Your confusing ISPs for content providers. Verizon has nothing to do with you needing to see ads to download software, to view them before watching a video. In the end, your content provider needs money to keep them out of a cardboard box, and to develop new content, and ads are probably the best way to do this.
I really hate defending ads, but...
Lets not forget that Usenet is a protocol. There's a whole crapload of providers for it and unless Verizon is willing to block a protocol they did absolutely NIL to prevent access to groups.
This, though, is insightful. But, if they actually ditch Usenet in the US, then Usenet might not actually die, but it will be no more than a zombie. I'm guessing US users are a large percentage of Usenet users, so if you remove them they decrease the overall "quality" of Usenet, causing more people in freer countries to leave as well.
You're missing the big picture, chief. You (minority of) folks on Slashdot want everyone else to pay for your bandwidth. All you have to do is pony up the cash yourself. There's no justice in making my dad subsidize your desire to pirate every anime ever made.
You are wrong, a MAJORITY of folks on/. want to pay for what for what they were told they are paying for. If I'm paying $50/mo for unlimited service, then I expect it to be unlimited service, not limited by what I chose to do with the service I'm paying for, or which content provider pays the service more for priority.
It really has nothing to do with anime or piracy. Its a far more basic question, should ISPs have to live by their own words, or can they lie their teeth off and justify it with the fallacious "piracy bad" excuse.
Also, the question here is why are they spending more money going after their customers, than, you know, fixing the infrastructure to handle everyday traffic.
Its getting to the point where I think corporations are actively against their customers, they'd prefer to have no services whatsoever, and still force us to pay for them.
Erm... Read the story just above this one. Usenet fails to think of the children, therefore no Usenet for you.
Also the net neutrality is about the "average" user, I really doubt that the "average" can differenciate between Google Groups and plain ol' Usenet. I'm guessing that maybe >1% of modern traffic is because of Usenet.
Oh and, to fulfill the cliche requirement for all comments, "the first rule of Usenet is?"
Nano is the marketing hype word of the day, either that or "Popular with the Japanese".
I guess, then it uses an ionic nano-material, developed from the traditional Japanese space-program in a synergistic eco-friendly (dolphin safe) Green process in the latest space age fashion, in which 4 out of five dentists (or the actors who play them on television) recommend. Now in 2.0 HD !
What if there aren't habitable planets in the neighborhood? While planets seem ubiquitous, I doubt "earth like" planets are, meaning having liquid water, a breathable atmosphere etc... Unless we're only going for "living in a dome" colonization, but even then there are constraints, such as acceptable mass/gravity, raw materials, safe-ish levels of solar radiation, etc...
Also I find the 5 year idea rather too quick. What speed is this accounting for? I doubt that we're even going to hit going c, since that relies on HUGE amounts of energy (infinite) for acceleration to c, and deceleration from c.
Also the building of infrastructure on our colony plants would probably go towards building colonies first, with future ships a distant second. And we also would be heavily dependant on the resources (distribution, availability, etc...) of the planets we land on, with is quite a random variable to bank on.
A more important question would be "why?" I don't understand why we'd ever value such a huge push. I would rather think that we would hit the colonize phase, then upon establishing a colony we'd expand it, until we hit a resource cap, and them further colonize. There is no reason to waste resources on spreading, when there is no natural need to. If we have, say, 10,000 settlers on our colony planet, which would have a capacity of a billion or so, why waste the effort to send off another 10,000 immediately, when you could be getting comfortable, and improving your own circumstances?
In a sufficiently advanced scenario for this, I would think birth rates would be low, thanks to better quality of life, and extended quantity of life (if you live 100+ years, why bother having children young?). Thus pushing the concept of generation outwards.
We also ignore the fact that in the future we will be about as cooperative and organized as now. I doubt that our social abilities will change too much in the future, since they haven't changed much in the past.
Futurists should be forced to pay more attention to anthropology and history.
Foxmarks is good, and I agree more trustworthy than Google, but... It lacks most of the functionality of the Google version, such as cookies, history, and passwords. Bookmarks isn't the only thing I like synced between browsers, I like all of my installations of Firefox (3 or 4, currently) to be pretty much clones of each other.
Someone is going to jump in and suggest Mozilla Weave, which is pretty much the same thing as Google's, but much more buggy and slow. I've had it take 30 minutes to sync between two computers before, that is if the server is actually up.
Its news in which nerds might be interested, and it matters. It isn't "Nerd News, Stuff that matters". Or are nerds supposed to be completely oblivious, apathetic, and uninterested in the real world? Seems a pathetic existence.
If you don't care, don't open the article. Easy enough for you?
That said, I'm a nerd, and I care, and I find that this matters, since Russert was one of the last true journalists out there, who wasn't a pretty talking-head pundit. Our supply of actual newsmen is dwindling rapidly, and soon we will be stuck with hordes of O'Reilly/Olbermann* clones. Commentators disguised as newsmen.
* I personally like Olbermann, but calling him a newsman is rather inaccurate, he's a pundit, insightful, but still a pundit.
I remember the old "get 5 free, if you buy 300 more for grossly inflated prices" deal, and I think that those are legal, since you sign a contract beforehand. Scientific American has adds for a scheme like that in their mag, for the "scientific book club" or such, so its still legal.
It would be applicable if they send you a CD, and then told you need to buy 10 more, or pay for it. Unsolicited, of course.
The Magna Carta is the basis of English legal tradition, which is the basis of OUR legal tradition. It really is the founding document of our version of Common Law, just as it is to the English.
I find it odd that the dissenters take Habeas to be a threat. Perhaps we should suspend it in the actual states too, since obviously people suspected of a crime may be released, as well.
Think of all of those people who may possibly be murderers and rapists in our courts! The horror!
Just think, some of them will be acquitted, and return to our streets!
We already like shipping our "prisoners" to other countries, who are LESS Geneva Convention friendly than ourselves.
"We don't torture prisoners, we give them to countries that do!" We'll probably do the same now, "We don't ignore habeas corpus, we give them to countries that don't have it!"
Our whole administration needs a paid vacation to the Hague.
The military claims that the organizations to which these detainees belong did not. You don't get Geneva Convention protections just by shooting at an army and then throwing your gun and raising your arms.,/i>
I'm not quite sure what your getting at there.
But, the conditions for the Geneva Convention to apply is NOT that the other country follows it. If the other country doesn't follow the Geneva convention, then we still have to. Remember in grade school? When they taught you that two wrongs don't make a right?
I'll skip the debate, mostly due to time constraints. It would be interesting though, to see who ends up on top.
Informally, I don't think that anyone could find that the Civil War had "nothing" to do with slavery, it would be like stating that the Iraq war has nothing to do with oil. Neither may be prime causes, but they definitely contribute.
What I am proposing is a formal debate, where both sides may present their cases (complete with the evidence, citations, and documentation for their views), and where the bystanders have a place to comment--separately from the actual debate, but accessible by all. Indeed, to my mind an optimum addition to said debate would be to have a team of knowledgeable experts to judge the debate.
Thank you! It sounds like an awesome idea for a full site. I've been meaning to sit down polar opposites, have them argue, and them put it in a book, but this is a much more fascinating idea. Like/., with formal arguments for stories. I don't think/. would be a bad arena on the comment/spectator front, though I agree it would rather suck for the content itself.
I hope you don't mind me, possibly, using that idea?
1: Actually he is right, slavery was tertiary to to the civil war, freeing slaves was largly a tactical dicission after the fact. The people replying to you do a good job refuting your point, so I'll let them stand.
And;
2: Slashdot not being a good place for an offtopic discussion, you must be new here.
Though, slightly more seriously, this is why modern American education is dying, the civil war had very little to do with slavery, or the rights of blacks (as it was taught to me in high school). The civil war is to blacks, what WWII was to Jews. Good inadvertent consequences.
I don't like Ron Paul, or even agree with libertarianism, but I agree with you 100%. Both of the hardcore idealist canidates in this election were screwed by the media, even before voting began. Kucinich, and Paul. They shouldn't be in the same sentence, I know, but they both must be doing something right based on their massive anti-fan-base.
Standing up for principles, perhaps?
The media painted both of them into being amusing monkeys, dancing to keep the debates amusing, while the "big boys" debated. I tend to read the "big boys" as synonymous with "bland, flavorless, oatmeal".
If I had my wish we'd have a Kucinich/Paul ticket, or visa versa, things would actually get done, and both of them are more honest than the political survivors.
Slashdot Mirror
Your confusing ISPs for content providers. Verizon has nothing to do with you needing to see ads to download software, to view them before watching a video. In the end, your content provider needs money to keep them out of a cardboard box, and to develop new content, and ads are probably the best way to do this.
I really hate defending ads, but...
Lets not forget that Usenet is a protocol. There's a whole crapload of providers for it and unless Verizon is willing to block a protocol they did absolutely NIL to prevent access to groups.
This, though, is insightful. But, if they actually ditch Usenet in the US, then Usenet might not actually die, but it will be no more than a zombie. I'm guessing US users are a large percentage of Usenet users, so if you remove them they decrease the overall "quality" of Usenet, causing more people in freer countries to leave as well.
Hmm... if we move it to .xxx, then the ISPs will just be able to block .xxx.
Children might be able to see boobies, and we all know that boobies are bad.
You're missing the big picture, chief. You (minority of) folks on Slashdot want everyone else to pay for your bandwidth. All you have to do is pony up the cash yourself. There's no justice in making my dad subsidize your desire to pirate every anime ever made.
/. want to pay for what for what they were told they are paying for. If I'm paying $50/mo for unlimited service, then I expect it to be unlimited service, not limited by what I chose to do with the service I'm paying for, or which content provider pays the service more for priority.
You are wrong, a MAJORITY of folks on
It really has nothing to do with anime or piracy. Its a far more basic question, should ISPs have to live by their own words, or can they lie their teeth off and justify it with the fallacious "piracy bad" excuse.
Also, the question here is why are they spending more money going after their customers, than, you know, fixing the infrastructure to handle everyday traffic.
Its getting to the point where I think corporations are actively against their customers, they'd prefer to have no services whatsoever, and still force us to pay for them.
Erm... Read the story just above this one. Usenet fails to think of the children, therefore no Usenet for you.
Also the net neutrality is about the "average" user, I really doubt that the "average" can differenciate between Google Groups and plain ol' Usenet. I'm guessing that maybe >1% of modern traffic is because of Usenet.
Oh and, to fulfill the cliche requirement for all comments, "the first rule of Usenet is?"
Nano is the marketing hype word of the day, either that or "Popular with the Japanese".
I guess, then it uses an ionic nano-material, developed from the traditional Japanese space-program in a synergistic eco-friendly (dolphin safe) Green process in the latest space age fashion, in which 4 out of five dentists (or the actors who play them on television) recommend. Now in 2.0 HD !
Hmmm... Doubly Zen since its in the wrong discussion. :)
What the hell is up with this recent resurgence of AC trolls. What are we up to, 50% AC troll content?
The worse is the meta-content, lord. Yes, the parent said a stale joke, do you actually ADD anything to the discussion by being a troll about it?
Am I adding anything by commenting on my annoyance to meta-trolls. I'm a meta-meta-troll?
This seems like the Sagan invisible dragon example.
So they are completely undetectable, therefore they MUST exist?
Am I the only one that smells a fallacy here?
A couple problems with this...
What if there aren't habitable planets in the neighborhood? While planets seem ubiquitous, I doubt "earth like" planets are, meaning having liquid water, a breathable atmosphere etc... Unless we're only going for "living in a dome" colonization, but even then there are constraints, such as acceptable mass/gravity, raw materials, safe-ish levels of solar radiation, etc...
Also I find the 5 year idea rather too quick. What speed is this accounting for? I doubt that we're even going to hit going c, since that relies on HUGE amounts of energy (infinite) for acceleration to c, and deceleration from c.
Also the building of infrastructure on our colony plants would probably go towards building colonies first, with future ships a distant second. And we also would be heavily dependant on the resources (distribution, availability, etc...) of the planets we land on, with is quite a random variable to bank on.
A more important question would be "why?" I don't understand why we'd ever value such a huge push. I would rather think that we would hit the colonize phase, then upon establishing a colony we'd expand it, until we hit a resource cap, and them further colonize. There is no reason to waste resources on spreading, when there is no natural need to. If we have, say, 10,000 settlers on our colony planet, which would have a capacity of a billion or so, why waste the effort to send off another 10,000 immediately, when you could be getting comfortable, and improving your own circumstances?
In a sufficiently advanced scenario for this, I would think birth rates would be low, thanks to better quality of life, and extended quantity of life (if you live 100+ years, why bother having children young?). Thus pushing the concept of generation outwards.
We also ignore the fact that in the future we will be about as cooperative and organized as now. I doubt that our social abilities will change too much in the future, since they haven't changed much in the past.
Futurists should be forced to pay more attention to anthropology and history.
Actually our eyes are better at seeing green (actually more green/yellow) than any other color, so it "jumps out" better than red.
I really don't know why people decided on red exit signs, since they aren't the most effective.
But then you have the Arizona Cardinals...
They can lose to any color, including, probably, clear.
An old brand of shoes?
How is that NSFW, unless your into Victorian porn?
Foxmarks is good, and I agree more trustworthy than Google, but... It lacks most of the functionality of the Google version, such as cookies, history, and passwords. Bookmarks isn't the only thing I like synced between browsers, I like all of my installations of Firefox (3 or 4, currently) to be pretty much clones of each other.
Someone is going to jump in and suggest Mozilla Weave, which is pretty much the same thing as Google's, but much more buggy and slow. I've had it take 30 minutes to sync between two computers before, that is if the server is actually up.
Its news in which nerds might be interested, and it matters. It isn't "Nerd News, Stuff that matters". Or are nerds supposed to be completely oblivious, apathetic, and uninterested in the real world? Seems a pathetic existence.
If you don't care, don't open the article. Easy enough for you?
That said, I'm a nerd, and I care, and I find that this matters, since Russert was one of the last true journalists out there, who wasn't a pretty talking-head pundit. Our supply of actual newsmen is dwindling rapidly, and soon we will be stuck with hordes of O'Reilly/Olbermann* clones. Commentators disguised as newsmen.
* I personally like Olbermann, but calling him a newsman is rather inaccurate, he's a pundit, insightful, but still a pundit.
How so?
I remember the old "get 5 free, if you buy 300 more for grossly inflated prices" deal, and I think that those are legal, since you sign a contract beforehand. Scientific American has adds for a scheme like that in their mag, for the "scientific book club" or such, so its still legal.
It would be applicable if they send you a CD, and then told you need to buy 10 more, or pay for it. Unsolicited, of course.
Prisoners of war are not valid reprisal targets, and I don't think that torture is valid either, only military actions apply.
I have an idea for a new game: "Plot of a Kafka novel, or American policies".
Nope.
The Magna Carta is the basis of English legal tradition, which is the basis of OUR legal tradition. It really is the founding document of our version of Common Law, just as it is to the English.
I find it odd that the dissenters take Habeas to be a threat. Perhaps we should suspend it in the actual states too, since obviously people suspected of a crime may be released, as well.
Think of all of those people who may possibly be murderers and rapists in our courts! The horror!
Just think, some of them will be acquitted, and return to our streets!
Sadly, though, I think the parent is correct.
We already like shipping our "prisoners" to other countries, who are LESS Geneva Convention friendly than ourselves.
"We don't torture prisoners, we give them to countries that do!" We'll probably do the same now, "We don't ignore habeas corpus, we give them to countries that don't have it!"
Our whole administration needs a paid vacation to the Hague.
The military claims that the organizations to which these detainees belong did not. You don't get Geneva Convention protections just by shooting at an army and then throwing your gun and raising your arms.,/i>
I'm not quite sure what your getting at there.
But, the conditions for the Geneva Convention to apply is NOT that the other country follows it. If the other country doesn't follow the Geneva convention, then we still have to. Remember in grade school? When they taught you that two wrongs don't make a right?
I'll skip the debate, mostly due to time constraints. It would be interesting though, to see who ends up on top.
/., with formal arguments for stories. I don't think /. would be a bad arena on the comment/spectator front, though I agree it would rather suck for the content itself.
Informally, I don't think that anyone could find that the Civil War had "nothing" to do with slavery, it would be like stating that the Iraq war has nothing to do with oil. Neither may be prime causes, but they definitely contribute.
What I am proposing is a formal debate, where both sides may present their cases (complete with the evidence, citations, and documentation for their views), and where the bystanders have a place to comment--separately from the actual debate, but accessible by all. Indeed, to my mind an optimum addition to said debate would be to have a team of knowledgeable experts to judge the debate.
Thank you! It sounds like an awesome idea for a full site. I've been meaning to sit down polar opposites, have them argue, and them put it in a book, but this is a much more fascinating idea. Like
I hope you don't mind me, possibly, using that idea?
I really hate agreeing with my fans but...
1: Actually he is right, slavery was tertiary to to the civil war, freeing slaves was largly a tactical dicission after the fact. The people replying to you do a good job refuting your point, so I'll let them stand.
And;
2: Slashdot not being a good place for an offtopic discussion, you must be new here.
Though, slightly more seriously, this is why modern American education is dying, the civil war had very little to do with slavery, or the rights of blacks (as it was taught to me in high school). The civil war is to blacks, what WWII was to Jews. Good inadvertent consequences.
I don't like Ron Paul, or even agree with libertarianism, but I agree with you 100%. Both of the hardcore idealist canidates in this election were screwed by the media, even before voting began. Kucinich, and Paul. They shouldn't be in the same sentence, I know, but they both must be doing something right based on their massive anti-fan-base.
Standing up for principles, perhaps?
The media painted both of them into being amusing monkeys, dancing to keep the debates amusing, while the "big boys" debated. I tend to read the "big boys" as synonymous with "bland, flavorless, oatmeal".
If I had my wish we'd have a Kucinich/Paul ticket, or visa versa, things would actually get done, and both of them are more honest than the political survivors.
I'd like to see someone mount a real attack on the man's ideology, instead of ad hominem attacks based on lies.
But... but... isn't that the basis of ALL modern American politics?