In this day and age of increasingly biased reporting, it is nice to see that Slashdot continues to present an objective, fair, and balanced approach to covering the issues.
On the other hand... that doesn't mean they're wrong.
I'm sick and tired of people making stereotypical comments about aircraft hangars. These building have legitimate uses, such as storing aircraft, or for repairing an aircraft when it's raining outside. They were never intended for your "rave" parties and communications spectrum testing.
Fine. Can you give me another type of building that encloses a huge open space, is generally metallic (thus making a good RF shield), and is readily available? No? I didn't think so.
The term "stereotype" indicates that a single attribute is used to pigeonhole a person or thing by simply ignoring all other possible characteristics. In this case, there aren't many other options so my comment should hardly be taken as stereotypical.
I run a WRT54G V4 router using the Tomato firmware. Tomato is nice, because it gives you access to ALL the channels the device supports. So I could use 12, 13 and 14 if I was living in a country that allowed it. What's more useful to me is that I can set the output power from 1 to 242 mW (42 being the default.) I actually run mine at 20 mW, because I've discovered I still get excellent signal quality throughout the house, while making it very difficult to connect from the outside.
You disgust me.
The third world is not your backyard. Or should not be. Mexico would be better without Google's bribe money.
Uh, excuse me? a. I didn't call Mexico "third world", you did (although in terms of its standard of living it most certainly is) and b. I don't see you refuting my implicit claim of widespread official corruption in Mexico. What is your point?
Well, stringency (or otherwise) about spectrum use isn't really the point... being able to perform fair and unbiased testing of new equipment is. Whether they'd get that in Europe or anywhere else I can't say, but if Google is correct then they're not getting it here.
Riiiight. Because nobody who has had a picture taken holding a can of beer could possibly benefit from a higher education, or be a net positive for society.
I would say that it betrays a serious lack of judgement.
Specifically, everyone knows that American beers that come in cans are shit. If the prospective student can't even discern that, how can you expect them to perform in rigorous courses?
Point taken. Although, given the quantities of beer consumed at these things I'm not sure that even a student from Germany, say, would be capable of much discernment.
Where's the evidence that the UN is 'fundamentally corrupt'? You made the statement, so the onus is on you to back it up with facts.
Nonsense. I'm under no onus whatsoever. Besides, a minute or two with Google is sufficient to show anyone plenty of "evidence". The way the U.N. handled the Iraq oil-for-food program was stellar, by the way.
Furthermore, the reality is that any large group of people drawn from all walks of life with the express purpose of creating laws and acquiring power and influence will be corrupt. It's human nature... take a look at the United States Congress for a good example. Everyone thinks that significant corruption has existed there only in recent times, but in fact it goes back to the very early days.
People suck, and nothing will ever change that. I see no reason to believe that a multinational organization given oversight of the root servers won't run it badly. Are you trusting enough to think that the likes of China and Russia wouldn't use DNS to serve their own needs at the expense of everyone else? Would you like the Russian Business Network to have access to the roots? No? Then think this through very carefully.
The U.S. Federal Government has maintained a largely hands-off policy towards DNS, which is why so many countries hopped on the World Wide Web bandwagon in the first place. Now, if that's not something acceptable to your country, build an alternate Domain Name System that suits your purposes. The technology is readily available. What? You want to U.S. to keep paying for it, but you want to have everybody else run it? Oh, you want to be able to keep having reliable domain-based communication with the rest of the planet now that you've put all your economic eggs in the Internet basket? Really. Well, maybe you shouldn't have been so trusting, but you know what? That's not our problem. It's yours.
In any case, my original argument stands: in spite of your insulting rhetoric (and here's a hearty "fuck you too, arsehole".) You still haven't provided a good reason for the U.S. to cede authority over the root servers to anyone, much less the U.N., other than the aforementioned misguided sense of "fairness" which is easily discounted as irrelevant.
Remember this... we built the root servers, we own them (well, a U.S. corporation does), we allow everyone in the world to use them, and now you want to take them away from us. You're the one who wants something for nothing, wishes to take that which is not yours! Yet you accuse us of having a sense of entitlement. Buddy, you are some hypocrite, let me tell you. Not sure why I wasted the time typing this.
Another absolutely classic case of sour grapes. Grow up, and if you are really so bothered about this build out your own system and shut the fuck up.
Only within the Continental U.S., Hawaii and some U.S. territories. Let Google go offshore somewhere and set up a test facility. I doubt Mexico would care very much (probably just grease a few palms.)
I'm not Mexican but work here. It would be equally easy to grease the correct hands in gringoland so don't think you are in the land of perfect innocence!
Mexico is (by way of comparison to the U.S.) a corrupt hellhole. Well, at least our corruption is generally at higher levels of government. Palm greasing of local cops or city officials in the U.S. is a risky proposition. Unless you already know the people involved are receptive to your advances, any attempt could easily land you in hot water. And even if a given official appears to be interested in your offer, there's a good chance he'll turn you in as soon as you try to make good on it.
In Mexico it's, well... expected. More institutionalized. I can understand how things got that way. I mean, it's only a reaction to a justice system that long since stopped serving the needs of the people. Regardless, that's how it is in many parts of Mexico, and my point still stands. Google could set up a test facility there with a minimum of effort and expense.
It's hard to test these things without the FCC's help... you need to set up a scale model of TV station signals, and that requires an FCC license to do.
Only within the Continental U.S., Hawaii and some U.S. territories. Let Google go offshore somewhere and set up a test facility. I doubt Mexico would care very much (probably just grease a few palms.) Or just run their tests inside a giant shielded area... maybe an aircraft hangar.
Well, for myself I'm a Jewish Italian Mexican German Persian illegal alien engineer, who just happens to be rich and powerful and drives a taxi. So what does that do to your theory?
in a country that things gun ownership is a right.
Well... it is, until the Constitution is amended to make it otherwise. What you meant is, "in a country that thinks gun ownership should be a a right." Probably you should read more U.S. history to understand why that right exists: your country was responsible for that. You certainly seem up on our recent history though, I'll give you that, which should in itself give you pause to rethink your position. When governments finally go mad (as they always do, in the end) it's best for the people if they're not totally defenseless.
But in answer to your question, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with gambling: it's just one way among many to flush your money away. Personally, I prefer hookers... however, the difference in the U.S. (and, oddly enough, a number of Muslim countries) is that it's considered immoral, which means that various self-proclaimed guardians of the public need to "do something" about it.
Pisses me off... it's our money, we earned it, and if we want to give it away to a bunch of crooks it's our goddamned business.
But some people think they know better, and they have the power to back up their beliefs.
Why do people automatically assume the UN will fuck it up, when the UN has operated the international phone network competently for decades? Is it just this weird anti-UN propaganda that the people in the USA are subjected to?
The U.N. doesn't "operate" squat. They have oversight over the international standards body that specifies how the various national phone systems interact. That's about it.
The two situations are not comparable: it's hard to subvert a phone system the way DNS can be subverted. Phones either work... or they don't. There's no reason for the U.N. to have any real involvement in international telephony. The Domain Name System is an entirely different kettle of fish, and I'd say the probability of U.N. members screwing it up for some perceived political advantage approaches unity.
Furthermore, what I don't understand is why some Americans are so eager to hand over control of what has become critical infrastructure for us (and, I might most of the rest of the industrialized world including our allies) to a fundamentally corrupt organization like the United Nations.
DNS works, it works pretty well, and I've yet to find an overriding reason to change that, in spite of ICANN's essential incompetence. Better a group of fumblers running the show, than someone with the will and the ability to do real damage. Remember, the reason we're even discussing this is because control of DNS is power, power on a global scale. A lot of people want it, a lot of people will abuse it... and we'd ALL best acknowledge that fact. The only reason I've heard to date for the U.S. ceding authority over the root servers is that it's "unfair" that we have it. My attitude is... tough cookies. Life isn't fair, and frankly, I don't trust most of the rest of the world to do a better job than we have so far. Neither should you.
I see no reason to take the chance (and it would be a hell of a risk) to let any multinational organization take over the root servers. The only reason that China, Russia, Libya and other similarly-inclined entities haven't been able to bend DNS to their will is because we won't let them. Sure, they can fuck with the system within their borders all they want, but they can't screw with anyone else. Consequently, I think it would be a serious mistake to do anything precipitate: if it ain't broke don't fix it.
Obviously, stupid judges are a problem. A better, less dangerous approach would simply be to limit what the judiciary can do regarding domain name transfers to those domains registered to U.S. citizens. Congress would have to do that, I suppose, but that's what it might take. That's what treaties and diplomats are for.
Or is it this weird anti-US propaganda that people in other countries are subjected to?
Sometimes it's the goddamn cellular provider. Take Sprint, for example. At one point I had a Sanyo Katana on a Sprint account. Using the camera in the thing is painless: getting the damned pictures off was more complicated since the bloodsucking cell provider wanted a $15-$30/month "data plan" so that I could email my own pictures to myself. Fortunately I discovered MobileAction.com and bought myself a USB cable, and was able to grab images from the phone into my PC. Of course, Sprint has the firmware crippled so you can't download anything into the thing (other than phone book entries and I think schedules) unless you use their paid service. Want to dump a ringtone into your phone? Maybe use the phone for data storage? Copy some pictures into the phone so you can display them later? Forget it... Sprint wants more money. Not worth it.
If the phone providers actually let their customers use all cool features of the phones they sell, maybe this wouldn't be such an issue. I think a lot of people would use more of their phone's capabilities, they just don't want to pay their provider any more juice money.
It gets back to the three most basic human emotions: greed, fear... and greed.
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There are 16 intelligence agencies. [wikipedia.org] 16! How does the Director of National Intelligence [wikipedia.org] keep track of it all?
Probably another supercomputer.
This is the first time that the Legislature has done a takeaway of the rights of private-sector workers as part of the budget deal
... if there's one thing legislatures are good at it's stripping away rights.
Oh I don't know about that
In this day and age of increasingly biased reporting, it is nice to see that Slashdot continues to present an objective, fair, and balanced approach to covering the issues.
... that doesn't mean they're wrong.
On the other hand
stupid, check. easily offended, check. conclusion: you must be mexican.
Ha ha ha ha. Boy oh boy, did he ask for that one, wherever he comes from.
Rent the Superdome?
Hm. I hadn't thought of that.
It's not nifty to split authoritative and recursive, it's sane (security).
Why can't it be both?
I'm sick and tired of people making stereotypical comments about aircraft hangars. These building have legitimate uses, such as storing aircraft, or for repairing an aircraft when it's raining outside. They were never intended for your "rave" parties and communications spectrum testing.
Fine. Can you give me another type of building that encloses a huge open space, is generally metallic (thus making a good RF shield), and is readily available? No? I didn't think so.
The term "stereotype" indicates that a single attribute is used to pigeonhole a person or thing by simply ignoring all other possible characteristics. In this case, there aren't many other options so my comment should hardly be taken as stereotypical.
I run a WRT54G V4 router using the Tomato firmware. Tomato is nice, because it gives you access to ALL the channels the device supports. So I could use 12, 13 and 14 if I was living in a country that allowed it. What's more useful to me is that I can set the output power from 1 to 242 mW (42 being the default.) I actually run mine at 20 mW, because I've discovered I still get excellent signal quality throughout the house, while making it very difficult to connect from the outside.
You disgust me. The third world is not your backyard. Or should not be. Mexico would be better without Google's bribe money.
Uh, excuse me? a. I didn't call Mexico "third world", you did (although in terms of its standard of living it most certainly is) and b. I don't see you refuting my implicit claim of widespread official corruption in Mexico. What is your point?
Believe it or not, there are good safety reasons we can't just go and setup our own broadcast TV towers where ever we want.
Sure there are, and nobody's disputing that point. What is being disputed is the FCC's much-vaunted impartiality.
Well, stringency (or otherwise) about spectrum use isn't really the point ... being able to perform fair and unbiased testing of new equipment is. Whether they'd get that in Europe or anywhere else I can't say, but if Google is correct then they're not getting it here.
Riiiight. Because nobody who has had a picture taken holding a can of beer could possibly benefit from a higher education, or be a net positive for society.
I would say that it betrays a serious lack of judgement.
Specifically, everyone knows that American beers that come in cans are shit. If the prospective student can't even discern that, how can you expect them to perform in rigorous courses?
Point taken. Although, given the quantities of beer consumed at these things I'm not sure that even a student from Germany, say, would be capable of much discernment.
Where's the evidence that the UN is 'fundamentally corrupt'? You made the statement, so the onus is on you to back it up with facts.
... take a look at the United States Congress for a good example. Everyone thinks that significant corruption has existed there only in recent times, but in fact it goes back to the very early days.
... we built the root servers, we own them (well, a U.S. corporation does), we allow everyone in the world to use them, and now you want to take them away from us. You're the one who wants something for nothing, wishes to take that which is not yours! Yet you accuse us of having a sense of entitlement. Buddy, you are some hypocrite, let me tell you. Not sure why I wasted the time typing this.
Nonsense. I'm under no onus whatsoever. Besides, a minute or two with Google is sufficient to show anyone plenty of "evidence". The way the U.N. handled the Iraq oil-for-food program was stellar, by the way.
Furthermore, the reality is that any large group of people drawn from all walks of life with the express purpose of creating laws and acquiring power and influence will be corrupt. It's human nature
People suck, and nothing will ever change that. I see no reason to believe that a multinational organization given oversight of the root servers won't run it badly. Are you trusting enough to think that the likes of China and Russia wouldn't use DNS to serve their own needs at the expense of everyone else? Would you like the Russian Business Network to have access to the roots? No? Then think this through very carefully.
The U.S. Federal Government has maintained a largely hands-off policy towards DNS, which is why so many countries hopped on the World Wide Web bandwagon in the first place. Now, if that's not something acceptable to your country, build an alternate Domain Name System that suits your purposes. The technology is readily available. What? You want to U.S. to keep paying for it, but you want to have everybody else run it? Oh, you want to be able to keep having reliable domain-based communication with the rest of the planet now that you've put all your economic eggs in the Internet basket? Really. Well, maybe you shouldn't have been so trusting, but you know what? That's not our problem. It's yours.
In any case, my original argument stands: in spite of your insulting rhetoric (and here's a hearty "fuck you too, arsehole".) You still haven't provided a good reason for the U.S. to cede authority over the root servers to anyone, much less the U.N., other than the aforementioned misguided sense of "fairness" which is easily discounted as irrelevant.
Remember this
Another absolutely classic case of sour grapes. Grow up, and if you are really so bothered about this build out your own system and shut the fuck up.
Sorry if this sounds like trolling, but I'm really fed up with this Yankee attitude that the only just and right country in the world is yours.
Sorry if I just sound irritated, but I'm damned tired of people that take my worlds and fucking generalize them beyond any reasonable stretch.
Stick to the point.
Only within the Continental U.S., Hawaii and some U.S. territories. Let Google go offshore somewhere and set up a test facility. I doubt Mexico would care very much (probably just grease a few palms.)
I'm not Mexican but work here. It would be equally easy to grease the correct hands in gringoland so don't think you are in the land of perfect innocence!
Mexico is (by way of comparison to the U.S.) a corrupt hellhole. Well, at least our corruption is generally at higher levels of government. Palm greasing of local cops or city officials in the U.S. is a risky proposition. Unless you already know the people involved are receptive to your advances, any attempt could easily land you in hot water. And even if a given official appears to be interested in your offer, there's a good chance he'll turn you in as soon as you try to make good on it.
... expected. More institutionalized. I can understand how things got that way. I mean, it's only a reaction to a justice system that long since stopped serving the needs of the people. Regardless, that's how it is in many parts of Mexico, and my point still stands. Google could set up a test facility there with a minimum of effort and expense.
In Mexico it's, well
the real reason that Open Source is different in Europe is that they don't have a SCO.
It's hard to test these things without the FCC's help... you need to set up a scale model of TV station signals, and that requires an FCC license to do.
Only within the Continental U.S., Hawaii and some U.S. territories. Let Google go offshore somewhere and set up a test facility. I doubt Mexico would care very much (probably just grease a few palms.) Or just run their tests inside a giant shielded area ... maybe an aircraft hangar.
Heh. Gotta love the dialogue in the article, though -- one line:
Sounds like the narration of one of those horrible 80s space pornos.
Can you say, "Space: 1999"?
Well, for myself I'm a Jewish Italian Mexican German Persian illegal alien engineer, who just happens to be rich and powerful and drives a taxi. So what does that do to your theory?
"unadulterated gambling"? Personally, I'm having a hard time figuring out how gambling with underaged girls caused the financial crisis.
in a country that things gun ownership is a right.
... it is, until the Constitution is amended to make it otherwise. What you meant is, "in a country that thinks gun ownership should be a a right." Probably you should read more U.S. history to understand why that right exists: your country was responsible for that. You certainly seem up on our recent history though, I'll give you that, which should in itself give you pause to rethink your position. When governments finally go mad (as they always do, in the end) it's best for the people if they're not totally defenseless.
... however, the difference in the U.S. (and, oddly enough, a number of Muslim countries) is that it's considered immoral, which means that various self-proclaimed guardians of the public need to "do something" about it.
... it's our money, we earned it, and if we want to give it away to a bunch of crooks it's our goddamned business.
Well
But in answer to your question, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with gambling: it's just one way among many to flush your money away. Personally, I prefer hookers
Pisses me off
But some people think they know better, and they have the power to back up their beliefs.
Why do people automatically assume the UN will fuck it up, when the UN has operated the international phone network competently for decades? Is it just this weird anti-UN propaganda that the people in the USA are subjected to?
... or they don't. There's no reason for the U.N. to have any real involvement in international telephony. The Domain Name System is an entirely different kettle of fish, and I'd say the probability of U.N. members screwing it up for some perceived political advantage approaches unity.
... and we'd ALL best acknowledge that fact. The only reason I've heard to date for the U.S. ceding authority over the root servers is that it's "unfair" that we have it. My attitude is ... tough cookies. Life isn't fair, and frankly, I don't trust most of the rest of the world to do a better job than we have so far. Neither should you.
The U.N. doesn't "operate" squat. They have oversight over the international standards body that specifies how the various national phone systems interact. That's about it.
The two situations are not comparable: it's hard to subvert a phone system the way DNS can be subverted. Phones either work
Furthermore, what I don't understand is why some Americans are so eager to hand over control of what has become critical infrastructure for us (and, I might most of the rest of the industrialized world including our allies) to a fundamentally corrupt organization like the United Nations.
DNS works, it works pretty well, and I've yet to find an overriding reason to change that, in spite of ICANN's essential incompetence. Better a group of fumblers running the show, than someone with the will and the ability to do real damage. Remember, the reason we're even discussing this is because control of DNS is power, power on a global scale. A lot of people want it, a lot of people will abuse it
I see no reason to take the chance (and it would be a hell of a risk) to let any multinational organization take over the root servers. The only reason that China, Russia, Libya and other similarly-inclined entities haven't been able to bend DNS to their will is because we won't let them. Sure, they can fuck with the system within their borders all they want, but they can't screw with anyone else. Consequently, I think it would be a serious mistake to do anything precipitate: if it ain't broke don't fix it.
Obviously, stupid judges are a problem. A better, less dangerous approach would simply be to limit what the judiciary can do regarding domain name transfers to those domains registered to U.S. citizens. Congress would have to do that, I suppose, but that's what it might take. That's what treaties and diplomats are for.
Or is it this weird anti-US propaganda that people in other countries are subjected to?
Hysterical. Entirely typical ... but still hysterical.
Sometimes it's the goddamn cellular provider. Take Sprint, for example. At one point I had a Sanyo Katana on a Sprint account. Using the camera in the thing is painless: getting the damned pictures off was more complicated since the bloodsucking cell provider wanted a $15-$30/month "data plan" so that I could email my own pictures to myself. Fortunately I discovered MobileAction.com and bought myself a USB cable, and was able to grab images from the phone into my PC. Of course, Sprint has the firmware crippled so you can't download anything into the thing (other than phone book entries and I think schedules) unless you use their paid service. Want to dump a ringtone into your phone? Maybe use the phone for data storage? Copy some pictures into the phone so you can display them later? Forget it ... Sprint wants more money. Not worth it.
... and greed.
If the phone providers actually let their customers use all cool features of the phones they sell, maybe this wouldn't be such an issue. I think a lot of people would use more of their phone's capabilities, they just don't want to pay their provider any more juice money.
It gets back to the three most basic human emotions: greed, fear
You sound like you've had a long drive home. How about posting in the relevant forum next time, m'kay?
I dunno ... it was a pretty damn good rant.