Back in those days, it was Movie, 1 or 2 minutes about later movies, then Movie. TMC was particularly good-...
Wow. The Movie Channel came along very late in the history of cable television. HBO was the first I know of, but it wasn't HBO at the start, it was sold as "Q Channel". And that was still very late in the genesis of cable. I'm also pretty sure that the superstations predated Q, especially Turner's. Maybe I'm just thinking of seeing it on an Augusta cable system before it went national. I know that WGN was on the air prior to HBO, I used to watch it as a kid. Their intro to "superstation" was just the normal station, including all the local ads. "588-32hundred, empire!"
However, your city was an oddity in cable development. Apparently you had all the main networks close by and all they had to sell was the pay service. For alot of the country, cable provided the usable signal without the hassle of an antenna, and only then did the pay programming services start getting interested.
I remember going to a work party and someone was showing how they were getting Showtime with a coffee can antennae.
Yes, in high-density populated areas, "pay TV" first showed up as microwave. I'm thinking "MMDS" -- multichannel multipoint distribution. And some was done using normal broadcast channels and descramblers.
And yes, I still find it funny that the advertisers pay millions of dollars and then the cable company turns around and charges us to see the ads and programs.
That's because they aren't charging you to see the ads and programs, they are charging you for the distribution of programs. The advertisers aren't paying cable to distribute the programs, they're paying to create the programs. Different functions. Cable HAS to charge you to get the programs because CABLE is paying to get them from the program sources. They can't give them to you for free. There is simply too much overhead in the distribution to ever be free, even if the cable companies got the programs for free.
It's like the affinity cards at randalls. At first, they wanted your personal information in exchange for lower prices.
Now, the prices are higher- even with the cards than HEB (which has no affinity card program).
It's nothing like snooper cards. As for prices being "higher", are they higher than they would be if not offset by selling your data, or just higher than another store?
It's odd that you pay them and I pay them too, isn't it?
No. You pay them because they provide a service. They provide a connection to program streams. You don't pay them to produce programs. Advertisers pay them for running ads, called "local avails".
Program providers don't pay cable companies. Program providers are paid BY cable companies for the programming.
I remember when I paid for cable because it had no commercials.
What? Cable has never stripped the commercials from the programming it carried. It started out as a "community antenna television system" (acronym: CATV) so that everyone didn't need to put up their own big antennas to get stations from distant towns.
Now, some recent programming carried by cable companies (starting with "Q Channel", later known as HBO, in the early 80's) was relatively ad-free (unless you count the fifteen minutes between movies where they advertise themselves). Those were pay-customer supported. But basic cable, at its heart, has always had ads. Only the "pay channels" have ever been ad-free, and you pay extra for those.
I've never bought a television based on a television ad (I find the concept ironic).
I've always drooled at the high def and great color the TV ads for TVs are able to produce on my low-def maladjusted set, personally.
I don't understand why those with PVRs still watch the ads.
Because you miss all the irony if you skip them. Like ads for Carl's Jr. or Jack in the Box during exercise shows.
The very best one was last night. Premiere of "Sex Addict Rehab With Dr. Drew." A facility full of sex addicts, men and women, models, rock stars, and an "adult video star". Not a single one of them sexually attractive in any way, but they're all sitting around talking about having sex with each other. The "adult star", knowing shes going to a facility to treat her addiction, tried sneaking in a dildo she called "Ron Jeremy", and a pair of knee-pads. Epitome of skank.
The major advertiser? Trojan. Not for condoms, but for women's mini-vibrators.
GPS is a radio receiver using mixers, etc, and as such falls into the "radio device" classification. While it is an "unintentional emitter" under the rules, it is still an emitter and can cause interference to other receivers.
and many airlines allow it at cruising altitudes
Yes, some do, and some don't. That was why I said it required PIC/operator approval. Without explicit approval, it is not permitted.
If your phone has "airplane mode" and it does not shut off the GPS, you are in danger of violating federal regulations by using airplane mode while aloft. All it takes is being on a carrier that does not permit GPS use while airborne.
Thank you. Data are plural, not a singular group noun.
Data are neither singular nor plural, they just are. That's like thinking your automobile is singular or plural. It's neither, it just is.
'Data', the word, IS plural, but as a single word requires singular references. Thus '"data" is plural' is correct. OTH, "'data' is plural and 'datum' is singular" ARE correct.
The contract said the government would give them money (millions),
The article says nothing about such a contract, it simply calls TDS "the telco" and then later claims they are the cable company. Where are you getting this "give them millions" bit? I don't know any cable franchise that starts out with the CITY giving the cable company millions to do anything. The franchise usually requires the company to pay the city for being able to use the rights of way.
If TDS was paid to do something, then it would be ludicrous for the city to duplicate that effort at more cost. The city should have sued. Since they did not, and are reported only as "asking" and not "ordering", apparently there are no "millions".
They were paid to bring broadband to those areas,
Not according to the article. Asked to provide a service is not "paid".
...is a contract violation, which last I checked was against the law.
Contracts are civil matters, not criminal. Suing for breach of contract takes place in civil court, not criminal. If there truly was such a contract in the first place, which doesn't seem likely given the facts that are being presented.
Granted it is a civil case and not a criminal one,
Yes, which means you already know it's not against the law. No, breaking a contract is not a violation of the law. It's a civil matter and you hire your own attorneys. Criminal matters are prosecuted by the government.
What was given by the government, can be taken away by the government.
Not without the government being sued for breach of contract.
It is just sad they do not do so when the other side has so clearly violated the terms of the exclusive contract.
I've got to ask this. You talk about "clearly violated... contract", and another poster talked about this company breaking the law.
Where was there a contract for TDS to install fiber optic networking? Did they have that as part of the contract terms, or are you making it up? Do you really think that the contracts that cable companies sign includes terms like "do anything the city asks you to do"?
And what law did this company break? Suing a city to keep them from competing against you when you have a contract to provide something isn't breaking a law. It might be smarmy or unethical or bad for the image, but breaking the law?
Save your outrage for when cable companies pull the really illegal stuff like bait and switch or lie about "free" upgrades or equipment. Like trying to get customers to upgrade to higher tiers when they call to report problems with what they've got, or charging for "free install kits". Or simply ignore contract terms that require them to notify subscribers of programming changes 30 days in advance. Comcast has gotten so bad that they don't even bother telling us anymore, they just drop channels at will. They do enough of this crap that you can nail them without having to create contract terms that don't exist or make up violations.
If you are going under the posted limit, it is up to the cop to prove your speed was not reasonable or prudent.
I bet that the burden of proof still lies on the driver, and that the judge will accept the word of the trained observer who is a sworn court officer over the driver's. You're going to have to have pictures of the exact location showing clear, dry pavement on a sunny day at the time of the ticket to prove that your speed was reasonable.
That's no different than any radar ticket, e.g.. The court assumes that the officer is telling the truth when he reports the radar display, and that he's telling the truth when he says he calibrated it before use. In other words, in a he said/she said against a law enforcement officer, he wins.
It is impossible to get ticket for going 50 in 50 zone in Canada.
True of America, too,
Uhhhh, try again. The speed laws in the US almost always contain a clause dealing with road conditions. It is quite possible to get a ticket in the US for "too fast for conditions" because you are going 50 (even in a 65 zone) when 50 isn't safe. As in, freezing rain has turned the expressway into a sheet of ice.
Now, if you mean that you won't get a ticket that SAYS "going 50 in a 50", that's technically true, but simply going the speed limit doesn't make a speeding ticket impossible.
The airport, however, is public property. Including the terminals beyond the security area. I have a perfect right to be in that area, without any of their 'security' crap.
I have no idea where you got that silly idea. "Public property" is not equivalent to "anyone can be there anytime they want". Courthouses, jails, the Whitehouse, the floor of the Senate, the Mayor's office, school classrooms, and the area beyond security at the airport are all "publicly owned". Tell me that you have a right to walk into any kindergarden classroom in the country and just wander around whenever you want. Try it at midnight.
The government don't have a right to search me before walking around what is essentially a publicly owned mall.
That airport isn't "essentially a publicly owned mall", and yes, they have every right to search you because YOU CONSENTED TO THE SEARCH when you got in the line to be searched.
But it is not the right of the government to mandate that I be searched, without a warrant, and then do it themselves.
Well, then, it's a good thing that the government has mandated that you be searched, now isn't it? Have you maybe not noticed, but those who don't get in the line to be searched generally aren't searched? You can avoid this search very easily. If it matters that much to you, then you can avoid it. If all you want to do is whine and then get in line anyway, save us all from your whining and just get in line.
(And then have have people somehow claiming this has anything to do with the rights of private businesses.)
Yes, that's almost as ludicrous as people consenting to be searched and then whining about how the government is searching them without a warrant.
When it was a private security firm hired by the airlines, it was a perfectly reasonable term of sale.
And it still is. If you don't want to agree to it, don't buy a ticket, and don't get in a line where your presence is a sign you've waived your rights.
It's no different than trying to get onto a military base where you are clearly advised prior to the attempt that you and your vehicle are subject to search by US military personnel. Try pulling up to a Air Force base and waving a copy of the Constitution at the gun-weilding folks there. Good luck, hope Leavenworth is your kind of place.
The TSA is a federal agency, and the officers are federal agents. They are governed by the Constitution, which not only does not grant them the authority to molest passengers, but also specifically forbids them from unwarranted search and seizure, which a choke point search of EVERYBODY who passes certainly is.
By entering the line you waive your 4th amendment rights against search. Period. What you waive you cannot claim protection under. You are not forced to waive your rights, you freely chose to do so because you wanted the convenience and expedience of flying. There no longer is any question of "unwarranted" -- the courts have long held that permission is sufficient.
It is also not the same thing as customs enforcement, which obviously must happen at a border,
Now THAT's being consistent... not. If you don't think you've waived your 4th amendment rights when you enter a TSA screening line, why do you think you've waived them when you enter an ICE line with the same conditions? Why "obviously" must people be searched for money and personal property that the government says you can't have, even if none of it harms anyone else, if "obviously not" you must be searched for weapons that you could use to hijack or destroy an airplane?
Completely domestic travel most certainly does not justify border search authority,
You're right, it doesn't, and if you travel by car you aren't subject to search without probable cause, etc. If Montana set up a border crossing point and tried searching every car that came into the state from Idaho, there'd be court cases out the wazoo until SCOTUS stepped in and put the caibosh on it.
When you want to pack yourself in with a hundred or so of your neighbors and get in a line that says "you are subject to search", then sorry, you've waived that right by doing so. All it takes to preserve your rights is to not enter the line.
The profit margin on in-flight beverages is very high. It costs the airline very little to provide them,
Every pound carried aloft requires fuel, every gallon of which skims profit right off the top of the flight. Magazines, headsets, blankets, pillows, cans of coke, bags of pretzels, ice, cups, etc.. Some airlines have even realized that the weight of the PAINT they used on the airplane costs them profit.
I've yet to fly an airline that didn't provide non-alcoholic beverages for free, but maybe some are starting to charge. I suspect that you will find water for free, because the cost of the lawsuit and bad publicity from the first stroke or thrombophlebitis case would cover the costs of water for a long time.
In fact, the waitresses on flights I've been on have been very aggressive in keeping my glass of water full, to the point that I actually have to hide it if I don't want any more.
... yet because the airlines have a captive (literally) market, they can charge whatever they want.
Once. Once you find out that it costs $4 for a coke in-flight, you'll either decide to carry on your own for $2 or decide that water is good enough for free.
If it annoys you enough, you'll switch airlines, and they lose your repeat business. Repeats are a big part of the profit. Why else would they have frequent flyer programs?
Not that that stops them. I've a good mind to say, "no thank you" next time I travel and they ask to search something. Or say, "I've got a pass." and hand them a copy of the constitution.
Except that by getting in line you've effectively waived your 4th amendment right in exchange for the privilege of flying somewhere. The Constitution doesn't protect you against things when you've voluntarily agreed to them.
If you want to maintain your rights against search, drive to your destination. Don't get in a line of people being searched and then claim protections.
And yes, it's all a sham and yes, it's done only to make people feel good, and yes, anyone who wants to can slip dangerous stuff past TSA. The next time you fly, check in online and print your boarding pass -- to a file. If you print it to a Postscript(TM) printer, you get a file filled with Postscript(TM). Need I say more?
Have a look at that dimmer switch and the wiring. Had the same problem myself, the problem turned out to be a bad ground wire. Incandescents had no problem in that fixture.
There's a reason incandescents didn't have a problem there: they operate using hot and neutral. They pay no attention to ground. Neither does the dimmer switch deal with ground. Ground is a safety issue for humans.
And CFLs operate exactly the same way. There is no ground connection on a CFL, just hot and neutral. They can't break due to a "bad ground" because they never touch ground.
It's like saying your car gets bad gas milage because the diesel fuel in the truck parked next to it was contaminated.
CFL fail miserably when using X10 controllers. They seem to have some current pulse that occurs after turnoff that makes the X10 controller think you are trying to turn the light back on using the local switch. Press X10 off -- click -- light off -- click -- light on! Press off again -- click off -- click on! It's like a video game, how many times do you
have to press "off" to get them to stay off, and how short can you get the 'on' times to be?
That, and the extremely short lives they have compared to simple incandescents, make them a pain in the ass and poor replacements. I like the european guy who talks about us americans and our "extravagant lifestyles" because we use incandescents. Using a 50 cent light bulb for ten years compared to ten (mercury containing) CFLs in the same place is extravagant?
And according to the FCC DTV maps, they can only expect to receive two (!) TV stations,
You didn't read the "maps" correctly. They are expected to get two STRONG signals, and 6 weak ones. The weak ones are on UHF 19, 29, 51, 33 and 14.
If the "white space" devices in that area are as capable of reading the maps as you are, those people WILL only get two stations instead of the 8 they might, especially those people who have invested money in good outside antennas so they CAN get the other weak signals.
But they're hicks who don't deserve TV anyway, right?
There's this "civilized" stuff again. How does "civilized" change anything about the inherent private nature of a public medium? It does not. Period. End of sentence.
An expectation of privacy comes from having civilized ourselves enough to NOT listen even though we obviously can.
No, an expectation of privacy comes from ignorance. "Civilized" has nothing to do with it. Your "civilization" is just legislated ignorance of physical fact. "Your cell phone conversations are private because we, the cellphone industry, have made it illegal for people to buy radios that can tune into your calls." That's not "privacy", that stupidity. Your cell phone calls are no more private because Joe Sixpack can't buy a scanner. They are inherently NON private because you are using a NON private medium.
Any one listening to what should be a private call is obviously not civilized.
Anyone using MY airwaves demanding that I not listen to what they are doing is obviously not civilized and is arrogant and ignorant to boot.
I don't understand why we all seem to have become less civilized lately.
Because stupid people demand stupid laws trying to subvert nature and natural processes, and the rest of us are getting damn tired of it. Your definition of "civilization" requires ignorance, and ignorance is not a civilized trait.
No we have ignorant people or perhaps I should say people who are not cultured, enough to obey those laws.
There are two kind of laws being discussed here. Physical laws, which say that messages sent by radio waves are inherently NOT PRIVATE, and manmade laws which try to contradict physical laws. No amount of culture will let you violate physical laws. No amount of culture will make stupid manmade laws smart.
And people like you who assume that simply because it can be done it should be done.
And people like you who jump to outrageous conclusions based on inability to understand a simple point. I didn't say it SHOULD be done. Not once. I said that it is STUPID to define "private conversation" in terms of what an ignorant person expects. I said that messages that are not truly private can and will be intercepted and no true privacy exists when using other people's stuff.
While I agree it will be done...
If you think I said it SHOULD be done, what are you agreeing with?
that doesn't mean that we can't restore civilization and culture by not doing what you claim is physically impossible.
I'm sorry, but you've got one too many negatives in that statement for it to make any sense. I'm not sure what you think I claimed was physically impossible. I know I didn't claim that something SHOULD be done. Are you actually reading this thread?
Maybe so, but there's no way one can build and maintain all of that themself.
That implies that you think there is some natural right to "private conversations using other people's stuff". I'm sorry, but if you use my telephone in my house, it's my wires and you have as much privacy as I decide to give you. The fact you can't build the infrastructure yourself has no relevance to that.
They would also have to be on their own internets thats only on their own lines. It's just not possible to do that.
So? That's why I included the statement about ENCRYPTING your messages yourself. You want privacy when you use MY telephone? You bring your own scrambler.
Thats *why we have privacy laws in place*.
Yes, we have "privacy laws" that violate the laws of physics in place because of ignorant people having ignorant expectations about what is private. They think "because I want it to be" is sufficient. It isn't. If your cell phone conversation can be picked up by my television set, your "privacy laws" don't mean much (and yes, the old analog cell phones could be picked up on tv sets.)
But there will be consequences for the people breaking them.
Really? You mean like the case of the people who recorded and released the cell phone conversations between Gingrich and Boehner (IIRC)? Made national news, but no "consequences" to the law-breakers.
And even in the rare case where there are consequences, that doesn't change the fact that your privacy did not exist in reality, only in your mind. Making it a crime to listen to you talking on your phone doesn't make your conversation private, it just makes it a crime to listen. You are a victim of the Cellular telephone industry, who managed to cripple an entire radio industry because they didn't want to digitize and encrypt their analog cell phone systems, even though it was patently obvious that digital and encryption was going to happen anyway. Welcome to 2009, where it is still illegal to sell radios with certain frequencies, even though everything on those frequencies is gone or unlistenable, and where a new design of cell-phone is using frequencies outside the prohibited bands.
Studies have found that there is no statistical difference in forclosure rate between CRA-regulated banks and unregulated banks.
What "unregulated banks"? The ones not making the loans?
Notably, the investment banks that sell credit-default swaps are not covered by the CRA.
Right. The ones not making the loans in the first place aren't covered by the CRA. The ones making the loans were, and were forced into making them if they wanted good "community" numbers so they could open new branches and other things that were regulated under CRA.
If you prevent the unregulated banks from buying the bad loans, then the bad loans stay with the regulated banks and we still have the problem, just different banks.
It all goes back to Frank and others (including Obama) responding to "community activists" complaining that people who had no credit or bad credit and no income couldn't buy the same homes that those with good credit could. How unfair! When you legislate that poor credit risks get loans, too, you push the problem onto the banks, and have no reason to complain when the banks fail due to failed loans.
As for "predatory", well, nobody forces anyone to take a variable rate loan with a huge balloon. At least, nobody forced ME to take such a loan when I bought my house, even though it was offered to me. It really wasn't rocket science to know that I'd be facing a REALLY big payment I probably couldn't make when the balloon came due, even if I was paying more all along by having a higher interest rate. It really wasn't that hard to figure out.
It's still listening over to people's private conversation, just the transmit is done via air instead of landline.
Cyclic logic. Calling it a "private conversation" implies some belief of privacy, even when none should exist.
What about a "private conversation" held using bullhorns at a baseball game? It's private, so all those people listening must be breaking the law, huh?
Much better is to define "private" not based on stupid people's ignorance but on physics. A "conversation" carried via public airwaves shouldn't be considered private. That's where the cellular carries brainwashed everyone. A "conversation" carried over someone else's wires has some reasonable expectation of privacy, but it's still someone else's wires. If those wires go into another country where the rules are different, don't expect your side to stay private under US rules while the foreign part is open under foreign rules.
Privacy should only be assumed if you control the wires, or if you encrypt the message YOURSELF. To simply say "this is private, you can't listen" is silly.
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Considering the age of the Great Wall of China, I find it amazing that "new facts" could possibly appear at the rate of one every five minutes.
Wow. The Movie Channel came along very late in the history of cable television. HBO was the first I know of, but it wasn't HBO at the start, it was sold as "Q Channel". And that was still very late in the genesis of cable. I'm also pretty sure that the superstations predated Q, especially Turner's. Maybe I'm just thinking of seeing it on an Augusta cable system before it went national. I know that WGN was on the air prior to HBO, I used to watch it as a kid. Their intro to "superstation" was just the normal station, including all the local ads. "588-32hundred, empire!"
However, your city was an oddity in cable development. Apparently you had all the main networks close by and all they had to sell was the pay service. For alot of the country, cable provided the usable signal without the hassle of an antenna, and only then did the pay programming services start getting interested.
I remember going to a work party and someone was showing how they were getting Showtime with a coffee can antennae.
Yes, in high-density populated areas, "pay TV" first showed up as microwave. I'm thinking "MMDS" -- multichannel multipoint distribution. And some was done using normal broadcast channels and descramblers.
And yes, I still find it funny that the advertisers pay millions of dollars and then the cable company turns around and charges us to see the ads and programs.
That's because they aren't charging you to see the ads and programs, they are charging you for the distribution of programs. The advertisers aren't paying cable to distribute the programs, they're paying to create the programs. Different functions. Cable HAS to charge you to get the programs because CABLE is paying to get them from the program sources. They can't give them to you for free. There is simply too much overhead in the distribution to ever be free, even if the cable companies got the programs for free.
It's like the affinity cards at randalls. At first, they wanted your personal information in exchange for lower prices. Now, the prices are higher- even with the cards than HEB (which has no affinity card program).
It's nothing like snooper cards. As for prices being "higher", are they higher than they would be if not offset by selling your data, or just higher than another store?
No. You pay them because they provide a service. They provide a connection to program streams. You don't pay them to produce programs. Advertisers pay them for running ads, called "local avails".
Program providers don't pay cable companies. Program providers are paid BY cable companies for the programming.
I remember when I paid for cable because it had no commercials.
What? Cable has never stripped the commercials from the programming it carried. It started out as a "community antenna television system" (acronym: CATV) so that everyone didn't need to put up their own big antennas to get stations from distant towns.
Now, some recent programming carried by cable companies (starting with "Q Channel", later known as HBO, in the early 80's) was relatively ad-free (unless you count the fifteen minutes between movies where they advertise themselves). Those were pay-customer supported. But basic cable, at its heart, has always had ads. Only the "pay channels" have ever been ad-free, and you pay extra for those.
I've never bought a television based on a television ad (I find the concept ironic).
I've always drooled at the high def and great color the TV ads for TVs are able to produce on my low-def maladjusted set, personally.
Because you miss all the irony if you skip them. Like ads for Carl's Jr. or Jack in the Box during exercise shows.
The very best one was last night. Premiere of "Sex Addict Rehab With Dr. Drew." A facility full of sex addicts, men and women, models, rock stars, and an "adult video star". Not a single one of them sexually attractive in any way, but they're all sitting around talking about having sex with each other. The "adult star", knowing shes going to a facility to treat her addiction, tried sneaking in a dildo she called "Ron Jeremy", and a pair of knee-pads. Epitome of skank.
The major advertiser? Trojan. Not for condoms, but for women's mini-vibrators.
I don't know if it was sad or funny.
GPS is a radio receiver using mixers, etc, and as such falls into the "radio device" classification. While it is an "unintentional emitter" under the rules, it is still an emitter and can cause interference to other receivers.
and many airlines allow it at cruising altitudes
Yes, some do, and some don't. That was why I said it required PIC/operator approval. Without explicit approval, it is not permitted.
If your phone has "airplane mode" and it does not shut off the GPS, you are in danger of violating federal regulations by using airplane mode while aloft. All it takes is being on a carrier that does not permit GPS use while airborne.
Airplane mode had better switch off the GPS, too, since GPS is a radio function which is not allowed without PIC or operator approval.
I use the competitor's product. I have a map for that.
Data are neither singular nor plural, they just are. That's like thinking your automobile is singular or plural. It's neither, it just is.
'Data', the word, IS plural, but as a single word requires singular references. Thus '"data" is plural' is correct. OTH, "'data' is plural and 'datum' is singular" ARE correct.
Isn't english fun?
The article says nothing about such a contract, it simply calls TDS "the telco" and then later claims they are the cable company. Where are you getting this "give them millions" bit? I don't know any cable franchise that starts out with the CITY giving the cable company millions to do anything. The franchise usually requires the company to pay the city for being able to use the rights of way.
If TDS was paid to do something, then it would be ludicrous for the city to duplicate that effort at more cost. The city should have sued. Since they did not, and are reported only as "asking" and not "ordering", apparently there are no "millions".
They were paid to bring broadband to those areas,
Not according to the article. Asked to provide a service is not "paid".
Contracts are civil matters, not criminal. Suing for breach of contract takes place in civil court, not criminal. If there truly was such a contract in the first place, which doesn't seem likely given the facts that are being presented.
Granted it is a civil case and not a criminal one,
Yes, which means you already know it's not against the law. No, breaking a contract is not a violation of the law. It's a civil matter and you hire your own attorneys. Criminal matters are prosecuted by the government.
Not without the government being sued for breach of contract.
It is just sad they do not do so when the other side has so clearly violated the terms of the exclusive contract.
I've got to ask this. You talk about "clearly violated ... contract", and another poster talked about this company breaking the law.
Where was there a contract for TDS to install fiber optic networking? Did they have that as part of the contract terms, or are you making it up? Do you really think that the contracts that cable companies sign includes terms like "do anything the city asks you to do"?
And what law did this company break? Suing a city to keep them from competing against you when you have a contract to provide something isn't breaking a law. It might be smarmy or unethical or bad for the image, but breaking the law?
Save your outrage for when cable companies pull the really illegal stuff like bait and switch or lie about "free" upgrades or equipment. Like trying to get customers to upgrade to higher tiers when they call to report problems with what they've got, or charging for "free install kits". Or simply ignore contract terms that require them to notify subscribers of programming changes 30 days in advance. Comcast has gotten so bad that they don't even bother telling us anymore, they just drop channels at will. They do enough of this crap that you can nail them without having to create contract terms that don't exist or make up violations.
Al Franken is a big fat liar who uses lies to lie. Or something like that.
I bet that the burden of proof still lies on the driver, and that the judge will accept the word of the trained observer who is a sworn court officer over the driver's. You're going to have to have pictures of the exact location showing clear, dry pavement on a sunny day at the time of the ticket to prove that your speed was reasonable.
That's no different than any radar ticket, e.g.. The court assumes that the officer is telling the truth when he reports the radar display, and that he's telling the truth when he says he calibrated it before use. In other words, in a he said/she said against a law enforcement officer, he wins.
Uhhhh, try again. The speed laws in the US almost always contain a clause dealing with road conditions. It is quite possible to get a ticket in the US for "too fast for conditions" because you are going 50 (even in a 65 zone) when 50 isn't safe. As in, freezing rain has turned the expressway into a sheet of ice.
Now, if you mean that you won't get a ticket that SAYS "going 50 in a 50", that's technically true, but simply going the speed limit doesn't make a speeding ticket impossible.
I have no idea where you got that silly idea. "Public property" is not equivalent to "anyone can be there anytime they want". Courthouses, jails, the Whitehouse, the floor of the Senate, the Mayor's office, school classrooms, and the area beyond security at the airport are all "publicly owned". Tell me that you have a right to walk into any kindergarden classroom in the country and just wander around whenever you want. Try it at midnight.
The government don't have a right to search me before walking around what is essentially a publicly owned mall.
That airport isn't "essentially a publicly owned mall", and yes, they have every right to search you because YOU CONSENTED TO THE SEARCH when you got in the line to be searched.
But it is not the right of the government to mandate that I be searched, without a warrant, and then do it themselves.
Well, then, it's a good thing that the government has mandated that you be searched, now isn't it? Have you maybe not noticed, but those who don't get in the line to be searched generally aren't searched? You can avoid this search very easily. If it matters that much to you, then you can avoid it. If all you want to do is whine and then get in line anyway, save us all from your whining and just get in line.
(And then have have people somehow claiming this has anything to do with the rights of private businesses.)
Yes, that's almost as ludicrous as people consenting to be searched and then whining about how the government is searching them without a warrant.
not if you carry one with you. the prohibition is on the contents, not bottles themselves.
And it still is. If you don't want to agree to it, don't buy a ticket, and don't get in a line where your presence is a sign you've waived your rights.
It's no different than trying to get onto a military base where you are clearly advised prior to the attempt that you and your vehicle are subject to search by US military personnel. Try pulling up to a Air Force base and waving a copy of the Constitution at the gun-weilding folks there. Good luck, hope Leavenworth is your kind of place.
The TSA is a federal agency, and the officers are federal agents. They are governed by the Constitution, which not only does not grant them the authority to molest passengers, but also specifically forbids them from unwarranted search and seizure, which a choke point search of EVERYBODY who passes certainly is.
By entering the line you waive your 4th amendment rights against search. Period. What you waive you cannot claim protection under. You are not forced to waive your rights, you freely chose to do so because you wanted the convenience and expedience of flying. There no longer is any question of "unwarranted" -- the courts have long held that permission is sufficient.
It is also not the same thing as customs enforcement, which obviously must happen at a border,
Now THAT's being consistent ... not. If you don't think you've waived your 4th amendment rights when you enter a TSA screening line, why do you think you've waived them when you enter an ICE line with the same conditions? Why "obviously" must people be searched for money and personal property that the government says you can't have, even if none of it harms anyone else, if "obviously not" you must be searched for weapons that you could use to hijack or destroy an airplane?
Completely domestic travel most certainly does not justify border search authority,
You're right, it doesn't, and if you travel by car you aren't subject to search without probable cause, etc. If Montana set up a border crossing point and tried searching every car that came into the state from Idaho, there'd be court cases out the wazoo until SCOTUS stepped in and put the caibosh on it.
When you want to pack yourself in with a hundred or so of your neighbors and get in a line that says "you are subject to search", then sorry, you've waived that right by doing so. All it takes to preserve your rights is to not enter the line.
Every pound carried aloft requires fuel, every gallon of which skims profit right off the top of the flight. Magazines, headsets, blankets, pillows, cans of coke, bags of pretzels, ice, cups, etc.. Some airlines have even realized that the weight of the PAINT they used on the airplane costs them profit.
I've yet to fly an airline that didn't provide non-alcoholic beverages for free, but maybe some are starting to charge. I suspect that you will find water for free, because the cost of the lawsuit and bad publicity from the first stroke or thrombophlebitis case would cover the costs of water for a long time.
In fact, the waitresses on flights I've been on have been very aggressive in keeping my glass of water full, to the point that I actually have to hide it if I don't want any more.
Once. Once you find out that it costs $4 for a coke in-flight, you'll either decide to carry on your own for $2 or decide that water is good enough for free.
If it annoys you enough, you'll switch airlines, and they lose your repeat business. Repeats are a big part of the profit. Why else would they have frequent flyer programs?
Except that by getting in line you've effectively waived your 4th amendment right in exchange for the privilege of flying somewhere. The Constitution doesn't protect you against things when you've voluntarily agreed to them.
If you want to maintain your rights against search, drive to your destination. Don't get in a line of people being searched and then claim protections.
And yes, it's all a sham and yes, it's done only to make people feel good, and yes, anyone who wants to can slip dangerous stuff past TSA. The next time you fly, check in online and print your boarding pass -- to a file. If you print it to a Postscript(TM) printer, you get a file filled with Postscript(TM). Need I say more?
There's a reason incandescents didn't have a problem there: they operate using hot and neutral. They pay no attention to ground. Neither does the dimmer switch deal with ground. Ground is a safety issue for humans.
And CFLs operate exactly the same way. There is no ground connection on a CFL, just hot and neutral. They can't break due to a "bad ground" because they never touch ground.
It's like saying your car gets bad gas milage because the diesel fuel in the truck parked next to it was contaminated.
CFL fail miserably when using X10 controllers. They seem to have some current pulse that occurs after turnoff that makes the X10 controller think you are trying to turn the light back on using the local switch. Press X10 off -- click -- light off -- click -- light on! Press off again -- click off -- click on! It's like a video game, how many times do you have to press "off" to get them to stay off, and how short can you get the 'on' times to be?
That, and the extremely short lives they have compared to simple incandescents, make them a pain in the ass and poor replacements. I like the european guy who talks about us americans and our "extravagant lifestyles" because we use incandescents. Using a 50 cent light bulb for ten years compared to ten (mercury containing) CFLs in the same place is extravagant?
You didn't read the "maps" correctly. They are expected to get two STRONG signals, and 6 weak ones. The weak ones are on UHF 19, 29, 51, 33 and 14.
If the "white space" devices in that area are as capable of reading the maps as you are, those people WILL only get two stations instead of the 8 they might, especially those people who have invested money in good outside antennas so they CAN get the other weak signals.
But they're hicks who don't deserve TV anyway, right?
There's this "civilized" stuff again. How does "civilized" change anything about the inherent private nature of a public medium? It does not. Period. End of sentence.
An expectation of privacy comes from having civilized ourselves enough to NOT listen even though we obviously can.
No, an expectation of privacy comes from ignorance. "Civilized" has nothing to do with it. Your "civilization" is just legislated ignorance of physical fact. "Your cell phone conversations are private because we, the cellphone industry, have made it illegal for people to buy radios that can tune into your calls." That's not "privacy", that stupidity. Your cell phone calls are no more private because Joe Sixpack can't buy a scanner. They are inherently NON private because you are using a NON private medium.
Any one listening to what should be a private call is obviously not civilized.
Anyone using MY airwaves demanding that I not listen to what they are doing is obviously not civilized and is arrogant and ignorant to boot.
I don't understand why we all seem to have become less civilized lately.
Because stupid people demand stupid laws trying to subvert nature and natural processes, and the rest of us are getting damn tired of it. Your definition of "civilization" requires ignorance, and ignorance is not a civilized trait.
There are two kind of laws being discussed here. Physical laws, which say that messages sent by radio waves are inherently NOT PRIVATE, and manmade laws which try to contradict physical laws. No amount of culture will let you violate physical laws. No amount of culture will make stupid manmade laws smart.
And people like you who assume that simply because it can be done it should be done.
And people like you who jump to outrageous conclusions based on inability to understand a simple point. I didn't say it SHOULD be done. Not once. I said that it is STUPID to define "private conversation" in terms of what an ignorant person expects. I said that messages that are not truly private can and will be intercepted and no true privacy exists when using other people's stuff.
While I agree it will be done ...
If you think I said it SHOULD be done, what are you agreeing with?
that doesn't mean that we can't restore civilization and culture by not doing what you claim is physically impossible.
I'm sorry, but you've got one too many negatives in that statement for it to make any sense. I'm not sure what you think I claimed was physically impossible. I know I didn't claim that something SHOULD be done. Are you actually reading this thread?
That implies that you think there is some natural right to "private conversations using other people's stuff". I'm sorry, but if you use my telephone in my house, it's my wires and you have as much privacy as I decide to give you. The fact you can't build the infrastructure yourself has no relevance to that.
They would also have to be on their own internets thats only on their own lines. It's just not possible to do that.
So? That's why I included the statement about ENCRYPTING your messages yourself. You want privacy when you use MY telephone? You bring your own scrambler.
Thats *why we have privacy laws in place*.
Yes, we have "privacy laws" that violate the laws of physics in place because of ignorant people having ignorant expectations about what is private. They think "because I want it to be" is sufficient. It isn't. If your cell phone conversation can be picked up by my television set, your "privacy laws" don't mean much (and yes, the old analog cell phones could be picked up on tv sets.)
But there will be consequences for the people breaking them.
Really? You mean like the case of the people who recorded and released the cell phone conversations between Gingrich and Boehner (IIRC)? Made national news, but no "consequences" to the law-breakers.
And even in the rare case where there are consequences, that doesn't change the fact that your privacy did not exist in reality, only in your mind. Making it a crime to listen to you talking on your phone doesn't make your conversation private, it just makes it a crime to listen. You are a victim of the Cellular telephone industry, who managed to cripple an entire radio industry because they didn't want to digitize and encrypt their analog cell phone systems, even though it was patently obvious that digital and encryption was going to happen anyway. Welcome to 2009, where it is still illegal to sell radios with certain frequencies, even though everything on those frequencies is gone or unlistenable, and where a new design of cell-phone is using frequencies outside the prohibited bands.
What "unregulated banks"? The ones not making the loans?
Notably, the investment banks that sell credit-default swaps are not covered by the CRA.
Right. The ones not making the loans in the first place aren't covered by the CRA. The ones making the loans were, and were forced into making them if they wanted good "community" numbers so they could open new branches and other things that were regulated under CRA.
If you prevent the unregulated banks from buying the bad loans, then the bad loans stay with the regulated banks and we still have the problem, just different banks.
It all goes back to Frank and others (including Obama) responding to "community activists" complaining that people who had no credit or bad credit and no income couldn't buy the same homes that those with good credit could. How unfair! When you legislate that poor credit risks get loans, too, you push the problem onto the banks, and have no reason to complain when the banks fail due to failed loans.
As for "predatory", well, nobody forces anyone to take a variable rate loan with a huge balloon. At least, nobody forced ME to take such a loan when I bought my house, even though it was offered to me. It really wasn't rocket science to know that I'd be facing a REALLY big payment I probably couldn't make when the balloon came due, even if I was paying more all along by having a higher interest rate. It really wasn't that hard to figure out.
Cyclic logic. Calling it a "private conversation" implies some belief of privacy, even when none should exist.
What about a "private conversation" held using bullhorns at a baseball game? It's private, so all those people listening must be breaking the law, huh?
Much better is to define "private" not based on stupid people's ignorance but on physics. A "conversation" carried via public airwaves shouldn't be considered private. That's where the cellular carries brainwashed everyone. A "conversation" carried over someone else's wires has some reasonable expectation of privacy, but it's still someone else's wires. If those wires go into another country where the rules are different, don't expect your side to stay private under US rules while the foreign part is open under foreign rules.
Privacy should only be assumed if you control the wires, or if you encrypt the message YOURSELF. To simply say "this is private, you can't listen" is silly.