In other words, F**king Fracking, which in the end means the destruction of human habitat.
"Fact 1: Fracking is NOT causing most of the induced earthquakes. Wastewater disposal is the primary cause of the recent increase in earthquakes in the central United States.
Wastewater disposal wells typically operate for longer durations and inject much more fluid than hydraulic fracturing, making them more likely to induce earthquakes. In Oklahoma, which has the most induced earthquakes in US, only 1-2% of the earthquakes can be linked to hydraulic fracturing operations. The remaining earthquakes are induced by wastewater disposal."
then we fraked the fuck out of it protip oklahoma - use museum putty to hold things on shelves
The USGS calls bullshit on you.
"Fact 1: Fracking is NOT causing most of the induced earthquakes. Wastewater disposal is the primary cause of the recent increase in earthquakes in the central United States.
Wastewater disposal wells typically operate for longer durations and inject much more fluid than hydraulic fracturing, making them more likely to induce earthquakes. In Oklahoma, which has the most induced earthquakes in US, only 1-2% of the earthquakes can be linked to hydraulic fracturing operations. The remaining earthquakes are induced by wastewater disposal."
All systems have inefficiencies and in human systems, waste, fraud and abuse are just that. You cannot eliminate them, although they can be reduced.
When your government can confiscate all of your money they have no reason to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse
If you want to give the government all of your money and have "smarter" people than you decide how to waste it
It has nothing to do with 'smarter' people spending 'your money'. If you want to participate in and benefit from the advantages of society and civilisation, you need to contribute. If you want to be the one with your hand on the wheel and more control over the purse strings, stand for office. Personally, I don't. This argument is a straw man.
You want to be taken care of like a child. Grow up already.
Or maybe move someplace with a communist system and not have any money of your own to begin with.
You've used the word 'communist' as an epithet while using a service and system made possible only because of the taxes paid by generations before you.
I used the word "communist" in the context of taxation. You are adding the characterization.
This started with your statement that giving over half of your labor to the government was not only a good thing but was actually too low. I disagree. The government can tax my labor to some extent but beyond some threshold it is confiscatory, counterproductive, and counter to what it means to live in a free society.
"To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities" never worked and never will because it runs counter to human nature. Why would anyone work extra hours, create new inventions, make investments, or start a business when they will get no benefit from doing so? Where would they get the investment capital from to build anything?
Again I suggest if your government hasn't confiscated all of your income and assets yet feel free to send them a check for the balance.
So is waste, fraud, and abuse. If you want to give the government all of your money and have "smarter" people than you decide how to waste it go write the check immediately. Or maybe move someplace with a communist system and not have any money of your own to begin with.
Key take away: the budget for "ANALYZE, FORECAST, AND SUPPORT" services was $492,014,000 but now it's $471,792,000. Will that reduction break forecasting? Perhaps, but I strongly doubt it. More likely, it'll result in cuts to people who have been there for a while, but hardly do anything (legacy folks), yet cost a lot, and/or cuts to open recs that have yet to be filled, or were just recently filled
Based on this article from September 2017 I think it's just a reduction in open head count
"As of July, the NWS, which has a workforce of about 4,300, had 668 vacant positions, according to the National Weather Service Employees Organization (NWSEO), the union representing NWS employees. Overtime is common in many local offices since positions have gone unfilled for months and sometimes years. According to the GAO, about 5 percent of the agency's total positions were unfilled in 2006. That figure rose to about 11 percent in 2016"
So they are already operating with many more vacancies than this cut represents. In the private sector when you leave positions unfilled eventually the headcount gets cut.
It says the "worst case scenario" is preposterous.
"For example, the most extreme worst-case storyline assumes that by 2100 coal would grow to 94 percent of the world energy supply. In 2015, that figure was about 28 percent."
"One big problem with the amount of coal burning assumed by RCP8.5 is that there’s probably not enough extractable coal to make the scenario possible. “We don’t think it’s going to happen,” said Justin Ritchie, lead author of the University of British Columbia study and a Ph.D. candidate. “That’s extremely unlikely and also inconsistent with every year since the late 19th century.”
I don't know if you noticed that quite a bit of NYC was underwater not too long ago. This will become more frequent, to the point that part of the infrastructure fails.
Define "quite a bit". NYC is pretty large.
As I recall during a massive storm there was some flooding in lower Manhattan, which is between the Hudson and the East rivers. Also there was some flooding on the southern shore of Long Island and the Jersey shore.
"A 2013 press release from the United States House Financial Services Committee criticized the CFPB for what was described as a "radical structure" that "is controlled by a single individual who cannot be fired for poor performance and who exercises sole control over the agency, its hiring and its budget." Moreover, the committee alleged a lack of financial transparency and a lack of accountability to Congress or the President. Committee Vice Chairman Patrick McHenry, expressed particular concern about travel costs and a $55 million renovation of CFPB headquarters, stating "$55 million is more than the entire annual construction and acquisition budget for GSA for the totality of federal buildings."[71] In 2012, the majority of GSA's Federal Buildings Fund went to rental costs, totaling $5.2 billion. $50 million was budgeted for construction and acquisition of facilities.[72]"
Its harder to see NFL as a sport.... whats that - 13 minutes of ACTUAL play over 3 hours?
WOW!
I wouldn't last 15 seconds. They'd be carting me off the field after one play.
The NFL does have too many breaks though. That's why I watch it on NFL Red Zone. No commercials, no time outs. Sometimes the screen is split between multiple games. It's awesome.
... is because they feel the threat. And it's very real.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is a nightmare for the powers that be - especially Goldman Sachs who's used to being in control of your money for ages. Sure you can ridicule the cryptocurrencies for being a rollercoaster of the smart outsmarts the lesser, but at least those who are not in "power" stand a chance at the big bucks for a small time, if done right - and understood correctly.
Goldman is nervous as HELL about this, we're talking big bucks - and they want to be in control of it, and they're not.
This is completely wrong. They don't make money by controlling currencies. They make money in:
Trading and sales Market making Investment banking Asset Management Prime services etc
Crypto is just one more product they can make money in, and they are going to make boatloads of it. But they are a regulated business and they have to be careful about their risk exposure and legality of the businesses they are in.
Goldman is wrong. Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies are here to stay.
I don't know whose argument you are trying to rebut, but it isn't the one presented in the article.
In the article, the argument was that most block-chain based currencies will eventually become worthless, because everyone will eventually standardize on a small number of successful currencies and the market will lose interest in the also-rans. (Think VHS vs BetaMax)
That's completely different from the idea that all blockchain currencies will go away, which is the straw man argument that you seem to be trying to refute.
I was at a Goldman presentation years ago where senior business and tech managers were talking about how blockchain tech could revolutionize their businesses.
Goldman and other banks are entering the cryptocurrencies and the crypto exchange and futures businesses. They could have done it a long time ago but the risk and regulatory environment is very unpredictable. Nobody wants to get arrested for money laundering like the CEO of BitInstant.
General Flynn was an honorable man. I don't know what he did to make the dark state so angry - but clearly he did *something* to precipitate his purge. I believe he was trying to protect the Republic from its many enemies within.
General Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI regarding his Russian contacts. Drop the conspiracy theories already.
Lying about something which wasn't a crime anyway. This is just the FBI leaning on him by indicting him on a process crime and threatening his son.
"According to court filings, Flynn, while he was national security adviser, lied to FBI agents when he told them that he did not tell Kislyak in December 2016 to “refrain from escalating the situation” in response to sanctions that the Obama administration had levied on Moscow the same day. He also lied when he said he did not ask Kislyak to delay or defeat a vote on a pending United Nations Security Council resolution, the documents say."
"In addition to protecting himself from further charges, Flynn is said to be cooperating with the investigation to guard his son from potential criminal prosecution.
“My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel’s Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and our country,” Flynn said in a statement."
"But it's in direct conflict with President Donald Trump's plan to open up the Atlantic Coast to offshore oil drilling."
How is adding wind in conflict with offshore drilling? There's plenty of room for both in the Atlantic ocean.
"Cuomo has asked Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke for an exemption from the drilling plan, saying in an open letter that the plan "undermines New York's efforts to combat climate change by shifting from greenhouse gas emitting fossil energy sources to renewable sources, such as offshore wind."
How does offshore drilling undermine New York's efforts? The only way it could do that is if the wind energy isn't cost competitive due to low prices for fossil fuels. The right answer to that is cheaper wind energy.
After the Cape Wind debacle it will be interesting to see if this ever happens.
They lost me at "So say Uber and Lyft, as signatories to a new list of transportation goals developed by a group of international non-governmental organizations"
Nobody voted for them and what they want is meaningless
Based on the 911 call, he wasn't. He was a murderer who had already killed one, and was about to kill two more. That's what the police assumed.
They assumed wrong, and an innocent man is dead
He may have been raising his hand to try to shield his eyes from all those lights
Based on the 911 call, he had a hand gun. So that action would cause the police to assume he was going to shoot at them and so they fired back.
Again they assumed wrong, and they didn't "fire back". The shot an unarmed man.
They are in the wrong profession if they can't make correct decisions in the heat of the moment.
The SWAT team needs detectives who can figure out the situation at the 911 call and also when they confront the suspects. That detective should make intelligent decisions based on evaluating the situation.
They need to make intelligent decisions and not shoot unarmed innocent people in front of their home.
It may be a difficult job but it is the job they freely chose. The job entails risk. They can't mitigate the risk by killing anyone they perceive may present a threat.
That man moved his right hand up very quickly, starting from the waist. That would look to the cop like he was pulling a gun from his waist, and so he was shot. Next time you raise your hands, raise them extremely slowly, so as to prevent the cop from assuming you are pulling a weapon from your pants.
I support law enforcement but this guy was killed for no reason. He was an innocent guy who opened his door to see what was going on outside. He sees a lot of lights and people are yelling at him. He may have been raising his hand to try to shield his eyes from all those lights so he could see what was going on.
The fact that police work can be a dangerous job should not grant police the right to shoot first and ask questions later. They are in the wrong profession if they can't make correct decisions in the heat of the moment. There were multiple cops outside, only one fired. That cop shouldn't be an armed police officer. One innocent dead guy is one too many.
If Mexico is paying for it, why did he demand that it should be in the budget?
I can tell you I will build a bridge and motorists will pay for it. That doesn't mean construction will be on hold until the motorists send me an up-front check.
That's because they don't "replace" the battery in iPhones. They copy the data from the old one on to a new one, hand your that, and then ship your old one to be "refurbished" (which is, of course, basically just replacing the battery).
Because they can't do the battery replacements in-store (because the phone is glued shut and impossible to open without special tools), that's the best they can do to enable a "quick" repair. (Still takes a couple of hours to do the copy.)
This is nonsense. An IPhone 6 battery replacement is a ten minute job for someone who knows how.
In other words, a more complicated payload. The moon missions could not have been done without a tremendous amount of innovation to build on. Much of what you're describing is mechanics. There's no fundamental difference between sending a cosmonaut into orbit and three astronauts to the moon.
It's engineering, not mechanics. If the Russians could have gone to the moon they certainly would have.
Okay, so you're looking at a bigger rocket with a bigger payload sent further out, carrying other things. Are you really saying that was more innovative and game-changing than putting Yuri Gagarin in orbit?
No. It was a bigger multi-stage rocket carrying: - 3 astronauts from the Earth to the moon - Another spacecraft to land 2 of the astronauts on the moon while the command module orbited the moon - A vehicle to travel on the moon - The lander craft launched them from the moon - The lander craft docked with the orbiting command module - And the command module returned them safely to earth
I guess by your way of thinking an F-35 is as innovative as a biplane. After all, they both have wings. Heck, the biplane even has 2 of them.
Ah, so putting a human on a rocket and sending him into orbit isn't as innovative as building a bigger rocket and sending three people further?
That's a pretty dumb question. If the Soviets had been innovative enough to send a human to the moon, give him a car to drive around in, and a ship to come back home in, they certainly would have. They didn't do it then, and no country has done it since the Americans did it.
The difference is that amusements parks aren't critical for modern life. Also, many areas there might be one choice for Internet provider. So no, not "common practice".
Neither is Burger King "critical for modern life" nor the only choice in fast food providers. My point is that people and businesses are definitely willing to pay for different qualities of service or quantities of a product.
Regardless this is about the relevance of the Burger King ad to the subject of Net Neutrality.
Slashdot Mirror
not Artificial Intelligence.
In other words, F**king Fracking, which in the end means the destruction of human habitat.
"Fact 1: Fracking is NOT causing most of the induced earthquakes. Wastewater disposal is the primary cause of the recent increase in earthquakes in the central United States.
Wastewater disposal wells typically operate for longer durations and inject much more fluid than hydraulic fracturing, making them more likely to induce earthquakes. In Oklahoma, which has the most induced earthquakes in US, only 1-2% of the earthquakes can be linked to hydraulic fracturing operations. The remaining earthquakes are induced by wastewater disposal."
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/re...
then we fraked the fuck out of it
protip oklahoma - use museum putty to hold things on shelves
The USGS calls bullshit on you.
"Fact 1: Fracking is NOT causing most of the induced earthquakes. Wastewater disposal is the primary cause of the recent increase in earthquakes in the central United States.
Wastewater disposal wells typically operate for longer durations and inject much more fluid than hydraulic fracturing, making them more likely to induce earthquakes. In Oklahoma, which has the most induced earthquakes in US, only 1-2% of the earthquakes can be linked to hydraulic fracturing operations. The remaining earthquakes are induced by wastewater disposal."
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/re...
So is waste, fraud, and abuse
All systems have inefficiencies and in human systems, waste, fraud and abuse are just that. You cannot eliminate them, although they can be reduced.
When your government can confiscate all of your money they have no reason to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse
If you want to give the government all of your money and have "smarter" people than you decide how to waste it
It has nothing to do with 'smarter' people spending 'your money'. If you want to participate in and benefit from the advantages of society and civilisation, you need to contribute. If you want to be the one with your hand on the wheel and more control over the purse strings, stand for office. Personally, I don't. This argument is a straw man.
You want to be taken care of like a child. Grow up already.
Or maybe move someplace with a communist system and not have any money of your own to begin with.
You've used the word 'communist' as an epithet while using a service and system made possible only because of the taxes paid by generations before you.
I used the word "communist" in the context of taxation. You are adding the characterization.
This started with your statement that giving over half of your labor to the government was not only a good thing but was actually too low.
I disagree. The government can tax my labor to some extent but beyond some threshold it is confiscatory, counterproductive, and counter to what it means to live in a free society.
"To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities" never worked and never will because it runs counter to human nature. Why would anyone work extra hours, create new inventions, make investments, or start a business when they will get no benefit from doing so? Where would they get the investment capital from to build anything?
Again I suggest if your government hasn't confiscated all of your income and assets yet feel free to send them a check for the balance.
Civilisation is paid for with taxes.
So is waste, fraud, and abuse. If you want to give the government all of your money and have "smarter" people than you decide how to waste it go write the check immediately. Or maybe move someplace with a communist system and not have any money of your own to begin with.
Key take away: the budget for "ANALYZE, FORECAST, AND SUPPORT" services was $492,014,000 but now it's $471,792,000. Will that reduction break forecasting? Perhaps, but I strongly doubt it. More likely, it'll result in cuts to people who have been there for a while, but hardly do anything (legacy folks), yet cost a lot, and/or cuts to open recs that have yet to be filled, or were just recently filled
Based on this article from September 2017 I think it's just a reduction in open head count
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/n...
"As of July, the NWS, which has a workforce of about 4,300, had 668 vacant positions, according to the National Weather Service Employees Organization (NWSEO), the union representing NWS employees. Overtime is common in many local offices since positions have gone unfilled for months and sometimes years. According to the GAO, about 5 percent of the agency's total positions were unfilled in 2006. That figure rose to about 11 percent in 2016"
So they are already operating with many more vacancies than this cut represents. In the private sector when you leave positions unfilled eventually the headcount gets cut.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/n...
Did anyone see this article in Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
It says the "worst case scenario" is preposterous.
"For example, the most extreme worst-case storyline assumes that by 2100 coal would grow to 94 percent of the world energy supply. In 2015, that figure was about 28 percent."
"One big problem with the amount of coal burning assumed by RCP8.5 is that there’s probably not enough extractable coal to make the scenario possible. “We don’t think it’s going to happen,” said Justin Ritchie, lead author of the University of British Columbia study and a Ph.D. candidate. “That’s extremely unlikely and also inconsistent with every year since the late 19th century.”
I don't know if you noticed that quite a bit of NYC was underwater not too long ago. This will become more frequent, to the point that part of the infrastructure fails.
Define "quite a bit". NYC is pretty large.
As I recall during a massive storm there was some flooding in lower Manhattan, which is between the Hudson and the East rivers. Also there was some flooding on the southern shore of Long Island and the Jersey shore.
The CFPB is not subject to congressional oversight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"A 2013 press release from the United States House Financial Services Committee criticized the CFPB for what was described as a "radical structure" that "is controlled by a single individual who cannot be fired for poor performance and who exercises sole control over the agency, its hiring and its budget." Moreover, the committee alleged a lack of financial transparency and a lack of accountability to Congress or the President. Committee Vice Chairman Patrick McHenry, expressed particular concern about travel costs and a $55 million renovation of CFPB headquarters, stating "$55 million is more than the entire annual construction and acquisition budget for GSA for the totality of federal buildings."[71] In 2012, the majority of GSA's Federal Buildings Fund went to rental costs, totaling $5.2 billion. $50 million was budgeted for construction and acquisition of facilities.[72]"
Its harder to see NFL as a sport....
whats that - 13 minutes of ACTUAL play over 3 hours?
WOW!
I wouldn't last 15 seconds. They'd be carting me off the field after one play.
The NFL does have too many breaks though. That's why I watch it on NFL Red Zone.
No commercials, no time outs. Sometimes the screen is split between multiple games.
It's awesome.
Watching them sweeping furiously is pretty funny though.
I want to see competitive vacuum cleaning in the summer games.
... is because they feel the threat. And it's very real.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is a nightmare for the powers that be - especially Goldman Sachs who's used to being in control of your money for ages. Sure you can ridicule the cryptocurrencies for being a rollercoaster of the smart outsmarts the lesser, but at least those who are not in "power" stand a chance at the big bucks for a small time, if done right - and understood correctly.
Goldman is nervous as HELL about this, we're talking big bucks - and they want to be in control of it, and they're not.
This is completely wrong. They don't make money by controlling currencies. They make money in:
Trading and sales
Market making
Investment banking
Asset Management
Prime services
etc
Crypto is just one more product they can make money in, and they are going to make boatloads of it. But they are a regulated business and they have to be careful about their risk exposure and legality of the businesses they are in.
Goldman is wrong. Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies are here to stay.
I don't know whose argument you are trying to rebut, but it isn't the one presented in the article.
In the article, the argument was that most block-chain based currencies will eventually become worthless, because everyone will eventually standardize on a small number of successful currencies and the market will lose interest in the also-rans. (Think VHS vs BetaMax)
That's completely different from the idea that all blockchain currencies will go away, which is the straw man argument that you seem to be trying to refute.
I was at a Goldman presentation years ago where senior business and tech managers were talking about how blockchain tech could revolutionize their businesses.
Goldman and other banks are entering the cryptocurrencies and the crypto exchange and futures businesses. They could have done it a long time ago but the risk and regulatory environment is very unpredictable. Nobody wants to get arrested for money laundering like the CEO of BitInstant.
General Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI regarding his Russian contacts. Drop the conspiracy theories already.
Lying about something which wasn't a crime anyway. This is just the FBI leaning on him by indicting him on a process crime and threatening his son.
"According to court filings, Flynn, while he was national security adviser, lied to FBI agents when he told them that he did not tell Kislyak in December 2016 to “refrain from escalating the situation” in response to sanctions that the Obama administration had levied on Moscow the same day. He also lied when he said he did not ask Kislyak to delay or defeat a vote on a pending United Nations Security Council resolution, the documents say."
"In addition to protecting himself from further charges, Flynn is said to be cooperating with the investigation to guard his son from potential criminal prosecution.
“My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel’s Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and our country,” Flynn said in a statement."
"But it's in direct conflict with President Donald Trump's plan to open up the Atlantic Coast to offshore oil drilling."
How is adding wind in conflict with offshore drilling? There's plenty of room for both in the Atlantic ocean.
"Cuomo has asked Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke for an exemption from the drilling plan, saying in an open letter that the plan "undermines New York's efforts to combat climate change by shifting from greenhouse gas emitting fossil energy sources to renewable sources, such as offshore wind."
How does offshore drilling undermine New York's efforts? The only way it could do that is if the wind energy isn't cost competitive due to low prices for fossil fuels. The right answer to that is cheaper wind energy.
After the Cape Wind debacle it will be interesting to see if this ever happens.
They lost me at "So say Uber and Lyft, as signatories to a new list of transportation goals developed by a group of international non-governmental organizations"
Nobody voted for them and what they want is meaningless
He was an innocent guy
Based on the 911 call, he wasn't. He was a murderer who had already killed one, and was about to kill two more. That's what the police assumed.
They assumed wrong, and an innocent man is dead
He may have been raising his hand to try to shield his eyes from all those lights
Based on the 911 call, he had a hand gun. So that action would cause the police to assume he was going to shoot at them and so they fired back.
Again they assumed wrong, and they didn't "fire back". The shot an unarmed man.
They are in the wrong profession if they can't make correct decisions in the heat of the moment.
The SWAT team needs detectives who can figure out the situation at the 911 call and also when they confront the suspects. That detective should make intelligent decisions based on evaluating the situation.
They need to make intelligent decisions and not shoot unarmed innocent people in front of their home.
It may be a difficult job but it is the job they freely chose. The job entails risk. They can't mitigate the risk by killing anyone they perceive may present a threat.
they showed up and a man walked out unarmed.
That man moved his right hand up very quickly, starting from the waist. That would look to the cop like he was pulling a gun from his waist, and so he was shot. Next time you raise your hands, raise them extremely slowly, so as to prevent the cop from assuming you are pulling a weapon from your pants.
I support law enforcement but this guy was killed for no reason. He was an innocent guy who opened his door to see what was going on outside. He sees a lot of lights and people are yelling at him. He may have been raising his hand to try to shield his eyes from all those lights so he could see what was going on.
The fact that police work can be a dangerous job should not grant police the right to shoot first and ask questions later. They are in the wrong profession if they can't make correct decisions in the heat of the moment. There were multiple cops outside, only one fired. That cop shouldn't be an armed police officer. One innocent dead guy is one too many.
Because when you need bulletproof economic analysis, you should always go to a fiction writer.
His writing was brilliant. He was gone way too young.
This was a great speech
https://stephenschneider.stanf...
If Mexico is paying for it, why did he demand that it should be in the budget?
I can tell you I will build a bridge and motorists will pay for it.
That doesn't mean construction will be on hold until the motorists send me an up-front check.
That's because they don't "replace" the battery in iPhones. They copy the data from the old one on to a new one, hand your that, and then ship your old one to be "refurbished" (which is, of course, basically just replacing the battery).
Because they can't do the battery replacements in-store (because the phone is glued shut and impossible to open without special tools), that's the best they can do to enable a "quick" repair. (Still takes a couple of hours to do the copy.)
This is nonsense. An IPhone 6 battery replacement is a ten minute job for someone who knows how.
In other words, a more complicated payload. The moon missions could not have been done without a tremendous amount of innovation to build on. Much of what you're describing is mechanics. There's no fundamental difference between sending a cosmonaut into orbit and three astronauts to the moon.
It's engineering, not mechanics. If the Russians could have gone to the moon they certainly would have.
Every time you see the word "first" on this list it is by definition an innovation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Okay, so you're looking at a bigger rocket with a bigger payload sent further out, carrying other things. Are you really saying that was more innovative and game-changing than putting Yuri Gagarin in orbit?
No. It was a bigger multi-stage rocket carrying:
- 3 astronauts from the Earth to the moon
- Another spacecraft to land 2 of the astronauts on the moon while the command module orbited the moon
- A vehicle to travel on the moon
- The lander craft launched them from the moon
- The lander craft docked with the orbiting command module
- And the command module returned them safely to earth
I guess by your way of thinking an F-35 is as innovative as a biplane. After all, they both have wings.
Heck, the biplane even has 2 of them.
Ah, so putting a human on a rocket and sending him into orbit isn't as innovative as building a bigger rocket and sending three people further?
That's a pretty dumb question. If the Soviets had been innovative enough to send a human to the moon, give him a car to drive around in, and a ship to come back home in, they certainly would have. They didn't do it then, and no country has done it since the Americans did it.
The difference is that amusements parks aren't critical for modern life. Also, many areas there might be one choice for Internet provider. So no, not "common practice".
Neither is Burger King "critical for modern life" nor the only choice in fast food providers.
My point is that people and businesses are definitely willing to pay for different qualities of service or quantities of a product.
Regardless this is about the relevance of the Burger King ad to the subject of Net Neutrality.