Why do some of us think the current situation will never change? Economics: It is economically unfeasible for anyone to run extra lines to every house, get their own link to the Internet backbone, and start up as a competitor to the current telcos. And that is what it would take for a new competitor to enter the market.
On the occasional small-scale this isn't always true: A mid-sized town could wire themselves if they wanted to. Note that this is local government doing the job at that point.
The US telecom/television/broadband market is in free-market monopoly status, with the barrier to entry enforced by both government regulation and the sheer size of the initial install. Ask any economics professor; once a market hits that status it takes either government intervention or a major technological change to break out of it.
There is one chance of a major technological change: Wireless Internet access is starting to spread, and may reach equal speeds. But at this point you either have to have the government break the monopoly or hope the cellular companies do a better job soon.
Identification is not necessarily tracking, yes. But the way they are talking about it, they would go hand-in-hand.
And it is very rare that I care if the person in front of me is who they say they are. I only care if the have the authorization to do what they want to do. (Use a credit card, for example.)
Which totally misses the point. Which is why? What problem are they trying to solve? What possible problem is worth the cost of those in power having a way to track every individual of any age anywhere in the country?
Actually, that brings up an interesting point: if this color of light is what signals to the body that it's 'daytime' (and therefore you should be awake), wouldn't having it around us at night mess up our sleep rhythms? I mean, 'jet lag' is already a bitch, imagine getting it just because you drove back from a party too late one night.
At least you don't need gasoline just to have your jeep sit at base; you only need it when the vehicle needs to actually move. So you can ration it better, and need less of it overall. (This is the major reason why automobiles replaced horses for the average person: An auto only needed a garage to store, while a horse needed space, and feed.)
You obviously have never been in a developing country. Why would you need a car sharing co-op? Just put it on the back your bike. Get enough straps and it'll fit. The average person isn't likely to ever buy something larger than a refrigerator, and I've seen those on the backs of bikes...
Similarly, one bike can handle five people, with the stuff on the back rack. (A sofa is good. You'll probably want a front rack too.)
I'm just saying I don't see any difference between that and the standard US airport. I agree, the waits were reasonable. (Though needing two of them was a little off, and the 10 minute was the shorter one, where I was fast-tracked.)
It's no worse or more intrusive than any US airport, certainly. But it's no better either.
No, it only works if you can come up with a line of reasoning that shows it is wrong, and appears at least as valid as the original information.
Actual relative validity may vary quite a bit: You can debunk something that is actually right, if you are good enough. (And the information is questionable enough.)
On the contrary point, there are things that are wrong that are almost impossible to debunk, if they are held together plausibly enough.
Be was/is a nice system, among other things I liked the ideas in the filesystem. But unless there's actually a reason to use it (and there's none), nobody will. Unless you're into that kind of thing and you still have a little space next to your OS/2 partition. But then you're probably too far gone anyway. Hmm. Maybe I should try it on my office computer, which the boss has mandated to run OS/2. Maybe he'll like it. Sounds like it has at least as much support as OS/2 at this point, and is probably more stable.
Actually, the complaint is about how IE renders HTML that does conform to standards. It renders it in a way that does not conform to the standards of how it is supposed to be rendered.
Therefore, a page in valid HTML who's layout works well in IE is likely to not work well in any browser that actually does what it is supposed to, and vice-versa.
You are positing a hertofore unshown level of intelegence and understanding of the complexities of the mindset of countries other than the USA in the USA's current leadership. I respectfully suggest that they are more likely to try the direct approach, despite the accilary effects strengthening their enemies position. This seems to meet with the past record of those leaders actions.
That's a different problem, somewhat. (Unbundling does have to be regulated, and regulated well.) And you guys are still ahead of us on high-speed broadband avaliblity.
The market can't demand anything that isn't offered. In this case, there is essentially no compitition in most of the USA for internet providers. The way the market would demand something is by having people switch to faster providers, showing they are willing to spend the money for speed. In which case companies would then try to make their networks faster, to attract more customers.
But in the US, there is no one to switch to. So the market can't demand anything.
'Unbundling' as they call it in the article is always painted as anti-capitolistic, and as ending market forces. In fact, it is the opposite: It would allow market forces to work again, by giving people a choice of networks.
Actually, it's probably closer to their position on birth control: Only God has the authority to create life. By blocking that (birth control) or getting around that (artificial insemination) we are usupring God's role of creator of life.
Embryonic stem cell research is really the same thing: To do it we create (human) life, and then destroy it. Cloning, again, is creating life. Which by Church dogma is not something humans should meddle in.
Your block will either be fixed-width or have some width relative to it's enclosing block, otherwise you wouldn't be centering it. (The only other option is completely unknown width, and if the width is completely unknown the browser can't center it. It won't know the width either.)
And the margins thing makes sense, if you think about it: to center it, you tell it to distribute all extra space into the margins, equally. So it's logical, if a little unintuitive.
CSS isn't always the most intuitive, I'll admit. There are usually good reasons for it, and it usually allows you to do complex things which more intuitive methods would preclude you from doing, but it does seem to make some simple things hard.
You want to center a block? Set it's width, and set left and right margins to 'auto'. That's CSS for 'center block relative to enclosing block.' (And yes, that behaviour is in the spec.)
Otherwise, what are you looking to do that you can't?
Officially, the Catholic Church has no problems with evolution. Their view of God is big enough to encompass one who would use natural selection as his creation mechanism. The Pope (well, a previous pope anyway) has officially declared that evolution does not conflict with Biblical teachings.
Oddly enough, I have no beef with people who don't want to think. In a way, much of our progress depends on them: Civilization advances when we can do more complex things without thinking about them, because we have built tools and systems for doing them.
I do have a problem with people who extrapolate that desire to how the universe should work. The universe is complex, and it takes a lot of thought to understand even a small part of it. If you don't want to think, that is fine with me. Just don't claim that you should be able to understand something without thought. Understanding is thought.
Neither of those has any bearing on the theory of evolution. They are in entirely different realms of science. Calling a physist an 'evolutionist' is degrading to biology, physics, and yourself.
I only read the first paper, but from it I quickly noticed that it has no provision for the magnetic field ceasing, re-starting, or changing polarity in an already-formed planet, and we have evidence that all of those have occured in Earth's past.
The best theory is the one which accounts for the largest precentage of facts observable, with the least number of assumptions. His theory in that paper made at least one more assumption than any other theory to explain the same phenominon, and could not account for large percentages of the facts already known.
True, but predictiveness is easier to explain why it's bad than just testablitly. It looks outward to the world, instead of in to science itself, which can make testablity sound like 'because we say so.'
Actually, I think a better argument is the predictiveness argument: Science is about learning to understand and predict the world around us, so we can make it better. (Of course 'better' has a host of different meanings, but regardless of which we choose, we need to be able to understand and predict, so we can choose the results of our actions.)
Evolution makes predictions that are accurate enough to be useful, regardless of whether is it aboslutely true or not. (For the record: It's as true as anything we've ever come up with.)
Creationism makes no predictions. In fact, it prevents them: Why did this happen? God did it. Will it happen again? If God wants it to. Will it stop? If God gets bored. Can we influence it? If God decides to be influenced, yes. In the end, 'God' is unknowable and unexplainable, so by saying God did it we have stopped all thought, inquiry, or prediction on the topic.
Which is probably why it is attractive to some people: They don't want to think.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do some of us think the current situation will never change? Economics: It is economically unfeasible for anyone to run extra lines to every house, get their own link to the Internet backbone, and start up as a competitor to the current telcos. And that is what it would take for a new competitor to enter the market.
On the occasional small-scale this isn't always true: A mid-sized town could wire themselves if they wanted to. Note that this is local government doing the job at that point.
The US telecom/television/broadband market is in free-market monopoly status, with the barrier to entry enforced by both government regulation and the sheer size of the initial install. Ask any economics professor; once a market hits that status it takes either government intervention or a major technological change to break out of it.
There is one chance of a major technological change: Wireless Internet access is starting to spread, and may reach equal speeds. But at this point you either have to have the government break the monopoly or hope the cellular companies do a better job soon.
Unfortunately, that's not how Uwe Boll makes movies. He takes A-list actors, and turns them into B-list actors by featuring them in C-list movies...
Identification is not necessarily tracking, yes. But the way they are talking about it, they would go hand-in-hand.
And it is very rare that I care if the person in front of me is who they say they are. I only care if the have the authorization to do what they want to do. (Use a credit card, for example.)
Which totally misses the point. Which is why? What problem are they trying to solve? What possible problem is worth the cost of those in power having a way to track every individual of any age anywhere in the country?
Actually, that brings up an interesting point: if this color of light is what signals to the body that it's 'daytime' (and therefore you should be awake), wouldn't having it around us at night mess up our sleep rhythms? I mean, 'jet lag' is already a bitch, imagine getting it just because you drove back from a party too late one night.
At least you don't need gasoline just to have your jeep sit at base; you only need it when the vehicle needs to actually move. So you can ration it better, and need less of it overall. (This is the major reason why automobiles replaced horses for the average person: An auto only needed a garage to store, while a horse needed space, and feed.)
You obviously have never been in a developing country. Why would you need a car sharing co-op? Just put it on the back your bike. Get enough straps and it'll fit. The average person isn't likely to ever buy something larger than a refrigerator, and I've seen those on the backs of bikes...
Similarly, one bike can handle five people, with the stuff on the back rack. (A sofa is good. You'll probably want a front rack too.)
I'm just saying I don't see any difference between that and the standard US airport. I agree, the waits were reasonable. (Though needing two of them was a little off, and the 10 minute was the shorter one, where I was fast-tracked.)
It's no worse or more intrusive than any US airport, certainly. But it's no better either.
When was the last time you've been through Heathrow?
I went over Christmas. Between planes I went through two different shoes-off-laptops-out scans, and had to wait in line at least 10 minutes each time.
No, it only works if you can come up with a line of reasoning that shows it is wrong, and appears at least as valid as the original information.
Actual relative validity may vary quite a bit: You can debunk something that is actually right, if you are good enough. (And the information is questionable enough.)
On the contrary point, there are things that are wrong that are almost impossible to debunk, if they are held together plausibly enough.
Actually, the complaint is about how IE renders HTML that does conform to standards. It renders it in a way that does not conform to the standards of how it is supposed to be rendered.
Therefore, a page in valid HTML who's layout works well in IE is likely to not work well in any browser that actually does what it is supposed to, and vice-versa.
(Posted in code so they can't understand it:)
You are positing a hertofore unshown level of intelegence and understanding of the complexities of the mindset of countries other than the USA in the USA's current leadership. I respectfully suggest that they are more likely to try the direct approach, despite the accilary effects strengthening their enemies position. This seems to meet with the past record of those leaders actions.
That's a different problem, somewhat. (Unbundling does have to be regulated, and regulated well.) And you guys are still ahead of us on high-speed broadband avaliblity.
The market can't demand anything that isn't offered. In this case, there is essentially no compitition in most of the USA for internet providers. The way the market would demand something is by having people switch to faster providers, showing they are willing to spend the money for speed. In which case companies would then try to make their networks faster, to attract more customers.
But in the US, there is no one to switch to. So the market can't demand anything.
'Unbundling' as they call it in the article is always painted as anti-capitolistic, and as ending market forces. In fact, it is the opposite: It would allow market forces to work again, by giving people a choice of networks.
Actually, it's probably closer to their position on birth control: Only God has the authority to create life. By blocking that (birth control) or getting around that (artificial insemination) we are usupring God's role of creator of life.
Embryonic stem cell research is really the same thing: To do it we create (human) life, and then destroy it. Cloning, again, is creating life. Which by Church dogma is not something humans should meddle in.
Your block will either be fixed-width or have some width relative to it's enclosing block, otherwise you wouldn't be centering it. (The only other option is completely unknown width, and if the width is completely unknown the browser can't center it. It won't know the width either.)
And the margins thing makes sense, if you think about it: to center it, you tell it to distribute all extra space into the margins, equally. So it's logical, if a little unintuitive.
CSS isn't always the most intuitive, I'll admit. There are usually good reasons for it, and it usually allows you to do complex things which more intuitive methods would preclude you from doing, but it does seem to make some simple things hard.
You want to center a block? Set it's width, and set left and right margins to 'auto'. That's CSS for 'center block relative to enclosing block.' (And yes, that behaviour is in the spec.)
Otherwise, what are you looking to do that you can't?
Officially, the Catholic Church has no problems with evolution. Their view of God is big enough to encompass one who would use natural selection as his creation mechanism. The Pope (well, a previous pope anyway) has officially declared that evolution does not conflict with Biblical teachings.
Oddly enough, I have no beef with people who don't want to think. In a way, much of our progress depends on them: Civilization advances when we can do more complex things without thinking about them, because we have built tools and systems for doing them.
I do have a problem with people who extrapolate that desire to how the universe should work. The universe is complex, and it takes a lot of thought to understand even a small part of it. If you don't want to think, that is fine with me. Just don't claim that you should be able to understand something without thought. Understanding is thought.
Neither of those has any bearing on the theory of evolution. They are in entirely different realms of science. Calling a physist an 'evolutionist' is degrading to biology, physics, and yourself.
I only read the first paper, but from it I quickly noticed that it has no provision for the magnetic field ceasing, re-starting, or changing polarity in an already-formed planet, and we have evidence that all of those have occured in Earth's past.
The best theory is the one which accounts for the largest precentage of facts observable, with the least number of assumptions. His theory in that paper made at least one more assumption than any other theory to explain the same phenominon, and could not account for large percentages of the facts already known.
True, but predictiveness is easier to explain why it's bad than just testablitly. It looks outward to the world, instead of in to science itself, which can make testablity sound like 'because we say so.'
It's just a different perspective on the debate.
Biology and it's whole sub-genere called 'medicine' come to mind...
Actually, I think a better argument is the predictiveness argument: Science is about learning to understand and predict the world around us, so we can make it better. (Of course 'better' has a host of different meanings, but regardless of which we choose, we need to be able to understand and predict, so we can choose the results of our actions.)
Evolution makes predictions that are accurate enough to be useful, regardless of whether is it aboslutely true or not. (For the record: It's as true as anything we've ever come up with.)
Creationism makes no predictions. In fact, it prevents them: Why did this happen? God did it. Will it happen again? If God wants it to. Will it stop? If God gets bored. Can we influence it? If God decides to be influenced, yes. In the end, 'God' is unknowable and unexplainable, so by saying God did it we have stopped all thought, inquiry, or prediction on the topic.
Which is probably why it is attractive to some people: They don't want to think.
Falsiblity. Predictive ablity.
Some resemblence to the facts we can find in nature.