The absolute best way to fix the spam problem is to gather the spammers up in a giant pit. Gather everyone that has ever bought a spammer's product in another giant pit.
Give them all guns.
Open the door between the two, and offer $100,000 to the last man standing.
CLECs don't drop copper to your house necessarily. They lease their last mile connection. They don't have to, they could use a fixed wireless connection for the last mile. In fact, I believe there are several places utilizing fixed wireless for the last mile in stead of leasing copper. Are these companies phone companies? Should they have to comply with the same regulations for carriers, minimum grade of service, etc. as other telephone companies? If so, how are they different than VonAge?
They still own (or lease, which is effectively the same thing) the last mile. With Vonage, the customer provides the last mile.
When the provider owns or directly leases the last mile, they can ensure that they get the level of service required to meet telco regulations in terms of minimum levels of service, especially emergency services.
When the customer is responsible for providing the last mile, the customer will choose the cheapest alternative available (cable/ADSL, vs a T1 w/SLA or other uptime guarantee) -- Who should be held responsible for maintaining emergency services and minimum uptimes and whatnot if the last mile goes out?
If they are offering the exact same services as a phone company, with the only exception being that they use the Internet for the last mile to the subscriber and/or use the Internet for a portion or all of transit, then they should be required to follow the same rules as a regular phone company.
They don't provide the same service simply because they don't drop a piece of copper into your house. That's the reason telco services are regulated in the first place, they have a natural monopoly which cannot be replaced.
If your Vonage line is down, who do you blame? What if the end user equipment (Vonage provided, customer owned) dies, the router dies, the broadband connection is down, some router between you and Vonage is down?
In the telco world, the telco is responsible for making certain that every step has appropriate backups and redundancies. In a VoIP situation, Vonage has no control over a cablemodem outage, and cablemodems have no 911 uptime requirements.
If you want to get denied credit, apply for loan sufficiently large that you'll be denied as soon as they pull a credit report, but small enough that they won't laugh you out of the bank ($1,000,000 on a "I'm a MCSE, flip burgers and live in my parent's basement" would be dumb)
Yet Microsoft wasn't knocked into bitesized peices, telemarkets are still in business, and I haven't seen any increase in the nail market due to spammers being crucified...
I didn't try my cell phone, but I did accidentally fire up my CDPD modem on a place a few days ago (Didn't notice the CDPD card was in my laptop), I wasn't able to establish a connection, and it was jumping between sites rapidly.
I definitely was able to identify the existence of cell towers though, and I suspect I'd have been able to force the issue and get a connection, but I doubt it would have been stable enough to do anything of interest.
Even if this were possible, and I can't speak to that one way or the other, you're already allowed to take your phone on the plane, just not use it. If you have a sufficiently concealed device in your bag, you could bluetooth it to a PDA and go about your merry terrorist life right now even without the FAA/FCC/FBI/KGB's permission to use your phone.
Personally, I start skipping commercials when they get annoying. That's usually the first one, and I skip to the end of the commercial block.
When an interesting commercial is first, I watch it. If the next one is interesting, I watch it too, etc.
As soon as one pisses me off (Excessively loud, I've seen it more then 2-3 times before, it's for a product I don't care about, it's for a product I already use) I skip.
Who the hell cares about Coke vs Pepsi ads? We've all tried them both, we've all made our own decision (even if that decision is "I'll drink whatever is cheaper"), does advertising these products do ANYTHING?
Slashdot Mirror
It means that they get to rake in the dough for a few years when they do have a successful drug
The only ones who would truly benefit from one of these machines in a live setting are those who are truly bad singers
So basically what you're saying is that the RIAA has already started distributing them to their artists?
Q: Do you need a larger penis?
A: I was just born. I don't even know how to talk, where am I gonna get a date?
Q: Do you need bigger breasts?
It just goes downhill from there I'd imagine.
The absolute best way to fix the spam problem is to gather the spammers up in a giant pit. Gather everyone that has ever bought a spammer's product in another giant pit.
Give them all guns.
Open the door between the two, and offer $100,000 to the last man standing.
Have you ever tried to put a PDA through a credit-card reader? Seriously?
I'm not sure about the US, but in Canada you can legally make copies of an original CD, and keep that copy once you give away the original.
As long as you don't copy a copy, or attempt to give or sell the copy, you're legally safe.
It doesn't work with software due to the EULA (if you agree to it), but music CDs don't get a shrinkwrap license (at least, not yet)
CLECs don't drop copper to your house necessarily. They lease their last mile connection. They don't have to, they could use a fixed wireless connection for the last mile. In fact, I believe there are several places utilizing fixed wireless for the last mile in stead of leasing copper. Are these companies phone companies? Should they have to comply with the same regulations for carriers, minimum grade of service, etc. as other telephone companies? If so, how are they different than VonAge?
They still own (or lease, which is effectively the same thing) the last mile. With Vonage, the customer provides the last mile.
When the provider owns or directly leases the last mile, they can ensure that they get the level of service required to meet telco regulations in terms of minimum levels of service, especially emergency services.
When the customer is responsible for providing the last mile, the customer will choose the cheapest alternative available (cable/ADSL, vs a T1 w/SLA or other uptime guarantee) -- Who should be held responsible for maintaining emergency services and minimum uptimes and whatnot if the last mile goes out?
If they are offering the exact same services as a phone company, with the only exception being that they use the Internet for the last mile to the subscriber and/or use the Internet for a portion or all of transit, then they should be required to follow the same rules as a regular phone company.
They don't provide the same service simply because they don't drop a piece of copper into your house. That's the reason telco services are regulated in the first place, they have a natural monopoly which cannot be replaced.
Since when do Americans learn from death?
If your Vonage line is down, who do you blame? What if the end user equipment (Vonage provided, customer owned) dies, the router dies, the broadband connection is down, some router between you and Vonage is down?
In the telco world, the telco is responsible for making certain that every step has appropriate backups and redundancies. In a VoIP situation, Vonage has no control over a cablemodem outage, and cablemodems have no 911 uptime requirements.
Who do you blame?
Have you actually tried it?
Unless you "ALERT" first, then indeed you can just start talking, just like a good 'ol fashion walkie-talkie
Less expansive workers consume less food too, so you'll save at company events.
If you want to get denied credit, apply for loan sufficiently large that you'll be denied as soon as they pull a credit report, but small enough that they won't laugh you out of the bank ($1,000,000 on a "I'm a MCSE, flip burgers and live in my parent's basement" would be dumb)
We can rebuild it.
We have the technology.
But we don't want to spend a lot of money.
I belive that most users of /. have seen and regularly for to thinkgeek.
What the fuck are you trying to say?
Yet Microsoft wasn't knocked into bitesized peices, telemarkets are still in business, and I haven't seen any increase in the nail market due to spammers being crucified...
Large craters on Venus are named after famous women.
Small craters on Venus are given common female first names.
So we're giving women's names to holes? Implying what about a women with a larger hole?
I didn't try my cell phone, but I did accidentally fire up my CDPD modem on a place a few days ago (Didn't notice the CDPD card was in my laptop), I wasn't able to establish a connection, and it was jumping between sites rapidly.
I definitely was able to identify the existence of cell towers though, and I suspect I'd have been able to force the issue and get a connection, but I doubt it would have been stable enough to do anything of interest.
Even if this were possible, and I can't speak to that one way or the other, you're already allowed to take your phone on the plane, just not use it. If you have a sufficiently concealed device in your bag, you could bluetooth it to a PDA and go about your merry terrorist life right now even without the FAA/FCC/FBI/KGB's permission to use your phone.
They're sending Bush after the Chinese?
In 1996, China had no high-end computers capable of testing nuclear weapons. By 1999, they had 350.
Really? In 1996 China didn't have the computer power available to the US (and most of the rest of the world) in 1941?
I might be wrong, but I suspect that *I* have computer power comparible to what the US gov't used in 1941 to test nukes... ?
That's a lot of starship enterprise models when you're done too...
Good!
How about the classic joe-job defense? Who do you throw in jail if someone claims they knew nothing about it?
Personally, I start skipping commercials when they get annoying. That's usually the first one, and I skip to the end of the commercial block.
When an interesting commercial is first, I watch it. If the next one is interesting, I watch it too, etc.
As soon as one pisses me off (Excessively loud, I've seen it more then 2-3 times before, it's for a product I don't care about, it's for a product I already use) I skip.
Who the hell cares about Coke vs Pepsi ads? We've all tried them both, we've all made our own decision (even if that decision is "I'll drink whatever is cheaper"), does advertising these products do ANYTHING?