Better idea: A modal dialog pops up, with a big red countdown from thirty seconds before the 'ok' and 'cancel' buttons become enabled, to make sure the user reads it. It also plays an audio clip at full volume to tell everyone else in the office to check it.
I'm not saying that you can't have undeveloped areas in cities - Central Park in New York, a great many parks in London. We've got a wetlands preserve right in the middle of the city for migrating birds. But the temptation is there, and to counter it requires a substantial amount of public pressure: The politicians need to know that if they get rid of the parks, they are going to be out next election.
Because having people live a long way from where they work means great demand on transport. Which means severe pollution and climate change issues, oil dependence, wasted time, tax money being spent to maintain a sprawling road network, traffic accidents, congestion, and all the other things everyone hates about traveling.
There would be no problem with people living in a spread-out manner if they all worked and shopped locally, but economics favors centralisation for some things. One supermarket can replace a thousand corner shops, and has lower overheads, and one office building getting hudreds of employees together in the same location still gets higher productivity than them all working from home where they have more distractions and no boss threatening to peek over their shoulder and spot them posting on Slashdot.
Land in a city is hugely expensive. The temptation for someone to demolish the park and build an office complex is great, both for private developers and for the local government eager to see the land generating tax rather than demanding upkeep.
Problem, though. Microsoft have also invested heavily in digital home things - DLNA, that sort of tech - and the continued deployment of that is really dependant in large part on eventually going to IPv6.
Why would the ISPs care about playing havoc? NATing will break P2P (Which competes with the ISPs own television service), Video on demand (Same), VoIP (Which competes with the ISPs phone service)... they can screw over any potential competition, and in a completly deniable way.
It also helps that the recording tends to be a mix of several stations, heavily distorted, and almost drowned out by static. Enough to just about tell it's a voice, but not to make out words. I imagine that if you were to set up such a recorder right next to a high-powered transmitter, you would get a much clearer recording. It might be an idea to use a test signal more easily identified, like morse code.
True. And yet, this doesn't stop Christians from believing in ghosts, and in vast numbers. You underestimate the ability of people to believe in multible contradictory things at once.
EVP is real... in the sense that a piece of electronic recording equipment, in silence, can record voices that can be just barely heard when you turn the volume right up and then amplify it some more. The voice comes from AM radio transmissions. Recording equipment isn't made to recieve them, but it still does, very weakly. It's only when operating at far above it's designed amplification that you can hear them.
True to some extent, but it still doesn't answer the question of why some ISPs deliberatly try to make the blocks look like a technical fault by faking 404 errors. This does not inspire confidence in the system.
I still have my old modem, that the superhub was supposed to replace.
It's not enough to own a modem that will connect. Cable internet requires all devices be whitelisted at the ISP end - they authenticate using some form of cryptography. If the ISP havn't granted an individual device specific permission to be on that network, the network will refuse to allow it. It's a measure to prevent theft of service, but it also means there is no choice at all of which modem (/modem-router) you get to use. It has to be the one the ISP sells you. Thus the upset over the superhub.
"The government passed bad and dangerous legislation." Even better. There are some issues on which the parties differ, but this isn't really one of them. We're in much the same issue as the Americans in that regard - it just isn't an issue with enough public concern to matter in elections.
I think I still have mine sitting on a shelf. I refuse to install it until they release the long-promised-and-still-undelivered firmware update that lets it function as a plain modem.
The problem here is that the argument extends infinitely. For example,
If I choose to repair my computer when it breaks, am I depriving a computer manufacturer of money?
If I learn to do my own wireing when redecorating a room, am I robbing an electrician I would otherwise have hired?
If I decide to drink tap water rather than Cola, am I stealing from the Coke Cola corporation by depriving them of a sale?
It's exactly the same princible as you are using, just applied in another manner. If you argue that to deprive a company of a sale is an equivilent action to stealing from them (An idea which actually does make sense from an economics perspective), then everything you do that avoids the need to spend money is a form of theft.
If the price of those epics is the loss of the freedom of the internet then I am more than willing to forgo them. I can live without any more multi-million-dollar movies.
I imagine production would adapt anyway, in the form of reduced production costs. There was a time when a movie didn't need superstars, incredible effects or on-location shooting. Some of the most famous movies ever produced were done on budgets that would be seen as a joke today. Perhaps eighty percent of the subjective quality, on a tiny fraction of the price. It can be done.
Actually, in some parts of the US collecting rainwater for you own use *is* illegal. It isn't called 'water piracy' but the concept isn't dissimilar. The state sells the rights to all the water falling in the catchment area of a river to a private company for processing into treated water for drinking or agriculture. By collecting the water en route from sky to river you are essentially stealing water the state has promised to the company.
Anyway, back to bottled water. I imagine that if by some quirk of history piped water had never happened, and a government in the US (Be it town, county, state or federal) were to propose introducing a municipal water supply, it would face extremally powerful opposition from the bottled water and drinks industry. In the same way, I couldn't imagine libraries would be permitted if the idea were only invented today - they would be shut down in a very short time for some form of copyright infringment, or else a whole new law passed to criminalise them.
Here in the EU, we've had cases of record labels threatening legal action against the BBC for producing music - on the grounds that it was unfair competition, since the BBC doesn't have to turn a profit. Once there is money to be made in something, there will be pressure to keep making that money - the best lawyers, the best lobbyists, the best PR companies. It makes change very difficult.
In the UK? Think defamation. I can easily imagine a situation happening in a few years where a party in the UK is able to get a non-UK site blocked on the grounds it constitutes libel. We have one of the loosest standards for legal defamation in the world.
I'm not really concerned about the IWF having some conspiracy planned, so much as just being somehow incompetent. Recall the Wikipedia 'Virgin Killer' incident? That only came to light because wikipedia is a major site with competent management to notice it and enough brand recognition for people to care. If they can make a mistake once, it does raise the question of how many other times it's happened and just not been noticed. Either simple mistakes, or (as in the VK incident) an over-eager member of their team blocking something that few would consider worthy of a block. Given that the list is a secret for obvious reasons, that those sites made subject to the block recieve no form of notification, and that many ISPs fake 404 messages or reset connections in order to take a technical problem, it seems quite likely this has happened.
There is an obvious solution. The IWF just needs to require all participating ISPs cease the use of misleading or potentially misleading blocking methods and instead provide a clear notification explaining that the site was blocked by request of the IWF. I don't know why they don't do this, unless it's to try to minimise the chance of their embarassing mistakes being noticed.
Slashdot Mirror
Better idea: A modal dialog pops up, with a big red countdown from thirty seconds before the 'ok' and 'cancel' buttons become enabled, to make sure the user reads it. It also plays an audio clip at full volume to tell everyone else in the office to check it.
I'm not saying that you can't have undeveloped areas in cities - Central Park in New York, a great many parks in London. We've got a wetlands preserve right in the middle of the city for migrating birds. But the temptation is there, and to counter it requires a substantial amount of public pressure: The politicians need to know that if they get rid of the parks, they are going to be out next election.
Politically, the ideal way to raise money is a stealth tax. If people don't realise they are being taxed, they can't blame you.
Because having people live a long way from where they work means great demand on transport. Which means severe pollution and climate change issues, oil dependence, wasted time, tax money being spent to maintain a sprawling road network, traffic accidents, congestion, and all the other things everyone hates about traveling.
There would be no problem with people living in a spread-out manner if they all worked and shopped locally, but economics favors centralisation for some things. One supermarket can replace a thousand corner shops, and has lower overheads, and one office building getting hudreds of employees together in the same location still gets higher productivity than them all working from home where they have more distractions and no boss threatening to peek over their shoulder and spot them posting on Slashdot.
Land in a city is hugely expensive. The temptation for someone to demolish the park and build an office complex is great, both for private developers and for the local government eager to see the land generating tax rather than demanding upkeep.
The only people that is desireable to are those who wish to intercept and listen in on your calls.
Problem, though. Microsoft have also invested heavily in digital home things - DLNA, that sort of tech - and the continued deployment of that is really dependant in large part on eventually going to IPv6.
Why would the ISPs care about playing havoc? NATing will break P2P (Which competes with the ISPs own television service), Video on demand (Same), VoIP (Which competes with the ISPs phone service)... they can screw over any potential competition, and in a completly deniable way.
It also helps that the recording tends to be a mix of several stations, heavily distorted, and almost drowned out by static. Enough to just about tell it's a voice, but not to make out words. I imagine that if you were to set up such a recorder right next to a high-powered transmitter, you would get a much clearer recording. It might be an idea to use a test signal more easily identified, like morse code.
"ghosts are contrary to Christian theology"
True. And yet, this doesn't stop Christians from believing in ghosts, and in vast numbers. You underestimate the ability of people to believe in multible contradictory things at once.
EVP is real... in the sense that a piece of electronic recording equipment, in silence, can record voices that can be just barely heard when you turn the volume right up and then amplify it some more. The voice comes from AM radio transmissions. Recording equipment isn't made to recieve them, but it still does, very weakly. It's only when operating at far above it's designed amplification that you can hear them.
True to some extent, but it still doesn't answer the question of why some ISPs deliberatly try to make the blocks look like a technical fault by faking 404 errors. This does not inspire confidence in the system.
I still have my old modem, that the superhub was supposed to replace.
It's not enough to own a modem that will connect. Cable internet requires all devices be whitelisted at the ISP end - they authenticate using some form of cryptography. If the ISP havn't granted an individual device specific permission to be on that network, the network will refuse to allow it. It's a measure to prevent theft of service, but it also means there is no choice at all of which modem (/modem-router) you get to use. It has to be the one the ISP sells you. Thus the upset over the superhub.
"The government passed bad and dangerous legislation."
Even better. There are some issues on which the parties differ, but this isn't really one of them. We're in much the same issue as the Americans in that regard - it just isn't an issue with enough public concern to matter in elections.
Reports are contradictory. Maybe it's only in some regions, or some service plans?
I think I still have mine sitting on a shelf. I refuse to install it until they release the long-promised-and-still-undelivered firmware update that lets it function as a plain modem.
Do you mean tracker.thepiratebay.org? Actually, that resolves to 127.0.0.1 no matter which ISP you use. It's disused.
Only websites that can't afford lawyers to defend themselves will be blocked. The ISPs are intelligent enough not to pick a fight they might lose.
The problem here is that the argument extends infinitely. For example,
If I choose to repair my computer when it breaks, am I depriving a computer manufacturer of money?
If I learn to do my own wireing when redecorating a room, am I robbing an electrician I would otherwise have hired?
If I decide to drink tap water rather than Cola, am I stealing from the Coke Cola corporation by depriving them of a sale?
It's exactly the same princible as you are using, just applied in another manner. If you argue that to deprive a company of a sale is an equivilent action to stealing from them (An idea which actually does make sense from an economics perspective), then everything you do that avoids the need to spend money is a form of theft.
If the price of those epics is the loss of the freedom of the internet then I am more than willing to forgo them. I can live without any more multi-million-dollar movies. I imagine production would adapt anyway, in the form of reduced production costs. There was a time when a movie didn't need superstars, incredible effects or on-location shooting. Some of the most famous movies ever produced were done on budgets that would be seen as a joke today. Perhaps eighty percent of the subjective quality, on a tiny fraction of the price. It can be done.
Actually, in some parts of the US collecting rainwater for you own use *is* illegal. It isn't called 'water piracy' but the concept isn't dissimilar. The state sells the rights to all the water falling in the catchment area of a river to a private company for processing into treated water for drinking or agriculture. By collecting the water en route from sky to river you are essentially stealing water the state has promised to the company.
Details: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/29rain.html
Anyway, back to bottled water. I imagine that if by some quirk of history piped water had never happened, and a government in the US (Be it town, county, state or federal) were to propose introducing a municipal water supply, it would face extremally powerful opposition from the bottled water and drinks industry. In the same way, I couldn't imagine libraries would be permitted if the idea were only invented today - they would be shut down in a very short time for some form of copyright infringment, or else a whole new law passed to criminalise them.
Here in the EU, we've had cases of record labels threatening legal action against the BBC for producing music - on the grounds that it was unfair competition, since the BBC doesn't have to turn a profit. Once there is money to be made in something, there will be pressure to keep making that money - the best lawyers, the best lobbyists, the best PR companies. It makes change very difficult.
In the UK? Think defamation. I can easily imagine a situation happening in a few years where a party in the UK is able to get a non-UK site blocked on the grounds it constitutes libel. We have one of the loosest standards for legal defamation in the world.
I'm not really concerned about the IWF having some conspiracy planned, so much as just being somehow incompetent. Recall the Wikipedia 'Virgin Killer' incident? That only came to light because wikipedia is a major site with competent management to notice it and enough brand recognition for people to care. If they can make a mistake once, it does raise the question of how many other times it's happened and just not been noticed. Either simple mistakes, or (as in the VK incident) an over-eager member of their team blocking something that few would consider worthy of a block. Given that the list is a secret for obvious reasons, that those sites made subject to the block recieve no form of notification, and that many ISPs fake 404 messages or reset connections in order to take a technical problem, it seems quite likely this has happened.
There is an obvious solution. The IWF just needs to require all participating ISPs cease the use of misleading or potentially misleading blocking methods and instead provide a clear notification explaining that the site was blocked by request of the IWF. I don't know why they don't do this, unless it's to try to minimise the chance of their embarassing mistakes being noticed.
Language has power though. If you use words skillfully you have quite an advantage in an argument. Not correctly, just skillfully.
There is one - noone has yet found a way to break serial whitelists for online gaming.
Oh, wait. All that did was lead to the invention of the serial-stealing trojan. That rather backfired. Nope, nothing remains uncracked.