Basically, your answer boils down the the FAA has the authority to regulate intrastate airspace, because they do!
One paragraph out of the entire posting says "the rules say they do", the rest giving excellent reasons why they do, and you boil it all down to that. Why bother asking of you're going to ignore the answers?
I don't really see how the FAA has the authority to do anything if he does not operate across state lines.
Because the FAR (Federal Aviation Regulations) as found in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) make no distinction between flights that cross state lines and ones that don't.
Wouldn't that be a wonderful situation to have: to be flying an aircraft that can cross city/county/state boundaries faster than you can count them (and not always obvious that you have crossed such a boundary), subject to a different set of city/county/state regulations for each place you're in? Conflicting/contradictory regulations based on knee-jerk nutcase reactions (like the Deer Park Colorado "hunting license" for drones) and fear-mongering, exacerbated by small-town politics and petty fiefdoms.
Sure. Kill the entire aviation industry by replacing federal regulation with local. Have at least fifty different sets of requirements for a pilot's license. If you want to cross a state line, you better have a pilot's license from that state, too.
Keep in mind, those flights that don't cross state lines have to use the same airspace as those that do. Do you really want a situation where a long-distance airline pilot has to keep track of which rules apply to those other aircraft based on which state he happens to be in, and whether the other flights are also crossing state lines or not? What a wonderful thought process it would require. "Gee, I'm in Colorado right now, and their rules say that pilots can fly in the clouds without an IFR clearance or communicating with ATC, they're requiring Mode C transponders by 2023, so I can't expect any useful separation services from ATC here." (Oh, and the ATC center controllers -- they have to issue different instructions to different pilots because some of their flights are in certain states or over certain counties... what a mess that would make. And managing the training they'd have to take to qualify to cover different states with different rules...)
No, sir, there are good and well established reasons for federal preemption of airspace regulations, and that means that drones are part of that system.
We are talking about for the most part glorified toys that any 13 year old can buy at the mall and take home and fly around.
Don't be ridiculous. Those toys can't carry anything more than a few fleas and they stay aloft for a few minutes at most. If you can get them up higher than ten feet they'll be blown away by the wind. We're talking about commercial drones that have a payload capacity sufficient for professional grade cameras (at least prosumer grade), and a flight time of twenty minutes or more.
To prevent news organizations from using those same toys to take pictures from the air
The laws of physics prevent news organizations from using those toys to take pictures from the air, not the FAA.
or to prohibit any other intended commercial use of aerial photography is about as perverse a use of regulatory authority as I've ever seen and does cross a line the FAA had never crossed before.
Don't be ridiculous. The FAA has firm justification and long precedent for regulations regarding commercial use of airspace, for both the pilots and aircraft involved. That pilot who took you up for a joyride yesterday will have different rules applying to him when you ask him to fly you somewhere for pay, and that aircraft he took you up in for fun will have more requirements when you're paying for the trip.
You just don't know what you're talking about here.
What happens when they want to fly in restricted airspace? Is that a civil rights issue?
If the President for whom the TFR is being created is white and the reporter who wants to jump into a Cessna 172 to get some nifty aerial shots of him is black, yes. Of course.
The issue here is the FAA is issuing rules not based on common rules for safely operating a small remote controlled aircraft, but based on whether or not the operator on the ground is getting compensated for his work.
The FAA has TONS of rules that are based on whether the pilot is being compensated for his work. That pilot you give $100 to for dumping your Uncle Ed's ashes out over the local forest he loved to hike and hunt in has a lot of rules that apply to him that do not apply to Joe Weekend Flyer.
The FAA should issue safety regulations not restrict freedom of movement just so it can figure out ways to make more money for the government off of the commercial use of the airspace.
What are you ranting about? Do you realize how little you have to pay the government to be a commercial-rated pilot? Do you think the FAA runs schools that they want to force prospective pilots through? Don't be silly. They don't even do most of the commercial check rides anymore.
For the most part these micro UAVs are too small to be much of any hazard
Right. Except to people in the vicinity. And any small aircraft that hits one.
Like I said, this whole UAV regulation thing at least as it applies to very small UAVs seems like more of a shakedown
Yeah, a shakedown that the government doesn't make any money from. Try again.
You're in Europe, aren't you? We can't do that here in the US.
Really? My last two phones were bought through eBay gray market from Europe (one is O2, one was Orange), unlocked, and all I had to do was put my T-Mobile SIM into them (plus set a few details for MMS and such in the config) and they work just fine. T-Mobile even told me some of the less obvious settings to make.
My current carry-around tablet (7" Galaxy Tab, vs. my larger Xoom) is locked to Verizon but bought off of Daily Steals, and Verizon would have happily turned on data service had I wanted to pay the ridiculous amount they wanted for it. As it is, it will time sync to the Verizon network without having service, and that's really all I need it to do via the 3g side. I can use my T-Mobile phone as a NAP to connect it to the net if I need it.
Or were you referring to someplace other than the United States of America when you said you can't do that in the US?
Lots of online retailers now put credit card transactions through the Verified with Visa program, which takes you to e.g. your bank's online banking login page
I have yet to see any online retailer do that to me, and if they did I'd assume it was some kind of MITM/phishing attack. I'd also be surprised if the retailer/phisher could correctly guess which of the several hundred "banks" (actually a CU) in the US I use.
By blocking the calls the guy stopped 911 calls from happening in the first place. He should be given a medal for saving lives.
I sense a fascinating philosophical discussion in the making here. In which system of thought does the prevention of calls to 911 prevent life-threatening situations from taking place? If you can't report an accident, it didn't happen?
Who should we really be labeling insane here, the man trying to make things safer around him,
Yes.
Because "feeling safe" and "being safe" are completely different things.
What if, instead of jamming communications, he decided in order to "feel safer on the freeway" he needed to shoot out people's tires with a shotgun?
What if, instead of jamming communications, he set up millimeter wave body scanners, metal detectors, and x-ray machines at the entrances to airport boarding areas, and then forced people to pass themselves and their limited carry-on baggage through said devices, confiscating such things as lighters and any liquids or gels that were in excess of 3, 3 oz or less bottles in a 1 quart bag, groping old and young women who objected to such activities, and causing others who objected more vocally to be arrested, because he wanted to feel safer while riding in someone else's airplane?
You just acknowledged that there are competitors that want to lay their own cable.
I'm sorry, what? No, they don't want to lay their own. They know that they can't make any money doing it. That's what keeps them from getting a franchise and doing it.
Not only their own cable, but even better cable than what the current monopoly has.
Those that want to "lay their own cable" are not cable television companies, they are companies like Google. And as someone else has already pointed out, they aren't doing it for the money, so the economic rules don't apply.
This is exactly the opposite of a natural monopoly.
Different company doing a different thing for a different reason, trying to avoid the franchise process altogether.
Now here's the challenge for you. If all the franchises created de-jure monopolies like you think, why would any cable company have to argue about the entrance of companies like Google? They'd already be prevented from entering the market. But apparently they aren't, huh?
No. It is not. If it was a natural monopoly, there would be no need for cities to grant legal monopoly to existing cable companies.
Then explain why there aren't multiple cable companies all over the place. The existing non-exclusive franchises would not prevent it from happening, so there must be some other reason.
You would also not have companies like Google and Sonic trying to lay their own cable.
Google et.al have to lay their own cable because the existing cable technology is not sufficient to allow them the unfettered access to their own plant that they want. You don't imagine that Google wants to build expensive head-end plant and get only limited access to the limited bandwidth left over on current cable systems, do you?
That is verifiably wrong. If it were true, there would be no need for monopoly deals that prevent competition from moving in.
Whether there would be a need for a "monopoly deal" or not, the economics is the practical reason that the existing non-monopoly deals don't result in multiple cable companies covering the same place.
Also, there would be no need for the incumbents to try and derail the competition from entering cities.
There is no need for a cable company to try derailing another cable company from entering a market. The "derailings" you see happening are when other modes of network provider try to enter without following the same rules. E.g., an incumbent cable company vs. Google (which isn't).
The economics is the real reason there is a de-facto monopoly. It's isn't a de-jure monopoly because another company could enter a franchise agreement with the municipality involved, it's just ridiculous to go into an area you know you are going to lose money in.
An issue that might be a problem for any incoming cable company is not the local government franchise, but the licensing of the content (even ignoring who originates it.) Has that local television station signed an exclusive contract with the existing cable company? Back when "must carry" was the rule and common method of operation this wouldn't be a problem.
Imagine this...
Two choices in a city. Comcast and perhaps Charter. I assume this exists in some places.
There is no economic incentive for this to happen. It costs a lot of money to build plant. Nobody is going to build plant where they can get only, on average, half the customers, and if they cut prices to lure the other company's customers they'll lose money.
Now, consider Charter divesting (am I using this word correctly?) their customers over to Comcast.
This is called "selling", and I've lived through it a couple of times. First with I forget their name, who sold to AT&T, who sold to Comcast. Same wires, same boxes, same local office. The only difference was the name on the check.
Now, for current Comcast customers, don't you think it will be harder for them to say, "Well, hey, give me a good deal, because Charter offers it for $... here."... "Oh wait, Charter isn't available here anymore?" No more leverage.
You can always threaten to move to get lower cable prices. Since nobody tends to do that, the cable companies aren't quaking in their boots hoping you don't. Charter selling their system to Comcast changes nothing with respect to competition. You had one choice before, you have one choice after. Just like Comcast buying Time/Warner changes nothing about competition. TW served your area before, TWcast serves it after. It's not a case of "hmmm, do I pick..." before.
Oh, you have some friends with mod points to force your peculiar and destructive view of word on the others:-)
You are a nutter. I'm not forcing anything on anyone, I'm stating my opinion. An opinion that is hardly destructive, given that it was the founding basis for the US and we did pretty well getting past the colonial stage.
After all you live in a american fantasy world and I will not be able to convince you otherwise, there is no way to reverse years of your mind conditioning in a few minutes.
Had I wanted to be insulting to you I would have said that you are obviously conditioned to believe the system you live in is the best despite facts that contradict that and that you are a mind-numbed robot of the federal government in Brasilia. But I chose not to be insulting. Thanks for playing.
So then, what dark magic do they use to find the other OTA viewers that leave Aero customers out?
If you read the very next paragraph in what I wrote, you'll find the answer to your question. Here it is again:
They manage this for OTA and cable consumers because the percentages of them are much much higher. Sending out 10,000 solicitations for OTA and cable may reach 3000 or more valid targets. Enough for a statistically significant measure.
There's no "dark magic", it is simple probability. Ask 100 people on the street if they have cable. Ask them if they have OTA TV. Ask them if they have "Aereo". The probabilities say that you'll get a significant percentage of "yes" answers to the first, a significant number of "yes" answers to the second, and very few "yes" answers, if any, from the third.
And what evil spell keeps them from adding a checkbox on their solicitations for Aero customers
The "evil spell" that Aereo isn't paying them to survey Aereo customers. Why is that such a hard concept? Polling companies don't do it because they are nosy, they do it because someone pays them to. I am sure I said that already.
Why would Aero pay Nielsen anything?
If Aereo wants Nielsen numbers for their customers, they'll pay them. If they don't, they won't. That's why.
Does Toshiba pay them?
If Toshiba wanted to know how many TV viewers used Toshiba TVs, you're damn right Toshiba would pay them. Nielsen isn't in the business of gathering data for you because they are dating your sister, you know.
so it's on Nielsen to actually capture accurate figures
They do -- for the people who pay them to capture figures.
BTW, since the pattern of your answers shows you may not know this, Aero already restricts customers to stations whose nominal broadcast area includes their home address.
Your pattern of answers seems to indicate that you don't know that this is the Internet, and people regularly access the Internet from places other than their "home address" and in areas other than their "home address". Some people are quite sneaky in doing this so they can deliberately get around geographical restrictions (US viewers who want Dr Who from the BBC stream, e,g.), sometimes it just happens to work that way.
Even I do it. Right now I have a cable internet connection at a site that is about 250 miles from the "home address" on the account, well outside the normal A or B contours for any of the TV stations around here. It's not even with the cable company that serves my "home address". You know how hard that was to get set up? Well, after finding a place for the wire, not very. Could I set up a PVR to record stuff and send it back to where I live? Sure. If it were in an area served by Aereo do you think they'd hesitate to sell their service to me? Of course not.
And once they sell me the service, the only access control that is anything close to geographic is the IP address, and even THAT isn't very good. I could be in Pakistan logging in to the Aereo service and they'd not know for sure. Just like I can be in Pakistan using my Vonage service and they'd not know (or care.)
Yes, they are. The advertisers pay for it to be seen (whether live or time delayed).
They pay a rate based on the ratings, which don't include Aereo eyeballs. That means they're paying less than they should be, which is cheating the OTA licensee of ad revenue. The OTA broadcasters are paying for the content that Aereo is selling to other people, and paying to deliver it to Aereo as well. That's why they are suing. And now I've dealt with the same "logical point" yet again.
You've kept proving yourself to be the asshole I assume after your first asshole-post.
And you've continued your rude, aggressive, insulting outbursts even after being reminded that I asked you a question, not stated a fact and certainly didn't quote you, and even after I've tried to pull this discussion back to the actual issue at hand. Your opinion of who the asshole is here needs some correction.
Yes. You incorrectly re-stated what I said.
I asked you a fucking question. I didn't restate anything until you started ranting about how I was somehow certain about your opinion on something when I asked you to verify that I understood it right (to which a simple "no" would have sufficed). Then you started calling me a liar for ASKING YOU A QUESTION. Two, actually, one of which is still unanswered.
For the hard of hearing, "So you think X?" IS A QUESTION. "No" is an appropriate and civil answer. "You are a liar" is pathetic, rude, and absolutely aggressive beyond all justifiable bounds.
Interesting. I'll apologize if you can quote where in this thread I stated "what Aereo is doing should be legal."
I said when the CONCEPTS appear, not a specific quote, and I was VERY explicit in using the word "concepts" and no quote marks. Had I wanted to say "You said X" I would have said "You said X", but I did not. So no, sorry, no direct quote, and I didn't say there was one. I won't waste time disproving something I didn't claim.
Here's the paragraph you wrote that refers to the legality of Aereo. Direct quote. Copy and paste. Call me a liar for quoting it later:
There's still radio. Oh, and what's wrong with me setting up a PVR? Is that illegal as well? If not, why are you arguing that it should be illegal for me to pay someone to do something that's legal? LOL. I just though of the analogy. Aereo are TV pimps. It's ok if you get it for free, but if you pay for it, it's illegal, unless you pay the state-mandated monopoly. I can have sex all I want, but I can't pay for it. I can record TV all I want, but I can't pay someone to set it up for me.
And there's the quote where you say that what Aereo is doing is legal. "If not, why are you arguing that it should be illegal for me to pay someone to do something that's legal?" The "someone" is Aereo, the "something" is what Aereo is being sued for.
Now I suppose you could quibble that you said "that's legal" (that is) instead of "that should be legal", but the end result is the same. "X is doing something that is legal". "X is like a pimp." "Should be", "that is", both are statements of an opinion about the legality and not statements about whether it is dumb to do or not, and "that's legal" is pretty clear in saying you think it is legal.
I'll take it from your continued rant that you are unable to disclose the "state mandated monopoly" that I asked you to identify in action here. Perhaps you don't know that when you can get the same content from multiple places that none of the places has a monopoly on it, much less a "state mandated" one. The only possible "state mandated monopoly" I can see with respect to OTA broadcasters is the FCC license that grants them the use of the frequency, but that's not a content issue and you can't pay them to let you use the frequency anyway. The OTA broadcasters don't
I'm aware that they take a sample of viewership by asking families to voluntarily log their viewing. Why is that so impossible for them to do with Aero customers.
Because they don't know who the Aereo customers are, and it is not cost effective in any way for them to send out a blanket mailing to everyone asking for Aereo customers to respond.
And it isn't being done, so it doesn't matter why it isn't. The numbers are not being counted and the advertisers aren't paying for them.
Nielsen apparently manages this without customer lists or anything else.
They manage this for OTA and cable consumers because the percentages of them are much much higher. Sending out 10,000 solicitations for OTA and cable may reach 3000 or more valid targets. Enough for a statistically significant measure. That same 10,000 may hit one Aereo customer.
Then, of course, the number of Aereo customers would have to be reported (more data going to big corporations).
If they don't, then they should and their failure can't really be counted against Aero
Since Aereo is failing to pay Nielsen to get the numbers, yes, the failure of Nielsen (who does this for money, not just because they are nosy bastards who want to know what you're doing) to do the surveys does count against Aereo. I suspect that the amount of money Aereo would have to spend to get those numbers would be more than they'd have to pay to get a clear license to the content they are selling, and since their profit comes by not paying for the content...
So if the advertisers pay for my eyeballs, and my eyeballs are buffered by Aereo, then Aereo is doing something wrong?
The advertisers aren't paying for your eyeballs when you buy the content from Aereo.
They aren't interfering with the delivery of eyeballs, and in fact facilitate more eyes on the ads than if the service didn't exist. So your objection doesn't make any sense.
Yes, there are more eyeballs. The objection isn't from the advertisers. Advertisers love it when their ads are seen by more people than they are paying for. It's not the advertisers who are suing. It's the OTA broadcasters who aren't being paid by the advertisers for the extra eyeballs that Aereo is making a profit from.
Oh, you are just a liar.
Did you not just make the analogy that Aereo is a pimp? I quoted your statement. You're arguing that Aereo is doing nothing illegal, are you not? The only logical conclusion from your own statements is that pimping should not be illegal. If you don't think being a pimp should be legal, why would you use it as an analogy in an argument for something you think should be legal?. This isn't even a side-effect of the analogy, it's the direct point!
That you are so certain about my opinion on it indicates you are insane (seeing things that aren't there),
Using a question to verify whether you do hold a specific opinion is a sign that I'm certain you do? Gosh. I guess I do need new glasses.
(not able to read, but you've proven you can read, even if only rudely and aggressively).
I'm the aggressive one here? You called me a liar who is incapable of reading what you wrote, after I quoted you saying it, and I'm aggressive? I asked you if you intended to say what your words actually mean, you blow up in a rage, and I am the aggressive one?
When the concepts:
What Aereo is doing should be legal
What Aereo is doing is like being a pimp.
appear together in an argument, you would have to be pretty dense not to think that the resulting "being a pimp should be legal" is the intended meaning.
I'm sorry, what "state mandated monopoly" do you think exists?
If you don't know the basics of the topic at hand, why are you commenting, let alone lecturing others?
In other words, there is no "state mandated monopoly" involved, you just got caught in an incorrect statement and you're blowing up at and insulting the messenger. The fact is there is no monopoly on the content being provided -- it can be bought online or via cable services or other means. You don't have to pay for OTA, so there is no payment for any "state mandated monopoly" even WERE there a monopoly of some kind involved.
Now, I asked you politely to clarify your position and you reacted like I killed your firstborn child. I suggest you sit back and relax a bit and either participate in the discussion civilly or not at all. Going whack and calling someone who asks you if you meant what you said "insane" is ridiculous.
So who is submitting all of that data for the many people picking up the broadcast over their own antenna?
I thought the name Nielsen would be familiar to anyone who chooses to participate int his topic, but I guess I was wrong. Nielsen families are voluntarily logging their data and handing it over.
And actually, I wouldn't care in the slightest if Aero wants to tell any ratings people that 14,532 people were tuned to NBC at 9:00P.M.
Except that's not all of what they'd need to report. Geographic data, too. And they'd have to collect that data, which many people would object to on principle. Perhaps you don't read/. discussions about privacy and corporate data collection?
At the same time, the ratings people are perfectly free to have Aero customers volunteer
So you're ok with Aereo handing their customer list over to Nielsen so they can send out logs to Aereo customers?
If the ratings people for some strange reason decided not to allow people who own Sony TVs to participate,
If the sky was green and the sun came up in the west... Impossible hypothetical statements do little to further clarity.
In some places they are built in the existing median, with controls to allow them to be used for "inbound" traffic in the morning and "outbound" traffic in the afternoon. I've apparently been to the big city enough times to have seen such wonders and marvels.
No, they blocked a regular lane to turn it into a carpool lane
Ok. So the analogy fails in that the Fast Lane is added bandwidth. But still, nobody is prevented from using the normal lanes and they are still there.
they're beginning to systematically charge you extra to use them.
And you can avoid that extra charge by not driving in the carpool lanes. I understand that you're unhappy with the roads in SoCal and I certainly would not choose to live there (traffic being just one of several reasons) but the carpool lane analogy the NYT used was only an analogy, not a congruency. There will be some differences between the two. One being them difference in damage created by a "packet" collision, of course.
It is because of this north-american mentality that humanity will be extinct soon, friend.
I am not your friend and your use of the term is insulting. There is also no such "north-american mentality" that you think exists. The idea that you don't get is one of personal responsibility, where the primary responsibility for one's well being is not "all those rich people", but oneself.
Where do you read what I wrote that would be "just for some"?
It is "just for some" because there are, indeed, people who make very little, if any, use of the health care system. The rich people who can afford private care to avoid the waiting time will pay to do so, meaning they get nothing at all out of the public health care system. The healthy young people who choose to opt-out of the health care system also get nothing. Yet both groups pay heavily in taxes. And ACA is forcing them to pay for health insurance when they would otherwise not.
Is for ALL, dude,
Nor am I "dude".
a concept the U.S. are unable to accept. ALL pay a portion via taxes and ALL receive the benefits.
Except not all do. I don't accept that all do because I know that not all do. You may want to believe that your cousin Bob being able to get a hangnail treated in the ER is a benefit to me, but in reality it isn't. And if you keep track of the debate, a large part of the success of the ACA (aka Obamacare) depends on healthy young people (who are not participating in the health care system today because they don't need to) joining the risk pool to pay for the existing condition participants costs. These young people are the ones who do not benefit from a taxpayer funded healthcare system because they pay taxes for something they don't use.
It is not perfect and never will be, but it is light years ahead of joke U.S. private healthcare system where those who can afford will live, and who can not pay... dies.
Please don't speak about the US system if you don't understand it.
Keep your sick culture to yourself, please.
It is not my culture where everyone needs healthcare to keep from dieing. I'm also not forcing any "culture" onto you, I'm merely pointing out the flaw in the logic that it is "fair" to redistribute wealth to meet the desires of the poor. You do what you want to, and I'll invite YOU out of the ACA discussions since you're not willing to let others comment on your system.
And it is absurd because it talks about the FCC saying that voices can be silenced, which it certainly did not say. The NY Times article has the right analogy:
The rules are also likely to eventually raise prices as the likes of Disney and Netflix pass on to customers whatever they pay for the speedier lanes, which are the digital equivalent of an uncongested car pool lane on a busy freeway.
Yes, it may cause Disney or Netflix to raise prices to their customers to pay for the Fast Lane they're getting, but it does not block access to other sources of content and silences nothing. Car pool lanes don't keep other cars from using the normal lanes. In fact, the analogy is flawed only because that uncongested carpool lane cannot be used by non-carpool users while the increased border gateway router bandwidth being paid for by Netflix users will be used by other users when it is otherwise unused. The closest the NYT could come to "silencing" is this:
For example, if a gaming company cannot afford the fast track to players, customers could lose interest and its product could fail.
Which means that if a gamer gets only the same speed tomorrow that he's getting today he might get bored and go elsewhere. I.e., if there are no Fast Lanes the gamer gets X bandwidth and that's good enough, apparently. Tomorrow with Fast Lanes for other services he gets X and suddenly that's not good enough.
I appreciate the fact that my costs for service won't be forced up by my having to pay for bandwidth that I'm not asking for, and that the cost for high-bandwidth streaming services will be paid for more by the customers of those services. And if a new "Twitter" requires huge amounts of near-realtime bandwidth on day one then something is very wrong with their concept of operation.
What does "access" mean if not the URL or addresses of the sites you access during the time you are connected? If they had meant just "connection hours", they wouldn't have needed to say "access" because connection includes access to the ISP.
Slashdot Mirror
Basically, your answer boils down the the FAA has the authority to regulate intrastate airspace, because they do!
One paragraph out of the entire posting says "the rules say they do", the rest giving excellent reasons why they do, and you boil it all down to that. Why bother asking of you're going to ignore the answers?
I don't really see how the FAA has the authority to do anything if he does not operate across state lines.
Because the FAR (Federal Aviation Regulations) as found in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) make no distinction between flights that cross state lines and ones that don't.
Wouldn't that be a wonderful situation to have: to be flying an aircraft that can cross city/county/state boundaries faster than you can count them (and not always obvious that you have crossed such a boundary), subject to a different set of city/county/state regulations for each place you're in? Conflicting/contradictory regulations based on knee-jerk nutcase reactions (like the Deer Park Colorado "hunting license" for drones) and fear-mongering, exacerbated by small-town politics and petty fiefdoms.
Sure. Kill the entire aviation industry by replacing federal regulation with local. Have at least fifty different sets of requirements for a pilot's license. If you want to cross a state line, you better have a pilot's license from that state, too.
Keep in mind, those flights that don't cross state lines have to use the same airspace as those that do. Do you really want a situation where a long-distance airline pilot has to keep track of which rules apply to those other aircraft based on which state he happens to be in, and whether the other flights are also crossing state lines or not? What a wonderful thought process it would require. "Gee, I'm in Colorado right now, and their rules say that pilots can fly in the clouds without an IFR clearance or communicating with ATC, they're requiring Mode C transponders by 2023, so I can't expect any useful separation services from ATC here." (Oh, and the ATC center controllers -- they have to issue different instructions to different pilots because some of their flights are in certain states or over certain counties ... what a mess that would make. And managing the training they'd have to take to qualify to cover different states with different rules...)
No, sir, there are good and well established reasons for federal preemption of airspace regulations, and that means that drones are part of that system.
We are talking about for the most part glorified toys that any 13 year old can buy at the mall and take home and fly around.
Don't be ridiculous. Those toys can't carry anything more than a few fleas and they stay aloft for a few minutes at most. If you can get them up higher than ten feet they'll be blown away by the wind. We're talking about commercial drones that have a payload capacity sufficient for professional grade cameras (at least prosumer grade), and a flight time of twenty minutes or more.
To prevent news organizations from using those same toys to take pictures from the air
The laws of physics prevent news organizations from using those toys to take pictures from the air, not the FAA.
or to prohibit any other intended commercial use of aerial photography is about as perverse a use of regulatory authority as I've ever seen and does cross a line the FAA had never crossed before.
Don't be ridiculous. The FAA has firm justification and long precedent for regulations regarding commercial use of airspace, for both the pilots and aircraft involved. That pilot who took you up for a joyride yesterday will have different rules applying to him when you ask him to fly you somewhere for pay, and that aircraft he took you up in for fun will have more requirements when you're paying for the trip.
You just don't know what you're talking about here.
What happens when they want to fly in restricted airspace? Is that a civil rights issue?
If the President for whom the TFR is being created is white and the reporter who wants to jump into a Cessna 172 to get some nifty aerial shots of him is black, yes. Of course.
The issue here is the FAA is issuing rules not based on common rules for safely operating a small remote controlled aircraft, but based on whether or not the operator on the ground is getting compensated for his work.
The FAA has TONS of rules that are based on whether the pilot is being compensated for his work. That pilot you give $100 to for dumping your Uncle Ed's ashes out over the local forest he loved to hike and hunt in has a lot of rules that apply to him that do not apply to Joe Weekend Flyer.
The FAA should issue safety regulations not restrict freedom of movement just so it can figure out ways to make more money for the government off of the commercial use of the airspace.
What are you ranting about? Do you realize how little you have to pay the government to be a commercial-rated pilot? Do you think the FAA runs schools that they want to force prospective pilots through? Don't be silly. They don't even do most of the commercial check rides anymore.
For the most part these micro UAVs are too small to be much of any hazard
Right. Except to people in the vicinity. And any small aircraft that hits one.
Like I said, this whole UAV regulation thing at least as it applies to very small UAVs seems like more of a shakedown
Yeah, a shakedown that the government doesn't make any money from. Try again.
You're in Europe, aren't you? We can't do that here in the US.
Really? My last two phones were bought through eBay gray market from Europe (one is O2, one was Orange), unlocked, and all I had to do was put my T-Mobile SIM into them (plus set a few details for MMS and such in the config) and they work just fine. T-Mobile even told me some of the less obvious settings to make.
My current carry-around tablet (7" Galaxy Tab, vs. my larger Xoom) is locked to Verizon but bought off of Daily Steals, and Verizon would have happily turned on data service had I wanted to pay the ridiculous amount they wanted for it. As it is, it will time sync to the Verizon network without having service, and that's really all I need it to do via the 3g side. I can use my T-Mobile phone as a NAP to connect it to the net if I need it.
Or were you referring to someplace other than the United States of America when you said you can't do that in the US?
Lots of online retailers now put credit card transactions through the Verified with Visa program, which takes you to e.g. your bank's online banking login page
I have yet to see any online retailer do that to me, and if they did I'd assume it was some kind of MITM/phishing attack. I'd also be surprised if the retailer/phisher could correctly guess which of the several hundred "banks" (actually a CU) in the US I use.
By blocking the calls the guy stopped 911 calls from happening in the first place. He should be given a medal for saving lives.
I sense a fascinating philosophical discussion in the making here. In which system of thought does the prevention of calls to 911 prevent life-threatening situations from taking place? If you can't report an accident, it didn't happen?
Who should we really be labeling insane here, the man trying to make things safer around him,
Yes. Because "feeling safe" and "being safe" are completely different things. What if, instead of jamming communications, he decided in order to "feel safer on the freeway" he needed to shoot out people's tires with a shotgun?
What if, instead of jamming communications, he set up millimeter wave body scanners, metal detectors, and x-ray machines at the entrances to airport boarding areas, and then forced people to pass themselves and their limited carry-on baggage through said devices, confiscating such things as lighters and any liquids or gels that were in excess of 3, 3 oz or less bottles in a 1 quart bag, groping old and young women who objected to such activities, and causing others who objected more vocally to be arrested, because he wanted to feel safer while riding in someone else's airplane?
What non-exlusive franchises?
Every franchise I've known.
You just acknowledged that there are competitors that want to lay their own cable.
I'm sorry, what? No, they don't want to lay their own. They know that they can't make any money doing it. That's what keeps them from getting a franchise and doing it.
Not only their own cable, but even better cable than what the current monopoly has.
Those that want to "lay their own cable" are not cable television companies, they are companies like Google. And as someone else has already pointed out, they aren't doing it for the money, so the economic rules don't apply.
This is exactly the opposite of a natural monopoly.
Different company doing a different thing for a different reason, trying to avoid the franchise process altogether.
Now here's the challenge for you. If all the franchises created de-jure monopolies like you think, why would any cable company have to argue about the entrance of companies like Google? They'd already be prevented from entering the market. But apparently they aren't, huh?
No. It is not. If it was a natural monopoly, there would be no need for cities to grant legal monopoly to existing cable companies.
Then explain why there aren't multiple cable companies all over the place. The existing non-exclusive franchises would not prevent it from happening, so there must be some other reason.
You would also not have companies like Google and Sonic trying to lay their own cable.
Google et.al have to lay their own cable because the existing cable technology is not sufficient to allow them the unfettered access to their own plant that they want. You don't imagine that Google wants to build expensive head-end plant and get only limited access to the limited bandwidth left over on current cable systems, do you?
That is verifiably wrong. If it were true, there would be no need for monopoly deals that prevent competition from moving in.
Whether there would be a need for a "monopoly deal" or not, the economics is the practical reason that the existing non-monopoly deals don't result in multiple cable companies covering the same place.
Also, there would be no need for the incumbents to try and derail the competition from entering cities.
There is no need for a cable company to try derailing another cable company from entering a market. The "derailings" you see happening are when other modes of network provider try to enter without following the same rules. E.g., an incumbent cable company vs. Google (which isn't).
An issue that might be a problem for any incoming cable company is not the local government franchise, but the licensing of the content (even ignoring who originates it.) Has that local television station signed an exclusive contract with the existing cable company? Back when "must carry" was the rule and common method of operation this wouldn't be a problem.
Imagine this... Two choices in a city. Comcast and perhaps Charter. I assume this exists in some places.
There is no economic incentive for this to happen. It costs a lot of money to build plant. Nobody is going to build plant where they can get only, on average, half the customers, and if they cut prices to lure the other company's customers they'll lose money.
Now, consider Charter divesting (am I using this word correctly?) their customers over to Comcast.
This is called "selling", and I've lived through it a couple of times. First with I forget their name, who sold to AT&T, who sold to Comcast. Same wires, same boxes, same local office. The only difference was the name on the check.
Now, for current Comcast customers, don't you think it will be harder for them to say, "Well, hey, give me a good deal, because Charter offers it for $... here." ... "Oh wait, Charter isn't available here anymore?" No more leverage.
You can always threaten to move to get lower cable prices. Since nobody tends to do that, the cable companies aren't quaking in their boots hoping you don't. Charter selling their system to Comcast changes nothing with respect to competition. You had one choice before, you have one choice after. Just like Comcast buying Time/Warner changes nothing about competition. TW served your area before, TWcast serves it after. It's not a case of "hmmm, do I pick ..." before.
I'd be more impressed if the Oxnard English Dictionary accepted the change.
Oh, you have some friends with mod points to force your peculiar and destructive view of word on the others :-)
You are a nutter. I'm not forcing anything on anyone, I'm stating my opinion. An opinion that is hardly destructive, given that it was the founding basis for the US and we did pretty well getting past the colonial stage.
After all you live in a american fantasy world and I will not be able to convince you otherwise, there is no way to reverse years of your mind conditioning in a few minutes.
Had I wanted to be insulting to you I would have said that you are obviously conditioned to believe the system you live in is the best despite facts that contradict that and that you are a mind-numbed robot of the federal government in Brasilia. But I chose not to be insulting. Thanks for playing.
So then, what dark magic do they use to find the other OTA viewers that leave Aero customers out?
If you read the very next paragraph in what I wrote, you'll find the answer to your question. Here it is again:
There's no "dark magic", it is simple probability. Ask 100 people on the street if they have cable. Ask them if they have OTA TV. Ask them if they have "Aereo". The probabilities say that you'll get a significant percentage of "yes" answers to the first, a significant number of "yes" answers to the second, and very few "yes" answers, if any, from the third.
And what evil spell keeps them from adding a checkbox on their solicitations for Aero customers
The "evil spell" that Aereo isn't paying them to survey Aereo customers. Why is that such a hard concept? Polling companies don't do it because they are nosy, they do it because someone pays them to. I am sure I said that already.
Why would Aero pay Nielsen anything?
If Aereo wants Nielsen numbers for their customers, they'll pay them. If they don't, they won't. That's why.
Does Toshiba pay them?
If Toshiba wanted to know how many TV viewers used Toshiba TVs, you're damn right Toshiba would pay them. Nielsen isn't in the business of gathering data for you because they are dating your sister, you know.
so it's on Nielsen to actually capture accurate figures
They do -- for the people who pay them to capture figures.
BTW, since the pattern of your answers shows you may not know this, Aero already restricts customers to stations whose nominal broadcast area includes their home address.
Your pattern of answers seems to indicate that you don't know that this is the Internet, and people regularly access the Internet from places other than their "home address" and in areas other than their "home address". Some people are quite sneaky in doing this so they can deliberately get around geographical restrictions (US viewers who want Dr Who from the BBC stream, e,g.), sometimes it just happens to work that way.
Even I do it. Right now I have a cable internet connection at a site that is about 250 miles from the "home address" on the account, well outside the normal A or B contours for any of the TV stations around here. It's not even with the cable company that serves my "home address". You know how hard that was to get set up? Well, after finding a place for the wire, not very. Could I set up a PVR to record stuff and send it back to where I live? Sure. If it were in an area served by Aereo do you think they'd hesitate to sell their service to me? Of course not.
And once they sell me the service, the only access control that is anything close to geographic is the IP address, and even THAT isn't very good. I could be in Pakistan logging in to the Aereo service and they'd not know for sure. Just like I can be in Pakistan using my Vonage service and they'd not know (or care.)
Yes, they are. The advertisers pay for it to be seen (whether live or time delayed).
They pay a rate based on the ratings, which don't include Aereo eyeballs. That means they're paying less than they should be, which is cheating the OTA licensee of ad revenue. The OTA broadcasters are paying for the content that Aereo is selling to other people, and paying to deliver it to Aereo as well. That's why they are suing. And now I've dealt with the same "logical point" yet again.
You've kept proving yourself to be the asshole I assume after your first asshole-post.
And you've continued your rude, aggressive, insulting outbursts even after being reminded that I asked you a question, not stated a fact and certainly didn't quote you, and even after I've tried to pull this discussion back to the actual issue at hand. Your opinion of who the asshole is here needs some correction.
Yes. You incorrectly re-stated what I said.
I asked you a fucking question. I didn't restate anything until you started ranting about how I was somehow certain about your opinion on something when I asked you to verify that I understood it right (to which a simple "no" would have sufficed). Then you started calling me a liar for ASKING YOU A QUESTION. Two, actually, one of which is still unanswered.
For the hard of hearing, "So you think X?" IS A QUESTION. "No" is an appropriate and civil answer. "You are a liar" is pathetic, rude, and absolutely aggressive beyond all justifiable bounds.
Interesting. I'll apologize if you can quote where in this thread I stated "what Aereo is doing should be legal."
I said when the CONCEPTS appear, not a specific quote, and I was VERY explicit in using the word "concepts" and no quote marks. Had I wanted to say "You said X" I would have said "You said X", but I did not. So no, sorry, no direct quote, and I didn't say there was one. I won't waste time disproving something I didn't claim.
Here's the paragraph you wrote that refers to the legality of Aereo. Direct quote. Copy and paste. Call me a liar for quoting it later:
And there's the quote where you say that what Aereo is doing is legal. "If not, why are you arguing that it should be illegal for me to pay someone to do something that's legal?" The "someone" is Aereo, the "something" is what Aereo is being sued for.
Now I suppose you could quibble that you said "that's legal" (that is) instead of "that should be legal", but the end result is the same. "X is doing something that is legal". "X is like a pimp." "Should be", "that is", both are statements of an opinion about the legality and not statements about whether it is dumb to do or not, and "that's legal" is pretty clear in saying you think it is legal.
I'll take it from your continued rant that you are unable to disclose the "state mandated monopoly" that I asked you to identify in action here. Perhaps you don't know that when you can get the same content from multiple places that none of the places has a monopoly on it, much less a "state mandated" one. The only possible "state mandated monopoly" I can see with respect to OTA broadcasters is the FCC license that grants them the use of the frequency, but that's not a content issue and you can't pay them to let you use the frequency anyway. The OTA broadcasters don't
I'm aware that they take a sample of viewership by asking families to voluntarily log their viewing. Why is that so impossible for them to do with Aero customers.
Because they don't know who the Aereo customers are, and it is not cost effective in any way for them to send out a blanket mailing to everyone asking for Aereo customers to respond.
And it isn't being done, so it doesn't matter why it isn't. The numbers are not being counted and the advertisers aren't paying for them.
Nielsen apparently manages this without customer lists or anything else.
They manage this for OTA and cable consumers because the percentages of them are much much higher. Sending out 10,000 solicitations for OTA and cable may reach 3000 or more valid targets. Enough for a statistically significant measure. That same 10,000 may hit one Aereo customer. Then, of course, the number of Aereo customers would have to be reported (more data going to big corporations).
If they don't, then they should and their failure can't really be counted against Aero
Since Aereo is failing to pay Nielsen to get the numbers, yes, the failure of Nielsen (who does this for money, not just because they are nosy bastards who want to know what you're doing) to do the surveys does count against Aereo. I suspect that the amount of money Aereo would have to spend to get those numbers would be more than they'd have to pay to get a clear license to the content they are selling, and since their profit comes by not paying for the content...
So if the advertisers pay for my eyeballs, and my eyeballs are buffered by Aereo, then Aereo is doing something wrong?
The advertisers aren't paying for your eyeballs when you buy the content from Aereo.
They aren't interfering with the delivery of eyeballs, and in fact facilitate more eyes on the ads than if the service didn't exist. So your objection doesn't make any sense.
Yes, there are more eyeballs. The objection isn't from the advertisers. Advertisers love it when their ads are seen by more people than they are paying for. It's not the advertisers who are suing. It's the OTA broadcasters who aren't being paid by the advertisers for the extra eyeballs that Aereo is making a profit from.
Oh, you are just a liar.
Did you not just make the analogy that Aereo is a pimp? I quoted your statement. You're arguing that Aereo is doing nothing illegal, are you not? The only logical conclusion from your own statements is that pimping should not be illegal. If you don't think being a pimp should be legal, why would you use it as an analogy in an argument for something you think should be legal?. This isn't even a side-effect of the analogy, it's the direct point!
That you are so certain about my opinion on it indicates you are insane (seeing things that aren't there),
Using a question to verify whether you do hold a specific opinion is a sign that I'm certain you do? Gosh. I guess I do need new glasses.
(not able to read, but you've proven you can read, even if only rudely and aggressively).
I'm the aggressive one here? You called me a liar who is incapable of reading what you wrote, after I quoted you saying it, and I'm aggressive? I asked you if you intended to say what your words actually mean, you blow up in a rage, and I am the aggressive one?
When the concepts:
appear together in an argument, you would have to be pretty dense not to think that the resulting "being a pimp should be legal" is the intended meaning.
I'm sorry, what "state mandated monopoly" do you think exists?
If you don't know the basics of the topic at hand, why are you commenting, let alone lecturing others?
In other words, there is no "state mandated monopoly" involved, you just got caught in an incorrect statement and you're blowing up at and insulting the messenger. The fact is there is no monopoly on the content being provided -- it can be bought online or via cable services or other means. You don't have to pay for OTA, so there is no payment for any "state mandated monopoly" even WERE there a monopoly of some kind involved.
Now, I asked you politely to clarify your position and you reacted like I killed your firstborn child. I suggest you sit back and relax a bit and either participate in the discussion civilly or not at all. Going whack and calling someone who asks you if you meant what you said "insane" is ridiculous.
So who is submitting all of that data for the many people picking up the broadcast over their own antenna?
I thought the name Nielsen would be familiar to anyone who chooses to participate int his topic, but I guess I was wrong. Nielsen families are voluntarily logging their data and handing it over.
And actually, I wouldn't care in the slightest if Aero wants to tell any ratings people that 14,532 people were tuned to NBC at 9:00P.M.
Except that's not all of what they'd need to report. Geographic data, too. And they'd have to collect that data, which many people would object to on principle. Perhaps you don't read /. discussions about privacy and corporate data collection?
At the same time, the ratings people are perfectly free to have Aero customers volunteer
So you're ok with Aereo handing their customer list over to Nielsen so they can send out logs to Aereo customers?
If the ratings people for some strange reason decided not to allow people who own Sony TVs to participate,
If the sky was green and the sun came up in the west ... Impossible hypothetical statements do little to further clarity.
Where do you think that extra lane came from?
In some places they are built in the existing median, with controls to allow them to be used for "inbound" traffic in the morning and "outbound" traffic in the afternoon. I've apparently been to the big city enough times to have seen such wonders and marvels.
No, they blocked a regular lane to turn it into a carpool lane
Ok. So the analogy fails in that the Fast Lane is added bandwidth. But still, nobody is prevented from using the normal lanes and they are still there.
they're beginning to systematically charge you extra to use them .
And you can avoid that extra charge by not driving in the carpool lanes. I understand that you're unhappy with the roads in SoCal and I certainly would not choose to live there (traffic being just one of several reasons) but the carpool lane analogy the NYT used was only an analogy, not a congruency. There will be some differences between the two. One being them difference in damage created by a "packet" collision, of course.
It is because of this north-american mentality that humanity will be extinct soon, friend.
I am not your friend and your use of the term is insulting. There is also no such "north-american mentality" that you think exists. The idea that you don't get is one of personal responsibility, where the primary responsibility for one's well being is not "all those rich people", but oneself.
Where do you read what I wrote that would be "just for some"?
It is "just for some" because there are, indeed, people who make very little, if any, use of the health care system. The rich people who can afford private care to avoid the waiting time will pay to do so, meaning they get nothing at all out of the public health care system. The healthy young people who choose to opt-out of the health care system also get nothing. Yet both groups pay heavily in taxes. And ACA is forcing them to pay for health insurance when they would otherwise not.
Is for ALL, dude,
Nor am I "dude".
a concept the U.S. are unable to accept. ALL pay a portion via taxes and ALL receive the benefits.
Except not all do. I don't accept that all do because I know that not all do. You may want to believe that your cousin Bob being able to get a hangnail treated in the ER is a benefit to me, but in reality it isn't. And if you keep track of the debate, a large part of the success of the ACA (aka Obamacare) depends on healthy young people (who are not participating in the health care system today because they don't need to) joining the risk pool to pay for the existing condition participants costs. These young people are the ones who do not benefit from a taxpayer funded healthcare system because they pay taxes for something they don't use.
It is not perfect and never will be, but it is light years ahead of joke U.S. private healthcare system where those who can afford will live, and who can not pay ... dies.
Please don't speak about the US system if you don't understand it.
Keep your sick culture to yourself, please.
It is not my culture where everyone needs healthcare to keep from dieing. I'm also not forcing any "culture" onto you, I'm merely pointing out the flaw in the logic that it is "fair" to redistribute wealth to meet the desires of the poor. You do what you want to, and I'll invite YOU out of the ACA discussions since you're not willing to let others comment on your system.
Yes, it may cause Disney or Netflix to raise prices to their customers to pay for the Fast Lane they're getting, but it does not block access to other sources of content and silences nothing. Car pool lanes don't keep other cars from using the normal lanes. In fact, the analogy is flawed only because that uncongested carpool lane cannot be used by non-carpool users while the increased border gateway router bandwidth being paid for by Netflix users will be used by other users when it is otherwise unused. The closest the NYT could come to "silencing" is this:
Which means that if a gamer gets only the same speed tomorrow that he's getting today he might get bored and go elsewhere. I.e., if there are no Fast Lanes the gamer gets X bandwidth and that's good enough, apparently. Tomorrow with Fast Lanes for other services he gets X and suddenly that's not good enough.
I appreciate the fact that my costs for service won't be forced up by my having to pay for bandwidth that I'm not asking for, and that the cost for high-bandwidth streaming services will be paid for more by the customers of those services. And if a new "Twitter" requires huge amounts of near-realtime bandwidth on day one then something is very wrong with their concept of operation.
No URLs, no content, just connection times.
What does "access" mean if not the URL or addresses of the sites you access during the time you are connected? If they had meant just "connection hours", they wouldn't have needed to say "access" because connection includes access to the ISP.