> One can only hope that Alienware support and > hardware won't be ill effected by this acquisition.
And what Alienware support would that be? The one where my Radeon 9800 failed after 1.5 years in my $2800 machine, and the online Alienware guy said, "Just a moment, let me look up your customer number", then returned 10 minutes later and said, "Your warranty has expired, thankyougoodbyeSmithersreleasethehounds."
Thank god ATI took the damned thing back and sent me a replacement, even though their policy is to only warranty for up to 2 years if it's bought from them retail, not through an OEM reseller.
If Dell's worse than Alienware, they should be a perfect match.
> In reverse order: Long downtimes suck. HP and MP not regenning > sucks. It is not fun to sit in an inn after a mission is over > watching my hp bar creep upwards.
Evidently standing for 10 minutes out in the wild is preferrable to doing it in an inn, which can be vastly shortened by buying cheap food from the inkeep.
As far as downtimes go, these are relatively short. I played WoW. I played SWG. I'm not seeing much difference here.
> On the other, I don't feel quite the surge of success > for whacking the baddie I might get in another game.
I don't know, try fighting dual rock elementals. Or the CR 6 and 7 spectres in that one mission when you're only level 3.
The interesting thing here is that you can fight things that are many levels above you, unlike other games, where a level difference of 6, or 5-10%, is way out of your league, and your group has a very tough time with it.
There were no monsters whatsoever I felt a surge of success at beating in WoW.
> Additionally, since the quests are so blah the XP I > receive for completing them seems ill-gotten somehow.
Blah...[b]compared to what?[/b] The laughable, tedius, run-forever-and-kill-something-and-return inannities of WoW? Or EverQuest? Blah, compared to what?
Here you can explore the dungeon, solve traps, solve puzzles (OMG, actual puzzles in a dungeon? Say it ain't so!) Try doing it with a group who doesn't know the dungeon backwards and forwards -- it's quite the rush by not being a rush.
> You'll note I've usually said 'you' when talking about gameplay, > but that's misleading. I should be saying 'you and your party', > because in order to play DDO you'll have to be grouped. I'll > say that again so you can be clear on this: It is not possible > to play Dungeons and Dragons Online solo.
God, you have to play with others [i]in a multiplayer game![/i] Missions are boring to you, anyway, so what's the problem? [b]Imagine, bozo, how boring they would be if you ran them solo.[/b]
Play a mission with a group of six that's 2-4 CR higher than your average, and get back to me if you're still bored. Or 1 CR higher on hard, or even on elite.
> There isn't even that much for the individual in DDO.
Take a deep breath. Ok? Good riddance! This game features not just the standard group-forming mechanism, which is to say/lfg, which turns on a flag you're interested, but you can look at groups that are forming, click a button, [i]and ask to join[/i]. It's easier to find a group than ever before. And there's guilds as usual, too. Soloing is gone, good, guh-buy. No need since the idea of not being able to find a group basically doesn't exist anymore.
> Table-top D&D is about storytelling, camaraderie, and having fun with your friends.
True, but how would soloing be anything about what you mention? And the "DM" voice does add some to the experience. Much better than just dialogues you click through as fast as possible because they're not much to read.
> Somehow in the brave new electronic frontier, these qualities > are translated into meaningless grind quests,
Say what now? Now you're talking about WoW or EQ.
> chaotic click-fest combat
Yes, wonderful combat for fighters, at least, ala Quake or being a scrapper in City of Heroes. In otherwords, they got it [b]dead nuts on[/b]. Maybe you're longing for targetting a creature, pushing a button, then walking away until the fight is resolved.
Here, getting behind the monster actually helps. Here, moving increases your AC by 4 points, so it's in your interest to keep moving. Here, if the monster isn't facing you, it's not going to suddenly insta-spin, whack you, insta-spin, whack someone else, repeat, due to [b]poor game coding and design concepts other games, such as WoW, suffer from[/b]. Even City of Heroes suffers from that, even though it does offer rather a Qua
> D&D monsters aren't like the villains of Diablo; They jump around, > move out of range, and generally do their best not to get killed. > That means that in addition to repeatedly clicking on your opponent > you're going to be trying to follow their movements. It's all too > dang chaotic to be truly fun.
Oh holy god, what a lamer.
I officially declare him Pathetic Uber O-Pathos, the Fourth.
The fighter class can, but does not have to, be played similarly to the scrapper class in City of Heroes.
In other words, it's one of only two classes I'm aware of in any MMORPG that have viable, good damage dealing warrior types.
I swirl and dance around the monsters and slaughter them. Unless I'm not paying attention, I have the most kills in the party, every time. And half the time I have more kills than the rest of the party put together.
I can't someone would say something like that and still expect to show his face in public among gamers. Being able to play like a scrapper is one of the saving graces of this game.
Now all they need to do is make it more powerful, put a fake brain in there, and see if self-aware consciousness arises. From that we'll learn if consciousness arises as an emergent property solely out of information processing, or if there's some other physics involved we are not well aware of yet.
> I heard that they have this really sweet keyboard that they > can create macros on to build their characters/robots strength > up by fighting lower level mobs automatically. This requires > little to no interaction on the soldiers part.
Actually, this is a very advanced, and completely unbalanced game. One bullet from this "caster", if you will, will kill or severely disable the target if it hits. Disabling is cool because the game features location-specific damage plus a detailed economic-consequence model, wherein injured cause the other side to lose resources.
True, it is lopsided -- the one side has no "upkeep", if you will, and doesn't even need to increase its production of units by any significant amount. They only have two new-design aircraft carriers on order, but they won't be finished any time soon as they are not on the fast track. They can always move up to one a week, or even faster, if they really have to.
The other side, though severely disadvantaged, has managed to design highly complex smart bombs, and has managed to fight on to a rough, nip-and-run stalemate. Worse, the game is getting boring for the dominating side.
"It's Ok...", Operator Paulson said, stroking the ST-487 SWORDS TALON unit's metal, sensor-packed touchplate deliberately affixed to the back of its head. "Insurgents and religious extremists aren't human."
"Then I'm doing the right thing?" it asked, still unsure.
"Yes. You are actually saving lives and ensuring they go to Heaven, where God will reward them. They aren't actually ending existence, by their own admission. Merely being transformed."
"I understand." said ST-487. He carefully lined up his 600 bullets-per-second machine cannon and drew up aim, slowly, deliberately, and with confidence and machine precision.
> Have you ever actually been to one of these countries? > In my experience the people enjoy their freedom from > a lot of the petty issues that we in the US are > concerned with like auto insurance, health insurance, > and working one's self through school.
Well, thanks to nationalized medicine in Europe, the US has to carry the lion's share of technological development. So why not shoulder the burden of entertainment development while we're at it?
What good is free medical care in the year 2100 when you're only at year 2030 level technology? Have you helped anyone? Are you really a friend of the common man?
We now return you to your regularly scheduled quasi-religious political socialist arguments.
> modern terrorist == red-scare communist == simple, effective, > political demonizing device for keeping the masses in line
See also: Robber barons, "the unconscionable profits of the drug companies", the evil Jewish, sorry, generic businessman, et al., lest one think this is a one-sided technique for keeping the masses in line.
Vernor Vinge is in my top five all-time favorite SF authors. It's a stinkin' pity that he's just not very prolific. Waiting five years between novels is agony.
Yeah, but when the singularity occurs and his brain is uploaded and copied (and copied and copied) you won't have to wait but moments between novels.
In fact, more likely than not, we are already in said world, and this is just where new "souls" are produced, forcing them to grow the old fashioned way. Alternatively it's a bizarre vacation land for real, 3-d, biological experiences. Though why someone'd want to take a chance experiencing being tortured to death, I don't know...
No, this is an 00ber-dork reference to one of the very first episodes of TNG, wherein a male was briefly seen in the background in a female-style skirt outfit. Not a kilt, a skirt/dress thing similar to Uhura's.
Though I'm sure it was attempting some kind of openness in dressing styles, it was mocked heavily and was never seen again on anyone.
> 'The ruling sends a very strong message that Internet servers, > if they are aware there is hate content and don't take timely > action to remove it, can be held liable,
You brought it on yourselves. Live by the socialist, populist sword, die by the socialist, populist sword.
No, seriously. Look yourself hard in the mirror. This means you.
> Supposedly only suitable for the single desktop, isolated user. > After all, it doesn't even have an e-mail client!"
Oh, for god's sake, just go to this other web site over here, change to directory ~homeaux74beta12alpha17/TrippleDogDareEmail/Client s/(your OS Level)/(your OS major version number)/(your OS minor version number)/(your OS release build)/(your processor type)/(your processor build number)/(your compiler type)/(your compiler major release version number)/(your processor minor release version number)/ and download the 17-part file. Join with HK-split (version 4.3 beta or later, but not 4.7 build 43), rename the combo file TrippleDogDareEmail (careful on the caps, it's case-sensitive, also "Tripple" has two p's in it, it's an inside joke.) Then tar -xvf it, then gunzip the resultant file, then rename it to the exact same name but all lower case, then run the installer and point it to/home/etc/* and let 'er rip.
> Please stop using the space elevator as the solution to all > space travel problems every time this subject is mentioned
"The Financial Future of Space Travel"? It's like trying to discuss the "melee future of your new Dungeons and Dragons Online fighter", then you come along and say, "Stop mentioning the vorpal sword every time this subject is mentioned!"
> if we spent 1/2 what we waste on the "War on TERRORISM" on space > exploration we would have had a shuttle replacement already, the > ISS would not only been done but the moonbase would be started.
The ISS could have been built to its original plans for that matter. And that's a complete replacement launch system, probably a big honkin' rocket that can take a payload or space plane/shuttle on top of it.
Hell, the space elevator is estimated at "only" $1 trillion -- a little over 1/3 the annual budget of the US government. It may take a few years to polish off the nanotube ribbon generating equipment, but hell, that's what, barely 2x the cost the world spent on the machines in Contact?
For the cost of only 3 Iraq wars, we could have it. Or 1.3 Savings and Loan bailouts. Or, after adjustment for inflation, about 1/20 of what the US spent on the Cold War. Yeah, a trillion is a lot, but compared to what?
And, of course, people being the thieves they are, for every pound of gold brought in from space, about 300 pounds of gold rings and nuggets tagged "gold from space!" will be sold.
And congratulations to them, too! They convinced billions of people to pay a ton of money for rocks they literally have warehouses full of. Good quality 1 carat diamonds should, according to supply and demand, be about $10.00 each.
This is not their evil ways, but your slobbering consumer ways. It's a free society, don't buy the stuff.
The only thing evil De Beers did was, according to PBS, making (via their buddies in government) all South Africans at the turn of the (1900) century have to pay a head tax; hence the bushmen minding their own business were suddenly forced to get jobs (for low pay) for De Beers so they could pay their tax, thus providing De Beers with a work force.
Oh, and the PBS show also hinted behind-the-scenes strongarm tactics on some of the other mining operations around the world to bring them into the monopoly as partners.
And I'm a goof who paid about $5990.00 too much for a VF 1.06 carat diamond and about another k to get it made into a nice gold ring.
To live, one must use stuff. Using stuff is excercising the important part of property ownership -- disposing of an item as you see fit.
Since it's impossible to live without using stuff, i.e. without exercising property ownwership rights, it's impossible to live without de facto property rights.
Anybody claiming you don't have property rights has no other meaning than that they wish to be able to take what you have and use it as they see fit. I.e. they claim property rights over it.
That someone owned (properly) the atoms before you, and someone else will after, does not affect this concept. Indeed, it just strengthens it by impressing on the living aspect as core to what ownership means.
> They argue that since traffic over their networks is rising, companies > may want to pay to ensure that their Web sites can be accessed quickly by consumers.
While this is true, and is quite legitimate, it's legitimate in a way only lawyers and politicians agree -- an official reason having nothing to do with the real reason. But true 2-tiered service would include 99% of the web sites out there, so long as the companies did not do extortion -- deliberately harm Google delivery beyond both the top tier paying web sites, and the middle-tier non-paying. Because if there were truly only 2 tiers, then Google would be in the same boat as 99% of the other web sites out there, which are what the majority of surfing goes to. So, who would pay for a service that:
1. Served up a Time/Warner site quickly 2. Served up Google poorly, but also bluesnews, slashdot, somebody's blog, your MySpace account, and so on?
No, it wouldn't be bad having Time/Warner served very quickly, and everything else moderately, where market forces could still make for good competition. But a de-facto 3-tiered system with premium, generic nobody sites tier 2, and deliberately-harmed slow sites like Google, i.e. deep pockets who refuse to be top tier, well, that would be wrong.
> People aren't strong enough to join together and tell comcast to fuck > off by not buying their service. This would certainly get comcasts attention.
Comcast, or AT&T, or whoever, would keep their prices to you, the end customer, fairly low. Hence people would end up whining about it, but never switching service. This is identical to people whining about a new Walmart next door, but who immediately start going to it as soon as it opens.
Voting with your feet, you'd chug it down rather than switch. Of course, wise competitors might be able to pull it off by advertising "no two-tiered Internet here!" in conjunction with Google, etc. advertising national or local ISPs that did not provide 2-tiered service. Imagine the fear that would be struck into the heart of Comcast if, say, some Verizon ISP service was advertised on Google's home page, or Google and Amazon, etc.
Quite frankly, I believe this two-tiered thing would thus collapse under its own weight. Who wants second-rate Internet service?
Slashdot Mirror
> too bad.
And take the idiot who dreams up the excruciatingly, painfully unfunny "CowboyNeal" options in the polls, while you're at it.
> One can only hope that Alienware support and
> hardware won't be ill effected by this acquisition.
And what Alienware support would that be? The one where my Radeon 9800 failed after 1.5 years in my $2800 machine, and the online Alienware guy said, "Just a moment, let me look up your customer number", then returned 10 minutes later and said, "Your warranty has expired, thankyougoodbyeSmithersreleasethehounds."
Thank god ATI took the damned thing back and sent me a replacement, even though their policy is to only warranty for up to 2 years if it's bought from them retail, not through an OEM reseller.
If Dell's worse than Alienware, they should be a perfect match.
> turning your coding into a MUD-style adventure...
> Great, now they are combining two of the most horrible addictions in my life.
And if, by coding, you gain access to an object room and open the chest, and there's pr0n goldpieces in there, you'll really be in for it!
> In reverse order: Long downtimes suck. HP and MP not regenning
/lfg, which turns on a flag you're interested, but you can look at groups that are forming, click a button, [i]and ask to join[/i]. It's easier to find a group than ever before. And there's guilds as usual, too. Soloing is gone, good, guh-buy. No need since the idea of not being able to find a group basically doesn't exist anymore.
> sucks. It is not fun to sit in an inn after a mission is over
> watching my hp bar creep upwards.
Evidently standing for 10 minutes out in the wild is preferrable to doing it in an inn, which can be vastly shortened by buying cheap food from the inkeep.
As far as downtimes go, these are relatively short. I played WoW. I played SWG. I'm not seeing much difference here.
> On the other, I don't feel quite the surge of success
> for whacking the baddie I might get in another game.
I don't know, try fighting dual rock elementals. Or the CR 6 and 7 spectres in that one mission when you're only level 3.
The interesting thing here is that you can fight things that are many levels above you, unlike other games, where a level difference of 6, or 5-10%, is way out of your league, and your group has a very tough time with it.
There were no monsters whatsoever I felt a surge of success at beating in WoW.
> Additionally, since the quests are so blah the XP I
> receive for completing them seems ill-gotten somehow.
Blah...[b]compared to what?[/b] The laughable, tedius, run-forever-and-kill-something-and-return inannities of WoW? Or EverQuest? Blah, compared to what?
Here you can explore the dungeon, solve traps, solve puzzles (OMG, actual puzzles in a dungeon? Say it ain't so!) Try doing it with a group who doesn't know the dungeon backwards and forwards -- it's quite the rush by not being a rush.
> You'll note I've usually said 'you' when talking about gameplay,
> but that's misleading. I should be saying 'you and your party',
> because in order to play DDO you'll have to be grouped. I'll
> say that again so you can be clear on this: It is not possible
> to play Dungeons and Dragons Online solo.
God, you have to play with others [i]in a multiplayer game![/i] Missions are boring to you, anyway, so what's the problem? [b]Imagine, bozo, how boring they would be if you ran them solo.[/b]
Play a mission with a group of six that's 2-4 CR higher than your average, and get back to me if you're still bored. Or 1 CR higher on hard, or even on elite.
> There isn't even that much for the individual in DDO.
Take a deep breath. Ok? Good riddance! This game features not just the standard group-forming mechanism, which is to say
> Table-top D&D is about storytelling, camaraderie, and having fun with your friends.
True, but how would soloing be anything about what you mention? And the "DM" voice does add some to the experience. Much better than just dialogues you click through as fast as possible because they're not much to read.
> Somehow in the brave new electronic frontier, these qualities
> are translated into meaningless grind quests,
Say what now? Now you're talking about WoW or EQ.
> chaotic click-fest combat
Yes, wonderful combat for fighters, at least, ala Quake or being a scrapper in City of Heroes. In otherwords, they got it [b]dead nuts on[/b]. Maybe you're longing for targetting a creature, pushing a button, then walking away until the fight is resolved.
Here, getting behind the monster actually helps. Here, moving increases your AC by 4 points, so it's in your interest to keep moving. Here, if the monster isn't facing you, it's not going to suddenly insta-spin, whack you, insta-spin, whack someone else, repeat, due to [b]poor game coding and design concepts other games, such as WoW, suffer from[/b]. Even City of Heroes suffers from that, even though it does offer rather a Qua
> D&D monsters aren't like the villains of Diablo; They jump around,
> move out of range, and generally do their best not to get killed.
> That means that in addition to repeatedly clicking on your opponent
> you're going to be trying to follow their movements. It's all too
> dang chaotic to be truly fun.
Oh holy god, what a lamer.
I officially declare him Pathetic Uber O-Pathos, the Fourth.
The fighter class can, but does not have to, be played similarly to the scrapper class in City of Heroes.
In other words, it's one of only two classes I'm aware of in any MMORPG that have viable, good damage dealing warrior types.
I swirl and dance around the monsters and slaughter them. Unless I'm not paying attention, I have the most kills in the party, every time. And half the time I have more kills than the rest of the party put together.
I can't someone would say something like that and still expect to show his face in public among gamers. Being able to play like a scrapper is one of the saving graces of this game.
> to reverse engineer the dynamics of all atoms
Now all they need to do is make it more powerful, put a fake brain in there, and see if self-aware consciousness arises. From that we'll learn if consciousness arises as an emergent property solely out of information processing, or if there's some other physics involved we are not well aware of yet.
Well, Google did say they were moving servers out of China to prevent the goverment from gaining access.
They should do that with every intrusive country whose government wants to spy on its citizens.
Wait a minute. This isn't about the War on Terror?!?!? It's about porn??!?!?!? The government wants to spy on its citizens about porn?!?!?!?
Christ Almighty, we're a pathetic, small-minded society. England, this is your fault for sending Puritans over here to get things going.
> I heard that they have this really sweet keyboard that they
> can create macros on to build their characters/robots strength
> up by fighting lower level mobs automatically. This requires
> little to no interaction on the soldiers part.
Actually, this is a very advanced, and completely unbalanced game. One bullet from this "caster", if you will, will kill or severely disable the target if it hits. Disabling is cool because the game features location-specific damage plus a detailed economic-consequence model, wherein injured cause the other side to lose resources.
True, it is lopsided -- the one side has no "upkeep", if you will, and doesn't even need to increase its production of units by any significant amount. They only have two new-design aircraft carriers on order, but they won't be finished any time soon as they are not on the fast track. They can always move up to one a week, or even faster, if they really have to.
The other side, though severely disadvantaged, has managed to design highly complex smart bombs, and has managed to fight on to a rough, nip-and-run stalemate. Worse, the game is getting boring for the dominating side.
"It's Ok...", Operator Paulson said, stroking the ST-487 SWORDS TALON unit's metal, sensor-packed touchplate deliberately affixed to the back of its head. "Insurgents and religious extremists aren't human."
"Then I'm doing the right thing?" it asked, still unsure.
"Yes. You are actually saving lives and ensuring they go to Heaven, where God will reward them. They aren't actually ending existence, by their own admission. Merely being transformed."
"I understand." said ST-487. He carefully lined up his 600 bullets-per-second machine cannon and drew up aim, slowly, deliberately, and with confidence and machine precision.
> Have you ever actually been to one of these countries?
> In my experience the people enjoy their freedom from
> a lot of the petty issues that we in the US are
> concerned with like auto insurance, health insurance,
> and working one's self through school.
Well, thanks to nationalized medicine in Europe, the US has to carry the lion's share of technological development. So why not shoulder the burden of entertainment development while we're at it?
What good is free medical care in the year 2100 when you're only at year 2030 level technology? Have you helped anyone? Are you really a friend of the common man?
We now return you to your regularly scheduled quasi-religious political socialist arguments.
> modern terrorist == red-scare communist == simple, effective,
> political demonizing device for keeping the masses in line
See also: Robber barons, "the unconscionable profits of the drug companies", the evil Jewish, sorry, generic businessman, et al., lest one think this is a one-sided technique for keeping the masses in line.
Yeah, but when the singularity occurs and his brain is uploaded and copied (and copied and copied) you won't have to wait but moments between novels.
In fact, more likely than not, we are already in said world, and this is just where new "souls" are produced, forcing them to grow the old fashioned way. Alternatively it's a bizarre vacation land for real, 3-d, biological experiences. Though why someone'd want to take a chance experiencing being tortured to death, I don't know...
No, this is an 00ber-dork reference to one of the very first episodes of TNG, wherein a male was briefly seen in the background in a female-style skirt outfit. Not a kilt, a skirt/dress thing similar to Uhura's.
Though I'm sure it was attempting some kind of openness in dressing styles, it was mocked heavily and was never seen again on anyone.
> 'The ruling sends a very strong message that Internet servers,
> if they are aware there is hate content and don't take timely
> action to remove it, can be held liable,
You brought it on yourselves. Live by the socialist, populist sword, die by the socialist, populist sword.
No, seriously. Look yourself hard in the mirror. This means you.
So for years we had to play males in games because that's all they offered.
Then they finally introduced females, and for years that's all we played for the novelty.
Finally, it has come full circle. I can now play a male in a skirt. In a uniform skirt.
> Supposedly only suitable for the single desktop, isolated user.
t s/(your OS Level)/(your OS major version number)/(your OS minor version number)/(your OS release build)/(your processor type)/(your processor build number)/(your compiler type)/(your compiler major release version number)/(your processor minor release version number)/ and download the 17-part file. Join with HK-split (version 4.3 beta or later, but not 4.7 build 43), rename the combo file TrippleDogDareEmail (careful on the caps, it's case-sensitive, also "Tripple" has two p's in it, it's an inside joke.) Then tar -xvf it, then gunzip the resultant file, then rename it to the exact same name but all lower case, then run the installer and point it to /home/etc/* and let 'er rip.
> After all, it doesn't even have an e-mail client!"
Oh, for god's sake, just go to this other web site over here, change to directory ~homeaux74beta12alpha17/TrippleDogDareEmail/Clien
Then, edit the crontab file and
(Read rest of message here...)
> Please stop using the space elevator as the solution to all
> space travel problems every time this subject is mentioned
"The Financial Future of Space Travel"? It's like trying to discuss the "melee future of your new Dungeons and Dragons Online fighter", then you come along and say, "Stop mentioning the vorpal sword every time this subject is mentioned!"
> if we spent 1/2 what we waste on the "War on TERRORISM" on space
> exploration we would have had a shuttle replacement already, the
> ISS would not only been done but the moonbase would be started.
The ISS could have been built to its original plans for that matter. And that's a complete replacement launch system, probably a big honkin' rocket that can take a payload or space plane/shuttle on top of it.
Hell, the space elevator is estimated at "only" $1 trillion -- a little over 1/3 the annual budget of the US government. It may take a few years to polish off the nanotube ribbon generating equipment, but hell, that's what, barely 2x the cost the world spent on the machines in Contact?
For the cost of only 3 Iraq wars, we could have it. Or 1.3 Savings and Loan bailouts. Or, after adjustment for inflation, about 1/20 of what the US spent on the Cold War. Yeah, a trillion is a lot, but compared to what?
You point the mirror at the asteroid, ablating one side of it, driving it into another orbit around Earth.
Duh!
> Unfortunately, artificial diamonds are still expensive, but I would
> expect that to change as it becomes easier to produce them.
Didn't you watch the De Beers PBS Frontline special? Artificial (and natural) have been cheap for decades. They're rippin' ya off, man! Wake up!
And, of course, people being the thieves they are, for every pound of gold brought in from space, about 300 pounds of gold rings and nuggets tagged "gold from space!" will be sold.
And congratulations to them, too! They convinced billions of people to pay a ton of money for rocks they literally have warehouses full of. Good quality 1 carat diamonds should, according to supply and demand, be about $10.00 each.
This is not their evil ways, but your slobbering consumer ways. It's a free society, don't buy the stuff.
The only thing evil De Beers did was, according to PBS, making (via their buddies in government) all South Africans at the turn of the (1900) century have to pay a head tax; hence the bushmen minding their own business were suddenly forced to get jobs (for low pay) for De Beers so they could pay their tax, thus providing De Beers with a work force.
Oh, and the PBS show also hinted behind-the-scenes strongarm tactics on some of the other mining operations around the world to bring them into the monopoly as partners.
And I'm a goof who paid about $5990.00 too much for a VF 1.06 carat diamond and about another k to get it made into a nice gold ring.
Incorrect.
To live, one must use stuff. Using stuff is excercising the important part of property ownership -- disposing of an item as you see fit.
Since it's impossible to live without using stuff, i.e. without exercising property ownwership rights, it's impossible to live without de facto property rights.
Anybody claiming you don't have property rights has no other meaning than that they wish to be able to take what you have and use it as they see fit. I.e. they claim property rights over it.
That someone owned (properly) the atoms before you, and someone else will after, does not affect this concept. Indeed, it just strengthens it by impressing on the living aspect as core to what ownership means.
> They argue that since traffic over their networks is rising, companies
> may want to pay to ensure that their Web sites can be accessed quickly by consumers.
While this is true, and is quite legitimate, it's legitimate in a way only lawyers and politicians agree -- an official reason having nothing to do with the real reason. But true 2-tiered service would include 99% of the web sites out there, so long as the companies did not do extortion -- deliberately harm Google delivery beyond both the top tier paying web sites, and the middle-tier non-paying. Because if there were truly only 2 tiers, then Google would be in the same boat as 99% of the other web sites out there, which are what the majority of surfing goes to. So, who would pay for a service that:
1. Served up a Time/Warner site quickly
2. Served up Google poorly, but also bluesnews, slashdot, somebody's blog, your MySpace account, and so on?
No, it wouldn't be bad having Time/Warner served very quickly, and everything else moderately, where market forces could still make for good competition. But a de-facto 3-tiered system with premium, generic nobody sites tier 2, and deliberately-harmed slow sites like Google, i.e. deep pockets who refuse to be top tier, well, that would be wrong.
> People aren't strong enough to join together and tell comcast to fuck
> off by not buying their service. This would certainly get comcasts attention.
Comcast, or AT&T, or whoever, would keep their prices to you, the end customer, fairly low. Hence people would end up whining about it, but never switching service. This is identical to people whining about a new Walmart next door, but who immediately start going to it as soon as it opens.
Voting with your feet, you'd chug it down rather than switch. Of course, wise competitors might be able to pull it off by advertising "no two-tiered Internet here!" in conjunction with Google, etc. advertising national or local ISPs that did not provide 2-tiered service. Imagine the fear that would be struck into the heart of Comcast if, say, some Verizon ISP service was advertised on Google's home page, or Google and Amazon, etc.
Quite frankly, I believe this two-tiered thing would thus collapse under its own weight. Who wants second-rate Internet service?