By the time this gets to court, either or both houses of Congress will be controlled by Democrats. Which means that Congress can and will investigate this.
People who trust Democrats to uphold the constitution have a very short memory. I shouldn't even have to look up FDR, LBJ, etc.
For a more recent example, just take a look at this article.
They may be better than republicans (personally, I find the pissing contest of 'lesser of two evils' repulsive and therefore I don't vote), but democrats certainly can't be trusted with our liberty.
But this is the wrong audience to be dissing democrats. After all, Slashdot's full of former Dean-ocrats, even though his stance on civil liberties wasn't pretty.
>... and explain to me why I would buy anything > from this store rather than just download it > from somebody else for free?
Same reasons you'd buy a book, rather than scan one you borrowed from the library:
- You want a non-infringing copy. (You CAN still be sued for copying outside fair use, you know.)
- You want to reward the creator and distribution channel (either out of principle or to promote creation of more stuff you like).
- It's convenient.
I buy books because scanning them would be a pain in the ass.
I use allofmp3.com (legal theft) because it is higher fidelity, can be played anywhere, and is cheaper than itunes (in that order).
Do I care about artist compensation? A bit, but not enough to wait a week for an overpriced CD from Amazon.com. Unlike music thieves who kid themselves about moral duty to undermine the RIAA, and how they're not really stealing from artists because artists make practically nothing off each album, I steal music because it's a better way for me to get music.
Likewise, I purchase books because it's a better way for me to obtain literature. If I could snap my fingers and have any book I wanted (in 5 minutes or less), I probabably wouldn't buy any more books for the rest of my life.
There was a study released a few years ago entitled "global warming could raise temperatures 10C!" (if CO2 levels double from current levels).
The writers of the study entitled it this because that was the most 'interesting' scenario they modeled, the others (and there were many) weren't nearly as spectacular, some even showed a decrease in temperature.
Regardless of what the study showed, the writers only believe that global temperatures will only rise 1-3C in the next 50 years (which is how long it should take for CO2 levels to double, if the rate continues as it has in the past).
Even at 3C, the shorelines will not be significantly changed.
This is also all based on the assumption of CO2 levels doubling, which may not happen due to various reasons unrelated to man's self-moderation (or lack thereof).
The article also mentions (if this is the same piece of copy I read earlier about this research) that hurricanes and weather systems such as El Niño could be altered by the warming of the oceans. It's easily possible that such things could happen that would work in man's favor. For instance, a temperature increase will mean more fresh water worldwide as there will be much more rainfall. Also, plants tend to grow faster when CO2 levels, water, and heat are increased. There was an article in Nature Magazine about how crop yeilds could increase by as much as 40% from these effects.
Not that I'm pro-global warming or I don't think it exists. The only opinion I'm expressing is that climate change may not be as bad as advertised.
It does not specify the amount of damages being sought.
It'll be a drop in the bucket compared to something that would actually hurt AOL, lawyers will be able to buy more yaughts, and no 'victim' will actually get anything significant out of the deal.
Haven't we seen enough of these class action suits to know how it goes already?
[it's not 'wealth creation,] It's wealth movement.
Actually, it is wealth creation.
Yes, wealth moves, but it is also created. A tree is worth far less than the furnature that you could build with it. Sand is almost free, but silicon-based chips are worth several times their weight in gold. Gasoline is worth far more than the oil it took to manufacture it.
The point behind your statement is ultimately that someone has to be poor in order for another to be rich. As soon as people realize this is false, we may all start creating our own wealth.
Maybe "Installer.app" (OS X's.pkg reader) should have a message that pops up:
Note: Installing viruses on your machine will likely result in undesired results. If this is a virus, it may behoove you not to install it.
At the very least, until this is fixed, this is yet another reminder not to install things without knowing what they are.
I WANT packages to be able to do everything they need to do. The reason being that I'm not in the habit of installing viruses. Therefore, it's already 'fixed'. How idiot-proof do you have to make an OS?
I don't know who is more dangerous, the "Islamofascists" who are behind terrorism or the Neocons who are willing and able to give away all of our Constitutional rights and freedoms. The thing that gets me is that I cannot see an endgame to the Neocon strategy as it is based on a continued fear and principals of isolationism. What are they getting out of the deal by giving away our rights?
That's funny, I could've sworn the USA PATRIOT Act was approved by the senate 98 to 1, with the 98 being almost 50/50 democrats and republicans.
Didn't I hear Howard Dean give a speech on how we 'need' national ID cards?
I agree, everything is going to hell, but if you want to start fixing it, the first step is to strike the word 'neocon' from your statement, and replace it with 'republicrat'.
They make you angry, they take your liberty, and then they convince you that only half of them are at fault: that's the nature of the 2-party system.
My machine at work has some kind of hardware problem that was never quite solved while it was under applecare. it "panics" at least once a day, some days, it'll "panic" 5-10 times. Some things that set it off are scrolling in a terminal window (such as when I'm sync'ing portage on our server) or putting an audio CD in the lower optical drive.
Anyone who is buying a Mac just to run Windows is crazy. Why would you pay a premium for Apple hardware only to handicap it by running windows? The only advantages to running Windows is for getting access to programs that don't run on the Mac, other than I feel the user experience on the Mac far outways having to boot into Windows.
What premium? I was on newegg yesterday and I tried to build a 'stock' Mac Pro (5000x Intel Mobo [$530], 2.6ghz Woodcrest x 2 [$1,460], 1GB FB-DIMM [$180], 7600 GT [$70], 1KW PSU, DVD Burner, 250GB HD). The thing costs rougly what I paid for my stock Mac Pro ($2,300; $2,450 after taxes), and the case wasn't nearly as good.
And what about laptops? You can't even home-build one so you're at the mercy of Dell, HP, Compaq, and other companies' markups. Apple really shines in this area by making a higher quality product for roughly the same price or cheaper.
Some Apple products may be priced higher than their home-built or "PC" alternatives, but some aren't.
And did I mention that the resale value is much higher? If you're "upgrading" your mac, you can sell the old one to pay for some of the new one, thus effectively reducing the cost.
> wouldnt opposing a 'heavy hand of regulation' be the EXACT OPPOSITE of protecting people from certain types of internet content?
If private companies censure information, you can simply switch to another carrier (or so the story goes), if government censures information, you're screwed.
Of course, this is the internet, not a sandwich shop. There can be only one! AT&T charging for you to use google may only make them richer, as there may not be an alternative company to carry the data between points A and B.
I'm a libertarian so I'm torn on this issue. Regulation means that the internet has now had the dirty stench of government restriction placed upon it--a first step on a long journey towards government control. There's a little thing called 'precedence', and by showing that the government has enough control to regulate ISPs, you show that they have enough control to do anything else they want. However, companies charging for access to certain cites is also not good.
This is a bad move on everybody's part. I would hope that this net neutrality bill be put on the backburner until companies actually get serious about charging for certain cites. Hopefully, under threat of regulation, the companies will see the light and never enact such policies.
The short of it is: Don't go showing support for this willy-nilly. Government getting involved in the internet can and will lead to censorship, privacy invasion, and loss of liberty. Especially in the age of the PATRIOT Act, we should think twice before inviting the government into our house, even under innocuous pretences. As Jefferson said, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
> Yeah, because there was -no- javascript debugger for Safari until very recently. Don't blame Google, blame Apple.
I had to put a 'no safari' stamp on one of my web software solutions because I was unable to debug safari. Sometimes things wouldn't work and no error would be thrown. Finally, there's some description of the problem.
Nothing beats firefox though--most of the time you can click on a link in the debugger and it'll show you the problem in source.
Even 802.11b is still faster than the DSL or cable connections that these places use.
For downloading, maybe, however I find that there's much higher packet loss and ping while using wireless... it's not a big deal for web browsing, but gaming is pretty annoying.
The music industry doesn't steal, they 'get a cut'.
That friend of your uncle's is sure lucky. For 99.9% of artists, the only real option is to work for a record company which will promote you.
As a member of an 'independent' band, and having heard recent 'pop' music, I'd have to say that talent and technical proficiency mean nothing without either luck or promotion. Britney Spears sold probably 50 times more albums than Stevie Ray Vaughan, and he could play the 32nd notes on the guitar with his ass hair while giving a speech on general relativity. What's Britney's talent? Getting Pregnant? Hell, Steve could've done that of he'd wanted to!
Anyone with a kazoo can make an album which a few thousand people might buy, what makes a band popular is getting their name in kids' heads before that other guy with the kazoo.
I hope a record company does find my band. Yeah, I may only get a few hundred bucks but that's far more than we'll probably get without them. Plus I'd have fame, so I could finally be respected as a political pundit.
Anyone remember the name of the race? It'd be wonderfully nerdy if the CMU folks renamed their robot after these aliens. I also vaguely recall these aliens having sex by going around and around in a circle rolling continuously over a trail of slime.
You remember how they have sex but you can't remember their name?.. ?
Economics like this actually works. I was reading recently in Time or Newsweek that India is outsourcing some of the jobs that have been outsourced to them. Indian jobs are moving to China and Vietnam because the demand for workers in India has increased the wages there.
Horsepuckey! Any time workers make low wages, things end up getting worse! According to Anti-globalization economics, Americans have been making $12 an hour since 1830 and only NOW have the wages gone down due to EVIL CORPORATIONS.
Things never get better, anywhere, EVER! It's just a FACT! Just look at China: 40 years ago, Mao had a happening utopia going on and everyone got fed. Now people are forced to work for MONEY. Despicable.
If America had been cursed with child labor and an industrial revolution at some point, maybe we'd understand their plight. But noooo, all Americans think about are lower prices and being EVIL!
And we could tie the accelerator to Volume control, and the brake could be the Pause button. Oh, and we could have the engine make funny clicking noises to provide sensory feedback and we would be all set.
My '05 Malibu has a system to boost the volume at higher speeds. My girlfriend noticed that I drove much more sensibly with it off, and I noticed I got smacked in the face less while driving.
I think "Rock you like a hurricane" was playing when I got pulled over for doing 90 in a 45. The officer ticketted me at 60. I think he could tell my girlfriend (in the car with me at the time) was going to beat the holy hell out of me as soon as he pulled away.... and I don't even like that song!
Honestly, WHY do you think buying music on allofmp3 is different then pirating it? Why do you want to buy the music? I see two possibilities: 1. you want to thank the artist and give him some money 2. you feel guilty if you use eMule, so you go to allofmp3 and download the songs for a very cheap price. You know full well the artist is seeing NO compensation when you buy his stuff from allofmp3. If you still want his songs, just steal them yourself already, instead of hiring goons to do it for you.
Well, if I want new music I have to steal it due to my financial situation, and allofmp3.com is a legal way for me to do so.
That's right, it's theft AND it's legal. Is it wrong? Yes. Do I care? No. There's no justification in my mind for it--I want it, and there it is.
Truly yours, -An Allofmp3 user
Re:How would Cringely's model work?
on
Own the Last Mile
·
· Score: 1
A public broadband infrastructure would lower the barriers to entry in service.
With the obvious exception of AT&T, most telcos oppose wiretapping. With this infastructure being owned by the government already, there's not even that whole "liability barrier" to privacy invasion. Can't sue the government without the government's permission, remember? The Supreme Court decided that a long time ago.
That's not to mention how new infastructure is totally fouled up by government about 30% of the time. The "big dig" in Boston is a good example, not to mention the "Light Rail" debacle in Phoenix (& metro area).
You think your current service is unreliable? Imagine 5 years from now when all the new fibre needs to be replaced and the Government's already spent all the tax dollars set aside for it.
What about the pricing issue? Recently here in Phoenix, both Cox and Qwest started being available in many areas. I get a Megabit upstream and downstream for $35/month without a telephone or a television from Qwest. Cox sent me a letter a few days ago telling me I could get 6MBps down/512k up for $40/mo, $0 installation cost and a free cable modem with 90 days minimum agreement. Before very recently, Cox hadn't upgraded their service in literally years. Qwest had crappy deals on DSL and was mainly for people who didn't have internet in some areas.
When's the last time the price of water/sanitation went down?
And for God's sake, don't mention subsidies. "Prices will be lower if we subsidize!".. yeah, prices will be lower on the bill sent to your house, but your yearly bill from the government will be higher.
So, Apple investigates itself over something that isn't exactly illegal?
According to more reliable sources, Apple's using an independent firm to investigate the issue. I'm not clear on this incident, it could be that Apple's total expenses were marked higher or lower, it all depends.
At any rate, if the expenses were higher, then profits were lower and therefore Apple probably owes less taxes (but stockholders were mislead--thinking Apple was more profitable than it really was).
If the expenses were lower, Apple owes back-taxes because profits were higher. I doubt stockholders are going to pitch much of a fit over that.
It also could be that it was a foul-up in the paperwork, and the numbers are the same but were in the wrong fields... The TPS report was in the folder with the blue cover instead of the green, as stated in the memo.
In any event, this is boring stuff and the incident was probably insignificant (no Enrons here). It probably made the news because people see 'accounting error' nowadays and spew rancid turnips all over everything. Imagine an excell spreadsheet with a million fields on it. Do you really think tiny mistakes are all that uncommon?
There's a huge link* to obesity + under-stimulation in the brain and Alzheimer's.
If you don't want to get it, keeping fit and doing brain-stimulation exercises (like programming) may* help.
* please note that I used the word 'may' in regards to a 'link', before you reply
At the very least, they have proven that your IQ raises and lowers depending on how stimulating your life is... There is also a strong correlation between getting girls and not being obese, which is always nice.
Slashdot Mirror
By the time this gets to court, either or both houses of Congress will be controlled by Democrats. Which means that Congress can and will investigate this.
People who trust Democrats to uphold the constitution have a very short memory. I shouldn't even have to look up FDR, LBJ, etc.
For a more recent example, just take a look at this article.
They may be better than republicans (personally, I find the pissing contest of 'lesser of two evils' repulsive and therefore I don't vote), but democrats certainly can't be trusted with our liberty.
But this is the wrong audience to be dissing democrats. After all, Slashdot's full of former Dean-ocrats, even though his stance on civil liberties wasn't pretty.
>... and explain to me why I would buy anything
> from this store rather than just download it
> from somebody else for free?
Same reasons you'd buy a book, rather than scan one you borrowed from the library:
- You want a non-infringing copy. (You CAN still be sued for copying outside fair use, you know.)
- You want to reward the creator and distribution channel (either out of principle or to promote creation of more stuff you like).
- It's convenient.
I buy books because scanning them would be a pain in the ass.
I use allofmp3.com (legal theft) because it is higher fidelity, can be played anywhere, and is cheaper than itunes (in that order).
Do I care about artist compensation? A bit, but not enough to wait a week for an overpriced CD from Amazon.com. Unlike music thieves who kid themselves about moral duty to undermine the RIAA, and how they're not really stealing from artists because artists make practically nothing off each album, I steal music because it's a better way for me to get music.
Likewise, I purchase books because it's a better way for me to obtain literature. If I could snap my fingers and have any book I wanted (in 5 minutes or less), I probabably wouldn't buy any more books for the rest of my life.
Interesting BBC Radio segment
Source on Warmer = more Rainfall
There was a study released a few years ago entitled "global warming could raise temperatures 10C!" (if CO2 levels double from current levels).
The writers of the study entitled it this because that was the most 'interesting' scenario they modeled, the others (and there were many) weren't nearly as spectacular, some even showed a decrease in temperature.
Regardless of what the study showed, the writers only believe that global temperatures will only rise 1-3C in the next 50 years (which is how long it should take for CO2 levels to double, if the rate continues as it has in the past).
Even at 3C, the shorelines will not be significantly changed.
This is also all based on the assumption of CO2 levels doubling, which may not happen due to various reasons unrelated to man's self-moderation (or lack thereof).
The article also mentions (if this is the same piece of copy I read earlier about this research) that hurricanes and weather systems such as El Niño could be altered by the warming of the oceans. It's easily possible that such things could happen that would work in man's favor. For instance, a temperature increase will mean more fresh water worldwide as there will be much more rainfall. Also, plants tend to grow faster when CO2 levels, water, and heat are increased. There was an article in Nature Magazine about how crop yeilds could increase by as much as 40% from these effects.
Not that I'm pro-global warming or I don't think it exists. The only opinion I'm expressing is that climate change may not be as bad as advertised.
It does not specify the amount of damages being sought.
It'll be a drop in the bucket compared to something that would actually hurt AOL, lawyers will be able to buy more yaughts, and no 'victim' will actually get anything significant out of the deal.
Haven't we seen enough of these class action suits to know how it goes already?
[it's not 'wealth creation,] It's wealth movement.
Actually, it is wealth creation.
Yes, wealth moves, but it is also created. A tree is worth far less than the furnature that you could build with it. Sand is almost free, but silicon-based chips are worth several times their weight in gold. Gasoline is worth far more than the oil it took to manufacture it.
The point behind your statement is ultimately that someone has to be poor in order for another to be rich. As soon as people realize this is false, we may all start creating our own wealth.
Maybe "Installer.app" (OS X's .pkg reader) should have a message that pops up:
Note: Installing viruses on your machine will likely result in undesired results. If this is a virus, it may behoove you not to install it.
At the very least, until this is fixed, this is yet another reminder not to install things without knowing what they are.
I WANT packages to be able to do everything they need to do. The reason being that I'm not in the habit of installing viruses. Therefore, it's already 'fixed'. How idiot-proof do you have to make an OS?
I don't know who is more dangerous, the "Islamofascists" who are behind terrorism or the Neocons who are willing and able to give away all of our Constitutional rights and freedoms. The thing that gets me is that I cannot see an endgame to the Neocon strategy as it is based on a continued fear and principals of isolationism. What are they getting out of the deal by giving away our rights?
That's funny, I could've sworn the USA PATRIOT Act was approved by the senate 98 to 1, with the 98 being almost 50/50 democrats and republicans.
Didn't I hear Howard Dean give a speech on how we 'need' national ID cards?
I agree, everything is going to hell, but if you want to start fixing it, the first step is to strike the word 'neocon' from your statement, and replace it with 'republicrat'.
They make you angry, they take your liberty, and then they convince you that only half of them are at fault: that's the nature of the 2-party system.
Vote Libertarian.
My machine at work has some kind of hardware problem that was never quite solved while it was under applecare. it "panics" at least once a day, some days, it'll "panic" 5-10 times. Some things that set it off are scrolling in a terminal window (such as when I'm sync'ing portage on our server) or putting an audio CD in the lower optical drive.
http://www.memtestosx.org/
SCSI my ass.
Anyone who is buying a Mac just to run Windows is crazy. Why would you pay a premium for Apple hardware only to handicap it by running windows? The only advantages to running Windows is for getting access to programs that don't run on the Mac, other than I feel the user experience on the Mac far outways having to boot into Windows.
What premium? I was on newegg yesterday and I tried to build a 'stock' Mac Pro (5000x Intel Mobo [$530], 2.6ghz Woodcrest x 2 [$1,460], 1GB FB-DIMM [$180], 7600 GT [$70], 1KW PSU, DVD Burner, 250GB HD). The thing costs rougly what I paid for my stock Mac Pro ($2,300; $2,450 after taxes), and the case wasn't nearly as good.
And what about laptops? You can't even home-build one so you're at the mercy of Dell, HP, Compaq, and other companies' markups. Apple really shines in this area by making a higher quality product for roughly the same price or cheaper.
Some Apple products may be priced higher than their home-built or "PC" alternatives, but some aren't.
And did I mention that the resale value is much higher? If you're "upgrading" your mac, you can sell the old one to pay for some of the new one, thus effectively reducing the cost.
> wouldnt opposing a 'heavy hand of regulation' be the EXACT OPPOSITE of protecting people from certain types of internet content?
If private companies censure information, you can simply switch to another carrier (or so the story goes), if government censures information, you're screwed.
Of course, this is the internet, not a sandwich shop. There can be only one! AT&T charging for you to use google may only make them richer, as there may not be an alternative company to carry the data between points A and B.
I'm a libertarian so I'm torn on this issue. Regulation means that the internet has now had the dirty stench of government restriction placed upon it--a first step on a long journey towards government control. There's a little thing called 'precedence', and by showing that the government has enough control to regulate ISPs, you show that they have enough control to do anything else they want. However, companies charging for access to certain cites is also not good.
This is a bad move on everybody's part. I would hope that this net neutrality bill be put on the backburner until companies actually get serious about charging for certain cites. Hopefully, under threat of regulation, the companies will see the light and never enact such policies.
The short of it is: Don't go showing support for this willy-nilly. Government getting involved in the internet can and will lead to censorship, privacy invasion, and loss of liberty. Especially in the age of the PATRIOT Act, we should think twice before inviting the government into our house, even under innocuous pretences. As Jefferson said, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
> Yeah, because there was -no- javascript debugger for Safari until very recently. Don't blame Google, blame Apple.
I had to put a 'no safari' stamp on one of my web software solutions because I was unable to debug safari. Sometimes things wouldn't work and no error would be thrown. Finally, there's some description of the problem.
Nothing beats firefox though--most of the time you can click on a link in the debugger and it'll show you the problem in source.
Even 802.11b is still faster than the DSL or cable connections that these places use.
For downloading, maybe, however I find that there's much higher packet loss and ping while using wireless... it's not a big deal for web browsing, but gaming is pretty annoying.
Now how much does the music industry steal?
The music industry doesn't steal, they 'get a cut'.
That friend of your uncle's is sure lucky. For 99.9% of artists, the only real option is to work for a record company which will promote you.
As a member of an 'independent' band, and having heard recent 'pop' music, I'd have to say that talent and technical proficiency mean nothing without either luck or promotion. Britney Spears sold probably 50 times more albums than Stevie Ray Vaughan, and he could play the 32nd notes on the guitar with his ass hair while giving a speech on general relativity. What's Britney's talent? Getting Pregnant? Hell, Steve could've done that of he'd wanted to!
Anyone with a kazoo can make an album which a few thousand people might buy, what makes a band popular is getting their name in kids' heads before that other guy with the kazoo.
I hope a record company does find my band. Yeah, I may only get a few hundred bucks but that's far more than we'll probably get without them. Plus I'd have fame, so I could finally be respected as a political pundit.
Did they leave a slime trail too?
Anyone remember the name of the race? It'd be wonderfully nerdy if the CMU folks renamed their robot after these aliens. I also vaguely recall these aliens having sex by going around and around in a circle rolling continuously over a trail of slime.
You remember how they have sex but you can't remember their name?.. ?
Every time I think software can't get any more bloated, I wait a year or two and it doubles in size again.
It's true! No GUI has ever been as snappy as classic Mac OS!
Economics like this actually works. I was reading recently in Time or Newsweek that India is outsourcing some of the jobs that have been outsourced to them. Indian jobs are moving to China and Vietnam because the demand for workers in India has increased the wages there.
Horsepuckey! Any time workers make low wages, things end up getting worse! According to Anti-globalization economics, Americans have been making $12 an hour since 1830 and only NOW have the wages gone down due to EVIL CORPORATIONS.
Things never get better, anywhere, EVER! It's just a FACT! Just look at China: 40 years ago, Mao had a happening utopia going on and everyone got fed. Now people are forced to work for MONEY. Despicable.
If America had been cursed with child labor and an industrial revolution at some point, maybe we'd understand their plight. But noooo, all Americans think about are lower prices and being EVIL!
And we could tie the accelerator to Volume control, and the brake could be the Pause button. Oh, and we could have the engine make funny clicking noises to provide sensory feedback and we would be all set.
... and I don't even like that song!
My '05 Malibu has a system to boost the volume at higher speeds. My girlfriend noticed that I drove much more sensibly with it off, and I noticed I got smacked in the face less while driving.
I think "Rock you like a hurricane" was playing when I got pulled over for doing 90 in a 45. The officer ticketted me at 60. I think he could tell my girlfriend (in the car with me at the time) was going to beat the holy hell out of me as soon as he pulled away.
Honestly, WHY do you think buying music on allofmp3 is different then pirating it? Why do you want to buy the music? I see two possibilities: 1. you want to thank the artist and give him some money 2. you feel guilty if you use eMule, so you go to allofmp3 and download the songs for a very cheap price.
You know full well the artist is seeing NO compensation when you buy his stuff from allofmp3. If you still want his songs, just steal them yourself already, instead of hiring goons to do it for you.
Well, if I want new music I have to steal it due to my financial situation, and allofmp3.com is a legal way for me to do so.
That's right, it's theft AND it's legal. Is it wrong? Yes. Do I care? No. There's no justification in my mind for it--I want it, and there it is.
Truly yours,
-An Allofmp3 user
A public broadband infrastructure would lower the barriers to entry in service.
With the obvious exception of AT&T, most telcos oppose wiretapping. With this infastructure being owned by the government already, there's not even that whole "liability barrier" to privacy invasion. Can't sue the government without the government's permission, remember? The Supreme Court decided that a long time ago.
That's not to mention how new infastructure is totally fouled up by government about 30% of the time. The "big dig" in Boston is a good example, not to mention the "Light Rail" debacle in Phoenix (& metro area).
You think your current service is unreliable? Imagine 5 years from now when all the new fibre needs to be replaced and the Government's already spent all the tax dollars set aside for it.
What about the pricing issue? Recently here in Phoenix, both Cox and Qwest started being available in many areas. I get a Megabit upstream and downstream for $35/month without a telephone or a television from Qwest. Cox sent me a letter a few days ago telling me I could get 6MBps down/512k up for $40/mo, $0 installation cost and a free cable modem with 90 days minimum agreement. Before very recently, Cox hadn't upgraded their service in literally years. Qwest had crappy deals on DSL and was mainly for people who didn't have internet in some areas.
When's the last time the price of water/sanitation went down?
And for God's sake, don't mention subsidies. "Prices will be lower if we subsidize!".. yeah, prices will be lower on the bill sent to your house, but your yearly bill from the government will be higher.
So, Apple investigates itself over something that isn't exactly illegal?
According to more reliable sources, Apple's using an independent firm to investigate the issue. I'm not clear on this incident, it could be that Apple's total expenses were marked higher or lower, it all depends.
At any rate, if the expenses were higher, then profits were lower and therefore Apple probably owes less taxes (but stockholders were mislead--thinking Apple was more profitable than it really was).
If the expenses were lower, Apple owes back-taxes because profits were higher. I doubt stockholders are going to pitch much of a fit over that.
It also could be that it was a foul-up in the paperwork, and the numbers are the same but were in the wrong fields... The TPS report was in the folder with the blue cover instead of the green, as stated in the memo.
In any event, this is boring stuff and the incident was probably insignificant (no Enrons here). It probably made the news because people see 'accounting error' nowadays and spew rancid turnips all over everything. Imagine an excell spreadsheet with a million fields on it. Do you really think tiny mistakes are all that uncommon?
There's a huge link* to obesity + under-stimulation in the brain and Alzheimer's.
If you don't want to get it, keeping fit and doing brain-stimulation exercises (like programming) may* help.
* please note that I used the word 'may' in regards to a 'link', before you reply
At the very least, they have proven that your IQ raises and lowers depending on how stimulating your life is... There is also a strong correlation between getting girls and not being obese, which is always nice.
i have some ocean-front property in arizona......
If Al Gore is right, that could be possible in the near future.
Then again, he's been wrong before. Remember Manbearpig?
I agree that usually the truth is something that is widely removed from the public mindshare.
Welcome, fellow libertarian!