Dunno about Qwest, but SBC in the Monterrey CA area has been doing it for years.
I wouldn't deal with Qwest. Those are the folks who lied to me repeatedly just to get me to sign up. Their technical staff and sales people told me "static IPs are included in the monthly price". We even talked about using one of the free DNS services to map the static IP to a name (since Qwest didn't do that.) After installation, I was told "static IP is an extra cost feature, $16/month" and "we will not provide the service we told you we would provide to get you to sign up."
They can already do that. Right now they just need to give a lawyer his cut of a couple hundred bucks for the database on CD.
In other words, they must PAY MONEY to someone (who can later testify against them) for a CD and then figure out how to use it, instead of simply going to the library and using the free, anonymous web access therein. There is a concept of "degree of effort required" relevant to security, and making things trivially easy is not how one makes it difficult to accomplish an illegal goal. Locks don't prevent burglars, they just make it harder. Not handing the info out to every anonymous requestor doesn't prevent the problem, it makes it harder.
The answer to the hypothetical problem you mention is to make the database private, if that sort of thing becomes a problem.
It isn't a hypothetical problem. "Hypothetical" means "doesn't currently exist".
I can think of no significant reason any law abiding citizen needs a database of names and addresses of every owner of a vehicle in a state, and many reasons why that info should be kept out of the hands of criminals. Your "curiosity" over who happens to own the car you just saw driving by does not trump everyone else's right to privacy.
Oregon apparently agrees, because they've stopped selling the database, precisely because some idjit posted a website where criminals could identify not only people who weren't likely to be home (because their cars were somewhere else), but also precisely where to look for specific makes and models of high-value vehicles they could steal. "Hey, Bubba, Joe Smith just registered a 2005 Lexus at (some rural address). Let's go pick it up!"
License plate number lookup would actually be a very nice feature.
Yes, for criminals and other scum. It would make it trivial for them to drive around the long-term parking lots at airports to see who isn't at home, and then find out where "home" is. Or for road-rage morons to find out who cut them off in traffic and take it home to them.
No, they aren't. While permanent Restricted Airspace is shown on charts, there are many Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) areas that are NOT shown on the charts. They are created for temporary causes (Presidential visits, forest fires, etc.) and would wreak havoc on the publishing process if they were to be put on the next chart -- and would probably be gone by the time the next chart came out anyway.
The AOPA does, I believe, produce visual depictions of the TFRs, but these are NOT for navigation, only information. The official TFR is the written description.
The only requirement for pilots to update thir maps is anualy.
Incorrect. As you point out, aviation charts are published several times a year (every 56 days for some charts, 3 months I think for others). Each chart carries an expiration date after which it is illegal to use for navigation purposes, and pilots are required to have CURRENT charts applicable for the intended flight with them on board.
In my case, this requirement costs double, since I fly out of an airport that is on the border of two chart regions. If I fly north out of home base, I need one sectional, if I fly south I need the other.
And to the extent that his email was degraded, it was the intended recipients of his email(or their sysadmins) who did this.
His intended recipients didn't do anything. They aren't in a position to do anything about it, and probably don't know it is happening. The sysadmins don't know him from Adam. They certainly didn't do anything to shut him down. What they DID do was use a service with known overboard reactions.
In the big picture, it doesn't matter.
In the big picture, nothing really matters. If we are going to dismiss this stuff with this kind of response, we might as well be explicit about it: in the big picture, it doesn't matter if you exist or not. Fact of life. Live with it.
Of course, you are probably not happy seeing someone tell you that, and it didn't really solve anything, so you ought to understand that your telling someone else that problems that RBL causes them are 'a fact of life' that he has to 'learn to live with' isn't productive, either. The truth is, it isn't a fact of life, it's a result of over-zealous spam haters, and just as spammers ought not to be able to ruin the 'net experience' for anyone, neither should they.
The maintainers are often militant and, IMHO, too emotionally attached to the problem.
Once upon a time, I monitored the SMTP traffic on one of my systems very carefully. I wrote a special-purpose demon that pretended to be an SMTP server, which logged attempts at sending email, but still passed email to postmaster and from specific people (just like the RFCs say it must).
One day, I found a series of attempts at routing email through my server. A whole series of email with RCPT TO's that were off-site. I reported this to the abuse addresses that were responsible for the IP address that was the source.
Now, I expected one of two things to happen: they'd ignore the problem report, or I'd get a "thanks" for pointing out the problem. What I GOT was a cranky response from an anti-spammer telling me it was his GOD GIVEN RIGHT to hammer on my server in any way he saw fit, and a listing for the entire ORGANIZATION in one of the RBL-like listings as "uncooperative". All because I caught him testing my system and reported it.
Needless to say, I no longer bother reporting the routing attempts to anyone. If reporting spam relay tests gets me labelled a spammer and included in blocking lists, fuck it.
The real problem though isn't MAPS and their attitude, it's the spammers.
Hmmm. "The ends justify the means."
Define "real problem". If a partial, band-aid "solution" to "the real problem" causes problems for innocent bystanders, is it fair to say "the real problem" isn't the problem being caused by the solution? Spammers didn't shut down this guy's email communications, MAPS did.
At what level of ancillary damage do we switch from calling "the real problem" the spammers and start putting blame on the "solution"? I mean, if anti-spammers went around shooting people they thought were spamming, and they wound up shooting innocent people, I think we'd all agree that the anti-spam folks are a real problem. If the anti-spam folks did nothing but send complaint email to the spammers, we'd all agree that "the real problem" is still the spammers. At some point in that continuum, the "real problem" moves from one group to the other.
If you want less spam on the 'net, you're going to have to accept more regulation of the 'net.
This is not a case of "more regulation", this is a case of "amuck regulation". The fellow in this article follows the rules, obeys the "law"; he should not be "prosecuted" as a violator.
I think interference with businesses that are cooperating with "net rules" and trying to be good citizens is 1) a "real problem", and 2) counterproductive in the long run. How cooperative do you think the fellow in this article is going to be with anti-spam forces, considering how they've treated him so far?
Seems like the question really is, do you pay for trash pick-up because your local government does not do this?
Do you think you aren't paying for it if the city does it? You either pay the city, if they do it, or you pay a private company if they don't. Or you don't pay anyone and you spend your time lugging trash to the landfill where you will probably pay anyway. In any case, the question specifically was about why anyone would want a private company to pick up trash, and the answer is "because it's better than carrying it to the dump yourself."
Some people commenting say that they don't want their local government to roll-out Wi-Fi networks, even if they are insanely cheap. It occurs to me, that this war in iRaq is not something I wanted, in spite of my efforts to persuade our esteemed government to this fact. Instead, I have to pay anyway.
Unfortunately, "wi-fi networks" are not listed as a function of the government in our Constitution, while "common defense" and "foreign policy" are.
Now it is illegal for the local government to provide a Wi-Fi network?
Dunno about the laws where you live. You'd have to ask someone local. I do know that competing with private companies for private services isn't a job for the government. There is nothing inherrently "right of way" intensive about wireless networks.
And hey, if our local University couldn't continue providing Internet access to folks (in the days when ISPs weren't on every block) because it was "competition" (even though the state still DOES provide ISP services to some people), why should the state/city/etc be in the wireless business?
It's fascinating to read all the comments from people who think that the US is fascist for requiring some sort of ID before letting people in.
As a US citizen, I am expected to honor the border crossing requirements of all the countries I travel to, including planning ahead for those that require a visa. I'm expected to put up with the nonsense of an Australian customs inspector who wanted to fine me for bringing Australian-produced chocolate back into Australia after a two day side-trip to New Zealand. I'm expected to leave my passport with the train conductor when I travel cross-continent in Europe (can anyone else say "identity theft"?)
So now the US wants to have visitors here produce some ID to show they belong, just like all the countries I visit have demanded from me. "Its an insult to Canadians!" Oh, please. If you don't want to come here, stay home. And if you are a US citizen who travels out of country, get a passport. Problem solved.
It's not clear to my why anybody would want/need a private trash company.
Cause it's more convenient to have somebody come by once a week to pick up bags of trash from my driveway than for me to have to tote them to some landfill or dump them illegally in someone else's dumpster. I suppose you could say I don't technically need the private company, but they sure make life a lot easier (and cleaner).
I decided SciAm was too political several years ago and told my brother to stop giving me a gift subscription. They were good for a long time, and then took a turn to the left. The sign post was when they took a gratuitous political potshot in one of the small "current topics" articles -- a three paragraph article about a gas dynamics simulation compared the gas molecule's motion to the Bush administration.
That's when I started getting MIT Technology Review, but even that is moving more into politics.
So, I'm going through a major city airport. Metal detector goes off. "Take off your shoes". I tell them, no metal, it's a cheap pair with plastic eyelets, etc. "They have metal shanks." Hardly, I say. They cost $10. To prove to me they have metal shanks, they drag me over to the separate x-ray machine where they are x-raying shoes. "See", he points, "metal shank". "See", I point, those aren't my shoes -- they're a completely different style. Not even close.
So, I'm going through another major city airport. I've got photo film. The kind of thing they say "don't run through the x-ray machine." I carry it to the entrance of the metal detector and hand it through, expecting to get hand-inspection, like they tell me to ask for for photo film. "Oops", the moron says, "you've just exposed it, you might as well put it on the conveyor for the x-ray." "What?" is the only spur-of-the-moment response I can come up with to such patent stupidity. "Metal detectors expose film just like the x-ray" he says.
So, I drop off my checked bag at the CTX machine on the way to a one-day service call. I get to the hotel that night, I find they've dug deep into my bag, into a small toolkit, and removed a small lighter (which I carry to light the butane soldering iron I need for my work outdoors.) They left the butane soldering iron. The note says "you should carry-on the lighter." So, a small butane lighter might be used, in checked baggage, for some nefarious purpose, but if I carry it on it will be perfectly safe. And guess what you cannot actually carry-on anymore -- butane lighters!
Don't forget where the people the TSA hired came from. The same set of people that the private security services were hiring when we said the private security services weren't doing the job. And now they are civil servants instead of private contractors, they are even less likely to be fired for stupidity.
Coming back through the same big city airport. Fifteen TSA employees at the security checkpoint. Thirteen were reading books and magazines (or looking at the pretty pictures, more likely.) Two were in an animated debate over some certainly life shattering event.
No, what cable competition wrt this topic means is: fingerpointing.
"My network isn't working". Say that to the cable company, they'll say "call your ISP". Say that to the ISP they'll say "call the cable company".
This is the same thing that happened when MCI et. al. started competing with Ma Bell for long distance. I had problems making long distance calls that I knew were in the local office. Telco said "LD carrier problem." LD carrier said "telco problem". Try discussing errors in long distance billing with anyone. The telco says "call the LD provider". The LD provider says "talk to the telco." Oh, it's SO MUCH easier dealing with problems since deregulation, yes sirree!
They prohibit another cable company from laying cable.
Most franchises are non-exclusive. That means that another company could come in and put up their own cables. The main "prohibition" is one of economics. It costs a lot of money to put in cable infrastructure, and nobody profits when the subscriber base is cut in half (by having two companies serve the same number of people.)
They are non-exclusive precisely to prevent the possibility of lawsuits from big pocket large cable companies claiming that their right to compete was hindered. As it stands, the franchise authority (city, county, etc.) can simply say "hey, ABC cable company already has wired the town and signed up most of the customers, but YOU can certainly come in and try... if you want to follow the same rules they do."
However, if one was configured to work within FCC standards, paired with VOIP and a PBX this would be a godsend for a lot of companies and universities that have employees that are far-flung and travel a lot.
It already exists. It's called Nextel. Or pick any other cellular company name. The coverage is more than 30 miles from home, and costs less to use than maintaining ones own cellsites or radio repeaters.
My company has a campus with 5,000 employees served by a large number of desktop support technicians weilding pagers and cell phones. With devices like this, the technicians could call each other or anyone in the company over the radio waves for free instead of using cell phones.
Since the company pays, they can already call each other for free.
If you want your own company operated communications system, get GMRS or 800MHz or a regular business band license and run a repeater. Or use one of the MURS frequencies. They're license-free.
We are in the commercial space flight industry and would like to testify that at least one out of two of all the actual entrepreneurs involved in this industry has been inspired by Star Trek; and we are not only good at watching TV sci-fi , we are also good at writing checks, big checks.
So, that puts the number of "actual entrepreneurs" in the "space flight industry" somewhere between three and six, worldwide. Hmmm. How inspirational can something be if it only inspired three people, and only six people in the world do it anyway?
In the extreme, they can get together and buy the rights to Enterprise from Paramount and Gene's estate and put the show on themselves. But they'll still have the problem of finding people to watch it. They'll get a bump when the first few episodes come out, just from curious viewers who want to see if the show is any good, but if it isn't, they'll go away just like they have gone away already.
he is staying at home addicted to 3 hours of very good television.
If only. You'v forgotten Andromeda, Enterprise, Monk, and American HotRod. (How fortunate for the Friday viewer that Andromeda and Enterprise are getting so bad they aren't really worth watching.)
To say the Earth was warmer when the dinosaurs roamed, we don't need to know that the high was 97 degrees in what will become Los Angeles on January 19th, 2,619,847 BCE, and it rained 2 inches. Instead, we can look at the fosilized tropical plants and thus know it was warmer and wetter.
You can infer that it was warmer and wetter. But in any case, if you admit that the earth was warmer and wetter when dinosaurs wandered the planet, either explain how those dinosaurs caused their "global warming" at that time, or how we caused it for them. Or maybe neither was the cause and it was part of a normal cycle?
Yes, one model was wrong, therefore all future models should be completely ignored.
No, one model was dramatically wrong, so all further models from the same "reputable" scientists should be scrutinized carefully, not waved about as proof that we're destroying the planet.
These models are being compared to historical trends in the earth's climate,
You cannot compare predicted data to nothing. These models are talking about a few degrees, and you've already admitted that you don't know the "climate" better than that. ("Warmer and wetter" were your words.)
Or even more likely, a combination of natural and human factors.
Or most likely, given that it has happened many times before without our being here, it has nothing to do with us. Occam's razor.
But the point is that despite their tweaking they correctly predicted current weather phenomenon, while the other models didn't.
Every correct model "predicts" current weather. It isn't a prediction, it's training data. Of course, pick some bogus "other model" that cannot "predict" it's way out of a paper bag and it will still not predict its way out of a paper bag.
So yes, it does blow away your criticism of politically motivated "tweaking" invalidating the models.
What "political" motivation are you referring to? Not mine.
I won't say with assurance that it's either, but I'll note that the coldest days of January in Michigan are the few without clouds.
That's because AT NIGHT the clouds do not trap the heat that is radiating back from the surface of the earth and it radiates out. It's called "infrared", and the same clouds that bounce it back to the earth when it comes up from below bounce it back into space when it comes down from above.
And during the day, if it isn't very warm to begin with, not much water evaporates to create the clouds. You've got cause and effect reversed. You can observe this effect yourself. I've seen it. In upstate New York, I'd fly over the flat part of the state and you could easily see that the clouds were forming over the fields that were plowed (and thus darker, absorbing radiation, releasing water vapor). They didn't form over the unplowed fields. If the clouds were the cause, then explain how they plowed the earth below them.
It's clear you want to dismiss these results.
I "want" to dismiss results that are not based on real science. Don't you? The fact is I can dismiss them because they are more of the same hysterical prophecies we've had all along. They all start with the assumption that we are the fault and then magically prove that we are the problem.
That's fallacious reasoning. Fires existed before man, therefore man has started no fires?
We are talking about GLOBAL phenomena. The entire planet is "at risk". The entire North American continent was covered in ice (almost). I can throw ice cubes out into my backyard, does this mean I'm responsible for the next ice age? Or does it mean that man can CAUSE the next ice age? No. Not even when you point to one of the currently inactive NHL hockey rinks, which are more ice than I can make in a day.
Furthermore, the issue is not just "did man cause this", but "how do we stop it". As you point out, men can start fires. Making a law that men cannot start fires will not stop fires from happening. Making laws that men cannot emit more than X amount of CO2 isn't going to stop a climate change that has happened before.
The reason to suspect man is not because climate change is unique, because it isn't. The reason to suspect man is because the massive release of greenhouse gasses caused by industrialization is unique.
Lots of things are unique, but their uniqueness is no more cause to blame humans for something they didn't cause than carbon dioxide is. You might as well blame the Chinese and their unique wall. Or maybe it's caused by cell phones in movie theaters? Or it's that awful retroreflector that those damn astronauts left on the moon!
No, "unique" occurances are exactly what you dismiss when you are looking at phenomena that you know have happened before and might be happening again. What is COMMON is what you seek. Like "solar radiation increase".
Plenty of fires have been caused by lightning. When you see a field with a charred box of fireworks in the middle, suspecting human interaction instead of assuming lightning is prudent.
Well now, if only global climate patterns were as localized and well understood as your field with a box of burned up fireworks. If they were, we might be able to find that box, but since we KNOW that the earth had done this before (without our help) then the most reasonable explanation is that it is doing it again (without our help).
This study addresses exactly that criticism of yours, and it blows it away.
Hardly. Tweaked models are still tweaked models. They are still designed to show certain effects, no matter what data they get fed.
Temperature is temperature. One calorie from the sun is no different than any other calorie from the sun. Don't forget that this "greenhouse warming" is based on solar radiation just as much as the solar radiation variance warming is. And don't forget that this "greenhouse warming" causes cloud formation -- and the albedo of clouds is significantly less than that of the ground. Why does that matter (and why is it forgotten so easily)? Because white clouds reflect energy back out where the dark ground would absorb it.
And, of course, the capper to any "humans are causing the devastation of the planet" argument is that the same things happened (according to "reputable scientists") before humans got here. If we weren't here, we couldn't have caused it, and if it happened before when we didn't cause it, there is no reason to believe we are causing it now.
No, dear. Nothing that matched the "new better" model. The "new better" model was flat out wrong.
Species are suffering, the ice caps are melting, the glaciers have all but gone away. I guess none of that qualifies as a calamity in your book though.
Are you through putting words in my mouth?
The planet changes. Species adapt or die. Glaciers come and go. North America used to be covered in ice. Now it isn't. All of this happens with or without the human species on board. We're here for the ride, but we aren't captain of the boat. We don't get to decide where it goes.
We can whine about "calamity" all we like. We either adapt or die with the other species, but pretending we can bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon is simply typical human arrogance.
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I wouldn't deal with Qwest. Those are the folks who lied to me repeatedly just to get me to sign up. Their technical staff and sales people told me "static IPs are included in the monthly price". We even talked about using one of the free DNS services to map the static IP to a name (since Qwest didn't do that.) After installation, I was told "static IP is an extra cost feature, $16/month" and "we will not provide the service we told you we would provide to get you to sign up."
I'd call it fraud, myself.
Yes, of course I did.
They can already do that. Right now they just need to give a lawyer his cut of a couple hundred bucks for the database on CD.
In other words, they must PAY MONEY to someone (who can later testify against them) for a CD and then figure out how to use it, instead of simply going to the library and using the free, anonymous web access therein. There is a concept of "degree of effort required" relevant to security, and making things trivially easy is not how one makes it difficult to accomplish an illegal goal. Locks don't prevent burglars, they just make it harder. Not handing the info out to every anonymous requestor doesn't prevent the problem, it makes it harder.
The answer to the hypothetical problem you mention is to make the database private, if that sort of thing becomes a problem.
It isn't a hypothetical problem. "Hypothetical" means "doesn't currently exist".
I can think of no significant reason any law abiding citizen needs a database of names and addresses of every owner of a vehicle in a state, and many reasons why that info should be kept out of the hands of criminals. Your "curiosity" over who happens to own the car you just saw driving by does not trump everyone else's right to privacy.
Oregon apparently agrees, because they've stopped selling the database, precisely because some idjit posted a website where criminals could identify not only people who weren't likely to be home (because their cars were somewhere else), but also precisely where to look for specific makes and models of high-value vehicles they could steal. "Hey, Bubba, Joe Smith just registered a 2005 Lexus at (some rural address). Let's go pick it up!"
Yes, for criminals and other scum. It would make it trivial for them to drive around the long-term parking lots at airports to see who isn't at home, and then find out where "home" is. Or for road-rage morons to find out who cut them off in traffic and take it home to them.
No, they aren't. While permanent Restricted Airspace is shown on charts, there are many Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) areas that are NOT shown on the charts. They are created for temporary causes (Presidential visits, forest fires, etc.) and would wreak havoc on the publishing process if they were to be put on the next chart -- and would probably be gone by the time the next chart came out anyway.
The AOPA does, I believe, produce visual depictions of the TFRs, but these are NOT for navigation, only information. The official TFR is the written description.
The only requirement for pilots to update thir maps is anualy.
Incorrect. As you point out, aviation charts are published several times a year (every 56 days for some charts, 3 months I think for others). Each chart carries an expiration date after which it is illegal to use for navigation purposes, and pilots are required to have CURRENT charts applicable for the intended flight with them on board.
In my case, this requirement costs double, since I fly out of an airport that is on the border of two chart regions. If I fly north out of home base, I need one sectional, if I fly south I need the other.
His intended recipients didn't do anything. They aren't in a position to do anything about it, and probably don't know it is happening. The sysadmins don't know him from Adam. They certainly didn't do anything to shut him down. What they DID do was use a service with known overboard reactions.
In the big picture, it doesn't matter.
In the big picture, nothing really matters. If we are going to dismiss this stuff with this kind of response, we might as well be explicit about it: in the big picture, it doesn't matter if you exist or not. Fact of life. Live with it.
Of course, you are probably not happy seeing someone tell you that, and it didn't really solve anything, so you ought to understand that your telling someone else that problems that RBL causes them are 'a fact of life' that he has to 'learn to live with' isn't productive, either. The truth is, it isn't a fact of life, it's a result of over-zealous spam haters, and just as spammers ought not to be able to ruin the 'net experience' for anyone, neither should they.
I just sent you an email, but you probably knew that. I'm sure you got it...
Whose rules? If the ISP doesn't follow THEIR provider's "rules", it's their provider's responsibility (and authority) to act.
Who died and left MAPS in charge of everything?
Once upon a time, I monitored the SMTP traffic on one of my systems very carefully. I wrote a special-purpose demon that pretended to be an SMTP server, which logged attempts at sending email, but still passed email to postmaster and from specific people (just like the RFCs say it must).
One day, I found a series of attempts at routing email through my server. A whole series of email with RCPT TO's that were off-site. I reported this to the abuse addresses that were responsible for the IP address that was the source.
Now, I expected one of two things to happen: they'd ignore the problem report, or I'd get a "thanks" for pointing out the problem. What I GOT was a cranky response from an anti-spammer telling me it was his GOD GIVEN RIGHT to hammer on my server in any way he saw fit, and a listing for the entire ORGANIZATION in one of the RBL-like listings as "uncooperative". All because I caught him testing my system and reported it.
Needless to say, I no longer bother reporting the routing attempts to anyone. If reporting spam relay tests gets me labelled a spammer and included in blocking lists, fuck it.
Hmmm. "The ends justify the means."
Define "real problem". If a partial, band-aid "solution" to "the real problem" causes problems for innocent bystanders, is it fair to say "the real problem" isn't the problem being caused by the solution? Spammers didn't shut down this guy's email communications, MAPS did.
At what level of ancillary damage do we switch from calling "the real problem" the spammers and start putting blame on the "solution"? I mean, if anti-spammers went around shooting people they thought were spamming, and they wound up shooting innocent people, I think we'd all agree that the anti-spam folks are a real problem. If the anti-spam folks did nothing but send complaint email to the spammers, we'd all agree that "the real problem" is still the spammers. At some point in that continuum, the "real problem" moves from one group to the other.
If you want less spam on the 'net, you're going to have to accept more regulation of the 'net.
This is not a case of "more regulation", this is a case of "amuck regulation". The fellow in this article follows the rules, obeys the "law"; he should not be "prosecuted" as a violator.
I think interference with businesses that are cooperating with "net rules" and trying to be good citizens is 1) a "real problem", and 2) counterproductive in the long run. How cooperative do you think the fellow in this article is going to be with anti-spam forces, considering how they've treated him so far?
Do you think you aren't paying for it if the city does it? You either pay the city, if they do it, or you pay a private company if they don't. Or you don't pay anyone and you spend your time lugging trash to the landfill where you will probably pay anyway. In any case, the question specifically was about why anyone would want a private company to pick up trash, and the answer is "because it's better than carrying it to the dump yourself."
Some people commenting say that they don't want their local government to roll-out Wi-Fi networks, even if they are insanely cheap. It occurs to me, that this war in iRaq is not something I wanted, in spite of my efforts to persuade our esteemed government to this fact. Instead, I have to pay anyway.
Unfortunately, "wi-fi networks" are not listed as a function of the government in our Constitution, while "common defense" and "foreign policy" are.
Now it is illegal for the local government to provide a Wi-Fi network?
Dunno about the laws where you live. You'd have to ask someone local. I do know that competing with private companies for private services isn't a job for the government. There is nothing inherrently "right of way" intensive about wireless networks. And hey, if our local University couldn't continue providing Internet access to folks (in the days when ISPs weren't on every block) because it was "competition" (even though the state still DOES provide ISP services to some people), why should the state/city/etc be in the wireless business?
As a US citizen, I am expected to honor the border crossing requirements of all the countries I travel to, including planning ahead for those that require a visa. I'm expected to put up with the nonsense of an Australian customs inspector who wanted to fine me for bringing Australian-produced chocolate back into Australia after a two day side-trip to New Zealand. I'm expected to leave my passport with the train conductor when I travel cross-continent in Europe (can anyone else say "identity theft"?)
So now the US wants to have visitors here produce some ID to show they belong, just like all the countries I visit have demanded from me. "Its an insult to Canadians!" Oh, please. If you don't want to come here, stay home. And if you are a US citizen who travels out of country, get a passport. Problem solved.
Cause it's more convenient to have somebody come by once a week to pick up bags of trash from my driveway than for me to have to tote them to some landfill or dump them illegally in someone else's dumpster. I suppose you could say I don't technically need the private company, but they sure make life a lot easier (and cleaner).
That's when I started getting MIT Technology Review, but even that is moving more into politics.
I carry the card key to the computer rooms in my wallet. I like the look on people's faces when I wave my ass at the door and it unlocks.
So, I'm going through another major city airport. I've got photo film. The kind of thing they say "don't run through the x-ray machine." I carry it to the entrance of the metal detector and hand it through, expecting to get hand-inspection, like they tell me to ask for for photo film. "Oops", the moron says, "you've just exposed it, you might as well put it on the conveyor for the x-ray." "What?" is the only spur-of-the-moment response I can come up with to such patent stupidity. "Metal detectors expose film just like the x-ray" he says.
So, I drop off my checked bag at the CTX machine on the way to a one-day service call. I get to the hotel that night, I find they've dug deep into my bag, into a small toolkit, and removed a small lighter (which I carry to light the butane soldering iron I need for my work outdoors.) They left the butane soldering iron. The note says "you should carry-on the lighter." So, a small butane lighter might be used, in checked baggage, for some nefarious purpose, but if I carry it on it will be perfectly safe. And guess what you cannot actually carry-on anymore -- butane lighters!
Don't forget where the people the TSA hired came from. The same set of people that the private security services were hiring when we said the private security services weren't doing the job. And now they are civil servants instead of private contractors, they are even less likely to be fired for stupidity.
Coming back through the same big city airport. Fifteen TSA employees at the security checkpoint. Thirteen were reading books and magazines (or looking at the pretty pictures, more likely.) Two were in an animated debate over some certainly life shattering event.
No, what cable competition wrt this topic means is: fingerpointing.
"My network isn't working". Say that to the cable company, they'll say "call your ISP". Say that to the ISP they'll say "call the cable company".
This is the same thing that happened when MCI et. al. started competing with Ma Bell for long distance. I had problems making long distance calls that I knew were in the local office. Telco said "LD carrier problem." LD carrier said "telco problem". Try discussing errors in long distance billing with anyone. The telco says "call the LD provider". The LD provider says "talk to the telco." Oh, it's SO MUCH easier dealing with problems since deregulation, yes sirree!
Most franchises are non-exclusive. That means that another company could come in and put up their own cables. The main "prohibition" is one of economics. It costs a lot of money to put in cable infrastructure, and nobody profits when the subscriber base is cut in half (by having two companies serve the same number of people.)
They are non-exclusive precisely to prevent the possibility of lawsuits from big pocket large cable companies claiming that their right to compete was hindered. As it stands, the franchise authority (city, county, etc.) can simply say "hey, ABC cable company already has wired the town and signed up most of the customers, but YOU can certainly come in and try ... if you want to follow the same rules they do."
It already exists. It's called Nextel. Or pick any other cellular company name. The coverage is more than 30 miles from home, and costs less to use than maintaining ones own cellsites or radio repeaters.
My company has a campus with 5,000 employees served by a large number of desktop support technicians weilding pagers and cell phones. With devices like this, the technicians could call each other or anyone in the company over the radio waves for free instead of using cell phones.
Since the company pays, they can already call each other for free.
If you want your own company operated communications system, get GMRS or 800MHz or a regular business band license and run a repeater. Or use one of the MURS frequencies. They're license-free.
We are in the commercial space flight industry and would like to testify that at least one out of two of all the actual entrepreneurs involved in this industry has been inspired by Star Trek; and we are not only good at watching TV sci-fi , we are also good at writing checks, big checks.
So, that puts the number of "actual entrepreneurs" in the "space flight industry" somewhere between three and six, worldwide. Hmmm. How inspirational can something be if it only inspired three people, and only six people in the world do it anyway?
In the extreme, they can get together and buy the rights to Enterprise from Paramount and Gene's estate and put the show on themselves. But they'll still have the problem of finding people to watch it. They'll get a bump when the first few episodes come out, just from curious viewers who want to see if the show is any good, but if it isn't, they'll go away just like they have gone away already.
And around here, the local ad slots are taken by "Girls Gone Wild" ads, which makes watching Enterprise pretty much an 'R' rated adventure.
If only. You'v forgotten Andromeda, Enterprise, Monk, and American HotRod. (How fortunate for the Friday viewer that Andromeda and Enterprise are getting so bad they aren't really worth watching.)
You can infer that it was warmer and wetter. But in any case, if you admit that the earth was warmer and wetter when dinosaurs wandered the planet, either explain how those dinosaurs caused their "global warming" at that time, or how we caused it for them. Or maybe neither was the cause and it was part of a normal cycle?
Yes, one model was wrong, therefore all future models should be completely ignored.
No, one model was dramatically wrong, so all further models from the same "reputable" scientists should be scrutinized carefully, not waved about as proof that we're destroying the planet.
These models are being compared to historical trends in the earth's climate,
You cannot compare predicted data to nothing. These models are talking about a few degrees, and you've already admitted that you don't know the "climate" better than that. ("Warmer and wetter" were your words.)
Or even more likely, a combination of natural and human factors.
Or most likely, given that it has happened many times before without our being here, it has nothing to do with us. Occam's razor.
Every correct model "predicts" current weather. It isn't a prediction, it's training data. Of course, pick some bogus "other model" that cannot "predict" it's way out of a paper bag and it will still not predict its way out of a paper bag.
So yes, it does blow away your criticism of politically motivated "tweaking" invalidating the models.
What "political" motivation are you referring to? Not mine.
I won't say with assurance that it's either, but I'll note that the coldest days of January in Michigan are the few without clouds.
That's because AT NIGHT the clouds do not trap the heat that is radiating back from the surface of the earth and it radiates out. It's called "infrared", and the same clouds that bounce it back to the earth when it comes up from below bounce it back into space when it comes down from above.
And during the day, if it isn't very warm to begin with, not much water evaporates to create the clouds. You've got cause and effect reversed. You can observe this effect yourself. I've seen it. In upstate New York, I'd fly over the flat part of the state and you could easily see that the clouds were forming over the fields that were plowed (and thus darker, absorbing radiation, releasing water vapor). They didn't form over the unplowed fields. If the clouds were the cause, then explain how they plowed the earth below them.
It's clear you want to dismiss these results.
I "want" to dismiss results that are not based on real science. Don't you? The fact is I can dismiss them because they are more of the same hysterical prophecies we've had all along. They all start with the assumption that we are the fault and then magically prove that we are the problem.
That's fallacious reasoning. Fires existed before man, therefore man has started no fires?
We are talking about GLOBAL phenomena. The entire planet is "at risk". The entire North American continent was covered in ice (almost). I can throw ice cubes out into my backyard, does this mean I'm responsible for the next ice age? Or does it mean that man can CAUSE the next ice age? No. Not even when you point to one of the currently inactive NHL hockey rinks, which are more ice than I can make in a day.
Furthermore, the issue is not just "did man cause this", but "how do we stop it". As you point out, men can start fires. Making a law that men cannot start fires will not stop fires from happening. Making laws that men cannot emit more than X amount of CO2 isn't going to stop a climate change that has happened before.
The reason to suspect man is not because climate change is unique, because it isn't. The reason to suspect man is because the massive release of greenhouse gasses caused by industrialization is unique.
Lots of things are unique, but their uniqueness is no more cause to blame humans for something they didn't cause than carbon dioxide is. You might as well blame the Chinese and their unique wall. Or maybe it's caused by cell phones in movie theaters? Or it's that awful retroreflector that those damn astronauts left on the moon!
No, "unique" occurances are exactly what you dismiss when you are looking at phenomena that you know have happened before and might be happening again. What is COMMON is what you seek. Like "solar radiation increase".
Plenty of fires have been caused by lightning. When you see a field with a charred box of fireworks in the middle, suspecting human interaction instead of assuming lightning is prudent.
Well now, if only global climate patterns were as localized and well understood as your field with a box of burned up fireworks. If they were, we might be able to find that box, but since we KNOW that the earth had done this before (without our help) then the most reasonable explanation is that it is doing it again (without our help).
If you
Hardly. Tweaked models are still tweaked models. They are still designed to show certain effects, no matter what data they get fed.
Temperature is temperature. One calorie from the sun is no different than any other calorie from the sun. Don't forget that this "greenhouse warming" is based on solar radiation just as much as the solar radiation variance warming is. And don't forget that this "greenhouse warming" causes cloud formation -- and the albedo of clouds is significantly less than that of the ground. Why does that matter (and why is it forgotten so easily)? Because white clouds reflect energy back out where the dark ground would absorb it.
And, of course, the capper to any "humans are causing the devastation of the planet" argument is that the same things happened (according to "reputable scientists") before humans got here. If we weren't here, we couldn't have caused it, and if it happened before when we didn't cause it, there is no reason to believe we are causing it now.
No, dear. Nothing that matched the "new better" model. The "new better" model was flat out wrong.
Species are suffering, the ice caps are melting, the glaciers have all but gone away. I guess none of that qualifies as a calamity in your book though.
Are you through putting words in my mouth?
The planet changes. Species adapt or die. Glaciers come and go. North America used to be covered in ice. Now it isn't. All of this happens with or without the human species on board. We're here for the ride, but we aren't captain of the boat. We don't get to decide where it goes.
We can whine about "calamity" all we like. We either adapt or die with the other species, but pretending we can bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon is simply typical human arrogance.