology that adds very little to some genres of entertainment...why wouldn't you want to watch sitcoms of people sitting around talking in 3D--it would be something to distract you from the crappy story!
But seriously, I'm curious, what kind of stuff you think would actually be worth paying extra to get in 3D (to pay for production costs and viewing equipment)? So far only action flicks have gone for it because their sole attraction is visual effects. I could see things like documentaries benefiting from 3D, but it's currently impractical to get 3D equipment into the field for filming wildlife.
Actually, I'm worried about "cumming IN a theater near you". Will they clean the seats with antiseptic after each showing, or before running a non-porn movie?
Agreed. Since I only use 100 minutes a month, my plan works great for me. And you've done your homework too and found the best one for your talking habits. I'm just frustrated by the number people I see (like my parents, grandparents, neighbors) who use like 20 minutes a month and don't even realize there is another option besides $40/mo contracts. But I guess that is more of a marketing fail than anything else, and I should get back to my information crusade.
One key finding was that almost 1 billion gallons of gasoline per year can be attributed to passenger weight gain in non-commercial vehicles between 1960 and 2002--this translates to.7 percent of the total fuel used by passenger vehicles annually.
So it was actually 1 billion gallons per year, not total. Seems like the blog words it poorly and that they're really saying that if we were all the same weight as we were in 1960, we would have used 1 billion gallons less fuel last year than we actually did. But that is still only a 0.7% increase in yearly consumption.
More fun is this observation:
One other result of the obesity problem is the increase risk of crashes as noted in a recent study and that is also due to the fact that obese drivers are less likely to buckle up because seat belts may not fit properly.
So basically, fat people are looking for Darwin Awards. Now just make sure they are all distracted on their giant phones, and problem solved.
Ah yes, that is correct, Google's point is valid and there is competition in wireless. But the GP's examples only mentioned contract plan features that play relatively little role in customer choices. Things like coverage, devices, and overall price are much more important in the competitive market than rollover minutes or nights&weekends, and I was trying to point this out.
And those features are all added to the base $30-$50/mo plan and make no difference to the large number of consumers who never even get close to their limits each month. I never used more than half the minutes of the cheapest Verizon plan--but some people are even tricked into getting a larger plan than they need to "avoid overage fees". Which is why I switched to pageplus prepaid so I pay only for the airtime I actually use, $0.05/minute, no strings attached. Honestly, the ENTIRE wireless contract "market" is a huge scam that feeds off the ignorance of the american consumer.
That's probably exactly it. A lot of the time when teachers/curriculum writers try to "modify their instruction", they end up doing non-standard things with common symbols or techniques. You wouldn't believe the number of times in my homeschooled brother's elementary math books I've had to explain that, no, they are wrong, you write division problems like THIS not that, and no don't use those stupid flower symbols just us x, y and z, etc etc. It would be so much simpler if we started teaching them proper notation in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade rather than using symbols willy-nilly up until algebra, when WHAM everything becomes logically consistent and it throws them for a loop.
And I didn't even realize that I fell for it myself. I apologize to the summary writer, it was the commenters distorted it into copyright violation. It appears that they were expecting a troll even though they didn't get one.
Thank you for pointing out yet another game of "internet telephone." It would appear that the summary writer was just trolling for the usual anti-copyright rants and not interested in the contents of the actual article.
Decided I would actually RTFA. Here's my take on it:
Falsehood #1:
...right now internet service providers are voluntarily complying with the standards net neutrality advocates seek to codify. This is even after a federal appeals court ruled in Comcast v. FCC that the FCC (at least currently) lacks the authority to prevent companies from engaging in this behavior.
Service provides are not all voluntarily complying, or else the FCC would never have brought that suit in the first place.
Falsehood #2:
Since these internet service providers don’t really care about much except [STRIKE]internet aceess[/STRIKE] profits...
FTFY
Actual insight #1:
History shows, however, that industry is heavily involved in the regulatory process and puts heavy pressure to implement them in its favor.... This results in regulation that hurts consumers by distorting the industry away from customers’ true preferences.
This is actually an important thing to consider. Behind their relatively simple proposal, G&V probably have some idea of how the outcome would benefit them over their competition. So many times before we have seen regulators get in bed with industry and totally screw consumers that we ought to be suspicious of this.
Falsehood #3:
If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one.
As pointed out by many others, in most of the US you simply cannot get decent service from more than one or two companies. Given the concern in Actual Insight #1, an actual market would appear to be the simplest way to deal with net neutrality. However, anti-trust enforcement becomes extremely important to make sure no company has a monopoly in any one area and that no group of companies colludes to uniformly deny services in an area.
Falsehood #4:
If the government regulates net neutrality, policies for internet access are set by one entity: the FCC. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies.
If the government regulates net neutrality, the companies will collectively lobby to have them set policies in their favor. If the government stays out, the companies will collude to set policies in their favor. I'm not quite sure where the win is in either scenario.
Using a stationary hotpot is a much better idea than using one in a moving vehicle. The soup would get all over the place, and I doubt New York driving would help much (except for when you're supposed to be moving but aren't).
What I don't understand is why states can't close their budget gaps by increasing taxes to "save the children". Seems to be a good excuse for everything else. (Heck, it's even true, just look at public school budgets this year).
Documents be damned, I can't think of anything worse for morale than allowing/ordering incidents like these to continue by continuing the "war". Our soldiers all know these things happen, just as they happen in any war. Face it, the road to this war might have been paved with good intentions, but a war is a war and war is hell.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot the last one:
3) People will be enraged by the compromises and demand the congress enact stronger NN rules (ones that will include wireless traffic)! The congress, being contributor-minded, will give the plan lip service but dawdle around until after the election, at which point they will gut it to the liking of their favorite lobbies and declare mission accomplished.
Google's idea was to hand Congress a ready-made compromise with industry support on a silver platter, and hope like hell they will do something with it, because whenever Congress tries to make compromises by themselves they always cave to the biggest elephant in the room.
I agree that 100% is impossible, but what should we push for, 80%? 90%? What's wrong with starting at 90% and pushing for 93%? The only problem with the "100% safe" people is that they go about it the wrong way. No amount of ads or lecturing or age limits or interlocks will stop people from driving drunk. Only giving them convenient alternatives--that might even make sense to them when they are drunk--will get them off the road.
And remember, this is not for the safety of the idiot drunks but for the safety of everyone else. Think about that the next time you're driving home at 2am and see someone swerving in front of you.
Exactly. If all trains ran that late, it would be an awesome safety measure. Which is why MADD ought to be lobbying for it.
So? Isn't this whole discussion about statistics? And preventing people from becoming them? It's a fact that even professional transit operators do stupid shit sometimes, but when that happens it winds up on the front page. Most of the time nobody bothers to mention the millions of auto accidents and thousands of auto deaths that happen each year because they are so routine. Let's not get so nihilistic we give up a good excuse to bash an activist organization for not activising properly. :D
It is completely correct. When you start coming with the attitude of "People need to be at 100% behind the wheel," you discover that you are talking bullshit. Many things impair driving ability including age, reaction time, and certainly inexperience.
People's abilities vary per person, per day, per year and so on. Nobody is "100%" all the time.
Well guess what, you just gave an argument for no one driving anywhere, ever. Which is not an option, to be sure, but it points out the fundamental truth that driving in general is never "safe" and should be reduced as much as reasonably possible. That's why we need more MASS TRANSIT--it is way safer to have 3 million people on professionally-run subways and buses than in amateur-operated vehicles. Especially when they are drunk, or tired, or distracted. Giving people useful mass transit options at all hours of the day makes it way easier to avoid driving while impaired by anything, including alcohol. I'm surprised MADD is so focused on causing more problems for people and not giving people solutions.
I mean, it's not like 3D television is a niche technology that adds very little to some genres of entertainment...why wouldn't you want to watch sitcoms of people sitting around talking in 3D--it would be something to distract you from the crappy story!
But seriously, I'm curious, what kind of stuff you think would actually be worth paying extra to get in 3D (to pay for production costs and viewing equipment)? So far only action flicks have gone for it because their sole attraction is visual effects. I could see things like documentaries benefiting from 3D, but it's currently impractical to get 3D equipment into the field for filming wildlife.
Actually, I'm worried about "cumming IN a theater near you". Will they clean the seats with antiseptic after each showing, or before running a non-porn movie?
no he didn't, it's us doing the arguing. isn't that obvious? :P
Instead of wasting time looking for the right information, I can waste time absorbing the wrong information!
Agreed. Since I only use 100 minutes a month, my plan works great for me. And you've done your homework too and found the best one for your talking habits. I'm just frustrated by the number people I see (like my parents, grandparents, neighbors) who use like 20 minutes a month and don't even realize there is another option besides $40/mo contracts. But I guess that is more of a marketing fail than anything else, and I should get back to my information crusade.
From the TFA:
One key finding was that almost 1 billion gallons of gasoline per year can be attributed to passenger weight gain in non-commercial vehicles between 1960 and 2002--this translates to .7 percent of the total fuel used by passenger vehicles annually.
So it was actually 1 billion gallons per year, not total. Seems like the blog words it poorly and that they're really saying that if we were all the same weight as we were in 1960, we would have used 1 billion gallons less fuel last year than we actually did. But that is still only a 0.7% increase in yearly consumption.
More fun is this observation:
One other result of the obesity problem is the increase risk of crashes as noted in a recent study and that is also due to the fact that obese drivers are less likely to buckle up because seat belts may not fit properly.
So basically, fat people are looking for Darwin Awards. Now just make sure they are all distracted on their giant phones, and problem solved.
Ah yes, that is correct, Google's point is valid and there is competition in wireless. But the GP's examples only mentioned contract plan features that play relatively little role in customer choices. Things like coverage, devices, and overall price are much more important in the competitive market than rollover minutes or nights&weekends, and I was trying to point this out.
And those features are all added to the base $30-$50/mo plan and make no difference to the large number of consumers who never even get close to their limits each month. I never used more than half the minutes of the cheapest Verizon plan--but some people are even tricked into getting a larger plan than they need to "avoid overage fees". Which is why I switched to pageplus prepaid so I pay only for the airtime I actually use, $0.05/minute, no strings attached. Honestly, the ENTIRE wireless contract "market" is a huge scam that feeds off the ignorance of the american consumer.
That's probably exactly it. A lot of the time when teachers/curriculum writers try to "modify their instruction", they end up doing non-standard things with common symbols or techniques. You wouldn't believe the number of times in my homeschooled brother's elementary math books I've had to explain that, no, they are wrong, you write division problems like THIS not that, and no don't use those stupid flower symbols just us x, y and z, etc etc. It would be so much simpler if we started teaching them proper notation in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade rather than using symbols willy-nilly up until algebra, when WHAM everything becomes logically consistent and it throws them for a loop.
And I didn't even realize that I fell for it myself. I apologize to the summary writer, it was the commenters distorted it into copyright violation. It appears that they were expecting a troll even though they didn't get one.
Thank you for pointing out yet another game of "internet telephone." It would appear that the summary writer was just trolling for the usual anti-copyright rants and not interested in the contents of the actual article.
But, but, when we wanted to stop the oil spill, all we had to do was tell the oil company to fix it! Oh, wait...
Two choices: corporations, or politicians backed by corporations who you might be able to vote out of office some day if you're lucky.
You're absolutely right! And how do you expect us to get out of this government-created mess without the government doing something about it?
I suppose that is its own form of net neutrality... throttle ALL sites down to 56k.
Decided I would actually RTFA. Here's my take on it:
Falsehood #1:
...right now internet service providers are voluntarily complying with the standards net neutrality advocates seek to codify. This is even after a federal appeals court ruled in Comcast v. FCC that the FCC (at least currently) lacks the authority to prevent companies from engaging in this behavior.
Service provides are not all voluntarily complying, or else the FCC would never have brought that suit in the first place.
Falsehood #2:
Since these internet service providers don’t really care about much except [STRIKE]internet aceess[/STRIKE] profits...
FTFY
Actual insight #1:
History shows, however, that industry is heavily involved in the regulatory process and puts heavy pressure to implement them in its favor. ... This results in regulation that hurts consumers by distorting the industry away from customers’ true preferences.
This is actually an important thing to consider. Behind their relatively simple proposal, G&V probably have some idea of how the outcome would benefit them over their competition. So many times before we have seen regulators get in bed with industry and totally screw consumers that we ought to be suspicious of this.
Falsehood #3:
If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one.
As pointed out by many others, in most of the US you simply cannot get decent service from more than one or two companies. Given the concern in Actual Insight #1, an actual market would appear to be the simplest way to deal with net neutrality. However, anti-trust enforcement becomes extremely important to make sure no company has a monopoly in any one area and that no group of companies colludes to uniformly deny services in an area.
Falsehood #4:
If the government regulates net neutrality, policies for internet access are set by one entity: the FCC. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies.
If the government regulates net neutrality, the companies will collectively lobby to have them set policies in their favor. If the government stays out, the companies will collude to set policies in their favor. I'm not quite sure where the win is in either scenario.
Need to look up the best way to get a Humvee out of a mud pit? There's an app for that.
Need to find the nearest supply depot while avoiding roadside bombs and enemy fire? There's an app for that.
Need to see the location of every friend and foe within a 100m radius without any additional devices or infrastructure? There's an app for that.
Using a stationary hotpot is a much better idea than using one in a moving vehicle. The soup would get all over the place, and I doubt New York driving would help much (except for when you're supposed to be moving but aren't).
What I don't understand is why states can't close their budget gaps by increasing taxes to "save the children". Seems to be a good excuse for everything else. (Heck, it's even true, just look at public school budgets this year).
Documents be damned, I can't think of anything worse for morale than allowing/ordering incidents like these to continue by continuing the "war". Our soldiers all know these things happen, just as they happen in any war. Face it, the road to this war might have been paved with good intentions, but a war is a war and war is hell.