No.. outside the heliopause, where the solar wind from the sun meets the galactic solar wind.. But they aren't out of the Sun's gravity well yet. That Oort cloud is orbiting something (Sol)..
And yes, I have a T-1 line as a backup phone and internet, why the high price (TPx aka Telepacific, I can't wait to get rid of them).
Part of the reason for the high price of a T-1 line is that it is a federally regulated service. By law the telco has 4 hours to diagnose the problem on the T-1 line (once you report it to them) and then develop a plan to fix it.
I was, in addition to a cellular tech, a T-1 technician (MST) with AT&T. T-1's took priority over EVERYTHING. The FCC fines for failure to correct certain problems within certain time frames were horrendous. But, that's why they cost so much. I don't recall if it was mandated or simply a perk, but the rule of thumb for both AT&T and Telepacific (I had a T-1 from them for 3 years) was to pick up the phone on a trouble call before the 4th ring. No voicemail... A human operator had to be on the phone before the 4th ring began. I can say this, I never ever heard a 4th ring.. Not once.. I don't think I even heard a 3rd ring.
That level of service extends to the biz class fiber circuits. I currently have a gig line (simplex as opposed to main and protect) from AT&T and have never heard a 3rd ring either.. Expensive ($1700/month), but where I'm at, there aren't any other choices..
No no no.. The AC said "Does anyone use the phone anymore?"
Everyone is running around with a phone.. All physical businesses have landlines.. 100% of them where I'm at.. 100%. Not 99%. I specify physical businesses.. The kind you walk into.. Bank, restaurant, car dealership, auto-mechanic, etc... (as opposed to people who own a business with no physical location for customer interaction)..
I'm not going to accuse you of lying, but I think you're mistaken if you really think 90% of your businesses is somehow avoiding the phone network. Your end might be voip, but I'd honestly be surprised if the other half of your phone conversations are avoiding the POTS at 90%..
I built cell sites for a decade, and every single one had a T-1 line as a backup for emergencies.. That's POTS.. That's 1964 technology.. Because it's reliable. This isn't old stats either.. I left the cell industry just a couple years ago.
I don't dispute that your preferred methods are gaining ground and will only increase as time goes on, but RIGHT NOW.. no.. HALF of Americans still have a landline.. That's 150,000,000 people right there.. Just one country.. Phones aren't going away any time soon.
I'll applaud your logic, but I don't think this is the case. 97% of American's have internet. So, that's nearly everyone. Cable dominates the internet market by a HUGE margin. DSL is a large percentage, but, according to my rough calcs using online data, all of the DSL in the entire country is only equal to the single largest cable internet company's customer base.
The reason for the "affluence" factor seems to be that while nearly everyone has a cell phone, it's the affluent who have both. i.e. if you're poor, you're gonna have a cell, but you aren't also shelling out for a land-line.
For the most part, landlines are very reliable. Cellular.. not so much.. I'm not saying cellular isn't reliable, just that landlines are... more reliable. Landlines are self powered; the system itself and the end devices.. Most folks I know, who have a landline, have a cordless phone in addition to at least one (and usually only one) old style self-powered handset.
Where I'm at, the rule of thumb is: If you have kids, you have a landline. The last thing you need in an emergency is a phone with a dead battery. Kids are accident magnets..
Finally, landlines work where cellular doesn't. So if you live in a non-cell area, you have a landline.. But, the odds are that you work in a cell area, so you keep a cell in your pocket..
Yeah, because of the Provincial welfare you're getting.. Ya know all that oil money that Ottawa takes from Alberta and gives to you assholes so you'll "stay". How long until Alberta gets tired of that shit?
It's the ever-growing realization that they are inconsequential muppets leading a meaningless existence.
Yep, you hit the nail on the head there. I also suspect that they are hyper angry that their little social experiment hasn't turned out the way they wanted..
Ya know, free welfare, food stamps, housing vouchers, and rent control didn't lead to this Utopian paradise.. Nope.. It drew in every leech like a goddamn magnet and now they live in a city filled with human excrement, pollution, and moral filth. And by moral I don't mean religious.. Just common human decency like "Don't shit on someone's front porch".
San Francisco is getting exactly what it deserves. They don't get to blame this on anyone else..
People that whine about how their shitty 3500 sqft house in the middle of nowhere is better than a 650 sqft apartment near restaurants, shops, the beach, etc.
HAHAHAHA. Oh man.. Yeah, you're right.. Living in a tiny box where you can hear your neighbors fucking is way better than a place with clean air, friendly neighbors who actually talk to one another, and low crime rates.
It's not that choose to live there.. it's that you are trying to convince us that it's superior.
I'll take the area where the kids can walk home from the bus stop without having to navigate gang territory, drug dealers, and street hookers.
I cancelled my land line and block and ignore callers not in my contact list.
You're either full of shit or an idiot. Which is it?
You block callers not on your contact list? Right...... so when that Hospital calls to tell you that insert-loved-ones-name-here has been in a terrible accident, you're sending the call to the bit bucket?
Yeah.. Rid of the phone system... Because you don't use it, you don't think it's used.. You're wrong. There are still a shit ton of landlines still in use. Tens of millions in the USA alone.
Neat fact: If you're in a wireless only home, it's more likely you are poor. Statistically, higher income homes have a much larger chance of having a land-line versus homes below the poverty line.
As many as 150,000,000 Americans are still connected to the world via land-lines. (49.7% of the populace)
At least 22% of Americans are still utter fucking morons.
At least 22% of any group, of random average people, are utter fucking morons. I'm not disputing your statement, as it is accurate, but it is... incomplete.
There are plenty of people out there running a business they own because they love what they do or they love the results of what they do. Your blanket statement is just as stupid as any other blanket statement.
Go back to your basement, asshole. It's obvious you haven't a clue what happens in the real world.
I don't disagree that every culture has come up with some inventive torture devices. Nor is my statement regarding the European methods to be interpreted as white-guilt or cultural guilt. It was simply a statement that we have excelled at it. That's all.. We took our technology and used every last drop of imagination and industrial know-how to invent the most fucked up devices.. We took 1st place.
That was all I was saying from the outset.. It's like y'all can't acknowledge two things at once.. Everybody tortures but one group managed to out-shine everyone else....
Maybe in 200 years we'll all be talking about how the (insert nationality here) took torture to even greater levels with direct brain implants to give pain without damaging the body.. Or some such shit...
The sad thing is that if I thought of it right now, someone else has thought of it and is probably trying to invent it..
Upset? Hardly. I took the time to use facts and logic. Your side only has the feelz. It's like y'all are absolutely terrified that facts will shit all over your arguments.. Well, that's because they will..
You misunderstand... I'm alluding to the sheer variety. Nobody else has had the time or technology to devise the vast numbers and variations of torture devices that we have. This isn't about race or culture. It's a matter of fact. I'm not saying Europeans did it because they were Europeans, goddamnit. I'm saying Europeans did it because it was Europeans that did it.
Africans didn't invent Iron Maidens, Pears of Agony, drawing and quartering, or a host of other inventions. It's not because they didn't have the mind to invent it, it's because they didn't have the technology. We had the technology and we used it.
History, as per the OP is exactly what is at play here. Besides, to even suppose that Africans might have invented it is a supposition. We don't know if they would have and we don't know that they wouldn't have. But what we do know, in fact all that we know, is that Europeans took the technological advances they were presented with and used them to devise some FUCKED up tools.
Why is it that everything has to be broken down to the level of a 5 year old for you leftist fuckers? Why do you see cultural appropriation and identity politics wherever you look?
In fact, I'm gonna really disagree with you on a fundamental level.. Europeans didn't appropriate anything. Torture devices have been with us for a long fucking time. The Europeans would have had that knowledge from before the races diverged. They happened to settle in an area that ended up being ideal for the development of science and technology.. Less work to grow food, more time for improving (versus inventing) steel rods to go up your asshole..
Hell, even if we weren't torturing each other before we all migrated out of Africa and spread to the 4 corners of the world, it's absolutely plausible that torture devices would have been invented, independently, by the various groups even if they had absolutely zero contact with each other. Humans share an awful lot of traits across racial/ethnic/geographic boundaries.. One of these traits seems to be the desire to kill people you dislike in as painful a way as possible.
Geography gave the Europeans the ability to develop the technology to take that to some fucked up new levels.. Not because they are Europeans.. Not because of their race... Not because they're white.. It's just because that's how it worked out...
Yeah I'm sure population is a very large factor.. But jeeze... a lot of people were killed during the 20th century.. Let's just say that Europeans/People of European descent were the majority. I'm not making a judgement.. I'm just saying... We have gotten really good at killing. I suspect we'll get even better in the years to come.. It's sad..
Agreed. Nevertheless it still contradicts the statement. We had the technology and leisure time to be brutal. I'll accept that.. But it was us that was brutal. I'm not arguing they didn't have the inclination to be brutal, but they certainly didn't have the means. Not on the level we did.
Sure, back when Euro-centric white supremecists ran the world. But that's not the world we live in anymore, and at this point in history we are well aware that the "savage races" weren't actually all that savage, and in fact many of them were highly advanced for their time.
So why is AC still using the term "savages" to refer to non-Western European cultures, and why the fuck are you defending the practice?
Listen snowflake, your virtue signaling isn't impressing anyone besides other snowflakes. You have NO MORAL AUTHORITY to be outraged on behalf of anyone else. In this case your triggering is doubly stupid. The OP wasn't actually calling them savages as a type of slur. You'd know this, but that requires a level of reading comprehension and familiarity with history that you are, apparently, lacking. If anything the "savages" was said tongue-in-cheek. Do you know what that means or do I have to spoon-feed you the definition?
Let's move on to the fact that, grammatically speaking, savage is the correct term. You do not get to redefine what it actually means. It is the CORRECT FUCKING WORD.
SAVAGE
adj. Not domesticated or cultivated; wild: savage beasts of the jungle.
adj. Not civilized; barbaric: a people living in a savage state.
adj. Ferocious; fierce: in a savage temper.
See that second definition? Notice how it actually loops back to the first definition? Kinda odd how absolutely none of those definitions is a slur, yeah?
A people living in a savage state.. And what is savage? Oh, it's not domesticated or cultivated. You could easily replace the word cultivated with civilized. People who live in the jungles are SAVAGES. The fact that you choose to interpret this as a slur is your failing. The fact others chose to use it as a slur is their failing. But the word means what it means. It's neutral. And it is correct.
Now, on behalf of nobody besides myself, kindly take a bottle of KY & two fingers and cram your Politically Correct, Holier-than-Thou bullshit up your ass.
The only difference is that as society progresses people are generally less shitty toward one another...
No..... just.. no..
History absolutely contradicts this.
History shows that as our society progresses we get even better at killing and we tend to be a whole lot more brutal about it.
Think about it.. The next war.. the one we've been trying like hell to avoid since the end of WWII... the nuclear war.. Well, it might fucking kill all of us.. That's.. well, that's 100% efficiency..
We just keep getting better and better and better at killing our fellow humans. I'm no bleeding-heart and I do think some wars are absolutely justified, sometimes.. But goddamn... they are getting costly in terms of lives..
Humans are brutal in general, regardless of tribal identity or history.
And like everything, there are degrees. Europeans invented some of the most fucked-up torture devices ever constructed. Yeah, it's the past and I'm not condemning any living European for this bit of history (they weren't there). But to even imply that there aren't LEVELS of brutality is bullshit.
Our technology has given us the ability to kill more efficiently, torture more effectively, and destroy more completely. In the 20th century, Europeans were responsible for... perhaps 95 out of every 100 deaths by war, worldwide? Our ability to exceed our previous achievements in the craft of death/torture is.. impressive.
Slashdot Mirror
outside Sol's gravity well.
No.. outside the heliopause, where the solar wind from the sun meets the galactic solar wind.. But they aren't out of the Sun's gravity well yet. That Oort cloud is orbiting something (Sol)..
space nerds gotta space and make everyone else pay for it
Says the guy using the internet that was developed with tax payer funds..
And yes, I have a T-1 line as a backup phone and internet, why the high price (TPx aka Telepacific, I can't wait to get rid of them).
Part of the reason for the high price of a T-1 line is that it is a federally regulated service. By law the telco has 4 hours to diagnose the problem on the T-1 line (once you report it to them) and then develop a plan to fix it.
I was, in addition to a cellular tech, a T-1 technician (MST) with AT&T. T-1's took priority over EVERYTHING. The FCC fines for failure to correct certain problems within certain time frames were horrendous. But, that's why they cost so much. I don't recall if it was mandated or simply a perk, but the rule of thumb for both AT&T and Telepacific (I had a T-1 from them for 3 years) was to pick up the phone on a trouble call before the 4th ring. No voicemail... A human operator had to be on the phone before the 4th ring began. I can say this, I never ever heard a 4th ring.. Not once.. I don't think I even heard a 3rd ring.
That level of service extends to the biz class fiber circuits. I currently have a gig line (simplex as opposed to main and protect) from AT&T and have never heard a 3rd ring either.. Expensive ($1700/month), but where I'm at, there aren't any other choices..
No no no.. The AC said "Does anyone use the phone anymore?"
Everyone is running around with a phone.. All physical businesses have landlines.. 100% of them where I'm at.. 100%. Not 99%. I specify physical businesses.. The kind you walk into.. Bank, restaurant, car dealership, auto-mechanic, etc... (as opposed to people who own a business with no physical location for customer interaction)..
I'm not going to accuse you of lying, but I think you're mistaken if you really think 90% of your businesses is somehow avoiding the phone network. Your end might be voip, but I'd honestly be surprised if the other half of your phone conversations are avoiding the POTS at 90%..
I built cell sites for a decade, and every single one had a T-1 line as a backup for emergencies.. That's POTS.. That's 1964 technology.. Because it's reliable. This isn't old stats either.. I left the cell industry just a couple years ago.
I don't dispute that your preferred methods are gaining ground and will only increase as time goes on, but RIGHT NOW.. no.. HALF of Americans still have a landline.. That's 150,000,000 people right there.. Just one country.. Phones aren't going away any time soon.
I'll applaud your logic, but I don't think this is the case. 97% of American's have internet. So, that's nearly everyone. Cable dominates the internet market by a HUGE margin. DSL is a large percentage, but, according to my rough calcs using online data, all of the DSL in the entire country is only equal to the single largest cable internet company's customer base.
The reason for the "affluence" factor seems to be that while nearly everyone has a cell phone, it's the affluent who have both. i.e. if you're poor, you're gonna have a cell, but you aren't also shelling out for a land-line.
For the most part, landlines are very reliable. Cellular.. not so much.. I'm not saying cellular isn't reliable, just that landlines are... more reliable. Landlines are self powered; the system itself and the end devices.. Most folks I know, who have a landline, have a cordless phone in addition to at least one (and usually only one) old style self-powered handset.
Where I'm at, the rule of thumb is: If you have kids, you have a landline. The last thing you need in an emergency is a phone with a dead battery. Kids are accident magnets..
Finally, landlines work where cellular doesn't. So if you live in a non-cell area, you have a landline.. But, the odds are that you work in a cell area, so you keep a cell in your pocket..
Yeah, because of the Provincial welfare you're getting.. Ya know all that oil money that Ottawa takes from Alberta and gives to you assholes so you'll "stay". How long until Alberta gets tired of that shit?
It's the ever-growing realization that they are inconsequential muppets leading a meaningless existence.
Yep, you hit the nail on the head there. I also suspect that they are hyper angry that their little social experiment hasn't turned out the way they wanted..
Ya know, free welfare, food stamps, housing vouchers, and rent control didn't lead to this Utopian paradise.. Nope.. It drew in every leech like a goddamn magnet and now they live in a city filled with human excrement, pollution, and moral filth. And by moral I don't mean religious.. Just common human decency like "Don't shit on someone's front porch".
San Francisco is getting exactly what it deserves. They don't get to blame this on anyone else..
People that whine about how their shitty 3500 sqft house in the middle of nowhere is better than a 650 sqft apartment near restaurants, shops, the beach, etc.
HAHAHAHA. Oh man.. Yeah, you're right.. Living in a tiny box where you can hear your neighbors fucking is way better than a place with clean air, friendly neighbors who actually talk to one another, and low crime rates.
It's not that choose to live there.. it's that you are trying to convince us that it's superior.
I'll take the area where the kids can walk home from the bus stop without having to navigate gang territory, drug dealers, and street hookers.
You're a fucking loon
The word you are looking for is exempt.
I cancelled my land line and block and ignore callers not in my contact list.
You're either full of shit or an idiot. Which is it?
You block callers not on your contact list? Right...... so when that Hospital calls to tell you that insert-loved-ones-name-here has been in a terrible accident, you're sending the call to the bit bucket?
Bullshit.
Anyone? That's a pretty large sample size.
By the way, you're a fucking idiot. You think businesses and banks and industry are texting each other?
What the fuck is it with you millennials? You really do think that the world is a mirror of your habits, don't you?
If you don't have the skills to make a coherent phone call good luck getting a job.. It's permanent basement dwelling for you.
Yeah.. Rid of the phone system... Because you don't use it, you don't think it's used.. You're wrong. There are still a shit ton of landlines still in use. Tens of millions in the USA alone.
Neat fact: If you're in a wireless only home, it's more likely you are poor. Statistically, higher income homes have a much larger chance of having a land-line versus homes below the poverty line.
As many as 150,000,000 Americans are still connected to the world via land-lines. (49.7% of the populace)
Yeah...... NO!
What?
Deuterium is extracted from seawater and tritium makes the hands on your analog watch glow. Plus they sell it on Amazon. Can't be all that dangerous.
At least 22% of Americans are still utter fucking morons.
At least 22% of any group, of random average people, are utter fucking morons. I'm not disputing your statement, as it is accurate, but it is... incomplete.
Touche, good sir.
I suspect you are 100% correct.
There are no exceptions.
Bullshit.
There are plenty of people out there running a business they own because they love what they do or they love the results of what they do. Your blanket statement is just as stupid as any other blanket statement.
Go back to your basement, asshole. It's obvious you haven't a clue what happens in the real world.
I don't disagree that every culture has come up with some inventive torture devices. Nor is my statement regarding the European methods to be interpreted as white-guilt or cultural guilt. It was simply a statement that we have excelled at it. That's all.. We took our technology and used every last drop of imagination and industrial know-how to invent the most fucked up devices.. We took 1st place.
That was all I was saying from the outset.. It's like y'all can't acknowledge two things at once.. Everybody tortures but one group managed to out-shine everyone else....
Maybe in 200 years we'll all be talking about how the (insert nationality here) took torture to even greater levels with direct brain implants to give pain without damaging the body.. Or some such shit...
The sad thing is that if I thought of it right now, someone else has thought of it and is probably trying to invent it..
Nice.. 7 paragraphs of rebuttal along with explanations and reasoning and you cherry pick a couple of sentences.. Well done Frosty.
Upset? Hardly. I took the time to use facts and logic. Your side only has the feelz. It's like y'all are absolutely terrified that facts will shit all over your arguments.. Well, that's because they will..
You misunderstand... I'm alluding to the sheer variety. Nobody else has had the time or technology to devise the vast numbers and variations of torture devices that we have. This isn't about race or culture. It's a matter of fact. I'm not saying Europeans did it because they were Europeans, goddamnit. I'm saying Europeans did it because it was Europeans that did it.
Africans didn't invent Iron Maidens, Pears of Agony, drawing and quartering, or a host of other inventions. It's not because they didn't have the mind to invent it, it's because they didn't have the technology. We had the technology and we used it.
History, as per the OP is exactly what is at play here. Besides, to even suppose that Africans might have invented it is a supposition. We don't know if they would have and we don't know that they wouldn't have. But what we do know, in fact all that we know, is that Europeans took the technological advances they were presented with and used them to devise some FUCKED up tools.
Why is it that everything has to be broken down to the level of a 5 year old for you leftist fuckers? Why do you see cultural appropriation and identity politics wherever you look?
In fact, I'm gonna really disagree with you on a fundamental level.. Europeans didn't appropriate anything. Torture devices have been with us for a long fucking time. The Europeans would have had that knowledge from before the races diverged. They happened to settle in an area that ended up being ideal for the development of science and technology.. Less work to grow food, more time for improving (versus inventing) steel rods to go up your asshole..
Hell, even if we weren't torturing each other before we all migrated out of Africa and spread to the 4 corners of the world, it's absolutely plausible that torture devices would have been invented, independently, by the various groups even if they had absolutely zero contact with each other. Humans share an awful lot of traits across racial/ethnic/geographic boundaries.. One of these traits seems to be the desire to kill people you dislike in as painful a way as possible.
Geography gave the Europeans the ability to develop the technology to take that to some fucked up new levels.. Not because they are Europeans.. Not because of their race... Not because they're white.. It's just because that's how it worked out...
Like talking to a goddamn wall...
Yeah I'm sure population is a very large factor.. But jeeze... a lot of people were killed during the 20th century.. Let's just say that Europeans/People of European descent were the majority. I'm not making a judgement.. I'm just saying... We have gotten really good at killing. I suspect we'll get even better in the years to come.. It's sad..
Agreed. Nevertheless it still contradicts the statement. We had the technology and leisure time to be brutal. I'll accept that.. But it was us that was brutal. I'm not arguing they didn't have the inclination to be brutal, but they certainly didn't have the means. Not on the level we did.
Sure, back when Euro-centric white supremecists ran the world. But that's not the world we live in anymore, and at this point in history we are well aware that the "savage races" weren't actually all that savage, and in fact many of them were highly advanced for their time.
So why is AC still using the term "savages" to refer to non-Western European cultures, and why the fuck are you defending the practice?
Listen snowflake, your virtue signaling isn't impressing anyone besides other snowflakes. You have NO MORAL AUTHORITY to be outraged on behalf of anyone else. In this case your triggering is doubly stupid. The OP wasn't actually calling them savages as a type of slur. You'd know this, but that requires a level of reading comprehension and familiarity with history that you are, apparently, lacking. If anything the "savages" was said tongue-in-cheek. Do you know what that means or do I have to spoon-feed you the definition?
Let's move on to the fact that, grammatically speaking, savage is the correct term. You do not get to redefine what it actually means. It is the CORRECT FUCKING WORD.
SAVAGE
adj. Not domesticated or cultivated; wild: savage beasts of the jungle.
adj. Not civilized; barbaric: a people living in a savage state.
adj. Ferocious; fierce: in a savage temper.
See that second definition? Notice how it actually loops back to the first definition? Kinda odd how absolutely none of those definitions is a slur, yeah?
A people living in a savage state.. And what is savage? Oh, it's not domesticated or cultivated. You could easily replace the word cultivated with civilized. People who live in the jungles are SAVAGES. The fact that you choose to interpret this as a slur is your failing. The fact others chose to use it as a slur is their failing. But the word means what it means. It's neutral. And it is correct.
Now, on behalf of nobody besides myself, kindly take a bottle of KY & two fingers and cram your Politically Correct, Holier-than-Thou bullshit up your ass.
The only difference is that as society progresses people are generally less shitty toward one another...
No..... just.. no..
History absolutely contradicts this.
History shows that as our society progresses we get even better at killing and we tend to be a whole lot more brutal about it.
Think about it.. The next war.. the one we've been trying like hell to avoid since the end of WWII... the nuclear war.. Well, it might fucking kill all of us.. That's .. well, that's 100% efficiency..
We just keep getting better and better and better at killing our fellow humans. I'm no bleeding-heart and I do think some wars are absolutely justified, sometimes.. But goddamn... they are getting costly in terms of lives..
Humans are brutal in general, regardless of tribal identity or history.
And like everything, there are degrees. Europeans invented some of the most fucked-up torture devices ever constructed. Yeah, it's the past and I'm not condemning any living European for this bit of history (they weren't there). But to even imply that there aren't LEVELS of brutality is bullshit.
Our technology has given us the ability to kill more efficiently, torture more effectively, and destroy more completely. In the 20th century, Europeans were responsible for... perhaps 95 out of every 100 deaths by war, worldwide? Our ability to exceed our previous achievements in the craft of death/torture is.. impressive.