Both of those shows are very very old though. They're also not licensed in the States AFAIK. Fansubbers don't have a easy time getting the early episodes and it's hard to get people excited about old stuff anyway (although there is a contingent of Doraemon fans in the states).
On the other hand, most of the Japanese guys I know consider Doraemon a little kids show and Sazae-san their grandparent's show, so maybe they aren't represtative of the popluation at large that pparently loves those shows.
All the times I've had to call them up it's been due to hardware failures.
Anyway, you're right that they shouldn't have to do much, but look at it this way. Verizon doesn't see it as "those guys hand the pain in the butt call center" they look at it as "$4.28 of each bill is for call center staff". They don't really care how much annoyance it is. What they really hate is that they can't just raise prices whenever because their competitors will eat their lunch if they do.
Phone companies never pass up the chance to gain a Monopoloy somewhere because it means they can channel funds from that market to ones where they need to beat the competition.
You know, I have yet to meet a person who had Adelphia Broadband and was happy with it. Adelphia's first generation stuff was exceptionally bad (POTS modem for the uplink, at least 100 people sharing the downlink), and they were among the last company to roll it out, and the slowest in upgrading to new technologies. I had Adelpha cable down in Blackburg, VA (college town, lots of interest in Broadband) in 2000, but they still didn't have their act together at that point and didn't offer Broadband at all. This was around the time most cable companies were upgrading to their second generation equipment.
They were also the most expensive Cable TV service I've ever seen, although we didn't actually get it because we didn't want to pay that much for something we'd only barely use anyway.
Because they're fixed on what they can charge, and when it's problems with the lines they end up having to go out and fix it anyway. You can't squeeze a company like Covad the way you can squeeze regular customers. Also, they're competition, pure and simple. I'm sure once they get the FCC to allow them to kick their competition to the curb they'll raise their prices in no time. History has shown that the only way to keep prices in check with these phone companies is to have competition.
I'm betting dollars to doughnuts that the ToS on FIOS prohibits you from running servers of any kind, making it extirely useless to guys like me who don't want to just be a passive "consumer" of internet content. The thing that annoys me the most with major ISPs is that they treat Internet access like TV or Newspapers or other big Media. The company provides, you consume. "Consumer" produced content is a joke, don't even think about it, you like your company, stop thinking on your own, dammit!
It wasn't abcnews.com that made the internet great, it was the thousands of enthusiasts doing their own thing that made it great, but now we have what seems to be an active campain on part of the ISPs it dissuade people from doing their own think and experimenting a little.
I think it was the creation of competition that lowered the costs for long distance more than anything else. Remember when people used to freak out if you made a long distance call? Nowaways it's cheaper to call someone out of state than it is to call someone on the other side of the county.
I've been with Speakeasy for almost 2 years now, and I have to say I'm extremely happy with them. My previous experiance was with @Home that became Comcast. In both cases, I was limited to an extremely slow uplink (128k nominally, more like 100k) and a ton of rediculous restrictions in the TOS (yes, I SSH back home), and no option for static IP addresses. Their TOS didn't even allow you to VPN into work! It was complete BS.
Anyway, when I moved I happened to be close enough to the CO to get DSL. After looking through the TOS on the local cable provider (Cox), and "default" DSL provider (verizon), I decided to expand my search and found Speakeasy. The prices were higher for the line, but they gave me a lot of uplink, static IPs, and a reasonable ToS. They also didn't require BS like PPPoE and (to the continual annoyance of one of my friends in a nearby town who went with the local ISP DSL) don't change your IP address every 6 hours, causing all of your TCP sockets to be reset. For all of this I am more than willing to pay a premium. It's basically extra cash to cut through all of the BS you normally have to deal with when getting DSL. Now with the deregulation this won't be a choice anymore. I hate you so much FCC.
Man, I bet that guy is pissed this isn't the dark ages and you can't just have Scientists and other rabble rousers crucified. After all an educated populace is much harder to control than an uneducated one, look how well they were able to keep order when the Church was running things.
You're basically saying "don't be evil", but isn't that a pointless argument? Most people are going to agree with you and those that aren't (the evil ones) aren't going to care. Without religion in the discussion the whole thing is pointless.
Also, I don't want leaders who make up their minds once on a subject and then never ever reexamine the facts, no matter how much the situation has changed. That's how you end up with problems like the South and Slavery where many people knew it was wrong but nobody (in power at least) was willing to admit that they could have been wrong about it.
What the hell does the second law of Thermodynamics have to do with it? Seriously, that's not even in the same field of study, and since the Earth itself isn't a closed system (Hint: we're powered by the biggest Fusion reaction in the solar system) it doesn't even make sense. What the hell are you getting at?
Ok, macroevolution doesn't make sense...ok...give me your argument.
1. Point 1, good point, is not a complete whackjob.
2. Point 2, what? Seriously, that came completely out of left field.
One thing I don't understand. Where are you drawing the line between microevolution and macroevolotion? I mean macroevolotion is just microevolotion over time (one of the things that stands out in the fossil record is that it is very very hard to outright delete bones/joints, even if a bone isn't particularly necessary on an animal they tend to have it anyway (like pelvises on Whales). Ptaridactals are another example where they had small fingers on the leading edges of the wings because the wings were in fact just well evolved hands.
Note that this isn't an argument _against_ ID per say, I mean the ID might like things that way. That's the big problem with ID, you can't really argue against it because no matter what you say, it could just be the whim of the designer. This is also the primary reason ID is useless as a science, it can't teach you anything or help you predict anything.
The other thing: You don't have to disbelive in god to accept evolution. You have to gloss over (assume they are metaphors) Adam and Eve, but in the end you'll be both wiser and less internally conflicted.
Are you saying that all diversification happened during the Cambrian explosion? Are you forgetting what happened to the varieties of mammals after the Cretaceous? You think there were birds during the Cambrian period? I also have bad news for you if you think there were Humans (mammals!) or even a close descendant around during the Cambrian.
Your understanding of the fossil record is so inaccurate that I'm wondering where you got your facts.
That is a good point. More than once I've seen the implicit assumption that if Evolution were somehow disproved that ID/Creationism is the only (default) option remaining. This assumption comes up when people say "Ok! Stick some basic components together randomly and if they don't create life then Evolution is disproven and ID wins."
For Intelligent Design (ID) let's take an airplane as an example. We observe that it is fairly complex and appears to be well suited for flying. We hypothesize that a person designed the airplane to fly. We test this by finding the person or people who did design it. We have others repeat this test. We have then proven ID for the airplane. Someone did design it.
I'm sorry I didn't reply to this earlier, but it was just so funny. Lets take a similar example:
We see an airplane, it is fairly complex and appears well suited for flying. We hypothesize that whomever built it must have put their name on it. Indeed we do find their name all over the airplane. Now lets look at macroevolution, hmm, can't find a name anywhere on it.
Of course my argument doesn't make any sense, but then again I'm not alone here.
Why do so many people thing religion has a monopoly on ethics? Aren't most ethical principals self evidently good for society as a whole? Most organized religions have a lot of baggage attached to them (like Creation myths) and if you can't leave your baggage behind you end up making profoundly stupid comments like the one the President made that sparked this whole thread.
This sort of thinking also kills independent thought, since you are _required_ to tow the party line on every issue despite any misgivings you may have personally. On the other hand, you'll never be called a "flip flopper" for whatever help that is. Your example seems to suggest that without religion man is free to do whatever he wants without consequence, which is obviously disingenuous.
Gravity is a Law precisely because we can observe and measure it. It's NOT a theory because we aren't trying to explain WHY. A theory of Gravity would be worded like "The Theory of Gravions and Gravioles" or "A time space bending theory".
one of the most aggrivating things about this debate is that the other side doesn't use your (well established and taught in grade school!) vocabulary correctly. This is also why some people get so worked up over the fact that most things in science are "only theories", where they can offer "facts, from a very old book!" instead.
So the scientific method is one method to understanding.
I didn't read any more of your post. The foundation of your argument is a misconception.
The Scientific Method is more than that, it is the foundation of all science. To teach science you must teach the Scientific Method. If your theories don't use the Scientific Method (in which case they're not even scientific theories, you're just using the word) then you should be teaching them somewhere else. May I suggest a Philosophy class?
So we have to randomly combine "basic blocks[1]" until they start self replicating? Depending on what you choose as basic blocks we've either done this already or will probably need a lot more advanced technology before we can even start. This critera is still too vague to be of much use.
The problem is that it gives some weight behind the ID movement, who have already been successful in sabotaging textbooks and curriculum across the country. The last thing those jokers need is an endorsement from the President (especially since most of the battles over school issues are happening in red states).
Slashdot Mirror
Both of those shows are very very old though. They're also not licensed in the States AFAIK. Fansubbers don't have a easy time getting the early episodes and it's hard to get people excited about old stuff anyway (although there is a contingent of Doraemon fans in the states).
On the other hand, most of the Japanese guys I know consider Doraemon a little kids show and Sazae-san their grandparent's show, so maybe they aren't represtative of the popluation at large that pparently loves those shows.
You should probably go get your belts checked right now if you've gone 120,000 miles on the ones that came with the car...
All the times I've had to call them up it's been due to hardware failures.
Anyway, you're right that they shouldn't have to do much, but look at it this way. Verizon doesn't see it as "those guys hand the pain in the butt call center" they look at it as "$4.28 of each bill is for call center staff". They don't really care how much annoyance it is. What they really hate is that they can't just raise prices whenever because their competitors will eat their lunch if they do.
Phone companies never pass up the chance to gain a Monopoloy somewhere because it means they can channel funds from that market to ones where they need to beat the competition.
I think the point is that the solution is purer, not the nanotubes themselves.
...I think.
You know, I have yet to meet a person who had Adelphia Broadband and was happy with it. Adelphia's first generation stuff was exceptionally bad (POTS modem for the uplink, at least 100 people sharing the downlink), and they were among the last company to roll it out, and the slowest in upgrading to new technologies. I had Adelpha cable down in Blackburg, VA (college town, lots of interest in Broadband) in 2000, but they still didn't have their act together at that point and didn't offer Broadband at all. This was around the time most cable companies were upgrading to their second generation equipment.
They were also the most expensive Cable TV service I've ever seen, although we didn't actually get it because we didn't want to pay that much for something we'd only barely use anyway.
Because they're fixed on what they can charge, and when it's problems with the lines they end up having to go out and fix it anyway. You can't squeeze a company like Covad the way you can squeeze regular customers. Also, they're competition, pure and simple. I'm sure once they get the FCC to allow them to kick their competition to the curb they'll raise their prices in no time. History has shown that the only way to keep prices in check with these phone companies is to have competition.
I'm betting dollars to doughnuts that the ToS on FIOS prohibits you from running servers of any kind, making it extirely useless to guys like me who don't want to just be a passive "consumer" of internet content. The thing that annoys me the most with major ISPs is that they treat Internet access like TV or Newspapers or other big Media. The company provides, you consume. "Consumer" produced content is a joke, don't even think about it, you like your company, stop thinking on your own, dammit!
It wasn't abcnews.com that made the internet great, it was the thousands of enthusiasts doing their own thing that made it great, but now we have what seems to be an active campain on part of the ISPs it dissuade people from doing their own think and experimenting a little.
Bah, I'm ranting again.
I think it was the creation of competition that lowered the costs for long distance more than anything else. Remember when people used to freak out if you made a long distance call? Nowaways it's cheaper to call someone out of state than it is to call someone on the other side of the county.
I've been with Speakeasy for almost 2 years now, and I have to say I'm extremely happy with them. My previous experiance was with @Home that became Comcast. In both cases, I was limited to an extremely slow uplink (128k nominally, more like 100k) and a ton of rediculous restrictions in the TOS (yes, I SSH back home), and no option for static IP addresses. Their TOS didn't even allow you to VPN into work! It was complete BS.
Anyway, when I moved I happened to be close enough to the CO to get DSL. After looking through the TOS on the local cable provider (Cox), and "default" DSL provider (verizon), I decided to expand my search and found Speakeasy. The prices were higher for the line, but they gave me a lot of uplink, static IPs, and a reasonable ToS. They also didn't require BS like PPPoE and (to the continual annoyance of one of my friends in a nearby town who went with the local ISP DSL) don't change your IP address every 6 hours, causing all of your TCP sockets to be reset. For all of this I am more than willing to pay a premium. It's basically extra cash to cut through all of the BS you normally have to deal with when getting DSL. Now with the deregulation this won't be a choice anymore. I hate you so much FCC.
Man, I bet that guy is pissed this isn't the dark ages and you can't just have Scientists and other rabble rousers crucified. After all an educated populace is much harder to control than an uneducated one, look how well they were able to keep order when the Church was running things.
Are you saying it's physically impossible to create order? I think that's what you're saying, but it's a position so rediculous it can't be right.
BS. You know exactly what you were implying.
You're basically saying "don't be evil", but isn't that a pointless argument? Most people are going to agree with you and those that aren't (the evil ones) aren't going to care. Without religion in the discussion the whole thing is pointless.
Also, I don't want leaders who make up their minds once on a subject and then never ever reexamine the facts, no matter how much the situation has changed. That's how you end up with problems like the South and Slavery where many people knew it was wrong but nobody (in power at least) was willing to admit that they could have been wrong about it.
What the hell does the second law of Thermodynamics have to do with it? Seriously, that's not even in the same field of study, and since the Earth itself isn't a closed system (Hint: we're powered by the biggest Fusion reaction in the solar system) it doesn't even make sense. What the hell are you getting at?
Let me summarize my reactions:
Ok, macroevolution doesn't make sense...ok...give me your argument.
1. Point 1, good point, is not a complete whackjob.
2. Point 2, what? Seriously, that came completely out of left field.
One thing I don't understand. Where are you drawing the line between microevolution and macroevolotion? I mean macroevolotion is just microevolotion over time (one of the things that stands out in the fossil record is that it is very very hard to outright delete bones/joints, even if a bone isn't particularly necessary on an animal they tend to have it anyway (like pelvises on Whales). Ptaridactals are another example where they had small fingers on the leading edges of the wings because the wings were in fact just well evolved hands.
Note that this isn't an argument _against_ ID per say, I mean the ID might like things that way. That's the big problem with ID, you can't really argue against it because no matter what you say, it could just be the whim of the designer. This is also the primary reason ID is useless as a science, it can't teach you anything or help you predict anything.
The other thing: You don't have to disbelive in god to accept evolution. You have to gloss over (assume they are metaphors) Adam and Eve, but in the end you'll be both wiser and less internally conflicted.
Also, the ID proponent needs to build a self-replicating system (life) at the same time. It should be easy right? I mean it's already been done once.
Are you saying that all diversification happened during the Cambrian explosion? Are you forgetting what happened to the varieties of mammals after the Cretaceous? You think there were birds during the Cambrian period? I also have bad news for you if you think there were Humans (mammals!) or even a close descendant around during the Cambrian.
Your understanding of the fossil record is so inaccurate that I'm wondering where you got your facts.
That is a good point. More than once I've seen the implicit assumption that if Evolution were somehow disproved that ID/Creationism is the only (default) option remaining. This assumption comes up when people say "Ok! Stick some basic components together randomly and if they don't create life then Evolution is disproven and ID wins."
We see an airplane, it is fairly complex and appears well suited for flying. We hypothesize that whomever built it must have put their name on it. Indeed we do find their name all over the airplane. Now lets look at macroevolution, hmm, can't find a name anywhere on it.
Of course my argument doesn't make any sense, but then again I'm not alone here.
It's called "The Fossil Record".
Why do so many people thing religion has a monopoly on ethics? Aren't most ethical principals self evidently good for society as a whole? Most organized religions have a lot of baggage attached to them (like Creation myths) and if you can't leave your baggage behind you end up making profoundly stupid comments like the one the President made that sparked this whole thread.
This sort of thinking also kills independent thought, since you are _required_ to tow the party line on every issue despite any misgivings you may have personally. On the other hand, you'll never be called a "flip flopper" for whatever help that is. Your example seems to suggest that without religion man is free to do whatever he wants without consequence, which is obviously disingenuous.
Completely wrong.
Gravity is a Law precisely because we can observe and measure it. It's NOT a theory because we aren't trying to explain WHY. A theory of Gravity would be worded like "The Theory of Gravions and Gravioles" or "A time space bending theory".
one of the most aggrivating things about this debate is that the other side doesn't use your (well established and taught in grade school!) vocabulary correctly. This is also why some people get so worked up over the fact that most things in science are "only theories", where they can offer "facts, from a very old book!" instead.
The Scientific Method is more than that, it is the foundation of all science. To teach science you must teach the Scientific Method. If your theories don't use the Scientific Method (in which case they're not even scientific theories, you're just using the word) then you should be teaching them somewhere else. May I suggest a Philosophy class?
So we have to randomly combine "basic blocks[1]" until they start self replicating? Depending on what you choose as basic blocks we've either done this already or will probably need a lot more advanced technology before we can even start. This critera is still too vague to be of much use.
[1] Whatever those are.
ID is just the new name for Creationism after Creationism got trounced badly in some debates (once Scientists got their acts together).
The problem is that it gives some weight behind the ID movement, who have already been successful in sabotaging textbooks and curriculum across the country. The last thing those jokers need is an endorsement from the President (especially since most of the battles over school issues are happening in red states).