If they are global, what is your reasoning to giving priority to your country?
They aren't global, have never been global, and will never be "global", not in any absolute sense. How can it be? That's the huge fallacy which pervades this entire issue, and all this high-minded talk about "ethics" just gets in the way of an honest discussion of what's really happening here. It's very simple: the have-nots have decided that they want to be haves, and the existing haves are rolling over and giving them whatever they want. Furthermore, the have-nots are NOT playing by the same rules, are not using anything resembling the same "ethics" as the haves. It's past time that we realize that and start behaving accordingly.
What you have here (what you have always had here) are a number of competing nation-states, no more and no less. Some of those states are staking a claim upon the assets of their more-successful competitors in the name of "globalism". Face facts: globalism and free-trade are nothing but legalized mechanisms for transferring wealth and technological capability from wealthy nations to developing ones. Period, end-of-statement.
Is that a good thing for those developing countries? Possibly... there's no question that the movement of financial and intellectual assets from the U.S. to India and China has offered substantial short-term benefits to those countries. Longer term, it's hard to say. China's environmental problems aren't going to go away overnight, and that's causing a lot of suffering over there. Conversely, the Global Economy (in reality, "lowering of trade barriers") has been nothing short of an unmitigated economic disaster for the United States.
Rob Peter to pay Paul. Great deal for anyone named Paul.
companies very often took great care of their employees - now, we have to look out for ourselves.
They took care of their workers because they needed them.. Now they don't, or think they don't. When the Great Collapse of 2017 comes, I think that will become apparent. Not that the treasonous fucks who sold our manufacturing base to China for a song will suffer one little bit.
However, that's not the same as our competition being unethical.
-1 Missed Point. Nobody here is saying that the Indian outsourcing firm is being unethical (well, maybe they are but that's not what we're talking about.) The question is: is it ethical for the firm who needs those services to outsource them at the expense of their existing domestic workforce?
yes there is a decent argument that flattening things totally might do more harm than good but you can't say with a straight face that wasting such an incredible number of working human minds can be good for the economy.
"Intelligence has much less practical application than you might think" - Scott Adams
"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value." - Arthur C. Clarke
Intelligence, indeed, human lives are cheap, on the global scale. That's the way it's been for a long, long time.
I wouldn't worry even a little for the economy if the top few percent of humanity didn't get to have swimming pools so that the bottom billion could perhaps not have to spend their time worrying about starving or trying to figure out how best to pick grains of rice from passing trucks off the road before the other scavengers do and instead use those working human minds to build things, understand things and make things
Your Robin Hood ideals sound nice, but in reality it's not the physical possessions of the rich that make a damn bit of difference, it's their control of a nation's wealth and what they choose to do with it. That's what matters. The societal effect of one's ethics grows exponentially as one acquires wealth and power, so I don't give a God DAMN if some rich industrialist has a swimming pool. It's how he uses his wealth that matters.
. To my way of thinking, selling out your fellow citizens to make a buck is unethical.
Citizens of what? The nation? The planet? To my thinking, valuing one person above another just based on where they were born is unethical.
Citizens of my country, of course. Do I wish the people of any other country ill? No. Will I go out of my way to hurt them? No. Will I go out of my way to prevent them from hurting me, and those important to me? Yes, I will... and they, should they have any sense of ethics at all, will behave exactly the same way. Keep firmly in mind that, while you may feel that nationalism is unethical, they don't!
The truth is that one may have high ideals, but those ideals had better track with reality or human suffering will result. The problem with many of my fellow Americans is that they are utterly complacent and exhibit misguided compassion. They haven't had to suffer in the same way that people of most other countries have, truly do not realize that America is vulnerable and is not above economic ruin. When the total collapse of the United States finally occurs, well, they'll have only themselves to blame. We seem to have lost the will to compete on any serious industrial scale, and that's frightening. I hope you live here in the U.S., and I hope you have a nice lifestyle: maybe you'll appreciate your ethics more when you're on the street hoping for a handout.
So, do I blame the people of China or India or any other developing nation for wanting a better life? No... but nor do I see that as a reason for me and mine to give up what generations of our forefathers built for us.
As chance would have it, Randy Cohen has been removed from the NYT magazine as of yesterday. A new writer will take over The Ethicist in March. Your wish, granted, to some degree or another.
Yes, but the problem is, as always, that one should be careful what one wishes for. Hopefully his replacement will have a better grasp of reality.
So it's not ethical because it inconveniences people near you?
I don't think you're really taking about ethics. You're talking about the position that's most advantageous to take. But that wasn't the question that was asked.
You're attempting to minimize the impact. Losing one's job is not an "inconvenience". Losing one's home is not an inconvenience. Being unable to save for one's retirement is not an inconvenience. Not being able afford health care is not an inconvenience. These are real problems, being faced every day be real people as a consequence of the actions taken by our corporate leadership (and I use the term loosely.) Yes, other countries have made out like bandits... but is that okay? I would like one person to explain to me why outsourcing jobs and shipping our hard-earned technical knowledge and manufacturing capability overseas has done us any good at all.
If you support those actions, you have an ethical problem. If you believe that contributing to the damage being done to your fellow citizens to be acceptable so long as people of another country have benefited to some degree, then you have an ethical problem. You can't get away from this by just describing it as an "inconvenience": by trying to do so you're exhibiting yet another ethical problem.
Perhaps because he feels that "his country" is superior to all others and so helping a different ones economy is helping something inferior.
This is also known as Nationalism or Tribalism. I would be interested in hearing a different possible reason.
That's an obnoxious and, I might add, ignorant comment. Given the trillions of dollars the United States has given away in foreign aid, I think it's unkind of you to expect that we should give away our jobs as well. This works both ways you know, or it doesn't work at all. You self-centered pricks who feel you're entitled to a share of whatever wealth America has left don't seem to be very willing to even consider the damage you are doing to us in the process. "Give your jobs, give us your money, or we'll call you names and stuff." Consequently I discount your argument as one-sided and arrogant.
Yes, that is Nationalism. And you know what? The only people that I see who are concerned about that are either a. misguided Westerners, liberal types who think that everyone should be made equal no matter what the cost, or b. people from other, less economically successful "tribes" who are using that standard to justify their own actions. In the end, it all comes down to one thing: some people have stuff that other people want, and they'll try and take it any way they can. You believe that I, as a member of a successful tribe, have no right to take any steps to prevent that. I disagree.
Look, national boundaries exist because different people from different places are different. They don't want to be bound by the same rules, have to live the same way, have to share what they've made for themselves with people who had no hand in creating it. Call it what you want, but the human race is too divisive, too fractious, to eliminate those boundaries. Einstein once said that nationalism is the measles of Mankind. Smart as he was, he was wrong. Just as you are wrong. Maybe at some point in far distant future that will change, but I doubt it.
The one who feels he is "superior" here is you: you think that there's been some fundamental change in the nature of Man that would permit a Utopian, borderless society to exist. I, on the other hand, know that I am but a tiny part of that tribe currently known as "American", and I also know that the humanity hasn't changed much in the past few thousand years. We're just as dangerous, self-serving, self-destructive a species as we've always been, only more so.
Of course it's not "ethical", but that's not the point. It's legal, and that's all that matters.
Are you saying that all one should consider, in general, is what's legal rather than ethical?
Or are just just saying that in this particular case?
I'm saying neither. I am saying that, as a practical matter, all that many corporations consider are the legal implications of their activities, thereby leaving the determination of what is "ethical", of what is right or wrong, to our politicians. And that scares me.
Then of course you can explain your reasoning? I fail to see what is unethical about it. "I don't agree" != "unethical".
I don't understand... are you claiming that there is some absolute standard of ethical behavior, and that your beliefs comply with that and mine do not? Please. Ethics vary from person to person, place to place, culture to culture. To my way of thinking, selling out your fellow citizens to make a buck is unethical. Many people would agree with me there. You obviously don't. And that's your right... but one standard that does persist in most civilized (and many not so civilized) societies is that you take care of your own. Because if you don't, you will eventually discover that there will be nobody left to take care of you.
Well, sure. It's like overbilling in general. Some number of customers won't notice it, some number will notice but won't care... and some number will call up and bitch. You can avoid legal trouble, often for years if not indefinitely, by keeping the squeaky wheels happy. Throw them a couple of freebies after they finish shouting at the CSR (so they can walk away smirking and feeling smug about how they showed 'em!) and then pocket the extra millions from the other sheep. As a business model, it actually does work, as sleazy, amoral and unethical as it may be.
Unless they've been sniffing all frequencies on which the iPhone can exchange data, how can they be sure there haven't been any data transfers? That is why I wouldn't even consider a data plan with per-volume pricing. To all you metered internet fans who fear that unlimited plans will result in congested networks: THIS is what metered internet gets you.
Yes, and it's precisely what the carriers want so they can extend their long-term policies of nickel and diming their customers to death into the data world.
The cellular market is a classic example of why many industries are incapable of policing themselves, why laissez faire doesn't work, and why we still need the institution of government. Or would, if it were actually serving the interests of We the People as much as it used to.
A year later, they sent me to collections for $150 for breach of contract. AT&T sent me to collections for a contract I never even signed. It took another two hours and 6 call transfers to clear this up.
Do you think I *ever* want to do business with AT&T?
Ha... I wouldn't. That's why I have an Android device on T-Mobile. Yes, I know that T-Mobile is Deutsche-Telekom in disguise, but frankly they've given me better service that AT&T or Sprint ever did. I had U.S. Cellular for a while, but so far I've managed to avoid Verizon.
Just out of curiosity, did they report you to the credit bureaus? You might want to check that.
We've experienced this with the iPhone 4. I've had the second generation iPhone which is the primary phone and the iPhone 4 which is on WiFi on all days except on the weekend. iPhone 2 with unlimited data plan didn't go over 200 Mb per month for two and a half years but the iPhone 4 transferred 65 Mb **when the phone was on WiFi**. And the data transfers were at odd hours. And this was with the phone on it's default settings, no apps and all notifications turned off. Sure enough we talked to AT&T about this who just told us to complain to Apple. We went ahead and filed a complaint with FCC.
Yah. Think I'll stick with my G2 and Cyanogenmod. This is one case where two large, historically untrustworthy corporations and a closed source operating system do not a happy mix make.
Buuuuut, you don't have to pay for that ARP traffic, do you?
Still, the question is valid. What is considered chargeable data? I mean, if I ping-flood your ass... or just send a bunch of garbage data to your phone's IP, is that going to run up your bill? Do all the myriad port scanners to which were all continually subject count?
One, the mirrors do not have to be on a dish-shaped thing; they just all have to have the correct angle at each position as if it were on a dish shaped thing.
It's about ten degrees Fahrenheit outdoors today, and as I was driving home (at about two miles per hour, traffic sucked) I passed by a trio of large office buildings, set in a semicircle. I felt a wave of heat, and it got very bright in the car. I looked over at the buildings, and saw the evening Sun reflected in a substantial number of windows. Fortunately it wasn't enough energy to do more than warm me up a little, but it was still a bit unnerving at that distance (several hundred feet, at least.) I have to wonder if architects concern themselves with where the reflected light from their creations ends up.
The whole point of the death ray is to be able to adjust the focus point.
It needs adaptive optics, like the mirrors they use on orbiting observation satellites. Let a radar and some software adjust the mirror to cook anything that comes into range. Of course, you'd have to fall back to Plan "B" on those cloudy afternoons.
$30/mo for 5GB data and $0.25/mb after with a $200 cap, or $3/day (~$90/mo) for all you can eat data.
By way of comparison, my T-Mobile plan gives me 5 Gb for $25/month, with no charge for going over (that's on HSUPA). After that first 5 Gb, they throttle the connection somewhat (back around 3G speeds) but I never have to worry about any overage charges, or suddenly not having a data connection. They have other plans, I understand, but that's the one that works best for me. I also get free voice and data roaming in the U.S., so I really couldn't care less about pretty colored floating maps. I track my usage and I rarely use more than a gig a month so odds are I'll never hit the cap anyway (I have better things to do that watch Youtube all day, although I do tether my laptop to it on occasion. Yes, T-Mobile allows that.) Your mileage may vary.
It would be very difficult for any bunch of lawyers to try and sue T-Mobile in the same way they're trying to nail AT&T. The real problem here is that AT&T is trying to maximize profit by nickel-and-diming its customers in much the same way as early ISPs used to do: I mean, come on... per kilobyte charges in the 21st century? What is this, a joke? I think T-Mobile is handling this in a much better way than AT&T. You seem to have a substantial budget for cellular usage, but most people don't. What they want is predictability in their billing, what they absolutely do not want are surprises. I know I don't, and that's why I like T-Mobile's approach.
Just for grins, I benchmarked my HTC Vision (i.e. T-Mobile G2) by USB tethering to a laptop and running broadbandreports.com's speed test. I get about 7 mbit/sec in the couple of places I've tested, although supposedly the service goes to 14 mbits/sec. I can live with that.
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If they are global, what is your reasoning to giving priority to your country?
They aren't global, have never been global, and will never be "global", not in any absolute sense. How can it be? That's the huge fallacy which pervades this entire issue, and all this high-minded talk about "ethics" just gets in the way of an honest discussion of what's really happening here. It's very simple: the have-nots have decided that they want to be haves, and the existing haves are rolling over and giving them whatever they want. Furthermore, the have-nots are NOT playing by the same rules, are not using anything resembling the same "ethics" as the haves. It's past time that we realize that and start behaving accordingly.
... there's no question that the movement of financial and intellectual assets from the U.S. to India and China has offered substantial short-term benefits to those countries. Longer term, it's hard to say. China's environmental problems aren't going to go away overnight, and that's causing a lot of suffering over there. Conversely, the Global Economy (in reality, "lowering of trade barriers") has been nothing short of an unmitigated economic disaster for the United States.
What you have here (what you have always had here) are a number of competing nation-states, no more and no less. Some of those states are staking a claim upon the assets of their more-successful competitors in the name of "globalism". Face facts: globalism and free-trade are nothing but legalized mechanisms for transferring wealth and technological capability from wealthy nations to developing ones. Period, end-of-statement.
Is that a good thing for those developing countries? Possibly
Rob Peter to pay Paul. Great deal for anyone named Paul.
companies very often took great care of their employees - now, we have to look out for ourselves.
They took care of their workers because they needed them.. Now they don't, or think they don't. When the Great Collapse of 2017 comes, I think that will become apparent. Not that the treasonous fucks who sold our manufacturing base to China for a song will suffer one little bit.
However, that's not the same as our competition being unethical.
-1 Missed Point. Nobody here is saying that the Indian outsourcing firm is being unethical (well, maybe they are but that's not what we're talking about.) The question is: is it ethical for the firm who needs those services to outsource them at the expense of their existing domestic workforce?
yes there is a decent argument that flattening things totally might do more harm than good but you can't say with a straight face that wasting such an incredible number of working human minds can be good for the economy.
"Intelligence has much less practical application than you might think" - Scott Adams
"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value." - Arthur C. Clarke
Intelligence, indeed, human lives are cheap, on the global scale. That's the way it's been for a long, long time.
I wouldn't worry even a little for the economy if the top few percent of humanity didn't get to have swimming pools so that the bottom billion could perhaps not have to spend their time worrying about starving or trying to figure out how best to pick grains of rice from passing trucks off the road before the other scavengers do and instead use those working human minds to build things, understand things and make things
Your Robin Hood ideals sound nice, but in reality it's not the physical possessions of the rich that make a damn bit of difference, it's their control of a nation's wealth and what they choose to do with it. That's what matters. The societal effect of one's ethics grows exponentially as one acquires wealth and power, so I don't give a God DAMN if some rich industrialist has a swimming pool. It's how he uses his wealth that matters.
. To my way of thinking, selling out your fellow citizens to make a buck is unethical.
Citizens of what? The nation? The planet? To my thinking, valuing one person above another just based on where they were born is unethical.
Citizens of my country, of course. Do I wish the people of any other country ill? No. Will I go out of my way to hurt them? No. Will I go out of my way to prevent them from hurting me, and those important to me? Yes, I will ... and they, should they have any sense of ethics at all, will behave exactly the same way. Keep firmly in mind that, while you may feel that nationalism is unethical, they don't!
... but nor do I see that as a reason for me and mine to give up what generations of our forefathers built for us.
The truth is that one may have high ideals, but those ideals had better track with reality or human suffering will result. The problem with many of my fellow Americans is that they are utterly complacent and exhibit misguided compassion. They haven't had to suffer in the same way that people of most other countries have, truly do not realize that America is vulnerable and is not above economic ruin. When the total collapse of the United States finally occurs, well, they'll have only themselves to blame. We seem to have lost the will to compete on any serious industrial scale, and that's frightening. I hope you live here in the U.S., and I hope you have a nice lifestyle: maybe you'll appreciate your ethics more when you're on the street hoping for a handout.
So, do I blame the people of China or India or any other developing nation for wanting a better life? No
As chance would have it, Randy Cohen has been removed from the NYT magazine as of yesterday. A new writer will take over The Ethicist in March. Your wish, granted, to some degree or another.
Yes, but the problem is, as always, that one should be careful what one wishes for. Hopefully his replacement will have a better grasp of reality.
So it's not ethical because it inconveniences people near you?
I don't think you're really taking about ethics. You're talking about the position that's most advantageous to take. But that wasn't the question that was asked.
You're attempting to minimize the impact. Losing one's job is not an "inconvenience". Losing one's home is not an inconvenience. Being unable to save for one's retirement is not an inconvenience. Not being able afford health care is not an inconvenience. These are real problems, being faced every day be real people as a consequence of the actions taken by our corporate leadership (and I use the term loosely.) Yes, other countries have made out like bandits ... but is that okay? I would like one person to explain to me why outsourcing jobs and shipping our hard-earned technical knowledge and manufacturing capability overseas has done us any good at all.
If you support those actions, you have an ethical problem. If you believe that contributing to the damage being done to your fellow citizens to be acceptable so long as people of another country have benefited to some degree, then you have an ethical problem. You can't get away from this by just describing it as an "inconvenience": by trying to do so you're exhibiting yet another ethical problem.
Perhaps because he feels that "his country" is superior to all others and so helping a different ones economy is helping something inferior.
This is also known as Nationalism or Tribalism. I would be interested in hearing a different possible reason.
That's an obnoxious and, I might add, ignorant comment. Given the trillions of dollars the United States has given away in foreign aid, I think it's unkind of you to expect that we should give away our jobs as well. This works both ways you know, or it doesn't work at all. You self-centered pricks who feel you're entitled to a share of whatever wealth America has left don't seem to be very willing to even consider the damage you are doing to us in the process. "Give your jobs, give us your money, or we'll call you names and stuff." Consequently I discount your argument as one-sided and arrogant.
Yes, that is Nationalism. And you know what? The only people that I see who are concerned about that are either a. misguided Westerners, liberal types who think that everyone should be made equal no matter what the cost, or b. people from other, less economically successful "tribes" who are using that standard to justify their own actions. In the end, it all comes down to one thing: some people have stuff that other people want, and they'll try and take it any way they can. You believe that I, as a member of a successful tribe, have no right to take any steps to prevent that. I disagree.
Look, national boundaries exist because different people from different places are different. They don't want to be bound by the same rules, have to live the same way, have to share what they've made for themselves with people who had no hand in creating it. Call it what you want, but the human race is too divisive, too fractious, to eliminate those boundaries. Einstein once said that nationalism is the measles of Mankind. Smart as he was, he was wrong. Just as you are wrong. Maybe at some point in far distant future that will change, but I doubt it.
The one who feels he is "superior" here is you: you think that there's been some fundamental change in the nature of Man that would permit a Utopian, borderless society to exist. I, on the other hand, know that I am but a tiny part of that tribe currently known as "American", and I also know that the humanity hasn't changed much in the past few thousand years. We're just as dangerous, self-serving, self-destructive a species as we've always been, only more so.
Of course it's not "ethical", but that's not the point. It's legal, and that's all that matters.
Are you saying that all one should consider, in general, is what's legal rather than ethical?
Or are just just saying that in this particular case?
I'm saying neither. I am saying that, as a practical matter, all that many corporations consider are the legal implications of their activities, thereby leaving the determination of what is "ethical", of what is right or wrong, to our politicians. And that scares me.
Of course it's not "ethical"
Then of course you can explain your reasoning? I fail to see what is unethical about it. "I don't agree" != "unethical".
I don't understand ... are you claiming that there is some absolute standard of ethical behavior, and that your beliefs comply with that and mine do not? Please. Ethics vary from person to person, place to place, culture to culture. To my way of thinking, selling out your fellow citizens to make a buck is unethical. Many people would agree with me there. You obviously don't. And that's your right ... but one standard that does persist in most civilized (and many not so civilized) societies is that you take care of your own. Because if you don't, you will eventually discover that there will be nobody left to take care of you.
Screw everyone else.. Get yours!
It is the american way.
Yes and no. We used to screw everyone else for a buck, but now we're screwing each other. I don't see that as an improvement, personally.
Of course it's not "ethical", but that's not the point. It's legal, and that's all that matters.
And this "Randy Cohen" individual is an ass, or a shill, and I hope he gets outsourced by his employer at the earliest opportunity.
That sounds, to me, like a business strategy.
Well, sure. It's like overbilling in general. Some number of customers won't notice it, some number will notice but won't care ... and some number will call up and bitch. You can avoid legal trouble, often for years if not indefinitely, by keeping the squeaky wheels happy. Throw them a couple of freebies after they finish shouting at the CSR (so they can walk away smirking and feeling smug about how they showed 'em!) and then pocket the extra millions from the other sheep. As a business model, it actually does work, as sleazy, amoral and unethical as it may be.
Reminds me of the warning label on the curling iron .. "Do Not Curl Eyelashes with this Device". Really???
I have a blow dryer with a label on the power cord that says (in half-inch-high bold red lettering) "WARN CHILDREN OF THE RISK OF DEATH".
Personally, I think its the adults in our society who need the warnings. The kids seem to handle the tech just fine.
Unless they've been sniffing all frequencies on which the iPhone can exchange data, how can they be sure there haven't been any data transfers? That is why I wouldn't even consider a data plan with per-volume pricing. To all you metered internet fans who fear that unlimited plans will result in congested networks: THIS is what metered internet gets you.
Yes, and it's precisely what the carriers want so they can extend their long-term policies of nickel and diming their customers to death into the data world.
The cellular market is a classic example of why many industries are incapable of policing themselves, why laissez faire doesn't work, and why we still need the institution of government. Or would, if it were actually serving the interests of We the People as much as it used to.
I assume you were trying to make fun of AT&T's data throughput. You missed.
I dunno ... as a happy T-Mobile/Android user, I'd say he was right on the mark.
A year later, they sent me to collections for $150 for breach of contract. AT&T sent me to collections for a contract I never even signed. It took another two hours and 6 call transfers to clear this up. Do you think I *ever* want to do business with AT&T?
Ha ... I wouldn't. That's why I have an Android device on T-Mobile. Yes, I know that T-Mobile is Deutsche-Telekom in disguise, but frankly they've given me better service that AT&T or Sprint ever did. I had U.S. Cellular for a while, but so far I've managed to avoid Verizon.
Just out of curiosity, did they report you to the credit bureaus? You might want to check that.
We've experienced this with the iPhone 4. I've had the second generation iPhone which is the primary phone and the iPhone 4 which is on WiFi on all days except on the weekend. iPhone 2 with unlimited data plan didn't go over 200 Mb per month for two and a half years but the iPhone 4 transferred 65 Mb **when the phone was on WiFi**. And the data transfers were at odd hours. And this was with the phone on it's default settings, no apps and all notifications turned off. Sure enough we talked to AT&T about this who just told us to complain to Apple. We went ahead and filed a complaint with FCC.
Yah. Think I'll stick with my G2 and Cyanogenmod. This is one case where two large, historically untrustworthy corporations and a closed source operating system do not a happy mix make.
They'll probably settle out of court. Offer to give customers refunds. And I'll get a $50 check like I did with the Paypal and CD Companies lawsuits.
Refunds or coupons? I would imagine the settlement would be "$10 off your next iPhone"
Ha ... more likely ten free! MP3 downloads.
Buuuuut, you don't have to pay for that ARP traffic, do you?
Still, the question is valid. What is considered chargeable data? I mean, if I ping-flood your ass ... or just send a bunch of garbage data to your phone's IP, is that going to run up your bill? Do all the myriad port scanners to which were all continually subject count?
What do the other four users feel?
Each other?
One, the mirrors do not have to be on a dish-shaped thing; they just all have to have the correct angle at each position as if it were on a dish shaped thing.
It's about ten degrees Fahrenheit outdoors today, and as I was driving home (at about two miles per hour, traffic sucked) I passed by a trio of large office buildings, set in a semicircle. I felt a wave of heat, and it got very bright in the car. I looked over at the buildings, and saw the evening Sun reflected in a substantial number of windows. Fortunately it wasn't enough energy to do more than warm me up a little, but it was still a bit unnerving at that distance (several hundred feet, at least.) I have to wonder if architects concern themselves with where the reflected light from their creations ends up.
The whole point of the death ray is to be able to adjust the focus point.
It needs adaptive optics, like the mirrors they use on orbiting observation satellites. Let a radar and some software adjust the mirror to cook anything that comes into range. Of course, you'd have to fall back to Plan "B" on those cloudy afternoons.
Did people not play with this "technology" enough when they were 5 years old and burning ants?
Yeah. I had a four foot Fresnel lens when I was a kid. I got hold of some firebrick and made a fairly capable solar furnace.
$30/mo for 5GB data and $0.25/mb after with a $200 cap, or $3/day (~$90/mo) for all you can eat data.
By way of comparison, my T-Mobile plan gives me 5 Gb for $25/month, with no charge for going over (that's on HSUPA). After that first 5 Gb, they throttle the connection somewhat (back around 3G speeds) but I never have to worry about any overage charges, or suddenly not having a data connection. They have other plans, I understand, but that's the one that works best for me. I also get free voice and data roaming in the U.S., so I really couldn't care less about pretty colored floating maps. I track my usage and I rarely use more than a gig a month so odds are I'll never hit the cap anyway (I have better things to do that watch Youtube all day, although I do tether my laptop to it on occasion. Yes, T-Mobile allows that.) Your mileage may vary.
... per kilobyte charges in the 21st century? What is this, a joke? I think T-Mobile is handling this in a much better way than AT&T. You seem to have a substantial budget for cellular usage, but most people don't. What they want is predictability in their billing, what they absolutely do not want are surprises. I know I don't, and that's why I like T-Mobile's approach.
It would be very difficult for any bunch of lawyers to try and sue T-Mobile in the same way they're trying to nail AT&T. The real problem here is that AT&T is trying to maximize profit by nickel-and-diming its customers in much the same way as early ISPs used to do: I mean, come on
Just for grins, I benchmarked my HTC Vision (i.e. T-Mobile G2) by USB tethering to a laptop and running broadbandreports.com's speed test. I get about 7 mbit/sec in the couple of places I've tested, although supposedly the service goes to 14 mbits/sec. I can live with that.