It is unlimited in the sense of "you may download as much as you want (unlimited) at these specified speeds." Sure, that is not unlimited in the sense of infinite volume, but in the sense of infinite use without having to pay extra.
Getting your head in a bunch over the technicality of whatever marketing ploy a business is using is pretty much an exercise in futility. It is pretty implicit that "unlimited plan" does not mean "magic infinity +1 transfer rates forever" and if you ever thought so for even a heartbeat you're an idiot. Sorry to be blunt, but that is pretty much stupidity at its most fundamental.
You could argue that this is a bad deal and I would totally agree with you. But your argument as it stands is pretty useless as far as discussing the plan. They are clear and up front stating what you're paying for and what they mean by what they say. That's actually a hell of a lot better than some other plans. That the rest of the package sucks is another story.
Most vendors would never allow that. Not necessarily out of malice, but because it would remove their control of a phone which the customers ultimately will blame them for if it stops working. They would also risk getting in some unwanted crossfire regarding "no DRM". When you get down to it, you have to acknowledge that they're just a business and not necessarily the guardian of your personal opinion about how it should be.
Just to play the devil's advocate, what they mean by "unlimited" is that there is no hard cap on the AMOUNT of data you may download. Only a SPEED limit when you hit 5gig. In truth, you would never have true unlimited data, as that would imply infinite transfer speeds. Your already finite transfer rate just get adjusted. So this change does not make the statement "unlimited plan" anymore false or true.
The plan is still overpriced as hell compared to what they deliver, though. But the network they're offering it over is not really capable of handling what people want from it anyway.
Socrates is a really bad example in this case. Yes, there was a vote. There was also a trial and he did speak his mind. I'm not going to delve into the details of the whole trial and how Socrates acted, but while we, with todays values, may think he was unfairly handled, he very much caused his death sentence himself.
Points of the challenge: 1) grammar 2) meaning 3) flow
Customizability succeeds on the first and second point, but it is both hard on the eyes and on the tongue. Also, to be as nitpicky as the GP, it only turns up on two online dictionaries thus far for me (with a z or a s) but neither in cambridge or in merriam-webster.
I think it can be derived from the context, but I agree with you and am glad that you took the time to politely point out the ambiguity that I missed.
That said the 'proper' word customizability*, as pointed out elsewhere, feels extremely unwieldy to me. Might be because English is only my second language.
Congratulations, you're hereby declared inured to inspiration and in a state of linguistic stagnation. [flamebait]You would fit nicely in France.[/flamebait] A quick question, when you read this "non-word" did you have any speck of doubt regarding the meaning being carried by it? I didn't even blink at it before you started to nitpick over the word rather than the semantics of it.
And now for a new challenge, present us with a word with the exact same meaning as this "non-word" that can be swapped with it without altering the grammar, meaning or flow of the sentence. Sure, it is most likely possible, but at least present us with the "proper" word before you begin criticizing.
Reread my comment because you basically continued along with the straw man that this is an argument glorifying drunk driving and saying nothing should be done about the problem.
Especially focus on the point of the paragraph regarding "Oh but it is okay in this case, because it makes the roads safer!".
I repeat: this is an extremely dangerous and stupid solution to a problem. A solution should not be found by pissing on peoples' rights and bypassing the checks and balances holding at bay the coming of a police state. If there is a problem with how the process works now, it is something that should be fixed by the legislative branch. How I don't care, but don't start invalidating the essence of warrants by making it a rubber stamping process.
For all I care this could be about murder or rape. I don't care. It's not the point of the argument. Sorry if this offends you, but surrendering to a police state and bypassing basic rights and the rule of law for a perceived sense of more safety is the sickness that is devouring the western world and America in particular.
No. The point of having (search) warrants and similar warrants is to safeguard the rule of law and various rights from authoritarian conduct (such as this). Basically it can be said that a warrant exists explicitly to separate the executive branch from the judicial branch.
If you rubber stamp the process of getting a warrant like this, you might as well kiss your privacy et al. goodbye and welcome your new overlords: the Judge Dredds.
Except it doesn't guarantees that. It has been proven to be a) extremely easy to cheat the machine and b) extremely easy to bypass it completely. All you get is a "healthy" dose of radiation and exposure of your body to strangers. Enjoy!
The "what's next?" is an argument when the example is not a non sequitur like take for example... yours. Having a judge on site to "streamline" the process like this is dangerous because it lessens the boundary between the executive and the judicial powers. Basically overriding the protection of your rights gets boiled down to "Ok you wont let me do this," *turns around, gets a stamp, turns back* "now you have to."
So, what's next? Making a police officer and a judge be a standard pair when on patrol? If getting a warrant becomes a 1-minute formality then yes indeed the next thing could easily be "no refusal" car searches. Because if the judge and the police officer gets paired up like this then there is no real separation of power.
"Oh but it is okay in this case, because it makes the roads safer!" is a very dangerous argument in itself. It advocates overriding the system when it feels "right", which is very subjective and is a method that can quickly turn sour or be horribly abused by men in power. Instead of undermining the system by doing stupid things like this, work within it. If something doesn't work, petition the legislative branch to change how it works, just don't go play Judge Dredd because it feels "right".
This is not a question of whether DUI checks are "bad" or if we should stop testing for it completely or whatever. That's a straw-man in this case, because it is not the argument the OP made that you're attacking.
Brilliant idea. No undue punishment or stigma involved at all!
To be a little more cynical than that and look at the resources available to the standard school, a test or exam retake with a 1-1 ratio as you mentioned would be a very cost ineffective solution to cheating.
I'm amazed that this AC is marked "troll" considering he hits the nail on the heard regarding the relevance (Stuff that Matters, eh?) of the sexual charges against Assange versus the work and spirit of wikileaks. How is that "trolling"?
It is relevant to the image of wikileaks, sure, but since when has it become trolling to look behind the mask, instead of going to the tune of PR, and actually care for what something stands for?
See my later post for my view on optional choice systems versus top-down control. Or are you just replying to this post because you find it easily attackable due to its caustic nature?
I'm okay with it as long as the primary education does not suffer from it. In little amounts it is a fine system, but unfortunately it has the tendency to form a seed for a cultural outlook where you have to be the one who took those classes/options to succeed, or where the primary education is dumbed down because "they can just choose to upgrade".
The merit behind this streaming option as you define it is that no-one (except maybe pushy parents) are screening the kids for it beyond suggesting it to them. That's fine, it's okay to award curiosity and aptitude so long as you don't downright raise them on a pedestal and separate them from the flock, which leads to all sorts of problems I've already described in this thread.
The thing we were discussing was forced separation of classes into basically 'A, B, C, D,...' with outside screening. This is a downright harmful system, both for the education itself and culturally.
You're assuming it is that easily defined a problem. It isn't. Let me assume that we're talking about kids in the obligatory segment of the educational system (mine might differ from yours by the way). For obvious reasons we want to raise the total average of these kids while losing as few 'eggs' in the process.
There can be a lot of different reasons to facilitate differential education, but all the valid ones consist of outlier cases, such as people with dyslexia or other impairing disabilities. Motivation is not one of them at that age. Until they're ready to either move into the job market or into further education, motivation should not be a reason for differential education (again unless it is outlier cases, fx. depression or the like). Rather, there should be taken extra care so as to motivate the kids to learn and 'give a shit' as you put it. Seperating them into "good kids" and "bad eggs" classes is about as demotivating as you can get, especially if they get no further incentive to progress or consequence for not progressing beyong being categorically called 'stupid' by the system.
As for how to 'fix' this problem, I'm no expert on the subject, but maybe reduce class sizes to something manageable, educating the teachers better in pedagogical techniques to motivate children, motivate children to help each other across aptitude levels and generally provide the teaching equally and focus on the delivery. As they say, treat the sickness not the symptom.
I'm not a native English-speaking fellow, so if something got lost in translation I apologize.
Brilliant system! Wonder why no-one came up with it before you? Now that we are on a roll, sure that a simple "school for A's" and "school for B's" is good enough? I mean, there can be more shades than that, right? Also, how do we screen people for those schools? Who do we employ to do that? What kind of education does they need? What if the kid suddenly shifts category? How do we transfer people between schools?
I think we need to start making some assumptions to get that system to work. Lets assume well-off and successful parents became well-off and successful through superior genes. From there, we can at least assume that rich kids are superior to poor kids. Maybe if we made it costly to attend one type of school and relatively cheap (but not too much!) to attend the other types we can fix all the problems with screening? Right?/end of angry sarcasm rant.
Congratulations. You've gained a level in narrow-mindedness. Enjoy your new passive ability: "Missing the point by refusing the print." If you had cared to read on, the person actually made a sound, if arguably invalid, statement (you know the difference between "sound" and "invalid" right? Right?)
Slashdot Mirror
It is unlimited in the sense of "you may download as much as you want (unlimited) at these specified speeds." Sure, that is not unlimited in the sense of infinite volume, but in the sense of infinite use without having to pay extra.
Getting your head in a bunch over the technicality of whatever marketing ploy a business is using is pretty much an exercise in futility. It is pretty implicit that "unlimited plan" does not mean "magic infinity +1 transfer rates forever" and if you ever thought so for even a heartbeat you're an idiot. Sorry to be blunt, but that is pretty much stupidity at its most fundamental.
You could argue that this is a bad deal and I would totally agree with you. But your argument as it stands is pretty useless as far as discussing the plan. They are clear and up front stating what you're paying for and what they mean by what they say. That's actually a hell of a lot better than some other plans. That the rest of the package sucks is another story.
Most vendors would never allow that. Not necessarily out of malice, but because it would remove their control of a phone which the customers ultimately will blame them for if it stops working. They would also risk getting in some unwanted crossfire regarding "no DRM". When you get down to it, you have to acknowledge that they're just a business and not necessarily the guardian of your personal opinion about how it should be.
Just to play the devil's advocate, what they mean by "unlimited" is that there is no hard cap on the AMOUNT of data you may download. Only a SPEED limit when you hit 5gig. In truth, you would never have true unlimited data, as that would imply infinite transfer speeds. Your already finite transfer rate just get adjusted. So this change does not make the statement "unlimited plan" anymore false or true.
The plan is still overpriced as hell compared to what they deliver, though. But the network they're offering it over is not really capable of handling what people want from it anyway.
Socrates is a really bad example in this case. Yes, there was a vote. There was also a trial and he did speak his mind. I'm not going to delve into the details of the whole trial and how Socrates acted, but while we, with todays values, may think he was unfairly handled, he very much caused his death sentence himself.
Points of the challenge:
1) grammar
2) meaning
3) flow
Customizability succeeds on the first and second point, but it is both hard on the eyes and on the tongue. Also, to be as nitpicky as the GP, it only turns up on two online dictionaries thus far for me (with a z or a s) but neither in cambridge or in merriam-webster.
I think it can be derived from the context, but I agree with you and am glad that you took the time to politely point out the ambiguity that I missed.
That said the 'proper' word customizability*, as pointed out elsewhere, feels extremely unwieldy to me. Might be because English is only my second language.
* my spellchecker actually refuses it outright.
Touché. It fulfilled 2 out of the 3 points of the challenge.
Congratulations, you're hereby declared inured to inspiration and in a state of linguistic stagnation. [flamebait]You would fit nicely in France.[/flamebait]
A quick question, when you read this "non-word" did you have any speck of doubt regarding the meaning being carried by it? I didn't even blink at it before you started to nitpick over the word rather than the semantics of it.
And now for a new challenge, present us with a word with the exact same meaning as this "non-word" that can be swapped with it without altering the grammar, meaning or flow of the sentence. Sure, it is most likely possible, but at least present us with the "proper" word before you begin criticizing.
Reread my comment because you basically continued along with the straw man that this is an argument glorifying drunk driving and saying nothing should be done about the problem.
Especially focus on the point of the paragraph regarding "Oh but it is okay in this case, because it makes the roads safer!".
I repeat: this is an extremely dangerous and stupid solution to a problem. A solution should not be found by pissing on peoples' rights and bypassing the checks and balances holding at bay the coming of a police state. If there is a problem with how the process works now, it is something that should be fixed by the legislative branch. How I don't care, but don't start invalidating the essence of warrants by making it a rubber stamping process.
For all I care this could be about murder or rape. I don't care. It's not the point of the argument. Sorry if this offends you, but surrendering to a police state and bypassing basic rights and the rule of law for a perceived sense of more safety is the sickness that is devouring the western world and America in particular.
No. The point of having (search) warrants and similar warrants is to safeguard the rule of law and various rights from authoritarian conduct (such as this). Basically it can be said that a warrant exists explicitly to separate the executive branch from the judicial branch.
If you rubber stamp the process of getting a warrant like this, you might as well kiss your privacy et al. goodbye and welcome your new overlords: the Judge Dredds.
Except it doesn't guarantees that. It has been proven to be a) extremely easy to cheat the machine and b) extremely easy to bypass it completely. All you get is a "healthy" dose of radiation and exposure of your body to strangers. Enjoy!
The "what's next?" is an argument when the example is not a non sequitur like take for example... yours. Having a judge on site to "streamline" the process like this is dangerous because it lessens the boundary between the executive and the judicial powers. Basically overriding the protection of your rights gets boiled down to "Ok you wont let me do this," *turns around, gets a stamp, turns back* "now you have to."
So, what's next? Making a police officer and a judge be a standard pair when on patrol? If getting a warrant becomes a 1-minute formality then yes indeed the next thing could easily be "no refusal" car searches. Because if the judge and the police officer gets paired up like this then there is no real separation of power.
"Oh but it is okay in this case, because it makes the roads safer!" is a very dangerous argument in itself. It advocates overriding the system when it feels "right", which is very subjective and is a method that can quickly turn sour or be horribly abused by men in power. Instead of undermining the system by doing stupid things like this, work within it. If something doesn't work, petition the legislative branch to change how it works, just don't go play Judge Dredd because it feels "right".
This is not a question of whether DUI checks are "bad" or if we should stop testing for it completely or whatever. That's a straw-man in this case, because it is not the argument the OP made that you're attacking.
Brilliant idea. No undue punishment or stigma involved at all!
To be a little more cynical than that and look at the resources available to the standard school, a test or exam retake with a 1-1 ratio as you mentioned would be a very cost ineffective solution to cheating.
Yea, Mugabe is this superbeing singlehandedly able to completely suppress the entirety of Zimbabwe by personal power alone. Or something.
Yes, a rebellion is more complex then "just rising up", but the essence of it is for the people to decide to actually do it.
I'm amazed that this AC is marked "troll" considering he hits the nail on the heard regarding the relevance (Stuff that Matters, eh?) of the sexual charges against Assange versus the work and spirit of wikileaks. How is that "trolling"?
It is relevant to the image of wikileaks, sure, but since when has it become trolling to look behind the mask, instead of going to the tune of PR, and actually care for what something stands for?
That's beginning to sound eerily like a bad series of porno flicks.
See my later post for my view on optional choice systems versus top-down control. Or are you just replying to this post because you find it easily attackable due to its caustic nature?
I'm okay with it as long as the primary education does not suffer from it. In little amounts it is a fine system, but unfortunately it has the tendency to form a seed for a cultural outlook where you have to be the one who took those classes/options to succeed, or where the primary education is dumbed down because "they can just choose to upgrade".
The merit behind this streaming option as you define it is that no-one (except maybe pushy parents) are screening the kids for it beyond suggesting it to them. That's fine, it's okay to award curiosity and aptitude so long as you don't downright raise them on a pedestal and separate them from the flock, which leads to all sorts of problems I've already described in this thread.
The thing we were discussing was forced separation of classes into basically 'A, B, C, D, ...' with outside screening. This is a downright harmful system, both for the education itself and culturally.
You're assuming it is that easily defined a problem. It isn't. Let me assume that we're talking about kids in the obligatory segment of the educational system (mine might differ from yours by the way). For obvious reasons we want to raise the total average of these kids while losing as few 'eggs' in the process.
There can be a lot of different reasons to facilitate differential education, but all the valid ones consist of outlier cases, such as people with dyslexia or other impairing disabilities. Motivation is not one of them at that age. Until they're ready to either move into the job market or into further education, motivation should not be a reason for differential education (again unless it is outlier cases, fx. depression or the like). Rather, there should be taken extra care so as to motivate the kids to learn and 'give a shit' as you put it. Seperating them into "good kids" and "bad eggs" classes is about as demotivating as you can get, especially if they get no further incentive to progress or consequence for not progressing beyong being categorically called 'stupid' by the system.
As for how to 'fix' this problem, I'm no expert on the subject, but maybe reduce class sizes to something manageable, educating the teachers better in pedagogical techniques to motivate children, motivate children to help each other across aptitude levels and generally provide the teaching equally and focus on the delivery. As they say, treat the sickness not the symptom.
I'm not a native English-speaking fellow, so if something got lost in translation I apologize.
Non sequitur? It is the end of the sliding scale of what you proposed. Stupid? Likely, but less so than your initial suggestion.
Bonus points for the reference, though.
Brilliant system! Wonder why no-one came up with it before you?
Now that we are on a roll, sure that a simple "school for A's" and "school for B's" is good enough? I mean, there can be more shades than that, right? Also, how do we screen people for those schools? Who do we employ to do that? What kind of education does they need? What if the kid suddenly shifts category? How do we transfer people between schools?
I think we need to start making some assumptions to get that system to work. Lets assume well-off and successful parents became well-off and successful through superior genes. From there, we can at least assume that rich kids are superior to poor kids. Maybe if we made it costly to attend one type of school and relatively cheap (but not too much!) to attend the other types we can fix all the problems with screening? Right? /end of angry sarcasm rant.
Your phone sends and receives data which it to some extent manipulates. While unlikely that you'll ever have any problem, don't think yourself safe ;)
The rest begin like yours. Zing!
I don't know, open one up that does? Currency only works if you work with it. Otherwise it has no value. That's the whole point!
Congratulations. You've gained a level in narrow-mindedness. Enjoy your new passive ability: "Missing the point by refusing the print."
If you had cared to read on, the person actually made a sound, if arguably invalid, statement (you know the difference between "sound" and "invalid" right? Right?)