Uh Verizon has spent 23 billion dollars building up their FTTH Network. That was before any (broadband stimulus) Federal Tax incentives
Oh, Verizon had FTTH in the mid 90s before we gave them (and the other telecoms) billions in tax revenue that was (supposed) to be spent on getting fiber to the home? Wow, they were way ahead of their game.
Stick that in your commie pipe and smoke it!
Did you pump your fist after typing that for doing such a good job of pwning the GP?
I've been voting with my wallet for a couple years now: no internet or TV services because they're ridiculously overpriced. I'm pretty sure Comcast and Qwest are *just* about to crack.
Clearly some people didn't understand my point, so let me boil it down to internet IQ level:
We understand your point perfectly. It's stupid.
Let me boil it down even further:
Comcast: "We want your money (that only exists because a government exists to print it). Please sign-up for service." You: "Fuck you."
Government: "We want your money back to pay for all the shit you've been using. We printed it, after all, and with out us your money has absolutely no value, so it's best that you put some of it back into the system to be reused to ensure that it retains at least some of its value." You: "Fuck you." Government: "Ok, welcome to prison" Everyone else: "What a douchebag freeloader. Glad he's in jail."
You keep acting like I'm a crazy person for wanting to be able to sue people for doing damage to people's health and property.
Hint: that's not why we think you're crazy. We think you're crazy because you seem to think that every person has the resources to fight a potentially lengthy court battle against a large energy company. I suppose as a libertarian, you probably have your "law savings account" like you have your "health savings account" like every responsible person should have, and think that that $5k will be enough to protect you.
That's the problem with laws and regulations. They provide cover for the corporations doing the damage. Remove the laws and regulations, and allow damages to be settled in court. The settlement will include shipping in water in perpetuity plus monetary damages plus punitive damages. All this lost money will factor into the company's decision on whether or not this is worth it.
And the amusing thing is that you probably call liberals and progressives idealists whose beliefs would never work out in the real world.
Your solution is that every homeowner can go up against an energy company in the court of law, and that the courts will always resolve things correctly. That suggestion might be funny if it weren't so fucking stupid.
The Android SDK is 100% free and will run on just about any platform you could throw it at. The emulator works great for testing just about anything you need. If you want a real phone to test on, just watch Craigslist for someone selling an old phone out of contract. (or in contract; makes no difference if all you're doing is using it for testing)
You have a really defeatist attitude about all of this. You can get an IDE for free, you can develop an application for free, you can get a free (or nearly free) website to host it. Even if it's rough around the edges and isn't signed with a CA-issued cert, no potential employer is going to hold that against you for a side hobby project.
My entire point is your objection that you're "too busy doing work for the degree". People that have passion for coding will write code while you're off being "busy" watching Glee or whatever it is you're doing between school and sleep.
You don't know jack shit about the GP, so you have no way of knowing how busy he was or why.
Maybe he was working a 40 hour per week job to support himself through school. Maybe he was heavily involved in other types of extra curricular activities -- student government, a sport, ACM activities, chess club, who knows? You certainly don't.
Yet you see fit to imply that this guy who just said he was "busy" is a TV-inebriated dolt who can barely be bothered to lift his ass off the couch to make it to class. On behalf of him, and everyone else that you think you're better than (but probably aren't), fuck you.
But if that bank says they're making a "best effort," and they leave the back door open for people to just walk into the vault, then they are in breach of contract for not actually making that "best effort" -- and would certainly assume some liability for their failure to do so.
Was interesting seeing reviews of cross-platform PS2/Gamecube/Xbox games and seeing "the Gamecube and Xbox versions look better overall but the PS2 has better particle effects and lighting"
Except that ports of games that were initially developed for the PS2 always looked like shit compared to native the Gamecube titles, whereas ports of XBox titles only looked a little crappy.
You can push HD video from an ARM device these days.
Two things:
1 - "these days." In 2006, when the Wii was released, how many handheld devices were there that pushed HD video?
2 - pushing HD video is NOT the same thing as doing 3d rendering at HD resolutions. One is cheap and easy and can be easily accomplished by a specialized streaming hardware codec; the other is expensive in both dollars and battery life on top of being very hot and requires a general purpose GPU.
How many games support its use natively? I can hook up webcams to my PC too -- that doesn't mean any games use it. (Yes, I am aware that it can be made to emulate a mouse pointer; that alone still doesn't make it practical or useful)
I'm not sure how that reconciles with the claim that the poor "pay a substantial percentage of their incomes in taxes."
Sales taxes. Gas taxes. Property taxes. (If you're renting, you're indirectly paying your landlord's property taxes.) Sin taxes. "Regulatory fees" on cable, phone, and internet connections. State income taxes. All those "hidden" taxes that everyone bitches about all the time.
There are more taxes than just federal income tax. None of those sound like very much to you? You're obviously not poor. Try adding it all up and seeing what percentage comes out of your take-home pay when you're on minimum wage, with no benefits -- and you have the option of paying $200/month for insurance, or $140 per visit to the doctor. The state of Washington has no income tax -- yet it somehow has the most effectively regressive tax structure in the nation; the rich pay roughly 20% in various taxes, and the poor also pay roughly 20% in taxes.
But no, of course, according to you everybody who is "poor" is really just fine, their only problem is that they can't afford the 56" plasma TV that their neighbor has. If some percentage of the poor have a cell phone that they're paying $75/month for, then obviously they aren't *really* poor, because they could instead use that $75/month ($870/year) to buy groceries and quit whining. Nevermind that even if they saved that $870/year for 10 years, it still wouldn't even be worth enough to have any sort of real financial independence.
What's that? Invest it you say? And then have their entire meager savings wiped out when the next bubble pops? That sounds like a *great* idea.
TL;DR: the reason you can't reconcile how the poor have a significant amount of their income go to taxes -- even without paying a cent in federal income tax -- is because you're ignorant.
and being able to work with your study group in the library is pretty handy
Maybe it's different in a non-CS-related curriculum, but when I was in school, there was absolutely no need for anybody to bring a laptop to a study group. We brought pencils, paper, and books, and worked out algorithms by hand when necessary.
Most of the time, when I see laptops around campus (or in classrooms), their owners are using Facebook or browsing some random celebrity gossip site. They seem to be more of a distraction than an instrument of learning. Not that they *can't* be used as an effective tool in education, they just typically *aren't*.
You are the type of poster that *really* makes me wish Slashdot had a "hide" option.
Your snarky, holier-than-thou, barely informed posts really add nothing to the discussion. You've been pissing all over this thread with nothing but bullshit unfounded opinion.
Ok, I'm just curious: name one way in which the government has abused information they have on you. Not a "they could abuse it like this" or "they abused someone else's information," but a concrete example of them abusing your information.
Don't take this as a disagreement that datamining by the government isn't generally a bad thing; I just suspect that you're full of shit.
And when they get their $X for the part, they have to subtract cost it took to actually manufacture it of $Z. So it could very well end up being that $Y - overhead is much more lucrative than $X - $Z.
It's a consumer electronics device; even if other manufacturers *were* blatantly copying it, that's just how things work in consumer electronics.
Look at DVD/BluRay players; look at TVs; look at laptops; look at cameras. They're all basically the same thing, with some minor changes in appearance and functionality. You're claiming that Apple is somehow special in that nothing they make can ever be copied?
Note: I'm only conceding the "copying" point because it's irrelevant. I actually think that the claim that poor Apple is having all their beautiful designs copied is bullshit as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, Verizon had FTTH in the mid 90s before we gave them (and the other telecoms) billions in tax revenue that was (supposed) to be spent on getting fiber to the home? Wow, they were way ahead of their game.
Did you pump your fist after typing that for doing such a good job of pwning the GP?
--Jeremy
I've been voting with my wallet for a couple years now: no internet or TV services because they're ridiculously overpriced. I'm pretty sure Comcast and Qwest are *just* about to crack.
--Jeremy
We understand your point perfectly. It's stupid.
Let me boil it down even further:
Comcast: "We want your money (that only exists because a government exists to print it). Please sign-up for service."
You: "Fuck you."
Government: "We want your money back to pay for all the shit you've been using. We printed it, after all, and with out us your money has absolutely no value, so it's best that you put some of it back into the system to be reused to ensure that it retains at least some of its value."
You: "Fuck you."
Government: "Ok, welcome to prison"
Everyone else: "What a douchebag freeloader. Glad he's in jail."
--Jeremy
Hint: that's not why we think you're crazy. We think you're crazy because you seem to think that every person has the resources to fight a potentially lengthy court battle against a large energy company. I suppose as a libertarian, you probably have your "law savings account" like you have your "health savings account" like every responsible person should have, and think that that $5k will be enough to protect you.
--Jeremy
And the amusing thing is that you probably call liberals and progressives idealists whose beliefs would never work out in the real world.
Your solution is that every homeowner can go up against an energy company in the court of law, and that the courts will always resolve things correctly. That suggestion might be funny if it weren't so fucking stupid.
--Jeremy
The Android SDK is 100% free and will run on just about any platform you could throw it at. The emulator works great for testing just about anything you need. If you want a real phone to test on, just watch Craigslist for someone selling an old phone out of contract. (or in contract; makes no difference if all you're doing is using it for testing)
You have a really defeatist attitude about all of this. You can get an IDE for free, you can develop an application for free, you can get a free (or nearly free) website to host it. Even if it's rough around the edges and isn't signed with a CA-issued cert, no potential employer is going to hold that against you for a side hobby project.
--Jeremy
Borland's IDEs were never very expensive for non-enterprise versions. I think Turbo Pascal 7 and Turbo C++ 3.0 each cost me less than $100.
--Jeremy
You don't know jack shit about the GP, so you have no way of knowing how busy he was or why.
Maybe he was working a 40 hour per week job to support himself through school. Maybe he was heavily involved in other types of extra curricular activities -- student government, a sport, ACM activities, chess club, who knows? You certainly don't.
Yet you see fit to imply that this guy who just said he was "busy" is a TV-inebriated dolt who can barely be bothered to lift his ass off the couch to make it to class. On behalf of him, and everyone else that you think you're better than (but probably aren't), fuck you.
--Jeremy
It was another nominee, and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes made the list, so the series was represented fairly enough IMO as a huge Metroid fan.
Also a good choice.
--Jeremy
If those pages were up on Wikipedia, there would be so many [citation needed] that they'd be unreadable.
--Jeremy
Just because the criminal did it doesn't mean that Sony's gross negligence is acceptable.
Your fanboyism and Sony defense is getting almost as bad as SuperKendall and MobileTatsu's Apple ass kissing.
--Jeremy
What the fuck are you smoking? The highest tax brackets in the US are at their lowest percentages in, well, since the US started taxing people.
--Jeremy
Yet Apple still willfully makes use of these slave labor camp/factories. That is why they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.
--Jeremy
But if that bank says they're making a "best effort," and they leave the back door open for people to just walk into the vault, then they are in breach of contract for not actually making that "best effort" -- and would certainly assume some liability for their failure to do so.
--Jeremy
Except that ports of games that were initially developed for the PS2 always looked like shit compared to native the Gamecube titles, whereas ports of XBox titles only looked a little crappy.
--Jeremy
To some of us, this is a feature.
--Jeremy
Two things:
1 - "these days." In 2006, when the Wii was released, how many handheld devices were there that pushed HD video?
2 - pushing HD video is NOT the same thing as doing 3d rendering at HD resolutions. One is cheap and easy and can be easily accomplished by a specialized streaming hardware codec; the other is expensive in both dollars and battery life on top of being very hot and requires a general purpose GPU.
--Jeremy
How many games support its use natively? I can hook up webcams to my PC too -- that doesn't mean any games use it. (Yes, I am aware that it can be made to emulate a mouse pointer; that alone still doesn't make it practical or useful)
--Jeremy
Sales taxes. Gas taxes. Property taxes. (If you're renting, you're indirectly paying your landlord's property taxes.) Sin taxes. "Regulatory fees" on cable, phone, and internet connections. State income taxes. All those "hidden" taxes that everyone bitches about all the time.
There are more taxes than just federal income tax. None of those sound like very much to you? You're obviously not poor. Try adding it all up and seeing what percentage comes out of your take-home pay when you're on minimum wage, with no benefits -- and you have the option of paying $200/month for insurance, or $140 per visit to the doctor. The state of Washington has no income tax -- yet it somehow has the most effectively regressive tax structure in the nation; the rich pay roughly 20% in various taxes, and the poor also pay roughly 20% in taxes.
But no, of course, according to you everybody who is "poor" is really just fine, their only problem is that they can't afford the 56" plasma TV that their neighbor has. If some percentage of the poor have a cell phone that they're paying $75/month for, then obviously they aren't *really* poor, because they could instead use that $75/month ($870/year) to buy groceries and quit whining. Nevermind that even if they saved that $870/year for 10 years, it still wouldn't even be worth enough to have any sort of real financial independence.
What's that? Invest it you say? And then have their entire meager savings wiped out when the next bubble pops? That sounds like a *great* idea.
TL;DR: the reason you can't reconcile how the poor have a significant amount of their income go to taxes -- even without paying a cent in federal income tax -- is because you're ignorant.
--Jeremy
Maybe it's different in a non-CS-related curriculum, but when I was in school, there was absolutely no need for anybody to bring a laptop to a study group. We brought pencils, paper, and books, and worked out algorithms by hand when necessary.
Most of the time, when I see laptops around campus (or in classrooms), their owners are using Facebook or browsing some random celebrity gossip site. They seem to be more of a distraction than an instrument of learning. Not that they *can't* be used as an effective tool in education, they just typically *aren't*.
--Jeremy
You are the type of poster that *really* makes me wish Slashdot had a "hide" option.
Your snarky, holier-than-thou, barely informed posts really add nothing to the discussion. You've been pissing all over this thread with nothing but bullshit unfounded opinion.
--Jeremy
The median amount stored in savings accounts would be a much more telling statistic than the mean in this case.
--Jeremy
Ok, I'm just curious: name one way in which the government has abused information they have on you. Not a "they could abuse it like this" or "they abused someone else's information," but a concrete example of them abusing your information.
Don't take this as a disagreement that datamining by the government isn't generally a bad thing; I just suspect that you're full of shit.
--Jeremy
And when they get their $X for the part, they have to subtract cost it took to actually manufacture it of $Z. So it could very well end up being that $Y - overhead is much more lucrative than $X - $Z.
--Jeremy
It's a consumer electronics device; even if other manufacturers *were* blatantly copying it, that's just how things work in consumer electronics.
Look at DVD/BluRay players; look at TVs; look at laptops; look at cameras. They're all basically the same thing, with some minor changes in appearance and functionality. You're claiming that Apple is somehow special in that nothing they make can ever be copied?
Note: I'm only conceding the "copying" point because it's irrelevant. I actually think that the claim that poor Apple is having all their beautiful designs copied is bullshit as well.
--Jeremy