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User: demonlapin

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  1. Re:Too soon on Helicopter Crashes While Filming Autonomous Audi · · Score: 1

    You'll use the road more efficiently if you keep all lanes open until the end, then alternate merge.

    Perhaps more importantly, you'll always get there quicker if you run up to the end and then merge. You'll feel like an asshole if you do it, but you'll feel like a chump if you don't.

  2. Re:Block All Marketing Texts on T-Mobile Facing Lawsuit Over Text Message Censorship · · Score: 1

    Americans have had unmetered local calling with landlines forever, and most VOIP plans are unlimited nationwide. You'd have to introduce some mechanism for charging landlines for calling a mobile, AND some mechanism for knowing whether a given number is a mobile or a landline, AND sell Americans on the idea that they have to pay to call someone's cell phone (unlike every other call they make). Because mobile and landline numbers are not distinguished from one another, that's not something that's easy to do from a landline.

  3. Re:Block All Marketing Texts on T-Mobile Facing Lawsuit Over Text Message Censorship · · Score: 1

    Do it for free, from a landline, in 1982. (That's when the decision was made.)

  4. Re:Less protection for free speech? on In Canada, Criminal Libel Charges Laid For Criticizing Police · · Score: 1

    The fact is the US is highly regulated and censored and Canada is not.

    On broadcast, you're right. So what? You can still do whatever you want on cable.

  5. Re:Block All Marketing Texts on T-Mobile Facing Lawsuit Over Text Message Censorship · · Score: 1

    with all 4 carriers calls set/recieved to mobile numbers from that carrier are free

    Thanks for the tip. I knew that used to be an option you had to pay for, didn't realize it was now standard.

  6. Re:so what's the free market solution? on Google, Apple and Others Accused of 'No Poaching' Deal · · Score: 1

    Collusion is illegal. I've even known true Randroids who understood that there have to be enforcement mechanisms.

  7. Re:Block All Marketing Texts on T-Mobile Facing Lawsuit Over Text Message Censorship · · Score: 1

    Yes, you could. The EU fell on one side of that decision, the US on the other. Both are reasonable, but since I was replying to a non-American, I figured that he already understood the logic behind his way.

  8. Re:Block All Marketing Texts on T-Mobile Facing Lawsuit Over Text Message Censorship · · Score: 2, Informative

    You don't have a choice. I'm not aware of any US carrier at all - certainly not the major ones - that offers free incoming texts on anything other than an unlimited-text plan.

  9. Re:Block All Marketing Texts on T-Mobile Facing Lawsuit Over Text Message Censorship · · Score: 5, Informative

    Allow me to present...

    The US Mobile Market in a Nutshell:
    There are four nationwide networks, owned by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. (Various MVNOs and regional carriers as well, but they're not relevant to this discussion.)

    Sprint and Verizon use CDMA, but do not use a UICC or other SIM-equivalent. They will not activate each other's phones. If you want to be on their network, you have to buy their phone. AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM, but their 3G frequencies are different, so you can only get EDGE speeds on a phone not made for that network. If you want a modern phone, you have to buy one specifically for one carrier. Furthermore, only T-Mobile offers a discount if you bring your own phone. As a result, Americans are always under contract, because it makes no sense not to take the new phone every other year.

    As a result of the decision long ago to have mobile phones get numbers in the area code in which they are physically located, rather than a separate one for mobiles only, the person with a mobile phone pays for incoming and outgoing phone calls. (There's no easy way to know for certain that a given phone number is mobile vs landline, and nearly all Americans have had unmetered local calls for ages.) Minutes are minutes, and it doesn't matter who called whom. While this is a different decision from the European model, there is some reasonable logic - the benefit of being mobile accrues to the person with the mobile phone, so they should pay for it.

    All the systems include caller ID, so there's also an opportunity to reject the call and not be charged. Furthermore, all numbers in the country are considered the same - calling a landline, a mobile, a mobile on another network - all charged out of your minutes. VOIP providers follow this same model; you pay a per-minute fee for calls, but the fee is the same regardless of what kind of number you are calling. So the benefit is that American mobile service, while expensive and cumbersome due to the one-carrier-per-phone situation, works exactly as if you were at home when traveling. No roaming fees, even if you travel thousands of miles, as long as you're still in the US.

    Following the same logic, we pay to send and receive SMS. This is unconscionable, since you can't decline an SMS from an unfamiliar number, but the FCC is a creature of its regulatees, and so it does nothing. If you do find out someone does not have an unlimited SMS plan, you could easily empty their prepaid account or give them a thousands-of-dollars bill on a postpaid, just by sending them texts all day and night. The only solution is to get an unlimited plan or tell your carrier to reject all SMS.

  10. Re:Is this legal? on T-Mobile Facing Lawsuit Over Text Message Censorship · · Score: 1

    It was opt-in, according to TFA.

  11. Re:I'm OK with this on In Canada, Criminal Libel Charges Laid For Criticizing Police · · Score: 3, Informative
    Stuff like this, or this, or any of a thousand other examples, are why people don't trust the police. They're not trustworthy, they don't care to help you, and their dedication is only to each other. You are a subject, and they are the ones with power. Disagree, and they'll jail you, shoot you, or frame you. This just proves the point.

    Police and prosecutors say baseless crap all the time. Remember Richard Jewell? The FBI can "leak" information to the media to destroy people's lives with impunity - the best that guy got, despite complete innocence, was the AG saying "I regret the leak." Well, gee, thanks.

    the cops and prosecutors involved need to be lined up against a wall and shot.

    Yeah, somehow that never seems to happen. All Mike Nifong got was being disbarred, and spending one night in jail for contempt of court, on charges that he trumped up and that would have, if successful, put three men in jail for a long, long time. And those are the ones with lots of money to defend themselves. As far as I'm concerned, that level of dishonesty should lead to putting him in jail for the full length of the sentence he was trying to get.

  12. Re:Canada is more protective of rights than USA. on In Canada, Criminal Libel Charges Laid For Criticizing Police · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Because you couldn't say or do the same things to someone that wasn't queer, and not get arrested/charged.

    Wait, what? I'm with you on the assault bit, but you're not allowed to walk around with a sign saying "NERDS ARE EVIL SINNERS" or "NERDS WANT TO MAKE YOUR CHILDREN PASTY, BASEMENT-DWELLING SLOBS"?

    You don't have a right not to be offended, IMO. As soon as you set up a group of people that have the ability to tell you to shut up because your speech has "no value", you're just institutionalizing one set of prejudices - a set that might not be stable over time. (Always assume your worst political enemies will gain control of whatever policy you enact.)

  13. Re:Less protection for free speech? on In Canada, Criminal Libel Charges Laid For Criticizing Police · · Score: 1
    Regulation of broadcast depends on the fact that it uses the public frequencies. Print publications enjoy much stronger protection.

    And the US constitution does not protect anyone from libel statements.

    Technically true, but the burden of proof in libel cases in the US is frankly astronomical, especially if the victim is a public figure. I don't know if Canadian law is closer to the US or the UK on this.

  14. Re:Less protection for free speech? on In Canada, Criminal Libel Charges Laid For Criticizing Police · · Score: 1

    I can't see that surviving in the US.

    IANAL, but there's a lot less protection for business/commercial speech than for political. And regulations on signs in general have been upheld.

  15. Re:Nuclear weapons Venezuela ? on US Couple Arrested For Transmitting Nuclear Secrets In Sting Operation · · Score: 1

    To make FARC the effective government of Colombia?

  16. Re:Simply untrue on Gigabit Speeds At Home In the US · · Score: 1

    So you have "1 Gbps fiber", but 1.5 Mbps is the fastest service you have? Sounds like you've got 1.5 Mbps to me. Am I missing something?

  17. Re:Have You Had To Buy A T-1 Lately on Gigabit Speeds At Home In the US · · Score: 1

    Your T1 probably includes an SLA, which you won't be getting from that 100Gbps line.

  18. Re:Awesome.. on Gigabit Speeds At Home In the US · · Score: 1

    Teabagger ... Teabaggers

    Christ on a crutch, man, it was funny (although somewhat revealing about what the originators really thought about all those gay people) once. Move on.

  19. Re:Cab Drivers are a Concrete Empirical Example on How Good Software Makes Us Stupid · · Score: 1

    Well, that article noted that a black cab would charge GBP50 for a ride from Shepherd's Bush to Heathrow - a ride that a minicab would do for GBP28. Is a black cab driver so much more efficient as to justify the nearly doubled cost?

  20. Re:Well... on How Good Software Makes Us Stupid · · Score: 1

    English spelling is based on (old, regionally variant) English pronunciations. The problem is that, as the language evolved toward a single orthography, the spelling and the pronunciation didn't come from the same place.

    What you're thinking of is grammar, with rules like "no splitting infinitives" - because in Latin and Greek, infinitives are single words and can't be split.

  21. Re:Does this take into account... on Gartner Predicts Android Most Popular Mobile OS By 2014 · · Score: 1

    Well, the problem with regulation is that any regulatory scheme tends to be captured by the regulated entities, especially if there's money involved. There's no way that we could avoid having an FCC - somebody has to allocate spectrum - but I think far too many people have a default of "regulate it" when the opposite should be true. Unless there's a problem - a big problem, not covered by any existing law - leave it the hell alone. And industry-sponsored groups can be quite useful - like the IIHS or UL. Since the industry is going to end up regulating itself anyway, why give them the color of law? ;)

  22. Re:Does this take into account... on Gartner Predicts Android Most Popular Mobile OS By 2014 · · Score: 1

    Factual corrections are always appreciated, but your link says only that TMo USA insists that their phones be capable of Band I, not that they use it in the USA. Do you have a link saying they use band I in the US?

  23. Re:Does this take into account... on Gartner Predicts Android Most Popular Mobile OS By 2014 · · Score: 1

    T-Mobile in the US uses Band IV, which uses 2100 only for the downstream data, not upstream. Wikipedia article.

  24. Re:Does this take into account... on Gartner Predicts Android Most Popular Mobile OS By 2014 · · Score: 1

    Calling anything in telecommunications a "free unregulated market" is profoundly inaccurate. It's one of the best examples out there of entrenched companies using government regulation to put up barriers to entry. As the old saying goes, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

    When the regulatory apparatus that we have isn't used properly, it makes me suspicious of just how effective a bigger regulatory apparatus would be. After all, the FCC could have declared that AT&T and T-Mobile would share 3G frequencies, or that Verizon and Sprint would have to activate each other's devices, as a condition of their spectrum licenses.

  25. Re:Does this take into account... on Gartner Predicts Android Most Popular Mobile OS By 2014 · · Score: 1

    Well, I didn't count regional operators or MVNOs. So it does sound a bit worse than it is. And we do have full inter-network number portability if you decide to change.

    But you're right. It's crazy. Maybe LTE will change things somewhat, putting all the carriers on one technology, but I doubt it - the FCC just doesn't care enough. About the only thing we've managed to get out of the carriers is truly nationwide service with unlimited long distance and no roaming, which (if you use it) is a great deal. In this sense, US mobile service is like Apple - you can't get something cheap, and you have to buy it all from one provider, but you really do get a premium product for all that money.