Tim Cooke is not as slick as Jobs was but his shill marketing is just as effective.
You really need to cool that "it's a shill" reflex down a bit. This is Japan. Nobody does crazy obsessive (both good and bad) better than Japan. Apple would have nothing to accomplish by hiring this idiot. They've already got people who are silly enough to line up and camp out for their products.
How exactly are you supposed to spread salt with dumptrucks?
20 seconds on google would have answered that question. Plenty of places do it. You don't even need a lot of salt spreading equipment as long as you get out in front of the problem on the main roads.
Multi-purpose earth-moving equipment is okay for parking lots and driveways, but would work really poorly and slowly on roads in which you need to continuously push snow to the side, not in front of you
You use a grader blade. Can be mounted to all kinds of vehicles from earthmovers to tractors and pushes the snow to the side. My municipality uses them on the dirt roads around here and on occasion the city streets. Every major city has them and even a lot of small towns do too. Hell you can even lease them on a contingent basis if you want to save money.
Likewise, most city vehicles wouldn't work very well in a task for which they are not designed... there's a reason northern states don't just use pickups with plows on the roads even when they only get an inch or two of snow.
They don't have to work great. They just have to work better than nothing. Southern states buy plenty of trucks. Attach a plow mount and spreader mount to a few of them. And you are wrong that northern states don't use pickups on the road. My own town does just that in many places to give the big snow removal vehicles time to work on the bigger roads.
Salt stockpiles don't last forever... moisture and time are their enemies. It also takes up a huge amount of space just to store.
It's a rock. As long as you keep it relatively dry which is a problem with known solutions, you have little to worry about. Sand can work pretty well too in a lot of cases. And are you seriously going to argue that a major city couldn't find a few acres to store it? Hell, the salt companies will probably maintain it for you for a reasonable retainer.
Most importantly, all of this costs more money to maintain than it costs to recover from not having it.
Not once you factor in ALL the costs. How expensive was the shutdown in Atlanta? How valuable were the lost lives that could have been saved? You seriously think the cost of some durable equipment and salt/sand and a little planning is lower than shutting a major metropolitan area down for days? Glad you aren't my accountant.
Agreed, car sales people are the worst which is why I'm going no haggle in the future (if possible).
No haggle doesn't always mean a good deal. You can actually accomplish the same thing if you do your homework. I usually research the heck out of things and have a price and terms I want decided before I ever set foot on the lot. If the guy beats my price/terms right off the bat then I buy. If they don't then I leave and find a dealer who will. The only haggling I've had to do for the last several cars I bought was with one @$$ who was trying to dicker me down on a trade in. All the information about pricing is publicly available if you do a little research ahead of time. Don't tip your hand but let it be clearly known you've done your homework. I typically know more about the vehicle I'm buying than the guy "selling" it to me. I also demand to see all the paperwork ahead of signing anything so they don't spring anything on me during deal closing and I don't hand over the check until I'm satisfied with everything.
Then, when signing all the paperwork to take the car (a cash purchase), they showed me a document that said that I was agreeing to service my car only at their dealership, giving me an extension on my warranty.
The correct answer is no unless you agreed to it prior to the signing of the documents. I've gotten up and walked out when they wouldn't show me all the documents prior to signing any of them. There are plenty of dealers out there. Never be in a rush and come prepared. Make sure you know more about the car you are buying than the guy selling it. (usually not very hard) I've made them sit in the car with me while I inspected everything for an hour prior to handing them the check. It's a big purchase and they can damn well work for my business.
I said "I don't want this". The guy said "It's part of the deal".
Always be ready to get up and walk out. That is your only negotiating leverage. Always agree on the terms and then make sure they show you all the paperwork before you sign any of it. If you don't like what you see and they aren't flexible on the matter, then get up and leave. If you've put up a deposit to get the car, make sure it is refundable if the deal falls through. Do NOT hand them a check until you are completely satisfied with everything and have inspected the vehicle fully.
I always feel like a need a shower after buying a car.
I hear you. I've dealt with some dealers who were pretty straight with me but I've run into my share of scumbags too. Usually the finance people are the worst though like you I pay cash for my cars so I don't have to deal with them much. I always go in with a price and terms in mind prior to buying. If they meet or beat the price and other terms then I buy and if they don't I leave. Do your homework ahead of time and it goes a LOT better usually.
Most equipment will suffer as much or more from not being used as it will from being used. In Atlanta, a fleet of heavy snow equipment would likely as not be half-deteriorated by the time it was next needed
You don't buy dedicated snow removal trucks. You use multi-purpose earth moving equipment that works in the summer too, dump trucks for spreading salt, have plow mounts on city service vehicles, etc. Stockpile salt for when you need it every 5th year. Have a plan in place to get those vehicles into action when a storm is coming. A little preparation and planning goes a long way.
The whole nation of Canada has 35m people. Metro Boston has around 5m. Metro NYC has 20m.
The greater Toronto area has about 5.5 million residents. It is by FAR the largest city in Canada and Toronto City has roughly the same number of residents as Chicago making it either the 4th or 5th largest city in North America and the 8th largest metropolitan area. It's bigger than Boston by about a million people. Toronto is a huge sprawling metropolis.
I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of Toronto rush hour but I get to at least once a year and it is pretty bad. The 401 passing through Toronto is the busiest stretch of highway in North America.
Basically Toronto doesn't remotely resemble the rest of Canada and I've been in enough of Canada to know.
The USA - the technically most advanced country - still is not able to put powerlines underground. Why???
Because it is roughly 8X as expensive and the US is a HUGE country. There are plenty of underground powerlines, particularly in dense urban areas like Manhattan. But the population across most of the country is rather spread out, much more so than is probably entirely sane. (Thanks city planners!) The population density simply isn't enough in most places to justify the extra cost. Servicing underground lines is also more expensive so while you might not have as many weather related issues you'll spend more for the issues you do have.
They should have to divest NBC, Telemundo, Universal Pictures, and any other content and local stations. This company is getting a little too much of the distribution network for comfort. I'm a customer as they are the only practical option in my area (the only other being Frontier Communications with some relatively slow DSL) and they've largely behaved themselves but we separated content delivery and content generation for a reason.
The people running for office mostly just want to be rich.
Nearly all of the ones running for national office already are rich even before they get into office. Someone who has to work a Real Job to make ends meet is never going to have the financial resources or time to spend on the campaign to get elected. What they mostly want is power though most seem to add to their wealth along the way.
In the case of Rand Paul, he is one of the VERY few members of Congress who seem to actually have the people's best interests at heart
Only if you have a few peculiar view of what the people's best interests actually are. Personally I think he is a dangerously delusional clue-bag who supports a bunch of nonsensical ideas that relatively few people share or desire.
I'm thankful we have him on our side..
Only in the sense of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I have largely agreed with him on this issue (for instance he opposed the PATRIOT act) but I've heard little else from him that I think is anything resembling sane governance. Even on issues of National Security he talks out both sides of his mouth. Look at his position on Edward Snowden. He acknowledges that Snowden revealed government lawbreaking but then says he should go to jail for it - "a fair trial with a reasonable sentance". (just not for life -ooh, what a tough stand) Either Snowden is a whistle-blower, deserving of protection or he is a criminal. There is no middle ground here but he's pandering just like the rest them. His positions appear to be mostly ideological grandstanding rather than practical attempts at reform.
while I admire the initiative the first Federal judge who hears the case will toss it because Holder and his bunch of cronies will say 'National Security' and that a mere Federal Judge won't be able to hear the case.
You are right about what would happen. What we need is a judge who would then toss the lawyers who say that in jail for contempt of court. The judiciary is useless if it is a lapdog for the executive branch.
IIUC, the provision in the constitution for the legislature to reign in the executive is to refuse to pass any appropriation bills.
Not necessary. Congress could reign in the NSA by simply passing a bill that de-funds the NSA. Congress does not have to work with tools as blunt as shutting the entire government down. The fact that they choose not to do so speaks volumes.
Specifically, it doesn't matter if there are damages. Spying on Americans without warrants is punishable by a $10,000 fine and a five year prison term. For each individual offense.
Unless you can clearly show damages the courts have shown great reluctance to grant standing in a lawsuit. Basically if you cannot prove that our national security apparatus damaged you directly then the suit gets tossed before even being heard. Worse the government simply claims everything they'd have to detail in court cannot be revealed because it would damage national security and thus you cannot get or use evidence to prove you have been damaged. Doesn't matter if it really should be classified or not because the judges aren't authorized to see classified material either and the government won't show it to them.
Furthermore lets say that you somehow get this trial (you won't) and you somehow prove your case (you can't), then who gets punished? It is a government agency doing the spying. Who gets fined and imprisoned? Best case is some low level flunkie they throw under the bus. You certainly aren't going to get anyone with any actual power thrown in jail.
The simple solution for Tesla is to outsource their galleries to some degree.
Simple but ultimately self defeating. By doing that they are basically giving away profits to a middle man that they realistically should not have to.
Having distributors only makes sense if you lack the ability to adequately reach or economically serve a group of customers. The distributors I deal with in my day job are better equipped to deal with small customers or customers with niche needs. In the case of automobiles, there is no compelling economic interest on the part of consumers to have a middle man be required. If I want to buy direct from Tesla I should be allowed to do that. Independent dealerships provide me no economic value.
The reason it's awful, is that for most people, a car is the most expensive item (apart from real estate) that they will ever buy, by a huge margin.
The reason it is awful is because lots of dealers have a VERY well deserved reputation for trying to rip people off. If you've ever been through a negotiation to buy or sell a car through a dealer, you probably know that they will use every underhanded tactic in the book to try to get you to pay more than you need to. They try to sell you add ons that you do not need (like undercoating) or are overpriced. They try to take advantage of you and as a result, people resent them.
Pro-business. Mostly yes. Less government? Not so much. The republican party only wants less government when it suits them and keeps them in power. If the republicans REALLY were for less government they would be pushing to reduce the size of the military, reduce medicare, reduce social security and stay out of morality debates like stem cell research and gay marriage. They can pay lip services to "less government" all they want but their actions are not those of a party which actually wants less government.
Which is even more baffling, I usually associate free market to republicans
The republicans aren't about the free market any more than the dems are despite lip service to the contrary. This is clear evidence of that. We do not need car dealers as middlemen anymore. No, this is simply them pushing the agenda of some monied interests. Same as it ever was. The dems do the same thing, just for different constituents.
Dems are usually supporters of bigger government.
This doesn't expand the government any. It simply is an attempt by some greedy middlemen to limit competition by legislation. Both parties do this. There is no reason at all that we should have to buy cars through dealerships.
Apparently you didn't read my entire comment because you missed shortly after that where I said that I don't know who or what should be shaping the Internet in the future.
Oh I saw it. And my question remains. If you don't like the UN (for reasons you failed to enumerate) then who else? Saying it shouldn't be the UN when you have no one else in mind is pointless. Even saying we should leave it with ICANN is some sort of an answer.
The UN's general assembly is a democratic body with one vote for each participating government. Most of the governments of the world are broken. Ergo the general assembly is broken.
If you think the UN really works like that you don't really understand how it works. The more powerful governments have influence over the less powerful. Furthermore relatively little is done through the General Assembly which is just one part of the UN and not necessarily the most important part.
I don't really care if the UN or the US controls the internet. I do however suspect that the 95% of the world that is not the US will sooner or later decide to circumvent ICANN at some point if they don't change their ways.
Most people that understand the UN could explain this to you. Perhaps you weren't listening?
Apparently you aren't someone who understands the UN.
You can bet your ass that this is state funded, if not directly state sponsored.
Right. Let's see, what's more likely? The US government going to the trouble to hire hackers all hush hush to screw around with bitcoin exchanges using annoying but ultimately pointless attacks OR the government simply exercising its law making powers? (hint, the answer is the second one)
No, this sort of attack is the work of criminals of some sort. Maybe of the organized crime sort or maybe simply the bored hacker kind. I don't pretend to know. It makes no sense whatsoever to think this was state sponsored.
The government doesn't have to engage in hacking to mess with bitcoin in underhanded ways that aren't going to have any lasting effect. If the government decides to go after bitcoin it will be more shock and awe, not ineffective commando raids.
We're just a single-digit percentage of the world's total population, yet we've got (at the moment, anyway) an inordinate amount of power of the shape and direction of the Internet as a whole.
I think the power of ICANN and the US is rather greatly overstated when it comes to the internet.
I personally don't think that the U.N. is the body that should have control over the course and form of the Internet
Ok, fair enough. Who should then? I hear this all the time how people dislike the UN for various reasons that they always seem unable to articulate but honestly I can't think of any other body better positioned to play quasi-neutral arbiter. Of course politics are going to play a role - doesn't matter who ultimately is the controlling body. If you don't like the UN filling this role then who else do you propose?
Sooo, because some thing was not introduced until X moment in time you cannot blame a problem with it later on Y which correlates to the time when the thing is having a problem?
However it is possible, though unproven, that humans indirectly have caused this particular population imbalance through climate and/or habitat change. It think it will be extremely difficult to prove or to rule out. The only real question is whether we should get involved in supporting the wolf population on Isle Royal or not.
So....natural processes occurring pretty much exactly as they have for thousands, if not millions of years. And humans, feeling they know how things "should" be, are going to interfere. Brilliant!
It's worse than you think. I live in Michigan. We're worried about the Isle Royal wolves but the legislature authorized a wolf hunt this year to combat the nearly non-existent depredation "problems" from wolves. (181 total incidents over 15 years, most related to cattle and about a third of those are suspect claims from a single farm) Total economic impact most years is around $5000 for the entire state. This despite the fact that wolves account for a minuscule fraction livestock deaths. You also hear a bunch of idiots thinking that wolves are going to go after their children. There was even a made up story about wolves lurking around a school yard that was floated around for quite a while before being debunked.
Basically a bunch of hunters and farmers wanted to kill a bunch of wolves for no demonstrable reason aside from fear and blood lust.
Repeat that to the first person blinded by these headlights.
I will be happy to in the even that this ever actually occurs. Since it won't though I'm not terribly worried.
Hmmm... Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island. Your turn now -- tell me three great towering achievements of "safeguards and cutoffs that fail safe."
Nice bit of reductio ad absurdum. A nuclear power plant is clearly exactly like a headlight in an automobile. Please save us from these lights that are out to kill us all!
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Tim Cooke is not as slick as Jobs was but his shill marketing is just as effective.
You really need to cool that "it's a shill" reflex down a bit. This is Japan. Nobody does crazy obsessive (both good and bad) better than Japan. Apple would have nothing to accomplish by hiring this idiot. They've already got people who are silly enough to line up and camp out for their products.
How exactly are you supposed to spread salt with dumptrucks?
20 seconds on google would have answered that question. Plenty of places do it. You don't even need a lot of salt spreading equipment as long as you get out in front of the problem on the main roads.
Multi-purpose earth-moving equipment is okay for parking lots and driveways, but would work really poorly and slowly on roads in which you need to continuously push snow to the side, not in front of you
You use a grader blade. Can be mounted to all kinds of vehicles from earthmovers to tractors and pushes the snow to the side. My municipality uses them on the dirt roads around here and on occasion the city streets. Every major city has them and even a lot of small towns do too. Hell you can even lease them on a contingent basis if you want to save money.
Likewise, most city vehicles wouldn't work very well in a task for which they are not designed... there's a reason northern states don't just use pickups with plows on the roads even when they only get an inch or two of snow.
They don't have to work great. They just have to work better than nothing. Southern states buy plenty of trucks. Attach a plow mount and spreader mount to a few of them. And you are wrong that northern states don't use pickups on the road. My own town does just that in many places to give the big snow removal vehicles time to work on the bigger roads.
Salt stockpiles don't last forever... moisture and time are their enemies. It also takes up a huge amount of space just to store.
It's a rock. As long as you keep it relatively dry which is a problem with known solutions, you have little to worry about. Sand can work pretty well too in a lot of cases. And are you seriously going to argue that a major city couldn't find a few acres to store it? Hell, the salt companies will probably maintain it for you for a reasonable retainer.
Most importantly, all of this costs more money to maintain than it costs to recover from not having it.
Not once you factor in ALL the costs. How expensive was the shutdown in Atlanta? How valuable were the lost lives that could have been saved? You seriously think the cost of some durable equipment and salt/sand and a little planning is lower than shutting a major metropolitan area down for days? Glad you aren't my accountant.
Agreed, car sales people are the worst which is why I'm going no haggle in the future (if possible).
No haggle doesn't always mean a good deal. You can actually accomplish the same thing if you do your homework. I usually research the heck out of things and have a price and terms I want decided before I ever set foot on the lot. If the guy beats my price/terms right off the bat then I buy. If they don't then I leave and find a dealer who will. The only haggling I've had to do for the last several cars I bought was with one @$$ who was trying to dicker me down on a trade in. All the information about pricing is publicly available if you do a little research ahead of time. Don't tip your hand but let it be clearly known you've done your homework. I typically know more about the vehicle I'm buying than the guy "selling" it to me. I also demand to see all the paperwork ahead of signing anything so they don't spring anything on me during deal closing and I don't hand over the check until I'm satisfied with everything.
Then, when signing all the paperwork to take the car (a cash purchase), they showed me a document that said that I was agreeing to service my car only at their dealership, giving me an extension on my warranty.
The correct answer is no unless you agreed to it prior to the signing of the documents. I've gotten up and walked out when they wouldn't show me all the documents prior to signing any of them. There are plenty of dealers out there. Never be in a rush and come prepared. Make sure you know more about the car you are buying than the guy selling it. (usually not very hard) I've made them sit in the car with me while I inspected everything for an hour prior to handing them the check. It's a big purchase and they can damn well work for my business.
I said "I don't want this". The guy said "It's part of the deal".
Always be ready to get up and walk out. That is your only negotiating leverage. Always agree on the terms and then make sure they show you all the paperwork before you sign any of it. If you don't like what you see and they aren't flexible on the matter, then get up and leave. If you've put up a deposit to get the car, make sure it is refundable if the deal falls through. Do NOT hand them a check until you are completely satisfied with everything and have inspected the vehicle fully.
I always feel like a need a shower after buying a car.
I hear you. I've dealt with some dealers who were pretty straight with me but I've run into my share of scumbags too. Usually the finance people are the worst though like you I pay cash for my cars so I don't have to deal with them much. I always go in with a price and terms in mind prior to buying. If they meet or beat the price and other terms then I buy and if they don't I leave. Do your homework ahead of time and it goes a LOT better usually.
Most equipment will suffer as much or more from not being used as it will from being used. In Atlanta, a fleet of heavy snow equipment would likely as not be half-deteriorated by the time it was next needed
You don't buy dedicated snow removal trucks. You use multi-purpose earth moving equipment that works in the summer too, dump trucks for spreading salt, have plow mounts on city service vehicles, etc. Stockpile salt for when you need it every 5th year. Have a plan in place to get those vehicles into action when a storm is coming. A little preparation and planning goes a long way.
The whole nation of Canada has 35m people. Metro Boston has around 5m. Metro NYC has 20m.
The greater Toronto area has about 5.5 million residents. It is by FAR the largest city in Canada and Toronto City has roughly the same number of residents as Chicago making it either the 4th or 5th largest city in North America and the 8th largest metropolitan area. It's bigger than Boston by about a million people. Toronto is a huge sprawling metropolis.
I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of Toronto rush hour but I get to at least once a year and it is pretty bad. The 401 passing through Toronto is the busiest stretch of highway in North America.
Basically Toronto doesn't remotely resemble the rest of Canada and I've been in enough of Canada to know.
The USA - the technically most advanced country - still is not able to put powerlines underground. Why???
Because it is roughly 8X as expensive and the US is a HUGE country. There are plenty of underground powerlines, particularly in dense urban areas like Manhattan. But the population across most of the country is rather spread out, much more so than is probably entirely sane. (Thanks city planners!) The population density simply isn't enough in most places to justify the extra cost. Servicing underground lines is also more expensive so while you might not have as many weather related issues you'll spend more for the issues you do have.
They should have to divest NBC, Telemundo, Universal Pictures, and any other content and local stations. This company is getting a little too much of the distribution network for comfort. I'm a customer as they are the only practical option in my area (the only other being Frontier Communications with some relatively slow DSL) and they've largely behaved themselves but we separated content delivery and content generation for a reason.
Proud owner of a 2014 Corvette Stingray, 410 RWHP, soon to be 750.
Are you sure that's enough horsepower? [/teasing]
The people running for office mostly just want to be rich.
Nearly all of the ones running for national office already are rich even before they get into office. Someone who has to work a Real Job to make ends meet is never going to have the financial resources or time to spend on the campaign to get elected. What they mostly want is power though most seem to add to their wealth along the way.
In the case of Rand Paul, he is one of the VERY few members of Congress who seem to actually have the people's best interests at heart
Only if you have a few peculiar view of what the people's best interests actually are. Personally I think he is a dangerously delusional clue-bag who supports a bunch of nonsensical ideas that relatively few people share or desire.
I'm thankful we have him on our side..
Only in the sense of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I have largely agreed with him on this issue (for instance he opposed the PATRIOT act) but I've heard little else from him that I think is anything resembling sane governance. Even on issues of National Security he talks out both sides of his mouth. Look at his position on Edward Snowden. He acknowledges that Snowden revealed government lawbreaking but then says he should go to jail for it - "a fair trial with a reasonable sentance". (just not for life -ooh, what a tough stand) Either Snowden is a whistle-blower, deserving of protection or he is a criminal. There is no middle ground here but he's pandering just like the rest them. His positions appear to be mostly ideological grandstanding rather than practical attempts at reform.
while I admire the initiative the first Federal judge who hears the case will toss it because Holder and his bunch of cronies will say 'National Security' and that a mere Federal Judge won't be able to hear the case.
You are right about what would happen. What we need is a judge who would then toss the lawyers who say that in jail for contempt of court. The judiciary is useless if it is a lapdog for the executive branch.
IIUC, the provision in the constitution for the legislature to reign in the executive is to refuse to pass any appropriation bills.
Not necessary. Congress could reign in the NSA by simply passing a bill that de-funds the NSA. Congress does not have to work with tools as blunt as shutting the entire government down. The fact that they choose not to do so speaks volumes.
Specifically, it doesn't matter if there are damages. Spying on Americans without warrants is punishable by a $10,000 fine and a five year prison term. For each individual offense.
Unless you can clearly show damages the courts have shown great reluctance to grant standing in a lawsuit. Basically if you cannot prove that our national security apparatus damaged you directly then the suit gets tossed before even being heard. Worse the government simply claims everything they'd have to detail in court cannot be revealed because it would damage national security and thus you cannot get or use evidence to prove you have been damaged. Doesn't matter if it really should be classified or not because the judges aren't authorized to see classified material either and the government won't show it to them.
Furthermore lets say that you somehow get this trial (you won't) and you somehow prove your case (you can't), then who gets punished? It is a government agency doing the spying. Who gets fined and imprisoned? Best case is some low level flunkie they throw under the bus. You certainly aren't going to get anyone with any actual power thrown in jail.
The simple solution for Tesla is to outsource their galleries to some degree.
Simple but ultimately self defeating. By doing that they are basically giving away profits to a middle man that they realistically should not have to.
Having distributors only makes sense if you lack the ability to adequately reach or economically serve a group of customers. The distributors I deal with in my day job are better equipped to deal with small customers or customers with niche needs. In the case of automobiles, there is no compelling economic interest on the part of consumers to have a middle man be required. If I want to buy direct from Tesla I should be allowed to do that. Independent dealerships provide me no economic value.
The reason it's awful, is that for most people, a car is the most expensive item (apart from real estate) that they will ever buy, by a huge margin.
The reason it is awful is because lots of dealers have a VERY well deserved reputation for trying to rip people off. If you've ever been through a negotiation to buy or sell a car through a dealer, you probably know that they will use every underhanded tactic in the book to try to get you to pay more than you need to. They try to sell you add ons that you do not need (like undercoating) or are overpriced. They try to take advantage of you and as a result, people resent them.
The party of less government and pro-business.
Pro-business. Mostly yes. Less government? Not so much. The republican party only wants less government when it suits them and keeps them in power. If the republicans REALLY were for less government they would be pushing to reduce the size of the military, reduce medicare, reduce social security and stay out of morality debates like stem cell research and gay marriage. They can pay lip services to "less government" all they want but their actions are not those of a party which actually wants less government.
Which is even more baffling, I usually associate free market to republicans
The republicans aren't about the free market any more than the dems are despite lip service to the contrary. This is clear evidence of that. We do not need car dealers as middlemen anymore. No, this is simply them pushing the agenda of some monied interests. Same as it ever was. The dems do the same thing, just for different constituents.
Dems are usually supporters of bigger government.
This doesn't expand the government any. It simply is an attempt by some greedy middlemen to limit competition by legislation. Both parties do this. There is no reason at all that we should have to buy cars through dealerships.
Apparently you didn't read my entire comment because you missed shortly after that where I said that I don't know who or what should be shaping the Internet in the future.
Oh I saw it. And my question remains. If you don't like the UN (for reasons you failed to enumerate) then who else? Saying it shouldn't be the UN when you have no one else in mind is pointless. Even saying we should leave it with ICANN is some sort of an answer.
The UN's general assembly is a democratic body with one vote for each participating government. Most of the governments of the world are broken. Ergo the general assembly is broken.
If you think the UN really works like that you don't really understand how it works. The more powerful governments have influence over the less powerful. Furthermore relatively little is done through the General Assembly which is just one part of the UN and not necessarily the most important part.
I don't really care if the UN or the US controls the internet. I do however suspect that the 95% of the world that is not the US will sooner or later decide to circumvent ICANN at some point if they don't change their ways.
Most people that understand the UN could explain this to you. Perhaps you weren't listening?
Apparently you aren't someone who understands the UN.
You can bet your ass that this is state funded, if not directly state sponsored.
Right. Let's see, what's more likely? The US government going to the trouble to hire hackers all hush hush to screw around with bitcoin exchanges using annoying but ultimately pointless attacks OR the government simply exercising its law making powers? (hint, the answer is the second one)
No, this sort of attack is the work of criminals of some sort. Maybe of the organized crime sort or maybe simply the bored hacker kind. I don't pretend to know. It makes no sense whatsoever to think this was state sponsored.
The government doesn't have to engage in hacking to mess with bitcoin in underhanded ways that aren't going to have any lasting effect. If the government decides to go after bitcoin it will be more shock and awe, not ineffective commando raids.
We're just a single-digit percentage of the world's total population, yet we've got (at the moment, anyway) an inordinate amount of power of the shape and direction of the Internet as a whole.
I think the power of ICANN and the US is rather greatly overstated when it comes to the internet.
I personally don't think that the U.N. is the body that should have control over the course and form of the Internet
Ok, fair enough. Who should then? I hear this all the time how people dislike the UN for various reasons that they always seem unable to articulate but honestly I can't think of any other body better positioned to play quasi-neutral arbiter. Of course politics are going to play a role - doesn't matter who ultimately is the controlling body. If you don't like the UN filling this role then who else do you propose?
Sooo, because some thing was not introduced until X moment in time you cannot blame a problem with it later on Y which correlates to the time when the thing is having a problem?
The term you are looking for is post hoc ergo propter hoc.
However it is possible, though unproven, that humans indirectly have caused this particular population imbalance through climate and/or habitat change. It think it will be extremely difficult to prove or to rule out. The only real question is whether we should get involved in supporting the wolf population on Isle Royal or not.
So....natural processes occurring pretty much exactly as they have for thousands, if not millions of years. And humans, feeling they know how things "should" be, are going to interfere. Brilliant!
It's worse than you think. I live in Michigan. We're worried about the Isle Royal wolves but the legislature authorized a wolf hunt this year to combat the nearly non-existent depredation "problems" from wolves. (181 total incidents over 15 years, most related to cattle and about a third of those are suspect claims from a single farm) Total economic impact most years is around $5000 for the entire state. This despite the fact that wolves account for a minuscule fraction livestock deaths. You also hear a bunch of idiots thinking that wolves are going to go after their children. There was even a made up story about wolves lurking around a school yard that was floated around for quite a while before being debunked.
Basically a bunch of hunters and farmers wanted to kill a bunch of wolves for no demonstrable reason aside from fear and blood lust.
Prediction: we'll cock it up.
More than likely...
Repeat that to the first person blinded by these headlights.
I will be happy to in the even that this ever actually occurs. Since it won't though I'm not terribly worried.
Hmmm... Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island. Your turn now -- tell me three great towering achievements of "safeguards and cutoffs that fail safe."
Nice bit of reductio ad absurdum. A nuclear power plant is clearly exactly like a headlight in an automobile. Please save us from these lights that are out to kill us all!