I keep telling people NOT to reboot their database servers to fix problems but its a reflex reaction that seem to be hard-wired into the DNA of all admins.
Years of training on Windows systems... they can't help it. Really, they can't, and it's a legitimate tactic in most Windows environments (well, often it's the only thing you can do.) Yes, it has gotten better in recent years, I must admit, but I still find myself having to reboot more often that I think is reasonable.
I've had users who reflexively re-install the application when they see something they don't like. It doesn't help matters when they do so using a four-year-old version they had lying around in a drawer. You just want to reach out and shake them, all the while shouting at the top of your lungs "WHAT on EARTH made you think that was a good idea?" It doesn't help that they generally won't admit what they've done, and I have to figure it out from what they're telling me on the phone. "What? What do you mean there's no DIAGNOSTIC menu. What version are you running, anyway?"
Then, to top it off, when they're informed that they've blown away their entire system configuration and that it's going to have to be rebuilt from scratch, they get upset want to know why we didn't make backups (???). I've often thought that might be a good value-added service we could offer, but it's not up to me anyways. Now, the vast majority of our user base is a hell of a lot smarter than that, but there are always those few who you just know had that umbilical cord wrapped around their neck.
I've always been told by the Linux fan-bois that they haven't rebooted their computers since 1847
It's like this, the first time you turn it on, it's called a "boot". Every time after that is called a "re-boot". If you've only had to turn it on once, you've never rebooted it.
ut it most certainly is something that pressure groups should consider.
When was the last time you saw a pressure group consider anything outside of its own agenda? That's the whole point of a pressure group: a single-minded focus on achieving a specific set of objectives. And yes, you're absolutely right, such unenlightened behavior can hurt a lot of people. What makes the anti-stem-cell crowd any different from PETA, many "environmental" groups, the RIAA or any other political organization which is categorically unable to consider the welfare of anyone (and I mean anyone) outside their own group, or whatever group they've chosen to "protect"? If it were only possible to ask, how many of these discarded embryos would ask of these people, "Hey! What the fuck do you think you're doing? I'm lunchmeat no matter what happens:at least let my non-existence mean something."
We all suffer when close-minded fools gain power. This is one of those times.
The choice is extremely expensive or FDA approved. (Greasy, salty preservative laden crap filled with unpronounceable components [I don't dare call them ingredients.])
For what it's worth, some of us actually do enjoy the American style as well as the fuller more flavorful styles.
Budweiser and Coors is crap. If you're looking for a halfway decent American lager, try Pabst Blue Ribbon or Narraganset. Much better flavor while still being an incredibly light beer.
A friend of mine who is a. into good beer and b. emigrated to Germany fifteen or so years ago, had something to say on this issue. One of his friends is in the beer transport business in that fine country. That his, he is responsible for shipping mass quantities of brew from here to there (via train, truck and boat) and he takes that responsibility very seriously. Now,his take on matters was very interesting. He points out that American breweries actually do turn out some respectable product (and do so in incredible volume) but that it deteriorates considerably by the time it reaches the consumer. According to him, it's because they simply don't know how to ship the stuff properly. It gets sent in non-climate-controlled vehicles, exposed to sunlight and vibration and extremes of heat and cold, all of which can affect the quality of the beer. Is this true? I don't know, it certainly sounds plausible, and given that it 's from a German who's in that business I'm inclined to believe it. Matter of fact, I'm planning to visit Germany later this year to find out for myself. I'll let you know the results of my study when I return, assuming I can remember them.
Another poster had a valid point as well: microbreweries are springing up like weeds all over the U.S., and some of them make some damned fine beers. I think it would be interesting to take some of that beer, stick it in a semi and bounce it cross-country through the middle of winter or through the desert in summer, and let it sit out in the sun for a while. Then, when you've finished simulating a typical beer run here in the U.S., chill it down and taste it and see how it fared.
Stop living in the 19'th century, as America is no longer the bastion of civil liberties it once was.
P.S. whoever modded this fruitbasket "insightful" is just as ignorant as he is. I understand that many of you don't like America, but calling all Americans "ignorant" is no way to improve relations. It just makes us dislike you as much as you dislike us, and what purpose that serves I do not know. I guess it makes you feel better or something.
It's frankly quite insulting and ignorant point of view that more shows your ignorance than anything else.
Well, you're obviously something of an arrogant ass with a bone to pick, but if you'd actually read my post, you'd realize I was referring to my own country not insulting yours, which would have been difficult for me considering I don't actually know were you're from. Not, frankly, that I care very much. In any event, maybe you can trust your leaders and your bureaucrats to not waste your money and permit billions in fraud. If so, that is just great for you, but as an American, I'm not so fortunate. Nannying U.S.-style is hideously expensive and I have every right to be concerned about it.
Cripes, given that I made no claims about your society, and that you feel free to spew forth about mine without having anything resembling facts at your command really says a lot about ignorance all right. Your ignorance. I don't know anything about your culture, and really, if I were to judge all of them the way you have so casually judged all of us, I would avoid having anything to do with any of you from this point forward. If I were as shallow and judgmental as you assume all Americans are, I'd consider you all to be (in Slashdot parlance) "fucktards".
And people call us obnoxious. I guess hypocrisy is a worldwide phenomenon after all.
You're talking about dehumanizing, we're talking about the definition of human, and whether human life is sacred at all.
If you're saying that, then you've already couched a scientific and ethical discussion in religious terms. That makes it essentially meaningless to those of us who don't believe in God, and equally worthless in determining the proper course of action. Is life "sacred"? Does God give a damn whether we survive or not, whether we suffer or not? I don't know. No one does (although many claim to have some special knowledge in this regard.) Given how cheap life is in most parts of the world, how much death, misery and destruction the human race experiences on a daily basis, my guess is He lost interest in us a long time ago. If not, if He is watching and expecting us to climb out of the muck on our own, well, we'd better get busy. We have a long way to go.
I do know this: if human life is sacred to the Lord, he sure has a funny way of showing it. I've lost too many people who were important to me, watched them suffer and die of conditions that a supreme being could cure with a snap of His heavenly fingertips. The only answers (and I use the term loosely) that religion has ever offered me is "well, it's God's will", "the Lord moves in mysterious ways" and similar platitudes that just made me feel worse than ever (mainly because I knew the real answer was: we just hadn't figured out how to treat it yet.) Still, maybe they're right. But God didn't invent sulfa drugs, God didn't invent penicillin, God didn't invent surgical forceps, fact is, God hasn't done squat to alleviate human suffering... at least, not for a long, long time. I rather get the impression that He fully expects us to grow up, stop depending upon His largess, and start taking care of ourselves. You know, like any good parent would do. We've had untold thousands of years to figure out the meaning of life and get civilized, to stop brutalizing each other... but we're still working on it. Frankly, I'm surprised He hasn't just wiped the slate clean and started over. Yes yes, I know some of you believe that's imminent, but you're also irrelevant to this discussion.
In any event, instead of framing the question as "are we sacred to God?" which invariably results in a negative when dealing with such research programs, try asking "do we have value to each other?" I think you'll find that answer much more useful, and truly relevant to the topic at hand.
Just ask yourself: could someone possibly actually hold this opinion?
He was clearly joking.
Yes, they can and do. I'm surprised you haven't experienced such opinions. I have, and it's unnerving, and frankly explains a lot of the problems we have trying to improve online security.
For example, I know a couple of Ph.Ds that simply cannot understand how anyone could use an open source OS because "everyone can see how it works." I've pointed out that a truly secure software system is so by its very nature, regardless of whether you have the source code or not. In one ear and out the other: security by obscurity just seems to make more sense to them. They've had issues with Windows malware in the past, and their assumption is that it's just a necessary evil and would, of course, be worse in an open source environment because they're of course much easier to crack.
The irony is that they don't make the connection between the openness of successful science, and the success of major open source projects like Linux. They prefer to trust closed source software because "nobody knows how it works and so they can't break in." Okey dokey... keep on using Internet Explorer and when your bank account gets plundered I don't want to hear about it.
Boggles the mind I know, but I deal with it all the time.
After this twenty minutes of googling, I was plagued by LG Neon ads for weeks. Every third or fourth website I visited had an ad trying to sell me the very phone that broke on me. It made me more and more angry every time I saw it. Without the constant reminder of my wasted money, I may have eventually forgotten about it, but now I will never, ever purchase anything by LG again, and I tell people who are looking for a new phone to get something - anything - else.
Yes. A lack of context can be very dangerous for the advertiser.
Interesting to see how intrusive advertisements actually accomplish the exact opposite: a certain hatred against the company behind it...
I have similar experiences - some types of advertisement are just too annoying, and I will make an effort never to buy anything from that company ever again. (And I have a longer memory than the internet itself).
It all makes me wonder what kind of people can be digitally bullied into buying something online.
The problem is one of metrics. Generally it's not the actual advertiser that has set up a system to generate and serve ads, they just pay another company for the service. So there's a disconnect between the people receiving (and being irritated by) the advertisements, and the company actually providing the goods and services. Ideally, the vendor would check up on what their flunkies are doing: maybe then they'd say, "Hey, enough of that, you're pissing off potential customers!" But odds are the ad company just returns some simple stats on number of ads served and where, and that vendor company just says, 'Good job." Personally, I think they've been sold a bill of goods: this might work in the short term but eventually people will either a. block the things or b. simply tune them out. That's what I do anyways, on both counts.
People who buy this kind of advertising need to be more aware of the effect it is having on customers (and potential customers.) The "no such thing as bad publicity" mantra may be true in some circles, but when it comes to online advertising it's a big negative, since most people are predisposed to dislike such ads anyway. You have to strike a balance when it comes to advertising. Television, by and large, has gone overboard: they're so damn commercial-laden now that I'd rather torrent commercial-free episodes of my favorite shows even though I'm paying AT&T for the privilege (yeah, I can commercial-skip with the DVR, but I like to just hit "play" and forget about it, plus which their WinCE-based DVR software is decidedly flaky.) I also find that it's a lot easier to become immersed in the storyline if I'm not dealing with constant interruptions.
A lot of cable channels are acting like this is still old-time broadcast television, where the user had no ability to record or skip anything, and at best could just turn down the volume on a commercial. Those days are gone: I pay to watch these shows, and I really couldn't care less about someone's ad revenue especially when it ruins the experience for me. When it comes to the Web, I'll tolerate ads (even though I will never, as a matter of principle, buy anything from one of them) until they start to really get on my nerves. Then my eyeballs will disappear off your radar just like that.
Google appears to understand this balance and has been phenomenally successful because of it: their ads are simple and unobtrusive, and their service is worth the trade-off. Push it too far, however, and people will seek out ways to avoid viewing them: the tools are there. This user-tracking business sounds like one of those times, if the reaction of people here on Slashdot is any indication.
Actually, if you look at shockwave dynamics during the moment an object crosses from subsonic to supersonic velocity, it can very easily be considered much more of a barrier than 1gkeys/sec can.
Researchers at the University of Virginia have recently open sourced
I stopped this shit about right there. You think I'm going to trust my sorting to some open sores buggy shit? I think I'll just keep using Microsoft for my algorithms thank you very much.
I'm assuming that was an attempt at humor. Otherwise, you're going to get modded all to hell very soon.
Common carriers are insulated from liability for the traffic that goes across the network.
Internet providers (even those such as the Baby Bells and AT&T/SBC) received an exemption for their data services. Contrary to popular belief, they are not common carriers for the purposes of their data services, even if they also provide telephony service. Consequently, they are not largely insulated from legal liability.
You have it somewhat backwards (assuming you're talking about the U.S.) in that these big companies simply do not want to be considered common carriers when it comes to providing Internet connectivity. That's because a common carrier, in exchange for immunity from prosecution for any use of their equipment for illegal purposes, also comes under a much heavier regulatory burden (involving, among other things, quality of service, with penalties for failing to deliver) which they feel will cost them money. So, they take the risk of the occasional lawsuit in order to be able to deliver crappy service at will. In reality, nobody sues an ISP for Joe Crook's using the Internet so for them, not being a common carrier is a win-win situation.
They are NOT welcome to start throttling my fucking connection 5 minutes into a LEGAL BSD ISO download and turn the torrent
I agree, but I ask: why should it matter if it's a "legal" download... or otherwise? I don't expect my telephone company to censor my speech if I say things that someone else doesn't like (although that would certainly be possible from a technical perspective.) Likewise, I don't expect a company that I pay to transmit packetized data from here to there and back again to be in any way involved in determining the legality of said communications.
Slashdot Mirror
They should have stuck with their original slogan: "Using Ksplice is like updating your kernel without rebooting"
How about "Using Ksplice is like updating your genome without having a baby"
I keep telling people NOT to reboot their database servers to fix problems but its a reflex reaction that seem to be hard-wired into the DNA of all admins.
Years of training on Windows systems ... they can't help it. Really, they can't, and it's a legitimate tactic in most Windows environments (well, often it's the only thing you can do.) Yes, it has gotten better in recent years, I must admit, but I still find myself having to reboot more often that I think is reasonable.
I've had users who reflexively re-install the application when they see something they don't like. It doesn't help matters when they do so using a four-year-old version they had lying around in a drawer. You just want to reach out and shake them, all the while shouting at the top of your lungs "WHAT on EARTH made you think that was a good idea?" It doesn't help that they generally won't admit what they've done, and I have to figure it out from what they're telling me on the phone. "What? What do you mean there's no DIAGNOSTIC menu. What version are you running, anyway?"
Then, to top it off, when they're informed that they've blown away their entire system configuration and that it's going to have to be rebuilt from scratch, they get upset want to know why we didn't make backups (???). I've often thought that might be a good value-added service we could offer, but it's not up to me anyways. Now, the vast majority of our user base is a hell of a lot smarter than that, but there are always those few who you just know had that umbilical cord wrapped around their neck.
Then there's the question... does one need to reboot when installing Ksplice?
Of course not because, as everyone knows, the chicken did in fact come before the egg.
They actually recompile de deltas between kernels as separate modules.
Defeat of deduct went over defense before detail.
Thanks for the clarification. Wha La isn't even close to being phonetically correct, so I wasn't sure that was what the grandparent meant.
Something like "vwah lah", maybe.
I've always been told by the Linux fan-bois that they haven't rebooted their computers since 1847
It's like this, the first time you turn it on, it's called a "boot". Every time after that is called a "re-boot". If you've only had to turn it on once, you've never rebooted it.
ut it most certainly is something that pressure groups should consider.
When was the last time you saw a pressure group consider anything outside of its own agenda? That's the whole point of a pressure group: a single-minded focus on achieving a specific set of objectives. And yes, you're absolutely right, such unenlightened behavior can hurt a lot of people. What makes the anti-stem-cell crowd any different from PETA, many "environmental" groups, the RIAA or any other political organization which is categorically unable to consider the welfare of anyone (and I mean anyone) outside their own group, or whatever group they've chosen to "protect"? If it were only possible to ask, how many of these discarded embryos would ask of these people, "Hey! What the fuck do you think you're doing? I'm lunchmeat no matter what happens:at least let my non-existence mean something."
We all suffer when close-minded fools gain power. This is one of those times.
I'll stick to my organic veggies.
Good idea
why I don't go to restaurants anymore.
The choice is extremely expensive or FDA approved. (Greasy, salty preservative laden crap filled with unpronounceable components [I don't dare call them ingredients.])
I'll stick to my organic veggies.
Good idea
There's a reason why the Czechs are the #1 per capita beer consumption country in the world [wikipedia.org].
Yep, there's a reason all right, which may or may not have to do with the quality of their beer.
Having said that, one of my favorites is Pilsner Urquell.
* No offense intended if you actually _like_ that stuff...
Corporal Hicks: None taken!
For what it's worth, some of us actually do enjoy the American style as well as the fuller more flavorful styles.
Budweiser and Coors is crap. If you're looking for a halfway decent American lager, try Pabst Blue Ribbon or Narraganset. Much better flavor while still being an incredibly light beer.
A friend of mine who is a. into good beer and b. emigrated to Germany fifteen or so years ago, had something to say on this issue. One of his friends is in the beer transport business in that fine country. That his, he is responsible for shipping mass quantities of brew from here to there (via train, truck and boat) and he takes that responsibility very seriously. Now,his take on matters was very interesting. He points out that American breweries actually do turn out some respectable product (and do so in incredible volume) but that it deteriorates considerably by the time it reaches the consumer. According to him, it's because they simply don't know how to ship the stuff properly. It gets sent in non-climate-controlled vehicles, exposed to sunlight and vibration and extremes of heat and cold, all of which can affect the quality of the beer. Is this true? I don't know, it certainly sounds plausible, and given that it 's from a German who's in that business I'm inclined to believe it. Matter of fact, I'm planning to visit Germany later this year to find out for myself. I'll let you know the results of my study when I return, assuming I can remember them.
Another poster had a valid point as well: microbreweries are springing up like weeds all over the U.S., and some of them make some damned fine beers. I think it would be interesting to take some of that beer, stick it in a semi and bounce it cross-country through the middle of winter or through the desert in summer, and let it sit out in the sun for a while. Then, when you've finished simulating a typical beer run here in the U.S., chill it down and taste it and see how it fared.
Stop living in the 19'th century, as America is no longer the bastion of civil liberties it once was.
P.S. whoever modded this fruitbasket "insightful" is just as ignorant as he is. I understand that many of you don't like America, but calling all Americans "ignorant" is no way to improve relations. It just makes us dislike you as much as you dislike us, and what purpose that serves I do not know. I guess it makes you feel better or something.
It's frankly quite insulting and ignorant point of view that more shows your ignorance than anything else.
Well, you're obviously something of an arrogant ass with a bone to pick, but if you'd actually read my post, you'd realize I was referring to my own country not insulting yours, which would have been difficult for me considering I don't actually know were you're from. Not, frankly, that I care very much. In any event, maybe you can trust your leaders and your bureaucrats to not waste your money and permit billions in fraud. If so, that is just great for you, but as an American, I'm not so fortunate. Nannying U.S.-style is hideously expensive and I have every right to be concerned about it.
Cripes, given that I made no claims about your society, and that you feel free to spew forth about mine without having anything resembling facts at your command really says a lot about ignorance all right. Your ignorance. I don't know anything about your culture, and really, if I were to judge all of them the way you have so casually judged all of us, I would avoid having anything to do with any of you from this point forward. If I were as shallow and judgmental as you assume all Americans are, I'd consider you all to be (in Slashdot parlance) "fucktards".
And people call us obnoxious. I guess hypocrisy is a worldwide phenomenon after all.
The tyrants and evil men of this world always start by dehumanizing someone.
They also often anthropomorphize. Figure 1.
You're talking about dehumanizing, we're talking about the definition of human, and whether human life is sacred at all.
If you're saying that, then you've already couched a scientific and ethical discussion in religious terms. That makes it essentially meaningless to those of us who don't believe in God, and equally worthless in determining the proper course of action. Is life "sacred"? Does God give a damn whether we survive or not, whether we suffer or not? I don't know. No one does (although many claim to have some special knowledge in this regard.) Given how cheap life is in most parts of the world, how much death, misery and destruction the human race experiences on a daily basis, my guess is He lost interest in us a long time ago. If not, if He is watching and expecting us to climb out of the muck on our own, well, we'd better get busy. We have a long way to go.
... at least, not for a long, long time. I rather get the impression that He fully expects us to grow up, stop depending upon His largess, and start taking care of ourselves. You know, like any good parent would do. We've had untold thousands of years to figure out the meaning of life and get civilized, to stop brutalizing each other ... but we're still working on it. Frankly, I'm surprised He hasn't just wiped the slate clean and started over. Yes yes, I know some of you believe that's imminent, but you're also irrelevant to this discussion.
I do know this: if human life is sacred to the Lord, he sure has a funny way of showing it. I've lost too many people who were important to me, watched them suffer and die of conditions that a supreme being could cure with a snap of His heavenly fingertips. The only answers (and I use the term loosely) that religion has ever offered me is "well, it's God's will", "the Lord moves in mysterious ways" and similar platitudes that just made me feel worse than ever (mainly because I knew the real answer was: we just hadn't figured out how to treat it yet.) Still, maybe they're right. But God didn't invent sulfa drugs, God didn't invent penicillin, God didn't invent surgical forceps, fact is, God hasn't done squat to alleviate human suffering
In any event, instead of framing the question as "are we sacred to God?" which invariably results in a negative when dealing with such research programs, try asking "do we have value to each other?" I think you'll find that answer much more useful, and truly relevant to the topic at hand.
Just ask yourself: could someone possibly actually hold this opinion? He was clearly joking.
Yes, they can and do. I'm surprised you haven't experienced such opinions. I have, and it's unnerving, and frankly explains a lot of the problems we have trying to improve online security.
... keep on using Internet Explorer and when your bank account gets plundered I don't want to hear about it.
For example, I know a couple of Ph.Ds that simply cannot understand how anyone could use an open source OS because "everyone can see how it works." I've pointed out that a truly secure software system is so by its very nature, regardless of whether you have the source code or not. In one ear and out the other: security by obscurity just seems to make more sense to them. They've had issues with Windows malware in the past, and their assumption is that it's just a necessary evil and would, of course, be worse in an open source environment because they're of course much easier to crack.
The irony is that they don't make the connection between the openness of successful science, and the success of major open source projects like Linux. They prefer to trust closed source software because "nobody knows how it works and so they can't break in." Okey dokey
Boggles the mind I know, but I deal with it all the time.
If the site uses Flash then the cookies can heal themselves from shared object backups.
Yet another reason to avoid Flash, as if we needed one.
salesman, marketeers and politicians.
Oddly similar personality types, when you get right down to it. The term "sociopath" is most commonly applied.
That's pretty creepy that they KNOW i'm coming through nebraska and manage to print a billboard just for me.
Ahem (*cough*) at any point in your life, say, when visiting your doctor, have you heard the phrase "paranoid schizophrenic" bandied about?
Just, you know, curious.
After this twenty minutes of googling, I was plagued by LG Neon ads for weeks. Every third or fourth website I visited had an ad trying to sell me the very phone that broke on me. It made me more and more angry every time I saw it. Without the constant reminder of my wasted money, I may have eventually forgotten about it, but now I will never, ever purchase anything by LG again, and I tell people who are looking for a new phone to get something - anything - else.
Yes. A lack of context can be very dangerous for the advertiser.
Interesting to see how intrusive advertisements actually accomplish the exact opposite: a certain hatred against the company behind it...
I have similar experiences - some types of advertisement are just too annoying, and I will make an effort never to buy anything from that company ever again. (And I have a longer memory than the internet itself).
It all makes me wonder what kind of people can be digitally bullied into buying something online.
The problem is one of metrics. Generally it's not the actual advertiser that has set up a system to generate and serve ads, they just pay another company for the service. So there's a disconnect between the people receiving (and being irritated by) the advertisements, and the company actually providing the goods and services. Ideally, the vendor would check up on what their flunkies are doing: maybe then they'd say, "Hey, enough of that, you're pissing off potential customers!" But odds are the ad company just returns some simple stats on number of ads served and where, and that vendor company just says, 'Good job." Personally, I think they've been sold a bill of goods: this might work in the short term but eventually people will either a. block the things or b. simply tune them out. That's what I do anyways, on both counts.
People who buy this kind of advertising need to be more aware of the effect it is having on customers (and potential customers.) The "no such thing as bad publicity" mantra may be true in some circles, but when it comes to online advertising it's a big negative, since most people are predisposed to dislike such ads anyway. You have to strike a balance when it comes to advertising. Television, by and large, has gone overboard: they're so damn commercial-laden now that I'd rather torrent commercial-free episodes of my favorite shows even though I'm paying AT&T for the privilege (yeah, I can commercial-skip with the DVR, but I like to just hit "play" and forget about it, plus which their WinCE-based DVR software is decidedly flaky.) I also find that it's a lot easier to become immersed in the storyline if I'm not dealing with constant interruptions.
A lot of cable channels are acting like this is still old-time broadcast television, where the user had no ability to record or skip anything, and at best could just turn down the volume on a commercial. Those days are gone: I pay to watch these shows, and I really couldn't care less about someone's ad revenue especially when it ruins the experience for me. When it comes to the Web, I'll tolerate ads (even though I will never, as a matter of principle, buy anything from one of them) until they start to really get on my nerves. Then my eyeballs will disappear off your radar just like that.
Google appears to understand this balance and has been phenomenally successful because of it: their ads are simple and unobtrusive, and their service is worth the trade-off. Push it too far, however, and people will seek out ways to avoid viewing them: the tools are there. This user-tracking business sounds like one of those times, if the reaction of people here on Slashdot is any indication.
Actually, if you look at shockwave dynamics during the moment an object crosses from subsonic to supersonic velocity, it can very easily be considered much more of a barrier than 1gkeys/sec can.
Yes, it was
Researchers at the University of Virginia have recently open sourced
I stopped this shit about right there. You think I'm going to trust my sorting to some open sores buggy shit? I think I'll just keep using Microsoft for my algorithms thank you very much.
I'm assuming that was an attempt at humor. Otherwise, you're going to get modded all to hell very soon.
Common carriers are insulated from liability for the traffic that goes across the network.
Internet providers (even those such as the Baby Bells and AT&T/SBC) received an exemption for their data services. Contrary to popular belief, they are not common carriers for the purposes of their data services, even if they also provide telephony service. Consequently, they are not largely insulated from legal liability.
You have it somewhat backwards (assuming you're talking about the U.S.) in that these big companies simply do not want to be considered common carriers when it comes to providing Internet connectivity. That's because a common carrier, in exchange for immunity from prosecution for any use of their equipment for illegal purposes, also comes under a much heavier regulatory burden (involving, among other things, quality of service, with penalties for failing to deliver) which they feel will cost them money. So, they take the risk of the occasional lawsuit in order to be able to deliver crappy service at will. In reality, nobody sues an ISP for Joe Crook's using the Internet so for them, not being a common carrier is a win-win situation.
They are NOT welcome to start throttling my fucking connection 5 minutes into a LEGAL BSD ISO download and turn the torrent
I agree, but I ask: why should it matter if it's a "legal" download ... or otherwise? I don't expect my telephone company to censor my speech if I say things that someone else doesn't like (although that would certainly be possible from a technical perspective.) Likewise, I don't expect a company that I pay to transmit packetized data from here to there and back again to be in any way involved in determining the legality of said communications.