I doubt very much if many email providers would last long if they were mining shopping data from client emails.
Why would you think this? Google is going to be pushed out of business? And why is the issue just "mining shopping data"? Who cares why or how they use the data they scan from an email, the act of gathering the data is the problem.
Spam filters are easily dealt with by white lists.
You must first know the address the email is coming from to whitelist it. Nobody ever changes email addresses?
As for phishing emails they are pretty easy to spot.
As I reported, the credit card company call I got was indistinguishable from a telephishing call. They called me, they wanted me to tell them my account information, and they would not tell me why they were calling (but it was IMPORTANT!) until I did. Their caller ID was "Florida", as I recall. Easy to spot?
My employer is currently sending monthly email reminders to fill out a timesheet using an online web system. The email comes from off-site, from an address outside the work domain, containing a link to an off-site web page. The first thing one must do when accessing that page is log in using work credentials. Easy to spot? The only reason I thought it was valid was because it was written in proper English. If a smart phisher comes along and sends the same email a day or two early with a bogus website, I expect that half the company would have compromised accounts. This is at a company where we are regular recipients of the "email help desk" request to validate email accounts phishing attack, yet we have a "professional" IT staff creating these systems.
I am not important enough to watch and I doubt that you are either.
If you have nothing to hide, why do you care if the police search your house once a week?
Difficulty level: Encrypted transmission and subscription required != "Public".
Which of the four major networks are broadcasting an encrypted signal that requires a subscription?
Difficulty level: the four major networks want their signals when carried by Dish Network to be treated differently than what someone can receive OTA. Same content, different rules.
"This previously public broadcast, re-encoded, is now copyright me,
Dish Network is not claiming copyright on the content they "re-encode", the copyright stays with the originator. But the originator is looking for different rights depending on the transmission medium. Almost like trying to say "if you watch this program on channel 13-1 OTA you have the right to timeshift it, but if you watch it on 17-2 OTA you don't."
You don't pay the USPS for door-to-door delivery of mail.
Right. The sender did.
You pay them for delivery to an address.
Which is my house, not someplace a few blocks away.
An address is not necessarily the physical location of the person the letter is for. Especially in rural areas.
Well, since the person is mobile and an address usually isn't, that's technically true. I don't expect the postman to keep track of my physical location and deliver letters with my name on them to me wherever I happen to be. Just to the address on the letter. I don't think anyone is saying they should track you down wherever you are to make deliveries. How does being rural matter?
I have never lived in a place that had door to door mail delivery.
Ok. I have. For a long time.
Old people lived in these places too.
Oh, well, since all old people are the same, your argument is convincing and conclusive.
So yeah, I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask an 80-year old grandmother to schlep to the mailbox in the snow once every day or two instead of asking a postal employee to do it hundreds of times a day.
Who is asking any postal employee to schlep to the 80 year old's door hundreds of times a day? Once per day for the postal employee who is paid to do this. Seems fair.
You know how far the postman has to "schlep" to deliver mail to my house? Forty feet total. How many times a day does he do it? Once. Except on Sunday. As a result, my mail is left in a secure location with a huge basket that can hold a month's worth of mail when I am not there to deal with it.
I don't. I don't think Google or my work needs to know what I'm spending my money on.
To make an informed judgement I would need three dates; the postmark date, the date received at your home and the due date.
I find it funny that you think this kind of outfit would bother putting a postmark on their pre-sorted first class mail. They don't even have a statement date on the statement. But that requires having gotten the statement in the first place, which didn't happen for the previous two months. Can't tell you the postmark on mail that has none and never arrived. The second part would be "never". I guess you'll just have to make an uninformed judgement. This is/., after all.
So, during the sequester fight, these same clowns made the USPS pre-fund the retirements of people expected to retire 75 years from now.
"These same clowns" aren't in control of either the Senate or the Presidency, so they cannot force anyone to do anything. Any bill has to pass the Democratic controlled Senate and not be vetoed by the Democrat President.
Nice try at turning this into a partisan issue, though.
If a person doesn't keep their path shoveled enough to walk to their own mailbox, why should the mail carrier trek up to their door?
Nobody said anything about not shoveling their "path". Even a shoveled path can have snow on it. Maybe cityfolk who have never lived in a snow zone don't realize that.
But the problem isn't not shoveling ones own path. When there is a community mailbox rack, that means that every path between the recipient and the boxes has to be shoveled, including the access to the box (which is likely in a common area not anyone's responsibility). If your neighbor hasn't shoveled his walk yet, and it is in the route to your mailbox, you have to walk through the snow. On the other hand, the mailman can drive his little truck thing to the end of your driveway, walk up the driveway in the clear, and deliver, all without wading through the snow you'd have to go through to pick it up from somewhere else.
The Residents can't walk 30 feet through the snow once a day to get their mail, but the mail carriers can walk from door to door to door through the same snow and cold with no problems?
Were the USPS likely to hire an 80 year old grandmother to deliver the mail, your argument would have some relevance. They don't. But 80 year old grandmothers have mailboxes.
Let's see. One reasonably fit letter carrier in a dashing uniform and cute shorts delivering something to the actual address on the letter, or everyone of every shape, size and ability having to go down the block to where they don't live to pick up mail addressed to where they do. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Saving money is not, in itself, a reason not to provide service you're paid to provide. We could save a lot of money were we to close all but one post office in the US and force everyone to Fedex anything they wanted to mail to that one office.
Or how about this? USPS opens every piece of mail and scans it, emailing the PDF to the recipients. Saves a ton on delivery. Who cares if the USPS gets to read every piece of mail everyone gets? Saving money! Think of the children.
Face it, we don't get any mail anymore that can't wait a day.
I do. One of my credit card companies is trying to force me to go paperless, so they're delaying the processing on the outgoing statement, putting a ridiculously short due date on it, and then applying late fees when my check doesn't show up in time. A couple of other companies, including my city water department, are pulling the same stunt.
This is the kind of company I'll feel just peachy about letting have unfettered access to my bank account? Right.
Oh, I should add, to keep from getting socked with a late fee two months ago when I realized my statement hadn't come, I called these slime on the phone and paid that way. They screwed up the account number, the payment was refused, and instead of notifying me of the problem in a timely manner they simply added a late fee to the next bill. And since the previous bill wasn't paid, they sent the matter to their collections department, so I started getting calls once an hour at 8AM in the morning. The third one actually had a customer service person (predictive dialers should be outlawed), who asked me for account number and other identifying information before she could tell me why she was calling. Right. Sure.
When I spoke to a supervisor about the problem, she claimed that they did try calling me to tell me about the failed payment. It was "in the computer". I promptly picked up my caller ID box and scrolled back through the last month's worth of calls and found nothing from them and told her so. Her response? "Let's move forward...". And I pointed out that the reason I was calling them was because THIS months statement hadn't arrived yet, either.
The example of the Mack truck being notified as it was entering the intersection sounds like a convoluted way to pitch the idea as a lifesaving system.
The summary talks about the bus driver getting the warning, not the truck driver.
The problem is that the truck's computer would have to predict that the truck driver wasn't stopping, which would have to occur after it was too late for him to stop (otherwise he could have intended to stop and you'd have a false positive). Then the bus driver would have to react to the warning, which means it would have to be presented early enough to have any benefit.
Yes, automated cars. What could go wrong with that?
There's now a commercial for a car that automatically puts the brakes on if it approaches something in front of or behind it. The ad shows a child (think of the children!) pushing a cart behind the car backing out of a blind driveway (which is the real safety issue) and the car stops automatically.
I can imagine it will not be long before drivers of those cars start to rely on that system. They'll trust the car to stop without them acting. This will kill someone when the automated system fails. Then they'll rent or borrow a car without the system and, since they have learned to rely on it, won't use the brakes when they need to. Which may also kill someone.
No, I want the fiber to by built and managed by one entity in as many places as possible. When someone moves into a home, they can choose to turn it one from a collection of private ISPs, just like the good old days over dialup.
If this were a workable business plan don't you think this would be how it is done today? Why are there no consumer level fiber companies that provide this service? Why hasn't someone said, "hey guys, I'll build all your fiber to the home for you, you pay me a percentage of each customer..."? Because it costs money and it isn't a universal need so there is no guarantee that everyone will get fibered just in case someday...? You want to treat it like a utility where someone has to have the capability even if they don't want it. Where the government will say "we're putting fiber in and you're paying for it even if you never use it or you can't occupy that house." You want the costs forced onto other people to subsidize your access. I understand. It's a common character flaw in people. It's part of the reason it is called "the me generation".
And it's still having a "toll road", since you need to pay to access the "public road". Except for the special people for whom the service would be free. You made it look like I wanted all roads to be toll roads in your lame car analogy, so why are you so happy with the toll road analogy for fiber? If it is bad to have toll roads for cars, it must be bad to have toll roads for the internet, huh?
To those who can't afford it, just like food, medicine, water, electricity, the use of roads, the protection of the military, the protection of the fire and police departments, and a basic public education. Stop pretending that you don't understand this simple concept.
There is a difference between food and water and "the internet". And I'm still asking you why YOUR internet access should be free because it is "zero cost" when you expect other people to pay for theirs. If it is zero cost for some, it is zero cost for all. What you really mean is that it will be zero cost for some and the rest will foot the bill, even if they don't need or want it.
I've lived through the days when telephone service was heavily subsidized, just like you want the internet to be now. Maybe you would like to tell me I should go "read up" on the matter again?
Stating the facts isn't an insult.
The "you should look it up" comment is a direct and intentional insult. The assumption that because I disagree with you I haven't "read up" on the matter is, as well. If only we was all as smart as you, we'd all agree with you.
Mostly it is a monopoly because the local government doesn't want two companies tearing up the street. They often also have control.
The local government having control over who has access to the public rights of way doesn't define "monopoly". You can have non-exclusive franchise agreements (which, like I said, all of the ones I have dealt with were, even before 1992) and still have control over who has access.
No. Civil disruption like blocking traffic, or having to get rights of way on private lands.
Why would people block traffic if the cable company wasn't a monopoly? Why would the cable company do so? That's just silly. Every city I've lived in has had no cable monopoly and neither the citizens nor the cable company have blocked the streets demanding one. What lunacy.
As for private lands, guess what? They need rights of way there, too, even monopolies. Most of the rights of way have already been granted, so it's not like a newcomer would have to spend a lot of time going around buying them up. They'll just sign the municipality franchise agreement and get access to the existing ones.
No, I think if it's apparent that the internet is a utility, like electricity and water,
Which it isn't.
it makes sense for the government to invest in spreading that utility to keep the national workforce competitive and educated.
So then yes, you do think that free internet to your parent's basement is something everyone else should pay for. The MMORPG bit was irrelevant -- watching movies, surfing porn, whatever. The part about "free" is the important bit. You don't want the internet to be "a toll road", you want it free.
So if the pipe, so to speak, is there and ready to be turned on, it's a win-win for everybody:
Except those who have no interest in providing you with free internet, of course. And those, it turns out, you think should pay for their internet so you can have it at "zero cost".
and those who can't afford the internet can apply for a free government version at practically zero cost to everyone else.
Wait. So it's ok for the internet to be a toll road for some people, just as long as you get yours for "zero cost"? It isn't "zero cost" to everyone else, though.
And if it is "zero cost" for you to get it for free, why shouldn't I get it free, too? It's "zero cost".
If you're going to flame me for what you see as my desire to make all the roads toll roads, then you need to keep from wanting the internet to be a toll road for others.
This is very basic economics. You should spend the time to look into it.
You really don't have to be insulting to have an adult conversation, you know.
Well, yes. If only one company is allowed to "dig things up" then it de facto has a monopoly.
Logic fail. "All A is B" does not mean "All B is A".
Only if any company was allowed to lay a connection to your location do you then no longer have a monopoly.
That is not true. "Any company that pays the franchise fee to access the public rights of way" would make that a true statement. You certainly don't have to allow any company that wants to to dig things up "willy nilly" to keep from having a monopoly.
With most new connections being underground, it necessarily requires digging things up.
Never heard of 'conduit' on your planet, have you?
Well there is a bit of a problem in that we can't have people running around digging things up, running cable wherever they want willy-nilly.
Huh? How did you leap from "void all monopolies" to "digging things up willy-nilly"? Do you have some odd belief that a company that isn't a monopoly has a right to dig things up "willy nilly"?
There's going to have to be some control, which means there won't be real competition.
I'm sorry that you think that the franchise system means there is no competition. All it means is that anyone who wants to compete must abide by certain rules, like not digging things up willy-nilly in the city rights-of-way. For access to the rights of way they pay a fee. Gosh, how awful.
That's hardly the thing that prevents competition. That fee is put on top of every bill, so every company would simply pass that cost on to the subscriber.
So, you believe all roads should be toll roads, and it would be cheaper for everyone?
Since cars drive on toll roads, does this count as your inane/. car analogy? I don't think I said anything about toll roads. Did I? But if you can play this game, so can I. You think that your neighbors should pay for the 100Mb network line into your parent's basement so you can play MMORPG all day for free? Why yes, I expect you do. Some of the rest of us have better things to do with our money than support a government program (with paperwork and supervisors and government employee pension benefit costs) so you can have your networking for free. Like make car payments. Or buy food. Or anything else that we think we should be able to do with the money we've worked to earn.
Provide one example that exists outside of your imagination.
For an unusual definition of "entire", you're right. You forget the vast areas in the US where there is no cable, and phone is marginal. About the most complete wiring is electrical.
Until we break the broadband monopoly and force the existing companies to open up their networks
These imaginary wires that cover the entire country twice do have bandwidth limits. When a cable company is using all their bandwidth, and has oversold it to their customers, just how does it help if they are forced to oversell even more by selling space to every wannbe ISP?
In Washington State, in areas where fiber is provided by the state, I can get a 100x100 connection for $59 per month. No contract. From a private entity.
The state is not a private entity. It is your neighbors. All of them. Even the ones who don't care about getting network but find their tax bills coming on a regular basis nonetheless. Or ones who want better networking and pay for it themselves, and then pay for yours too. You kind of allude to the problem -- "in areas where fiber is provided by the state" means there are areas where it is not. Do the have-nots have to pay taxes? Does Washington put "privileged access to fiber for some people" on the tax bills as a line item, so everyone can see just what it really costs for the taxpayer to fund your internet connection?
Imagine if you had a fiber connection to your home, which would cost you less in taxes than you pay for coffee every month,
I seriously doubt that. Would I get a rebate? That's the only way it could cost less than zero. But it will cost everyone else. That's why you think it is so cheap. Other people subsidize your network habits. You're welcome.
Right now I have no choice but to deal with Comcast's endless bullshit, because I don't have any other choices available. They happen to be the provider to my location.
No phone? No wireless? Well, if there is just one provider, then that really shows that the costs are higher than you think, and the only way the government can provide it is by taking money from other people to build it for you. Kind of like the old fees that subsidized rural telephones. Now you want them to subsidize rural internet. If the costs were as low as you claim, someone would have done it and be making money.
Once you decide to dig up land and lay cable you do so under the rules of a utility. The structure of utilities in most places was a government monopoly,
Every cable franchise agreement I am familiar with is non-exclusive. I.e., not a monopoly. Why would it be? The municipalities are keeping the door open to competitors who will also pay their franchise fees into the general fund.
That reduces the civil disruption.
I'm sorry, what? You mean if Egypt had monopolistic cable companies they wouldn't have had a coup?
The illegal act is the government performing a search of my property without my consent and without cause.
You assume every UAV is performing a search of your property, and that there can never be cause or proper warrant. Maybe they're on their way to a search of someone else's property. Maybe they're use cost-effective methods to do a beaver population study. Or to practice disaster relief missions checking on river or bridge or railway status. But saying "I see a UAV, they must be searching my property without a warrant" is a great leap and some would call it paranoia.
If they had cause to search then they should have a warrant.
Maybe they aren't searching your property. Maybe they have a warrant.
If the government does not want their property destroyed then they should not fly it over my land.
The airspace over your land is not your land. It is regulated by the federal government. Do you claim sovereign rights over every flight that takes place "over your land"? Should private pilots who are out sightseeing or practicing engine out maneuvers be afraid you'll shoot them out of the sky, too?
But, on topic, the law being discussed here doesn't require "over your land" or even "in flight".
Right. So you show up while all the valets are off retrieving cars for someone else, and that means it will be sooner that your car is taken away. It won't matter if there is only the one who is checking cars in there, or if there is a row of cars ahead of you to go to the lot.
and if you run away, the valet will summon police immediately.
The reason you left the car with the valet is SO YOU COULD LEAVE IT. You don't have to run, you'll hand him the keys and get the tag and then walk.
But if you don't run, the Valet helps you get your bags out of the trunk,
If you have bags. If he's available to do that. You're assuming best case scenario: you stop the car, someone runs up to take your keys and help with bags, and immediately drives away. I'm assuming normal situations, like nobody is there to take the car away, and you may not have bags to start with, or they're in the back seat.
Its clear you want to twist this so that there is an excuse to search your car
No, I just assume that nothing runs perfectly and there is a "real world" in which we live. Cars can sit at the drop-off, nobody looks in the trunk, etc.
because you think valet parking is some how more unsafe than self parking,
You're making this up. I said nothing about self parking or how safe either one was. How safe using a valet service is doesn't matter. The fact that the cars can be left near the terminal effectively unattended does.
and any bit of freedom we can give up for some minuscule amount of safety is worth it.
Never said that, and I will not let you put those words in my mouth. Argue honestly or don't.
What is reasonable to say is that if you don't want your car searched, don't park it at the terminal for someone else to deal with later, and not someplace where you know unattended vehicles are suspect and subject to towing. Park it yourself. I didn't realize that getting someone to park your car for you was one of those "essential liberties" that we were warned about giving up.
My hometown just passed a resolution declaring the airspace above it to be drone-free.
The authority of your hometown to do this is superseded by the federal regulations controlling airspace. They'd have as much success, and as much authority, to declare that the airspace over the town to be 747-free, or C172 free, or satellite free.
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I doubt very much if many email providers would last long if they were mining shopping data from client emails.
Why would you think this? Google is going to be pushed out of business? And why is the issue just "mining shopping data"? Who cares why or how they use the data they scan from an email, the act of gathering the data is the problem.
Spam filters are easily dealt with by white lists.
You must first know the address the email is coming from to whitelist it. Nobody ever changes email addresses?
As for phishing emails they are pretty easy to spot.
As I reported, the credit card company call I got was indistinguishable from a telephishing call. They called me, they wanted me to tell them my account information, and they would not tell me why they were calling (but it was IMPORTANT!) until I did. Their caller ID was "Florida", as I recall. Easy to spot?
My employer is currently sending monthly email reminders to fill out a timesheet using an online web system. The email comes from off-site, from an address outside the work domain, containing a link to an off-site web page. The first thing one must do when accessing that page is log in using work credentials. Easy to spot? The only reason I thought it was valid was because it was written in proper English. If a smart phisher comes along and sends the same email a day or two early with a bogus website, I expect that half the company would have compromised accounts. This is at a company where we are regular recipients of the "email help desk" request to validate email accounts phishing attack, yet we have a "professional" IT staff creating these systems.
I am not important enough to watch and I doubt that you are either.
If you have nothing to hide, why do you care if the police search your house once a week?
Difficulty level: Encrypted transmission and subscription required != "Public".
Which of the four major networks are broadcasting an encrypted signal that requires a subscription?
Difficulty level: the four major networks want their signals when carried by Dish Network to be treated differently than what someone can receive OTA. Same content, different rules.
"This previously public broadcast, re-encoded, is now copyright me,
Dish Network is not claiming copyright on the content they "re-encode", the copyright stays with the originator. But the originator is looking for different rights depending on the transmission medium. Almost like trying to say "if you watch this program on channel 13-1 OTA you have the right to timeshift it, but if you watch it on 17-2 OTA you don't."
There aren't any sidewalks in rural areas. People walk on the road.
I've been to Buffalo, NY, and I've been to Wyoming. I wouldn't call Buffalo, NY "rural" by any definition. Not even in comparison to NYC.
You don't pay the USPS for door-to-door delivery of mail.
Right. The sender did.
You pay them for delivery to an address.
Which is my house, not someplace a few blocks away.
An address is not necessarily the physical location of the person the letter is for. Especially in rural areas.
Well, since the person is mobile and an address usually isn't, that's technically true. I don't expect the postman to keep track of my physical location and deliver letters with my name on them to me wherever I happen to be. Just to the address on the letter. I don't think anyone is saying they should track you down wherever you are to make deliveries. How does being rural matter?
I have never lived in a place that had door to door mail delivery.
Ok. I have. For a long time.
Old people lived in these places too.
Oh, well, since all old people are the same, your argument is convincing and conclusive.
So yeah, I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask an 80-year old grandmother to schlep to the mailbox in the snow once every day or two instead of asking a postal employee to do it hundreds of times a day.
Who is asking any postal employee to schlep to the 80 year old's door hundreds of times a day? Once per day for the postal employee who is paid to do this. Seems fair.
You know how far the postman has to "schlep" to deliver mail to my house? Forty feet total. How many times a day does he do it? Once. Except on Sunday. As a result, my mail is left in a secure location with a huge basket that can hold a month's worth of mail when I am not there to deal with it.
According to the Fox, the Hopper automatically records eight days' worth of prime time programming on the four major networks...
Ummm, This, Discovery, USA and BBC-AM? If the Hopper records only the four major networks, FOX has no standing to sue because they aren't involved.
I get a bill by email ...
I don't. I don't think Google or my work needs to know what I'm spending my money on.
To make an informed judgement I would need three dates; the postmark date, the date received at your home and the due date.
I find it funny that you think this kind of outfit would bother putting a postmark on their pre-sorted first class mail. They don't even have a statement date on the statement. But that requires having gotten the statement in the first place, which didn't happen for the previous two months. Can't tell you the postmark on mail that has none and never arrived. The second part would be "never". I guess you'll just have to make an uninformed judgement. This is /., after all.
So, during the sequester fight, these same clowns made the USPS pre-fund the retirements of people expected to retire 75 years from now.
"These same clowns" aren't in control of either the Senate or the Presidency, so they cannot force anyone to do anything. Any bill has to pass the Democratic controlled Senate and not be vetoed by the Democrat President.
Nice try at turning this into a partisan issue, though.
If a person doesn't keep their path shoveled enough to walk to their own mailbox, why should the mail carrier trek up to their door?
Nobody said anything about not shoveling their "path". Even a shoveled path can have snow on it. Maybe cityfolk who have never lived in a snow zone don't realize that.
But the problem isn't not shoveling ones own path. When there is a community mailbox rack, that means that every path between the recipient and the boxes has to be shoveled, including the access to the box (which is likely in a common area not anyone's responsibility). If your neighbor hasn't shoveled his walk yet, and it is in the route to your mailbox, you have to walk through the snow. On the other hand, the mailman can drive his little truck thing to the end of your driveway, walk up the driveway in the clear, and deliver, all without wading through the snow you'd have to go through to pick it up from somewhere else.
The Residents can't walk 30 feet through the snow once a day to get their mail, but the mail carriers can walk from door to door to door through the same snow and cold with no problems?
Were the USPS likely to hire an 80 year old grandmother to deliver the mail, your argument would have some relevance. They don't. But 80 year old grandmothers have mailboxes.
Let's see. One reasonably fit letter carrier in a dashing uniform and cute shorts delivering something to the actual address on the letter, or everyone of every shape, size and ability having to go down the block to where they don't live to pick up mail addressed to where they do. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Saving money is not, in itself, a reason not to provide service you're paid to provide. We could save a lot of money were we to close all but one post office in the US and force everyone to Fedex anything they wanted to mail to that one office.
Or how about this? USPS opens every piece of mail and scans it, emailing the PDF to the recipients. Saves a ton on delivery. Who cares if the USPS gets to read every piece of mail everyone gets? Saving money! Think of the children.
Face it, we don't get any mail anymore that can't wait a day.
I do. One of my credit card companies is trying to force me to go paperless, so they're delaying the processing on the outgoing statement, putting a ridiculously short due date on it, and then applying late fees when my check doesn't show up in time. A couple of other companies, including my city water department, are pulling the same stunt.
This is the kind of company I'll feel just peachy about letting have unfettered access to my bank account? Right.
Oh, I should add, to keep from getting socked with a late fee two months ago when I realized my statement hadn't come, I called these slime on the phone and paid that way. They screwed up the account number, the payment was refused, and instead of notifying me of the problem in a timely manner they simply added a late fee to the next bill. And since the previous bill wasn't paid, they sent the matter to their collections department, so I started getting calls once an hour at 8AM in the morning. The third one actually had a customer service person (predictive dialers should be outlawed), who asked me for account number and other identifying information before she could tell me why she was calling. Right. Sure.
When I spoke to a supervisor about the problem, she claimed that they did try calling me to tell me about the failed payment. It was "in the computer". I promptly picked up my caller ID box and scrolled back through the last month's worth of calls and found nothing from them and told her so. Her response? "Let's move forward...". And I pointed out that the reason I was calling them was because THIS months statement hadn't arrived yet, either.
So, yes, a day can make a difference.
The example of the Mack truck being notified as it was entering the intersection sounds like a convoluted way to pitch the idea as a lifesaving system.
The summary talks about the bus driver getting the warning, not the truck driver.
The problem is that the truck's computer would have to predict that the truck driver wasn't stopping, which would have to occur after it was too late for him to stop (otherwise he could have intended to stop and you'd have a false positive). Then the bus driver would have to react to the warning, which means it would have to be presented early enough to have any benefit.
Yes, automated cars. What could go wrong with that?
There's now a commercial for a car that automatically puts the brakes on if it approaches something in front of or behind it. The ad shows a child (think of the children!) pushing a cart behind the car backing out of a blind driveway (which is the real safety issue) and the car stops automatically.
I can imagine it will not be long before drivers of those cars start to rely on that system. They'll trust the car to stop without them acting. This will kill someone when the automated system fails. Then they'll rent or borrow a car without the system and, since they have learned to rely on it, won't use the brakes when they need to. Which may also kill someone.
No, I want the fiber to by built and managed by one entity in as many places as possible. When someone moves into a home, they can choose to turn it one from a collection of private ISPs, just like the good old days over dialup.
If this were a workable business plan don't you think this would be how it is done today? Why are there no consumer level fiber companies that provide this service? Why hasn't someone said, "hey guys, I'll build all your fiber to the home for you, you pay me a percentage of each customer..."? Because it costs money and it isn't a universal need so there is no guarantee that everyone will get fibered just in case someday ...? You want to treat it like a utility where someone has to have the capability even if they don't want it. Where the government will say "we're putting fiber in and you're paying for it even if you never use it or you can't occupy that house." You want the costs forced onto other people to subsidize your access. I understand. It's a common character flaw in people. It's part of the reason it is called "the me generation".
And it's still having a "toll road", since you need to pay to access the "public road". Except for the special people for whom the service would be free. You made it look like I wanted all roads to be toll roads in your lame car analogy, so why are you so happy with the toll road analogy for fiber? If it is bad to have toll roads for cars, it must be bad to have toll roads for the internet, huh?
To those who can't afford it, just like food, medicine, water, electricity, the use of roads, the protection of the military, the protection of the fire and police departments, and a basic public education. Stop pretending that you don't understand this simple concept.
There is a difference between food and water and "the internet". And I'm still asking you why YOUR internet access should be free because it is "zero cost" when you expect other people to pay for theirs. If it is zero cost for some, it is zero cost for all. What you really mean is that it will be zero cost for some and the rest will foot the bill, even if they don't need or want it.
I've lived through the days when telephone service was heavily subsidized, just like you want the internet to be now. Maybe you would like to tell me I should go "read up" on the matter again?
Stating the facts isn't an insult.
The "you should look it up" comment is a direct and intentional insult. The assumption that because I disagree with you I haven't "read up" on the matter is, as well. If only we was all as smart as you, we'd all agree with you.
Mostly it is a monopoly because the local government doesn't want two companies tearing up the street. They often also have control.
The local government having control over who has access to the public rights of way doesn't define "monopoly". You can have non-exclusive franchise agreements (which, like I said, all of the ones I have dealt with were, even before 1992) and still have control over who has access.
No. Civil disruption like blocking traffic, or having to get rights of way on private lands.
Why would people block traffic if the cable company wasn't a monopoly? Why would the cable company do so? That's just silly. Every city I've lived in has had no cable monopoly and neither the citizens nor the cable company have blocked the streets demanding one. What lunacy.
As for private lands, guess what? They need rights of way there, too, even monopolies. Most of the rights of way have already been granted, so it's not like a newcomer would have to spend a lot of time going around buying them up. They'll just sign the municipality franchise agreement and get access to the existing ones.
No, I think if it's apparent that the internet is a utility, like electricity and water,
Which it isn't.
it makes sense for the government to invest in spreading that utility to keep the national workforce competitive and educated.
So then yes, you do think that free internet to your parent's basement is something everyone else should pay for. The MMORPG bit was irrelevant -- watching movies, surfing porn, whatever. The part about "free" is the important bit. You don't want the internet to be "a toll road", you want it free.
So if the pipe, so to speak, is there and ready to be turned on, it's a win-win for everybody:
Except those who have no interest in providing you with free internet, of course. And those, it turns out, you think should pay for their internet so you can have it at "zero cost".
and those who can't afford the internet can apply for a free government version at practically zero cost to everyone else.
Wait. So it's ok for the internet to be a toll road for some people, just as long as you get yours for "zero cost"? It isn't "zero cost" to everyone else, though.
And if it is "zero cost" for you to get it for free, why shouldn't I get it free, too? It's "zero cost".
If you're going to flame me for what you see as my desire to make all the roads toll roads, then you need to keep from wanting the internet to be a toll road for others.
This is very basic economics. You should spend the time to look into it.
You really don't have to be insulting to have an adult conversation, you know.
Well, yes. If only one company is allowed to "dig things up" then it de facto has a monopoly.
Logic fail. "All A is B" does not mean "All B is A".
Only if any company was allowed to lay a connection to your location do you then no longer have a monopoly.
That is not true. "Any company that pays the franchise fee to access the public rights of way" would make that a true statement. You certainly don't have to allow any company that wants to to dig things up "willy nilly" to keep from having a monopoly.
With most new connections being underground, it necessarily requires digging things up.
Never heard of 'conduit' on your planet, have you?
I say we void all community monopoly agreements
Well there is a bit of a problem in that we can't have people running around digging things up, running cable wherever they want willy-nilly.
Huh? How did you leap from "void all monopolies" to "digging things up willy-nilly"? Do you have some odd belief that a company that isn't a monopoly has a right to dig things up "willy nilly"?
There's going to have to be some control, which means there won't be real competition.
I'm sorry that you think that the franchise system means there is no competition. All it means is that anyone who wants to compete must abide by certain rules, like not digging things up willy-nilly in the city rights-of-way. For access to the rights of way they pay a fee. Gosh, how awful.
That's hardly the thing that prevents competition. That fee is put on top of every bill, so every company would simply pass that cost on to the subscriber.
So, you believe all roads should be toll roads, and it would be cheaper for everyone?
Since cars drive on toll roads, does this count as your inane /. car analogy? I don't think I said anything about toll roads. Did I? But if you can play this game, so can I. You think that your neighbors should pay for the 100Mb network line into your parent's basement so you can play MMORPG all day for free? Why yes, I expect you do. Some of the rest of us have better things to do with our money than support a government program (with paperwork and supervisors and government employee pension benefit costs) so you can have your networking for free. Like make car payments. Or buy food. Or anything else that we think we should be able to do with the money we've worked to earn.
Provide one example that exists outside of your imagination.
Example of what, a lame car analogy?
We've already wired the entire country. Twice.
For an unusual definition of "entire", you're right. You forget the vast areas in the US where there is no cable, and phone is marginal. About the most complete wiring is electrical.
Until we break the broadband monopoly and force the existing companies to open up their networks
These imaginary wires that cover the entire country twice do have bandwidth limits. When a cable company is using all their bandwidth, and has oversold it to their customers, just how does it help if they are forced to oversell even more by selling space to every wannbe ISP?
In Washington State, in areas where fiber is provided by the state, I can get a 100x100 connection for $59 per month. No contract. From a private entity.
The state is not a private entity. It is your neighbors. All of them. Even the ones who don't care about getting network but find their tax bills coming on a regular basis nonetheless. Or ones who want better networking and pay for it themselves, and then pay for yours too. You kind of allude to the problem -- "in areas where fiber is provided by the state" means there are areas where it is not. Do the have-nots have to pay taxes? Does Washington put "privileged access to fiber for some people" on the tax bills as a line item, so everyone can see just what it really costs for the taxpayer to fund your internet connection?
Imagine if you had a fiber connection to your home, which would cost you less in taxes than you pay for coffee every month,
I seriously doubt that. Would I get a rebate? That's the only way it could cost less than zero. But it will cost everyone else. That's why you think it is so cheap. Other people subsidize your network habits. You're welcome.
Right now I have no choice but to deal with Comcast's endless bullshit, because I don't have any other choices available. They happen to be the provider to my location.
No phone? No wireless? Well, if there is just one provider, then that really shows that the costs are higher than you think, and the only way the government can provide it is by taking money from other people to build it for you. Kind of like the old fees that subsidized rural telephones. Now you want them to subsidize rural internet. If the costs were as low as you claim, someone would have done it and be making money.
Once you decide to dig up land and lay cable you do so under the rules of a utility. The structure of utilities in most places was a government monopoly,
Every cable franchise agreement I am familiar with is non-exclusive. I.e., not a monopoly. Why would it be? The municipalities are keeping the door open to competitors who will also pay their franchise fees into the general fund.
That reduces the civil disruption.
I'm sorry, what? You mean if Egypt had monopolistic cable companies they wouldn't have had a coup?
He was in my SO's lap. Now the SO is male.
What was he before?
And don't ever ever do this, but this is what electricity tastes like...
The illegal act is the government performing a search of my property without my consent and without cause.
You assume every UAV is performing a search of your property, and that there can never be cause or proper warrant. Maybe they're on their way to a search of someone else's property. Maybe they're use cost-effective methods to do a beaver population study. Or to practice disaster relief missions checking on river or bridge or railway status. But saying "I see a UAV, they must be searching my property without a warrant" is a great leap and some would call it paranoia.
If they had cause to search then they should have a warrant.
Maybe they aren't searching your property. Maybe they have a warrant.
If the government does not want their property destroyed then they should not fly it over my land.
The airspace over your land is not your land. It is regulated by the federal government. Do you claim sovereign rights over every flight that takes place "over your land"? Should private pilots who are out sightseeing or practicing engine out maneuvers be afraid you'll shoot them out of the sky, too?
But, on topic, the law being discussed here doesn't require "over your land" or even "in flight".
The more busy it is the less time it will be.
Right. So you show up while all the valets are off retrieving cars for someone else, and that means it will be sooner that your car is taken away. It won't matter if there is only the one who is checking cars in there, or if there is a row of cars ahead of you to go to the lot.
and if you run away, the valet will summon police immediately.
The reason you left the car with the valet is SO YOU COULD LEAVE IT. You don't have to run, you'll hand him the keys and get the tag and then walk.
But if you don't run, the Valet helps you get your bags out of the trunk,
If you have bags. If he's available to do that. You're assuming best case scenario: you stop the car, someone runs up to take your keys and help with bags, and immediately drives away. I'm assuming normal situations, like nobody is there to take the car away, and you may not have bags to start with, or they're in the back seat.
Its clear you want to twist this so that there is an excuse to search your car
No, I just assume that nothing runs perfectly and there is a "real world" in which we live. Cars can sit at the drop-off, nobody looks in the trunk, etc.
because you think valet parking is some how more unsafe than self parking,
You're making this up. I said nothing about self parking or how safe either one was. How safe using a valet service is doesn't matter. The fact that the cars can be left near the terminal effectively unattended does.
and any bit of freedom we can give up for some minuscule amount of safety is worth it.
Never said that, and I will not let you put those words in my mouth. Argue honestly or don't.
What is reasonable to say is that if you don't want your car searched, don't park it at the terminal for someone else to deal with later, and not someplace where you know unattended vehicles are suspect and subject to towing. Park it yourself. I didn't realize that getting someone to park your car for you was one of those "essential liberties" that we were warned about giving up.
My hometown just passed a resolution declaring the airspace above it to be drone-free.
The authority of your hometown to do this is superseded by the federal regulations controlling airspace. They'd have as much success, and as much authority, to declare that the airspace over the town to be 747-free, or C172 free, or satellite free.