From Salon.com:
We've already noted the critical role Sandra Day O'Connor has played as a Supreme Court swing voter over the last 24 years. Here's more on that front -- People for the American Way's list and description of notable 5-4 Supreme Court decisions that could have gone the other way if a more conservative justice were sitting in O'Connor's seat:
* Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) affirmed the right of state colleges and universities to use affirmative action in their admissions policies to increase educational opportunities for minorities and promote racial diversity on campus;
* Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation v. EPA (2004) said the Environmental Protection Agency could step in and take action to reduce air pollution under the Clean Air Act when a state conservation agency fails to act;
* Rush Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran (2002) upheld state laws giving people the right to a second doctor's opinion if their HMOs tried to deny them treatment;
* Hunt v. Cromartie (2001) affirmed the right of state legislators to take race into account to secure minority voting rights in redistricting;
* Tennessee v. Lane (2004) upheld the constitutionality of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and required that courtrooms be physically accessible to the disabled;
* Hibbs v. Winn (2004) subjected discriminatory and unconstitutional state tax laws to review by the federal judiciary;
* Zadvydas v. Davis (2001) told the government it could not indefinitely detain an immigrant who was under final order of removal even if no other country would accept that person;
* Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (2001) affirmed that civil rights laws apply to associations regulating interscholastic sports;
* Lee v. Weisman (1992) continued the tradition of government neutrality toward religion, finding that government-sponsored prayer is unacceptable at graduations and other public school events;
* Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington (2003) maintained a key source of funding for legal assistance for the poor;
* Morse v. Republican Party of Virginia (1996) said key anti-discrimination provisions of the Voting Rights Act apply to political conventions that choose party candidates;
* Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (2001) upheld laws that limit political party expenditures that are coordinated with a candidate and seek to evade campaign contribution limits;
* McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003) upheld most of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, including its ban on political parties' use of unlimited soft money contributions;
* Stenberg v. Carhart (2000) overturned a state ban on so-called partial birth abortion; and
* McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky (2005) upheld the principle of government neutrality towards religion and ruled unconstitutional Ten Commandments displays in several courthouses.
Sounds like an acknowledgment of the extended timeline for something like Palladium/Trusted Computing. I've been curious to hear more about when and where that's actually going to show up.
This -- as well as the potential long-term storage of all content that passes through Vonage's network -- is why I think it's crazy people are so gung-ho about unregulated 'phone' service. Just one more sacrificial lamb to the information economy.
I don't know if I can shed light on who 'owns' the numbers, but I can clarify how they are assigned. NANPA does assign NXX codes to carriers. With Thousands Block Pooling (implemented to slow down NPA exhaust), there is actually a separate entity called the Pooling Administrator who assigns NPA-NXX-Xs to carriers as well -- a carrier that needs new TNs would typically get however many blocks they need rather than full codes.
The number ranges assigned to a given carrier (e.g. Verizon, or Sprint PCS) 'belong' to that carrier. When that carrier assigns a TN to a new customer, that TN will come somewhere from the assigned inventory that has been allocated to the carrier by NANPA or the Pooling Administrator. When that same customer disconnects, the TN returns to that carrier, gets aged X months, then becomes available for re-assignment.
Portability confuses this whole model by creating issues where, for instance, if a customer ports her TN from Verizon to Sprint PCS, and then subsequently disconnects service, then Sprint PCS has to age the TN but then after aging, the TN 'snaps back' to Verizon.
As for ownership rights -- dunno. Perhaps NANPA asserts ultimate ownership on behalf of the FCC because they are the administrator of all numbers in the North American Numbering Plan.
I can't speak to the merits of the case either way, but for some perspective it might be helpful to note that this is an OP-ED piece, and not a news story, from the NY Times. So although everything stated in the article may in fact be plain vanilla truth, your usual spin filters should be engaged.
The Archos jukeboxes have the other benefit of having a fully functional open source firmware replacement called Rockbox. Also the older Archos models run on AA NIMHs; IIRC, the Neuros has a proprietary battery.
Love the Neuros backpacking and built-in transmitter though. Great ideas.
The single most misused word I have come across is "literally"...
For instance: "His performance was so great! It literally blew me away."
Unless "he" was performing an imitation of a hurricane, the above use of "literally" is blatantly incorrect. Unfortuanately, all too often, "literally" is being used intechangeably with "really" and "absolutely", which is a real problem.
If fear it won't be long before "literally" is meaningless, and you won't have any way to telling someone you are not speaking figuratively.
Well, that still wouldn't have literally blown you away. It could literally blow you away if his performance involved a really (and absoloutely) enormous electric fan powerful enough to propel seated people out of their chairs.
In the US, telephone numbers are not purchased; instead, they're maintained and distributed by specific authorities (e.g. the North American Numbering Plan Administrator [NANPA] or the Pooling Administrator). Carriers can request new blocks of numbers once they meet certain regulatory thresholds (e.g. xx% of their existing number inventory is utilized); once they receive these new numbers, the carrier can assign the numbers however it likes. The TNs can't be taken away as far as I know unless the carrier has a number inventory in excess of what they actually need, in which case the carrier elects which number ranges to return to NANPA or similar authority. So once a number range is received and as long as it is used by a sufficient number of customers, for all intents and purposes it will continue to belong to the carrier and can't be taken away.
I believe there is a specific FCC ruling that allows carriers to recoup the costs associated with WNP from all customers (ala the Universal Service Charge that funds the requirement that local landline carriers provide service to low population areas) within a certain duration (like the next five years). This would show up on your mobile phone bill as a surcharge. IIRC, they are also specifically NOT allowed to charge individual customers for the number port itself.
The question: Why do we need telcos/ISPs? Sure, it doesn't make sense right now. Who will pay for the creation of the network, who will maintain it, etc.
But I don't understand the acclamation for all the knee-jerk "Yeah and world peace too" responses because it's not a totally stupid question. We already have things like distributed peer-to-peer networks. If you were to assume that you had a connection to at least one other node, and that node had a connection to at least one other node, etc -- why wouldn't this be possible? It's just a matter of figuring out the transport medium, right?
For a densely populated area (e.g. NYC) it sounds eminently feasible that given the right standards and the right wireless technology, people could just buy the right hardware and plug in without need for a centralized business providing you signal. What's so unimaginable about that?
So it boils down to what we need to bridge real distance, like for sparsely populated areas -- What technology could become pervasive (i.e. cheap) enough to hook up the folks in Alaska or Siberia to our imaginary freenet in NYC? Satellite and undersea fiber are expensive (hence telcos now) but what might we use in the future?
"Earendil married Elwing, and their sons were Elrond and Elros. Now, all this was terribly confusing, because nobody was entirely certain what species they were. So the Valar (the major gods) said that Earendil, Elwing, Elrond and Elros would each get to choose their species."
I'm no expert on the Tolkein mythology but the "this was terribly confusing" is all very confusing -- why exactly was it so important for the species distinctions to be made, to the extent that mixed race individuals had to choose? Was there no real miscegenation, and why were half-elves a problem that had to be resolved instead of a just a mix-breed with attributes and traits of each parent species? Drawing a racial analogy here would make it rather creepy.
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From Salon.com: We've already noted the critical role Sandra Day O'Connor has played as a Supreme Court swing voter over the last 24 years. Here's more on that front -- People for the American Way's list and description of notable 5-4 Supreme Court decisions that could have gone the other way if a more conservative justice were sitting in O'Connor's seat: * Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) affirmed the right of state colleges and universities to use affirmative action in their admissions policies to increase educational opportunities for minorities and promote racial diversity on campus; * Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation v. EPA (2004) said the Environmental Protection Agency could step in and take action to reduce air pollution under the Clean Air Act when a state conservation agency fails to act; * Rush Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran (2002) upheld state laws giving people the right to a second doctor's opinion if their HMOs tried to deny them treatment; * Hunt v. Cromartie (2001) affirmed the right of state legislators to take race into account to secure minority voting rights in redistricting; * Tennessee v. Lane (2004) upheld the constitutionality of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and required that courtrooms be physically accessible to the disabled; * Hibbs v. Winn (2004) subjected discriminatory and unconstitutional state tax laws to review by the federal judiciary; * Zadvydas v. Davis (2001) told the government it could not indefinitely detain an immigrant who was under final order of removal even if no other country would accept that person; * Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (2001) affirmed that civil rights laws apply to associations regulating interscholastic sports; * Lee v. Weisman (1992) continued the tradition of government neutrality toward religion, finding that government-sponsored prayer is unacceptable at graduations and other public school events; * Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington (2003) maintained a key source of funding for legal assistance for the poor; * Morse v. Republican Party of Virginia (1996) said key anti-discrimination provisions of the Voting Rights Act apply to political conventions that choose party candidates; * Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (2001) upheld laws that limit political party expenditures that are coordinated with a candidate and seek to evade campaign contribution limits; * McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003) upheld most of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, including its ban on political parties' use of unlimited soft money contributions; * Stenberg v. Carhart (2000) overturned a state ban on so-called partial birth abortion; and * McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky (2005) upheld the principle of government neutrality towards religion and ruled unconstitutional Ten Commandments displays in several courthouses.
Sounds like an acknowledgment of the extended timeline for something like Palladium/Trusted Computing. I've been curious to hear more about when and where that's actually going to show up.
This -- as well as the potential long-term storage of all content that passes through Vonage's network -- is why I think it's crazy people are so gung-ho about unregulated 'phone' service. Just one more sacrificial lamb to the information economy.
Haven't been able to connect to Yahoo via Kopete since the block.
I don't know if I can shed light on who 'owns' the numbers, but I can clarify how they are assigned. NANPA does assign NXX codes to carriers. With Thousands Block Pooling (implemented to slow down NPA exhaust), there is actually a separate entity called the Pooling Administrator who assigns NPA-NXX-Xs to carriers as well -- a carrier that needs new TNs would typically get however many blocks they need rather than full codes. The number ranges assigned to a given carrier (e.g. Verizon, or Sprint PCS) 'belong' to that carrier. When that carrier assigns a TN to a new customer, that TN will come somewhere from the assigned inventory that has been allocated to the carrier by NANPA or the Pooling Administrator. When that same customer disconnects, the TN returns to that carrier, gets aged X months, then becomes available for re-assignment. Portability confuses this whole model by creating issues where, for instance, if a customer ports her TN from Verizon to Sprint PCS, and then subsequently disconnects service, then Sprint PCS has to age the TN but then after aging, the TN 'snaps back' to Verizon. As for ownership rights -- dunno. Perhaps NANPA asserts ultimate ownership on behalf of the FCC because they are the administrator of all numbers in the North American Numbering Plan.
I can't speak to the merits of the case either way, but for some perspective it might be helpful to note that this is an OP-ED piece, and not a news story, from the NY Times. So although everything stated in the article may in fact be plain vanilla truth, your usual spin filters should be engaged.
Love the Neuros backpacking and built-in transmitter though. Great ideas.
Well, that still wouldn't have literally blown you away. It could literally blow you away if his performance involved a really (and absoloutely) enormous electric fan powerful enough to propel seated people out of their chairs.
In the US, telephone numbers are not purchased; instead, they're maintained and distributed by specific authorities (e.g. the North American Numbering Plan Administrator [NANPA] or the Pooling Administrator). Carriers can request new blocks of numbers once they meet certain regulatory thresholds (e.g. xx% of their existing number inventory is utilized); once they receive these new numbers, the carrier can assign the numbers however it likes. The TNs can't be taken away as far as I know unless the carrier has a number inventory in excess of what they actually need, in which case the carrier elects which number ranges to return to NANPA or similar authority. So once a number range is received and as long as it is used by a sufficient number of customers, for all intents and purposes it will continue to belong to the carrier and can't be taken away.
I believe there is a specific FCC ruling that allows carriers to recoup the costs associated with WNP from all customers (ala the Universal Service Charge that funds the requirement that local landline carriers provide service to low population areas) within a certain duration (like the next five years). This would show up on your mobile phone bill as a surcharge. IIRC, they are also specifically NOT allowed to charge individual customers for the number port itself.
An interesting related link to a UPenn compiled chronology leading to computers (that mentions the Incan Quipus).
The question: Why do we need telcos/ISPs? Sure, it doesn't make sense right now. Who will pay for the creation of the network, who will maintain it, etc.
But I don't understand the acclamation for all the knee-jerk "Yeah and world peace too" responses because it's not a totally stupid question. We already have things like distributed peer-to-peer networks. If you were to assume that you had a connection to at least one other node, and that node had a connection to at least one other node, etc -- why wouldn't this be possible? It's just a matter of figuring out the transport medium, right?
For a densely populated area (e.g. NYC) it sounds eminently feasible that given the right standards and the right wireless technology, people could just buy the right hardware and plug in without need for a centralized business providing you signal. What's so unimaginable about that?
So it boils down to what we need to bridge real distance, like for sparsely populated areas -- What technology could become pervasive (i.e. cheap) enough to hook up the folks in Alaska or Siberia to our imaginary freenet in NYC? Satellite and undersea fiber are expensive (hence telcos now) but what might we use in the future?
I thought the "Suspicious Minds" reference was a warning to stay out of the bedroom.
"Earendil married Elwing, and their sons were Elrond and Elros. Now, all this was terribly confusing, because nobody was entirely certain what species they were. So the Valar (the major gods) said that Earendil, Elwing, Elrond and Elros would each get to choose their species." I'm no expert on the Tolkein mythology but the "this was terribly confusing" is all very confusing -- why exactly was it so important for the species distinctions to be made, to the extent that mixed race individuals had to choose? Was there no real miscegenation, and why were half-elves a problem that had to be resolved instead of a just a mix-breed with attributes and traits of each parent species? Drawing a racial analogy here would make it rather creepy.