Free market? Maybe you didn't read the article:
How have we fallen so far behind? Through lack of competition. As the Congressional Research Service puts it, U.S. consumers face a "cable and telephone broadband duopoly." And that's more like a best-case scenario: Many households are hostage to a single broadband provider, and nearly one-tenth have no broadband provider at all. For businesses, it's just as bad. The telecom merger spree has left many office buildings with a single provider -- leading to annual estimated overcharges of $8 billion. Doesn't sound like much of a free market to me.
No, that's a free market. Those companies aren't a government-mandated duopoly in many cases. In some they are, but in many another vendor could enter the market what with satellite broadband, phone network deregulation, or just walking up to a city and offering cash to build a fiber network.
I think what you don't understand is that, left to its own devices, the free market will often devolve to a duopoly. Monopolies get caught and shut down by the government, but duopolies can survive indefinitely, sharing and reaping in the profits. This is especially true in markets where there is a high barrier to entry, such as broadband. If a third company came into my town and tried to pull fiber for a new network, I'd be somewhat happy. If a fourth came into town, I'd fight it because I wouldn't want construction crews tearing up my streets again. Plus the cost recovery time goes town for each new market entry.
In other words, a market can be free and still be bad for consumers. Somehow libertarians get that wrong all the time. Hence, I'd be happy if my city just pulled fiber once, let any company provide service over it, and enjoy a thriving service-oriented marketplace. I'd even be willing to ban the city from providing any of its own services; it just provides the wires.
In how many of those countries is the government creating the broadband infrastructure, or sponsoring it in the form of direct contracts or new monopoly grants, or in the form of an existing molopoly telecommunications giant?
For the most part, the US has none of the above. Perhaps in this case the free market doesn't see sufficient justification for high-speed access to justify the costs, since people don't seem to know they can't live without such access until they first have it.
I think this is a matter best handled at the local level. Either let businesses fight it out, or, if a local community considers it a useful monetary investment, let cities sponsor the broadband infrastructure. I see nothing wrong with the government creating the networks on which commerce can be done, but because the internet is such a new commerce network (compared to, say, roads), not every community will see it in the same way.
Yeah, just last week I went to slashdot.co.de and complained about how German-central their political coverage was. It was especially true in terms of technology. Even though Germany was the principal founder of the internet, and also still the controlling force for some aspects through its dominance of ICANN, that isn't right. Plus, given Germany's strong global presence, even though they use their political and economic weight to lead or dictate policies across the globe, none of that means they should be talking about politics on a web site based in their country written in their language.
Certainly not on a website devoted to technology, especially one with a subcategory called "Politics" that can be disabled by any viewer who wishes to not see those type of stories.
Without actually taking more into account than a very simple statistic, it's about as pertinent as using the winner of the Superbowl to guess the political outcom
Incidentally, there was discussion in 2004 about a statistic where one football team (I don't remember which, perhaps the Washington Redskins) always won their last game before a presidential election when the president was about to be reelected, and lost the game when he was about to be defeated. When there was no incumbent, the president's party received the "luck". It had been accurate for like 50 years.
Not at all. Having Rumsfeld step down weeks ago would have validated Democrat claims that "this administration has it all wrong" and "Rumsfeld needs to go", while invalidating Republican claims that the country should "stay the course" and that Rumsfeld "has the confidence" of the President.
In other words, it would have given backing the to Democrat campaign platform from the White House. That just couldn't be done.
No matter who you elect, they will do something you don't like, but you can get a pretty good idea in fifteen minutes.
Absolutely. No person on the planet besides you agrees with everything you do. You are going to disagree about something. There are three ways you can solve this: 1. Find the issue most important to you, and vote with the candidate who believes that way. If both major party candidates agree on this issue, you should probably look at an independent candidate. For example, if abortion is the most important issue to you (and you don't care what else happens to the country, as long as abortion stay legal/is banned), then vote for the candidate who shares your belief.
2. Look a wide variety of issues (perhaps using an on-line political beliefs survey), and see where the majority of your view lie. Vote in the direction of your majority views, even if you disagree on individual issues. This probably means you become a straight party voter (either major or independent party). For example, you may find that your views tend toward libertarian, so you vote libertarian when you can, liberal on candidates running on social issues, and ??? on candidates running on economic issues (republican party no longer counts).
3. Research each and every election in your area, and make custom decisions in the form of category A or B for every candidate. This is what you probably don't want to do, but you're ignoring options 1 or 2 because you think option 3 is too involved.
The only thing one should require is to stick a div tag with CSS to make it invisible at the very very top of the site, that says "If you are a disabled person using a screen reader to navigate this page, and wishes to make a purchase, dial the following number and talk with one of our friendly representative who will be happy to help you, and give you any web-only discounts you deserve".
The ADA is overall a good law that has served a good purpose. But in this case, this is all Target should need to do - provide a method so that those who cannot read their website can shop with them from home. Just make sure the representatives are prepared to read out descriptions of items, etc., to that the customer can make informed choices, and this is covered. This would probably cost much less than a lawsuit anyway.
If this goes too far in assuming that someone with a computer has a phone line, then make it a web chat system - the alt text directs you to a site where you can talk online with the representative.
Which garnered the exact same response (i.e. why is this on Slashdot?) which was answered with the exact same reply (Slashdot is Rob Malda's site; if it interests him then its relevant).
I think all elected officials should be required to go work every so many terms, get them back in the loop of what people want, get them back into reality.
And what of the people in jobs that cannot be so easily dropped and picked back up? Do you think a software engineer who has spent 10 years as a politician has any chance of getting another programming job, 10 years rusty? Or do you just naturally expect all politicans would go to a comfy PR or executive position at a major company, non-profit, think-tank, or lobbying firm? Because frankly that's the only job available for anyone in politics who's not a lawyer or independently wealthy.
Frankly, I'd rather have the politicians spend their lives in office than bounce back and forth between representing us and representing a special interest, especially since that special interest will pay them much more than we will.
I think you need to read the aptly-timed November 2006 National Geographic article "A Fin Is a Limb Is a Wing: How Evolution Fashioned Its Masterworks". It describes how the same genes (Hox genes, if I skimmed the article correctly) shared among many otherwise very differennt creatures produce species-specific results. For example, the same genes create fins in a fish, wings in a chicken, and limbs in a human (insert graphic, page 115), or control the length (or lack of) neck in a mouse, goose, or python (insert graphic, page 121).
It's been said before, but it must be said each time: No plan is viable that lets someone walk out with a list of their votes. That leads to vote buying/intimidation, which would mess up elections far more than electronic voting machines can.
I know it's a small part of your plan; your addition is the scanner being separate from the vote-generator. But still it has to be pointed out.
Really, you should be asking what Saddam was doing with this document in the firstplace, and how close was he to getting the bomb.
Given that the material is (from your own quote): decades-old information that had already been in the hands of Saddam's regime it tells us absolutely nothing about how close Saddam was to getting a bomb in 2003 when we invaded.
Decades ago, like say in the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam was our best bud. Of course he had WMDs back then, and was working toward nuclear bombs. We found all this out in 1991 and applied sanctions to stop the work. As far as we still know, those sanctions worked, and he was less close to "the bomb" in 2003 than he was when this "decades-old information" was written.
Besides, the fact that Saddam knew this stuff decades ago doesn't mean it should be declassified. It's not like Saddam went around selling nuclear information to terrorist groups or anything, so some of this material is still (for the most part) held in confidence by nuclear powers.
Just pretend you never got it. and ignore it, go about your day. Apparently the boss is already too much of a pussy as to actually fire you in the fire place, so what is the chance he will say anything.
And if your boss does come by to fire you in person, just make sure you're eating a big bowl of crunchy cereal. You can smile and nod, and then go back to work, and eventually upper management will notice and give you a promotion + commendation.
It just shows how 95% of people will claim that they want politicians who are "real people", "just like them", "not slick politicians", but if you aren't a smooth talker and run for office, you'll be cast in a negative light and probably lose due to your mis-speaks.
Another poster touched on it, but what they need to do is put a few banks of power outlets in the waiting area of every terminal, then charge $0.25 to activate an outlet for two hours.
I do appreciate free power outlets (when I can find them), but guaranteed access to an outlet (i.e. there will be one at all, and there will be enough of them so that the only one isn't next to a seat with a bunch of wild kids) is worth paying for.
which by chance is where most NPR stations are located.
Not by chance. For whatever reason that's the cheap end of the dial - anything lower than 92.5 is less valued by big-name broadcasting companies. I thought it had to do with allowed broadcast power at those frequencies, but I can't find anything to back up that claim.
Perhaps that's true. I don't understand why any artist signs away the rights to their work so completely in order to be a "signed" artist. But, if the artist has given away the right to control where and how their work is posted on the internet to their record label, then the record label is the correct person to control that usage.
I don't know that legislation further dictating allowed terms in recording contracts is the correct answer here. I'm a proponent of using the government to do something when the government is the right way to do it - but in this case I hope micropayments and the "long tail" of musical interests, together with direct-to-listener band relationships, can sidestep the problems entirely.
How is this evil on Google's part? As it sounds, they took a small part of their massive advertising income, paid it as a licensing fee to record labels, and can now offer a web site where their customers can freely and legally post content containing copyrighted music and video clips. That's a tremendous legal service offered to their customers at no charge. It should protect a large number of people from lawsuit who might have otherwise been at risk.
The only potentially "evil" thing is if the record labels are only suing competitors because Google paid them to. Do you actually think the RIAA and similar groups had decided to be benevolent to online video traders and mixers, and it was the evil, tainted money from Google that swayed them to sue? I'd be much more ready to believe that the RIAA/etc. have been drooling over the idea of more lawsuits to file, and simply needed to staff up their legal departments to handle video and derived uses as well as audio trading, and it's taken the last 9-12 months for the staffing budgets to be approved. (They are a bureaucracy, after all.)
Slashdot Mirror
No, that's a free market. Those companies aren't a government-mandated duopoly in many cases. In some they are, but in many another vendor could enter the market what with satellite broadband, phone network deregulation, or just walking up to a city and offering cash to build a fiber network.
I think what you don't understand is that, left to its own devices, the free market will often devolve to a duopoly. Monopolies get caught and shut down by the government, but duopolies can survive indefinitely, sharing and reaping in the profits. This is especially true in markets where there is a high barrier to entry, such as broadband. If a third company came into my town and tried to pull fiber for a new network, I'd be somewhat happy. If a fourth came into town, I'd fight it because I wouldn't want construction crews tearing up my streets again. Plus the cost recovery time goes town for each new market entry.
In other words, a market can be free and still be bad for consumers. Somehow libertarians get that wrong all the time. Hence, I'd be happy if my city just pulled fiber once, let any company provide service over it, and enjoy a thriving service-oriented marketplace. I'd even be willing to ban the city from providing any of its own services; it just provides the wires.
In how many of those countries is the government creating the broadband infrastructure, or sponsoring it in the form of direct contracts or new monopoly grants, or in the form of an existing molopoly telecommunications giant?
For the most part, the US has none of the above. Perhaps in this case the free market doesn't see sufficient justification for high-speed access to justify the costs, since people don't seem to know they can't live without such access until they first have it.
I think this is a matter best handled at the local level. Either let businesses fight it out, or, if a local community considers it a useful monetary investment, let cities sponsor the broadband infrastructure. I see nothing wrong with the government creating the networks on which commerce can be done, but because the internet is such a new commerce network (compared to, say, roads), not every community will see it in the same way.
Re: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=205785&cid =16788711
Why is Slashdot so damn US-centric? Are does anyone else outside the USA really care for the political propaganda crap on Slashdot?
Yeah, just last week I went to slashdot.co.de and complained about how German-central their political coverage was. It was especially true in terms of technology. Even though Germany was the principal founder of the internet, and also still the controlling force for some aspects through its dominance of ICANN, that isn't right. Plus, given Germany's strong global presence, even though they use their political and economic weight to lead or dictate policies across the globe, none of that means they should be talking about politics on a web site based in their country written in their language.
Certainly not on a website devoted to technology, especially one with a subcategory called "Politics" that can be disabled by any viewer who wishes to not see those type of stories.
those with the bump are generally more intelligent than those without
Simultaneously, every Slashdot reader checks the back of his or her head.
Without actually taking more into account than a very simple statistic, it's about as pertinent as using the winner of the Superbowl to guess the political outcom
Incidentally, there was discussion in 2004 about a statistic where one football team (I don't remember which, perhaps the Washington Redskins) always won their last game before a presidential election when the president was about to be reelected, and lost the game when he was about to be defeated. When there was no incumbent, the president's party received the "luck". It had been accurate for like 50 years.
Oh, but then it didn't work in 2004.
Not at all. Having Rumsfeld step down weeks ago would have validated Democrat claims that "this administration has it all wrong" and "Rumsfeld needs to go", while invalidating Republican claims that the country should "stay the course" and that Rumsfeld "has the confidence" of the President.
In other words, it would have given backing the to Democrat campaign platform from the White House. That just couldn't be done.
Start with her Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Pelosi
No matter who you elect, they will do something you don't like, but you can get a pretty good idea in fifteen minutes.
Absolutely. No person on the planet besides you agrees with everything you do. You are going to disagree about something. There are three ways you can solve this:
1. Find the issue most important to you, and vote with the candidate who believes that way. If both major party candidates agree on this issue, you should probably look at an independent candidate. For example, if abortion is the most important issue to you (and you don't care what else happens to the country, as long as abortion stay legal/is banned), then vote for the candidate who shares your belief.
2. Look a wide variety of issues (perhaps using an on-line political beliefs survey), and see where the majority of your view lie. Vote in the direction of your majority views, even if you disagree on individual issues. This probably means you become a straight party voter (either major or independent party). For example, you may find that your views tend toward libertarian, so you vote libertarian when you can, liberal on candidates running on social issues, and ??? on candidates running on economic issues (republican party no longer counts).
3. Research each and every election in your area, and make custom decisions in the form of category A or B for every candidate. This is what you probably don't want to do, but you're ignoring options 1 or 2 because you think option 3 is too involved.
The only thing one should require is to stick a div tag with CSS to make it invisible at the very very top of the site, that says "If you are a disabled person using a screen reader to navigate this page, and wishes to make a purchase, dial the following number and talk with one of our friendly representative who will be happy to help you, and give you any web-only discounts you deserve".
The ADA is overall a good law that has served a good purpose. But in this case, this is all Target should need to do - provide a method so that those who cannot read their website can shop with them from home. Just make sure the representatives are prepared to read out descriptions of items, etc., to that the customer can make informed choices, and this is covered. This would probably cost much less than a lawsuit anyway.
If this goes too far in assuming that someone with a computer has a phone line, then make it a web chat system - the alt text directs you to a site where you can talk online with the representative.
Where the hell did you get the idea that Slashdot is Rob Malda's blog?
/ 142243
Posts like this one:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/26
Which garnered the exact same response (i.e. why is this on Slashdot?) which was answered with the exact same reply (Slashdot is Rob Malda's site; if it interests him then its relevant).
I think all elected officials should be required to go work every so many terms, get them back in the loop of what people want, get them back into reality.
And what of the people in jobs that cannot be so easily dropped and picked back up? Do you think a software engineer who has spent 10 years as a politician has any chance of getting another programming job, 10 years rusty? Or do you just naturally expect all politicans would go to a comfy PR or executive position at a major company, non-profit, think-tank, or lobbying firm? Because frankly that's the only job available for anyone in politics who's not a lawyer or independently wealthy.
Frankly, I'd rather have the politicians spend their lives in office than bounce back and forth between representing us and representing a special interest, especially since that special interest will pay them much more than we will.
I think you need to read the aptly-timed November 2006 National Geographic article "A Fin Is a Limb Is a Wing: How Evolution Fashioned Its Masterworks". It describes how the same genes (Hox genes, if I skimmed the article correctly) shared among many otherwise very differennt creatures produce species-specific results. For example, the same genes create fins in a fish, wings in a chicken, and limbs in a human (insert graphic, page 115), or control the length (or lack of) neck in a mouse, goose, or python (insert graphic, page 121).
r e4/
At least for a limited time, the article is even on the web for you to read:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0611/featu
This is CmdrTaco's blog*. Anything that interests him is ok to post here. Check the editor before you complain about story relevance.
* Yes, I know this is a retroactive definition. But it's the most apt definition.
It's been said before, but it must be said each time:
No plan is viable that lets someone walk out with a list of their votes. That leads to vote buying/intimidation, which would mess up elections far more than electronic voting machines can.
I know it's a small part of your plan; your addition is the scanner being separate from the vote-generator. But still it has to be pointed out.
I put my money on the Zombies. They'll amble over and eat your brain eventually...
Really, you should be asking what Saddam was doing with this document in the firstplace, and how close was he to getting the bomb.
Given that the material is (from your own quote):
decades-old information that had already been in the hands of Saddam's regime
it tells us absolutely nothing about how close Saddam was to getting a bomb in 2003 when we invaded.
Decades ago, like say in the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam was our best bud. Of course he had WMDs back then, and was working toward nuclear bombs. We found all this out in 1991 and applied sanctions to stop the work. As far as we still know, those sanctions worked, and he was less close to "the bomb" in 2003 than he was when this "decades-old information" was written.
Besides, the fact that Saddam knew this stuff decades ago doesn't mean it should be declassified. It's not like Saddam went around selling nuclear information to terrorist groups or anything, so some of this material is still (for the most part) held in confidence by nuclear powers.
Just pretend you never got it. and ignore it, go about your day. Apparently the boss is already too much of a pussy as to actually fire you in the fire place, so what is the chance he will say anything.
And if your boss does come by to fire you in person, just make sure you're eating a big bowl of crunchy cereal. You can smile and nod, and then go back to work, and eventually upper management will notice and give you a promotion + commendation.
Well you are halfway there:
s html
http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/06/11/02/1957252.
It just shows how 95% of people will claim that they want politicians who are "real people", "just like them", "not slick politicians", but if you aren't a smooth talker and run for office, you'll be cast in a negative light and probably lose due to your mis-speaks.
why would they be so interesting in punishing their competitors in the satellite radio business by filing frivolous lawsuits?
Suing someone who is jamming your broadcast frequency isn't "frivolous".
Another poster touched on it, but what they need to do is put a few banks of power outlets in the waiting area of every terminal, then charge $0.25 to activate an outlet for two hours.
I do appreciate free power outlets (when I can find them), but guaranteed access to an outlet (i.e. there will be one at all, and there will be enough of them so that the only one isn't next to a seat with a bunch of wild kids) is worth paying for.
which by chance is where most NPR stations are located.
Not by chance. For whatever reason that's the cheap end of the dial - anything lower than 92.5 is less valued by big-name broadcasting companies. I thought it had to do with allowed broadcast power at those frequencies, but I can't find anything to back up that claim.
Depends on your definition of "fix".
# To restore to proper condition or working order; repair: fix a broken machine.
# To spay or castrate (an animal).
Perhaps that's true. I don't understand why any artist signs away the rights to their work so completely in order to be a "signed" artist. But, if the artist has given away the right to control where and how their work is posted on the internet to their record label, then the record label is the correct person to control that usage.
I don't know that legislation further dictating allowed terms in recording contracts is the correct answer here. I'm a proponent of using the government to do something when the government is the right way to do it - but in this case I hope micropayments and the "long tail" of musical interests, together with direct-to-listener band relationships, can sidestep the problems entirely.
How is this evil on Google's part? As it sounds, they took a small part of their massive advertising income, paid it as a licensing fee to record labels, and can now offer a web site where their customers can freely and legally post content containing copyrighted music and video clips. That's a tremendous legal service offered to their customers at no charge. It should protect a large number of people from lawsuit who might have otherwise been at risk.
The only potentially "evil" thing is if the record labels are only suing competitors because Google paid them to. Do you actually think the RIAA and similar groups had decided to be benevolent to online video traders and mixers, and it was the evil, tainted money from Google that swayed them to sue? I'd be much more ready to believe that the RIAA/etc. have been drooling over the idea of more lawsuits to file, and simply needed to staff up their legal departments to handle video and derived uses as well as audio trading, and it's taken the last 9-12 months for the staffing budgets to be approved. (They are a bureaucracy, after all.)