And as brought out time and again, there are much less dense countries in the world that have bigger pipes and even metropolitan areas in the US don't get all that great of a broadband. Look at individual states and I would say most of the East Coast and West Coast is pretty densely populated but still many don't have broadband or very fast broadband. I don't think there are any providers in the US that provide more than 10Mbps other than those that can afford a business package.
That's funny. I'm writing this from my 30x5 mbit connection ( here is a link I just took so you know I'm not just blowing smoke: http://www.speedtest.net/result/1126878052.png ). Oh, and I don't even live in a major metropolitan area. I live in a mid income suburb (avg home value is about $120K).
They shouldn't be allowed to sell "Internet access" then. If I'm paying for service, and I can't get to a site because my "ISP" has it blocked, then they aren't providing Internet access. They should be forced to advertise the service as a "Restricted web portal". Yeah, they might not like it, but it would be a lot closer to the truth.
Side note: "TalkTalk" sounds cutesy. I have another cutesy for them: "Bye-Bye", as I cancel my service.
Not only that, it's a popular thing to do. *Lots* of people play video games. It's as ubiquitous as watching a movie or talking on the telephone. Just by raw numbers alone, some of the people that play them might have a mental condition, it doesn't mean it's the games fault. All it means is popular activities are popular.
The problem is that computers must interface with the corporate network. They are going to want to control what software is on it, security settings, and the like. So you might own the hardware, but you may not have much control over it.
Which is exactly the problem. Your mouse that you mentioned doesn't run complex software or store valuable data. It doesn't get infected with viruses, nor is it a potential security liability for the company of you are canned. If you give up control of your property to a third party, you are no longer an owner, you are a steward.
If a company thinks I'm going to buy any piece of hardware, and then essentially turn it over to them, they can go pound sand.
In fact, my company basically said, "Oh, you have a BB of your own, lets get you setup with company email on it". I laughed and asked them if they were going to pay for my BB. Of course the answer was, "No". If they would have said yes, I would have been surprised, but would have just told them that, "I wasn't aware of that 'benefit' and I'd keep it in mind for a future point in time", in my own scathingly snide way. You guys that let a company control your personal property are spineless, go grow a funckin' set.
Generally speaking, to dethrone the entrenched standard (in any industry, not just search engines) you have to be substantially better to get people to switch to something they aren't used to. Marginally better just won't cut it. Cost is a moot point, because outside of MS paying me a check every month to use bing, you can't beat the price of free.
Humans are generally animals of habit, and unless you give them a good reason to, they won't change.
Microsoft has been trying to get into the media in the home position for 10+ years now and it has been a long string of minor temporary successes interspersed with epic fails. Media center PC - FAIL, epic FAIL. Why - just look at an original XP media center remote and the answer is there. It has Live TV and DVD on it. NO OPTION FOR RECORDED MEDIA. Yes, that is the way the media companies would like us to consume it. That is however a guaranteed market fail for the product. No wonder that a significant proportion of these are hooked up to MythTV and DIY media center boxes running Linux nowdays. Compared to that Apple remotes worked out of the box and they were designed to deliver what the customer wanted day one. In its early days (and for some people it is still the case) iTunes was more about organising pirated media collections and not buying more iStuff and it did that job brilliantly regardless of what the media corps say.
Do you even have a fucking clue as to what you are talking about?
Just because there isn't a button that says "OMG CLICK TO WATCH RECORDED TV", doesn't mean the function isn't there, right in your face, inside the 10 foot UI. Also, I wouldn't cite windows XP as all MS has done in the Media Center market. Go ahead, head on over to AVSforum's HTPC area ( http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26 ). The Audio Video Science forum is one of the most informational sites for all types of A/V setups. HTPCs are dominated by Windows 7 Media Center, not linux setups or apple devices. (you know, that thing that is like 5+ years more advanced than XP, lol).
Contrary to what you say, the majority of HTPC devices are [u]NOT[/u] using MythTV and linux. The majority are running W7MC, with the media browser pluggin. Go fanboy some more for apple bro.
Considering that when you are married, in terms of property rights, you are considered a single legal entity, I honestly don't see how this would stand up in court.
I'm glad that anti-spam law stopped spam from coming into my inbox... oh wait.
Just because the US passes some law, it won't prevent tracking from happening. This is ironically both a negative and positive attribute. It's a global network, it can't truly be "policed".
I'll probably get modded down, but this is how I feel.
So what if google "dies"? Ever since they became a mainstream Internet name they ceased being a "do no evil" innovator. They turned cold shoulder on real net neutrality. Why should I give a shit about a company that doesn't give a shit about me?
Now, I'm not saying that MS is any better. MS is likely motivated in crushing ads simply to financially hurt google without sustaining much damage themselves (since most of their revenue is in sales of software, not bing ads), though they won't admit it and will try to claim (in a righteous manner) that they did it to help personal users because they care about privacy...blah blah blah.
In a related story, People for the Ethical Treatment of Germs are outraged. A spokesperson for the agency has offered an official statement requesting minimum hourly wages, paid vacation time off, and retirement benefits. They fell that considering the working environment is quite literally a shit-hole these demands are entirely reasonable.
Yes, it's real, and right off of the MPAA site, lol! Skip to page 3 for the list. There's honestly some stuff in there I didn't know about, like kino.to
Big Tobacco also dismissed that nicotine was not addictive (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQUNk5meJHs).
Does it really surprise you that mega-greed industry representatives will lie through their teeth to try and rake in more profits? Yeah, go after individual files and links, that's fine, but to think that taking and entire site offline, won't at some point violate someones free speech is embarrassingly full of shit.
Why should someone who is disabled (most likely not caused by a choice) be given less access?
Also, you need to think things through a little. Requiring every company that does business with the public to have "blind software compatible web pages" or whatever will probably negatively impact a large number of people *without* improving the situation for handicapped. Let me give you an example:
My neighborhood pizza shop has a web menu. It's really basic, just some scanned jpegs of their actual menu. It's a convenience for me, and it probably costs the business like 30 bucks a year for a domain name plus some cheap shared hosting. For a business this is pretty well worth the investment as a convenience to their customers.
Now say ADA comes along, all of the sudden that business has to make their website menu "handicapped capable". The owner isn't an HTML writer. It's just some basic image tags on a red background. No way does he have the ability to write JAWS compatible code, etc. So now he has to look for a website admin to write and maintain the code every time he wants to change his menu, probably costing a thousand dollars a year or more plus lots of extra hassle. So what's the Pizza shop owner do? He says "fuck it" and pulls the web menu. The situation didn't improve at all for the hadicapped person, there is still no web menu, but now I no longer have a web menu either.
All this is going to do is fuck with small business a ton and make them less competitive or able to use the web to promote themselves. The large conglomerates will absorb the costs with their financial mass, and the little guys get hurt. Plus it just paves the way for another wave of troll-profiteering lawsuits.
Also, not being able to do things like everybody else is the negative consequence of having a disability. I never said they chose to be disabled. However, reality is reality. If you are disabled, you just have to accept that there are some things you might not be able to do. Is it unfortunate? Absolutely, however, it's just how it is. The guy with no arms just isn't going to be very good at tennis.
You also need to realize financial resources are limited. We need to spend them appropriately where they can have the most impact. The needs of the many generally outweigh the needs of the few.
Mandating companies to take reasonable measures to accommodate the needs of disabled patrons when the market can't is part of belonging to a civilized society.
I don't think requiring businesses to foot unprofitable costs, when there is no negative impact to the public at large is reasonable.
As an example, air scrubbers at chemical plants are costly, but they benefit the entire public by not destroying the environment near the plant so people don't live on chemical polluted lands. Everyone benefits from this. However, in the case of these LED CC projectors, which the business may not recuperate the purchase cost to install because of the limited demographic, and also not having LED CC projectors doesn't negatively impact the public welfare so why should closed caption projectors be mandatory?
You don't live in a utopia where everyone can be happy all the time and have all of their needs magically taken care of. This is real life. Businesses don't exist to make people pleasant even at the cost of turning an operating cost loss. They aren't fucking charities.
Is life harder for handicapped people? Yes. Do I "feel" for them? Yeah. Do I think we should make sure they have equal access to mandatory life services? Yup. These whiners need to grow up and realize their disability might limit some things they can do, since that's exactly what a disability is. Welcome to reality, everyone isn't dealt the same hand. Some people have poverty to deal with. Other people have suffer from physical abuse. Etc. Etc. The majority of people have their own hardships to overcome, it isn't the responsibility of private enterprise to try and make up for it.
I'm all for making sure handicapped people have access to necessary services... however *requiring* movie theaters to provide closed captioning devices at every seat is ridiculous. Watching a movie is is not a life necessity. If the demand is there, and the people that need it are willing to pay a price that makes business sense, then the theaters will have Closed captioning equipment. If it doesn't make business sense, then they won't.
What the fuck is with the government wanting to tell *PRIVATE* business who they have to make non-mandatory (ie. entertainment) products available to?
ADA is mostly bullshit anyways. Hey, let's also make sure we have a wheel chair ramp for bungee jumping, because you never know when some cripple with deteriorating bones might want to plunge down a hundred feet with only their legs attached to a giant rubber band. Why not require the same Closed captioning devices for normal theater (plays) as well? How about all sporting events too? Gotta have CC devices at the seats so you can hear the refs calls. Maybe we need to throw some braille street signs in there too, wouldn't want the blind to be discriminated against when driving a car, you know?
The bottom line is, if there is money to be made, some company *will* do it voluntarily. If the market can't support it, oh well, tough break, it doesn't happen.
We've been contacted by an alien named Lurg. He comes from the planet Xulton in the in the Doovi nebula. Lurg informed us, that unless you pay him... errr.. I mean us... $160,000 a month, he will steal your child and make him a slave in the Galvanium mines of Dooviburg. You may be tempted to contact the United States authorities about this, however, any contact with them will result in the immediate death of your son.
Slashdot Mirror
And as brought out time and again, there are much less dense countries in the world that have bigger pipes and even metropolitan areas in the US don't get all that great of a broadband. Look at individual states and I would say most of the East Coast and West Coast is pretty densely populated but still many don't have broadband or very fast broadband. I don't think there are any providers in the US that provide more than 10Mbps other than those that can afford a business package.
That's funny. I'm writing this from my 30x5 mbit connection ( here is a link I just took so you know I'm not just blowing smoke: http://www.speedtest.net/result/1126878052.png ). Oh, and I don't even live in a major metropolitan area. I live in a mid income suburb (avg home value is about $120K).
They shouldn't be allowed to sell "Internet access" then. If I'm paying for service, and I can't get to a site because my "ISP" has it blocked, then they aren't providing Internet access. They should be forced to advertise the service as a "Restricted web portal". Yeah, they might not like it, but it would be a lot closer to the truth.
Side note: "TalkTalk" sounds cutesy. I have another cutesy for them: "Bye-Bye", as I cancel my service.
Not only that, it's a popular thing to do. *Lots* of people play video games. It's as ubiquitous as watching a movie or talking on the telephone. Just by raw numbers alone, some of the people that play them might have a mental condition, it doesn't mean it's the games fault. All it means is popular activities are popular.
I bet 8 in 10 of these school shooters have bicycles too. Why aren't they focused on the obvious bicycle problem?
Correlation is not causation. When will they figure this out?
The problem is that computers must interface with the corporate network. They are going to want to control what software is on it, security settings, and the like. So you might own the hardware, but you may not have much control over it.
Which is exactly the problem. Your mouse that you mentioned doesn't run complex software or store valuable data. It doesn't get infected with viruses, nor is it a potential security liability for the company of you are canned. If you give up control of your property to a third party, you are no longer an owner, you are a steward.
If a company thinks I'm going to buy any piece of hardware, and then essentially turn it over to them, they can go pound sand.
In fact, my company basically said, "Oh, you have a BB of your own, lets get you setup with company email on it". I laughed and asked them if they were going to pay for my BB. Of course the answer was, "No". If they would have said yes, I would have been surprised, but would have just told them that, "I wasn't aware of that 'benefit' and I'd keep it in mind for a future point in time", in my own scathingly snide way. You guys that let a company control your personal property are spineless, go grow a funckin' set.
It doesn't matter, google won.
Generally speaking, to dethrone the entrenched standard (in any industry, not just search engines) you have to be substantially better to get people to switch to something they aren't used to. Marginally better just won't cut it. Cost is a moot point, because outside of MS paying me a check every month to use bing, you can't beat the price of free.
Humans are generally animals of habit, and unless you give them a good reason to, they won't change.
No, they don't, because I don't use that steaming pile of shit facebook, or any other social media sites. I'm not that narcissistic.
Microsoft has been trying to get into the media in the home position for 10+ years now and it has been a long string of minor temporary successes interspersed with epic fails. Media center PC - FAIL, epic FAIL. Why - just look at an original XP media center remote and the answer is there. It has Live TV and DVD on it. NO OPTION FOR RECORDED MEDIA. Yes, that is the way the media companies would like us to consume it. That is however a guaranteed market fail for the product. No wonder that a significant proportion of these are hooked up to MythTV and DIY media center boxes running Linux nowdays. Compared to that Apple remotes worked out of the box and they were designed to deliver what the customer wanted day one. In its early days (and for some people it is still the case) iTunes was more about organising pirated media collections and not buying more iStuff and it did that job brilliantly regardless of what the media corps say.
Do you even have a fucking clue as to what you are talking about?
Just because there isn't a button that says "OMG CLICK TO WATCH RECORDED TV", doesn't mean the function isn't there, right in your face, inside the 10 foot UI. Also, I wouldn't cite windows XP as all MS has done in the Media Center market. Go ahead, head on over to AVSforum's HTPC area ( http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26 ). The Audio Video Science forum is one of the most informational sites for all types of A/V setups. HTPCs are dominated by Windows 7 Media Center, not linux setups or apple devices. (you know, that thing that is like 5+ years more advanced than XP, lol).
Contrary to what you say, the majority of HTPC devices are [u]NOT[/u] using MythTV and linux. The majority are running W7MC, with the media browser pluggin. Go fanboy some more for apple bro.
Considering that when you are married, in terms of property rights, you are considered a single legal entity, I honestly don't see how this would stand up in court.
BrianMoynihanIsADick.com is still available. They'd need to register thousands and thousands of names, not just a couple hundred.
I'm glad that anti-spam law stopped spam from coming into my inbox... oh wait.
Just because the US passes some law, it won't prevent tracking from happening. This is ironically both a negative and positive attribute. It's a global network, it can't truly be "policed".
I'll probably get modded down, but this is how I feel.
So what if google "dies"? Ever since they became a mainstream Internet name they ceased being a "do no evil" innovator. They turned cold shoulder on real net neutrality. Why should I give a shit about a company that doesn't give a shit about me?
Now, I'm not saying that MS is any better. MS is likely motivated in crushing ads simply to financially hurt google without sustaining much damage themselves (since most of their revenue is in sales of software, not bing ads), though they won't admit it and will try to claim (in a righteous manner) that they did it to help personal users because they care about privacy...blah blah blah.
You know what they about squeezing blood from a rock...
Good luck collecting.
In a related story, People for the Ethical Treatment of Germs are outraged. A spokesperson for the agency has offered an official statement requesting minimum hourly wages, paid vacation time off, and retirement benefits. They fell that considering the working environment is quite literally a shit-hole these demands are entirely reasonable.
Apparently the RIAA is upset that we aren't using the far more encompassing MPAA piracy list instead.
http://www.mpaa.org/Resources/fdff7027-1a9e-46dc-9a80-7cf20aa1b686.pdf
Yes, it's real, and right off of the MPAA site, lol! Skip to page 3 for the list. There's honestly some stuff in there I didn't know about, like kino.to
I could have an avatar named 'WaffenPanzer' with SS lightning bolts as a picture and that's totally cool.
However, I couldn't have an avatar named 'AncientUnity' with a swasika?
How much fucking sense does that make?
Crazy bad, when "embarrassingly polluted" just doesn't do justice.
Big Tobacco also dismissed that nicotine was not addictive (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQUNk5meJHs).
Does it really surprise you that mega-greed industry representatives will lie through their teeth to try and rake in more profits? Yeah, go after individual files and links, that's fine, but to think that taking and entire site offline, won't at some point violate someones free speech is embarrassingly full of shit.
Why should someone who is disabled (most likely not caused by a choice) be given less access?
Also, you need to think things through a little. Requiring every company that does business with the public to have "blind software compatible web pages" or whatever will probably negatively impact a large number of people *without* improving the situation for handicapped. Let me give you an example:
My neighborhood pizza shop has a web menu. It's really basic, just some scanned jpegs of their actual menu. It's a convenience for me, and it probably costs the business like 30 bucks a year for a domain name plus some cheap shared hosting. For a business this is pretty well worth the investment as a convenience to their customers.
Now say ADA comes along, all of the sudden that business has to make their website menu "handicapped capable". The owner isn't an HTML writer. It's just some basic image tags on a red background. No way does he have the ability to write JAWS compatible code, etc. So now he has to look for a website admin to write and maintain the code every time he wants to change his menu, probably costing a thousand dollars a year or more plus lots of extra hassle. So what's the Pizza shop owner do? He says "fuck it" and pulls the web menu. The situation didn't improve at all for the hadicapped person, there is still no web menu, but now I no longer have a web menu either.
All this is going to do is fuck with small business a ton and make them less competitive or able to use the web to promote themselves. The large conglomerates will absorb the costs with their financial mass, and the little guys get hurt. Plus it just paves the way for another wave of troll-profiteering lawsuits.
Also, not being able to do things like everybody else is the negative consequence of having a disability. I never said they chose to be disabled. However, reality is reality. If you are disabled, you just have to accept that there are some things you might not be able to do. Is it unfortunate? Absolutely, however, it's just how it is. The guy with no arms just isn't going to be very good at tennis.
You also need to realize financial resources are limited. We need to spend them appropriately where they can have the most impact. The needs of the many generally outweigh the needs of the few.
Mandating companies to take reasonable measures to accommodate the needs of disabled patrons when the market can't is part of belonging to a civilized society.
I don't think requiring businesses to foot unprofitable costs, when there is no negative impact to the public at large is reasonable.
As an example, air scrubbers at chemical plants are costly, but they benefit the entire public by not destroying the environment near the plant so people don't live on chemical polluted lands. Everyone benefits from this. However, in the case of these LED CC projectors, which the business may not recuperate the purchase cost to install because of the limited demographic, and also not having LED CC projectors doesn't negatively impact the public welfare so why should closed caption projectors be mandatory?
You don't live in a utopia where everyone can be happy all the time and have all of their needs magically taken care of. This is real life. Businesses don't exist to make people pleasant even at the cost of turning an operating cost loss. They aren't fucking charities.
Is life harder for handicapped people? Yes. Do I "feel" for them? Yeah. Do I think we should make sure they have equal access to mandatory life services? Yup. These whiners need to grow up and realize their disability might limit some things they can do, since that's exactly what a disability is. Welcome to reality, everyone isn't dealt the same hand. Some people have poverty to deal with. Other people have suffer from physical abuse. Etc. Etc. The majority of people have their own hardships to overcome, it isn't the responsibility of private enterprise to try and make up for it.
I'm all for making sure handicapped people have access to necessary services... however *requiring* movie theaters to provide closed captioning devices at every seat is ridiculous. Watching a movie is is not a life necessity. If the demand is there, and the people that need it are willing to pay a price that makes business sense, then the theaters will have Closed captioning equipment. If it doesn't make business sense, then they won't.
What the fuck is with the government wanting to tell *PRIVATE* business who they have to make non-mandatory (ie. entertainment) products available to?
ADA is mostly bullshit anyways. Hey, let's also make sure we have a wheel chair ramp for bungee jumping, because you never know when some cripple with deteriorating bones might want to plunge down a hundred feet with only their legs attached to a giant rubber band. Why not require the same Closed captioning devices for normal theater (plays) as well? How about all sporting events too? Gotta have CC devices at the seats so you can hear the refs calls. Maybe we need to throw some braille street signs in there too, wouldn't want the blind to be discriminated against when driving a car, you know?
The bottom line is, if there is money to be made, some company *will* do it voluntarily. If the market can't support it, oh well, tough break, it doesn't happen.
If I ever go to Japan I am *soooooo* wearing a clown mask up to one of these machines.
We've been contacted by an alien named Lurg. He comes from the planet Xulton in the in the Doovi nebula. Lurg informed us, that unless you pay him... errr.. I mean us... $160,000 a month, he will steal your child and make him a slave in the Galvanium mines of Dooviburg. You may be tempted to contact the United States authorities about this, however, any contact with them will result in the immediate death of your son.
Bet these chumps would fall for that too.
"Don't eat, see if I give a shit"
Seriously, if you have a contract dispute, take them to court.
... will help them out.
/dot effect! :P
clever attempt at social engneering for more