You only downplay the celebrity voice thing because you know the Darth Vader one will be more popular than the Yoda one, and you just can't stand the dark side winning.
There has been intense research and attempts to port software to "massively multi-core" platforms for 20-30 years now. Most software just can't benefit, though they might have finally finished porting the "fortran obster" by now.
Yes, and since single-core machines have run their course, and shared-memory multicore is busily banging its head against memory bandwidth wall, you either port your application or accept that it'll be outcompeted by those that are ported.
You can say we need a language we don't have yet to run on an archtecture we don't have yet to solve a problem we don't have yet, but you're not going to get very far selling that.
The problem: the performance of a single core is about as good as it's ever going to get. This means that any faster systems will be multicored, and exponential growth means that we'll switch from current 2-4 -core systems into dozens, then hundreds, then thousands in a decade or so.
This leads to another problem, namely memory bandwidth. It was already insufficient even for a single core, leading to the need for several levels of caches and designing algorithms to avoid cache misses by obeying locality of reference. This kind of architechture can do a small number of operations for a small amount of data very fast, and is very slow if either code or data size increases, or either is accessed in a pattern different than what the processor expects. And once we have hundrends of cores competing for memory access, the problem becomes hundreds of times worse. The only way to solve it is to have each core (or a small group of cores, but why not go all-out?) have its own memory. This then leads to the next problem:
There's no way a human being can program a machine with hundreds of cores and non-shared memory with our current tools. The effort required is simply too much. We'll be switching to a new model out of necessity; and a dataflow language is a natural fit.
So, in short, I'm suggesting a solution to a problem that we have right now, and will only get worse as time passes.
Meanwhile people who have solved real-world problems requireing massive parallelism have invented "cloud-like" solutions, without the need to put all the processors in the same box.
No, the people who require massive computing power are using "cloud-like" distributed computing solutions to work around the lack of power in a single computer. It would be far better to have all the processors in the same box, since that way communication latency would be minimized and bandwidth maximized.
The only way to avoid massively multi-core PCs in the future is if the evolution of personal computers stops completely. There simply isn't any other way to increase their power anymore.
Picking the right CPU is quite easy, it's the motherboard that's the problem, especially with the current fad of putting on the board as few PCI slots as possible.
To be fair, most boards nowadays have both networking and sound integrated, so it's not like the average consumer needs that many (or any, to put it bluntly) PCI slots. Add a graphic card, and that's it.
How much use is it having 6 or 8 cores if the program being run only efficiently uses 2 or 4 of them most of the time?
The program? I dunno about you, but I run plenty of programs at once. And having 4 cores means that I have a few on standby whenever I feel like doing input, even when the machine is busy processing stuff.
The real issue I see is memory access. Even with a single core did we run into memory bandwidth/latency bottleneck; with 4-6 cores those are 4-6 times as much. In the long run we have to give up Neumann architechture; it simply can't scale to our needs. A NUMA might be an acceptable compromise, but in the long run we need to change to a dataflow architechture, and that also means a step beyond C/C++ and other Algol-descended languages which have dominated our thinking these past decides.
We need to switch to a system with lots of cores, all with their own local memory, and able to send each other messages. As an added bonus, such a system is also a natural fit for artificial intelligence.
It's not like everything can just be multithreaded like that and even if it can, there's bound to be some overhead for doing it.
True, but most hard problems can be redefined as search problems, and those can be efficiently multithreaded. Our current programming languages just make multithreading a pain, since you have to worry about everything manually.
Bottom line: the whole idea of geoengineering on this scale is a giant exercise in "what could possibly go wrong?" Trying to do this on the only planet you have to live on is not much short of crazy.
That being the reason why I said it's a long-term solution:). The thing is, the Sun is slowly but surely getting hotter due to its evolution in the Main Series, so eventually we must do this if we wish to keep Earth habitable. Of course it'll be a few million years more, but still... In a way we evolved in the last possible moment.
We know the cause of global warming, and we know how to mitigate it - burn less carbon. So why don't we just get started?
The Libertarians are against it because it'll require government regulation to force power producers to bear the external costs. The Conservatists are against it because it might lessen corporate profits. The Greens are against nuclear power, thus forcing us to keep using polluting oil and coal instead. Everyone is against windmills at sea because they "spoil the view".
Basically, any attempt to transfer to green power has to fight both the oh-so-fashionable right-wing ideologue and corporate lobbyists, and then run the gauntlet of NIMBY. It's hopeless. We'd better just get used to live with a superwarm planet, and energy shortage once oil runs out. Any attempt to do something about it runs against the brick wall of the usual assholes, both well-meaning and malicious.
I can only hope that humanity survives long enough to get over its fear of nuclear power, and uses it to colonizes a few other planets, to serve as our springboard to the stars. The other choice is that we die, and Earth dies once Sun gets bright enough.
I also hope there's a special place in Hell for BP executives and Greenpeace members both.
I guess I assume most salespeople are idiots because the base rate of psychopathy in the population isn't supposed to be all that high.
Idiocy: lack of intelligence, which is the ability to figure out the likely consequences of a given action.
Psychopathy: lack of empathy, which is caring about how other people will be affected by the consequences of a given action.
The two things are not the same, and likely not even related. While both imply neurological damage, the brain areas affected aren't the same at all. Even dogs are capable of empathy, despite being stupid enough to eat their own shit.
If these are company blackberrys then you are probably screwing up by telling people to back up their contact information. Many times IT departments are informed first, so that kind of information can not be backed up, particularly in cases of sales personnel or anyone who could take those contacts/emails to a competitor
And that actually works?
Were I a salesperson, I would backup all my company issued gear daily, precisely to avoid this kind of problems. Do you perhaps think that actual salespersons are such idiots that they don't?
The only part that is gonna get flamed is the last bit on Windows Section: "use windows if you are new to using computers". They should have left this bit out of both sides, IMO.
Yeah. If you're new to computers (who is, these days?), you should use a command line. Seriously, you should. There's no more intuitive way to use a computer than typing in commands as text and having it respond in kind, expect perhaps speech recognition. Compared to that a graphical user interface is far harder to use.
When I used Linux, the one application I used the most was gnome-term running bash. Bash is also the only Linux app I really miss on Windows: I could automate pretty much anything, could do pretty much anything, and didn't need someone write a wizard to do basic stuff.
Alternatively, GUIs need to move beyond their current state to actually allow complex operations. As is, they usually just get in the way.
One last thing: Ubuntu, why did you name "download and install new software" to "Synaptic package manager"? I mean, seriously, WTF? Are you trying to make it difficult for newbies to figure out what it does? Or maybe you figured it would appeal to neurosurgeons?
What percentage of the information here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age must we ignore in order to make our current interglacial period all our fault?
It doesn't matter who's fault it is; what matters is what consequences it has for us, and what can we do about it if - as is likely - the consequences are bad.
How conceited do we have to be in order to come to the conclusion that we can: A) Determine the optimal level of glaciation and,
Optimal level of glaciation from our point of view is what our infrastructure is built for, which of course would be the current one, or the one a few decades back.
B) Determine the means by which to stabilize the climate of the earth so as to maintain this level?
Now this is an interesting question. In the long term the most effective means would likely be to control the amount of sunlight that reaches Earth with space-based sunshades and mirors, but right now we don't really have many tools besides controlling the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
Run verification key PLUS CODE through the hardware itself. If the key matches the hardware but the code produces BS results in the hardware (such as a nonsensical static when it should get several test tones,) then it gets denied.
Nothing short of fully sentient artificial intelligence can tell malicious code from non-malicious code. And even that can only make an educateted guess, and will be wrong every now and then.
No, they require a Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility signing certificate for loading on 64-bit systems, which the Realtek certificate isn't.
This can be worked around, but the steps are quite arcane. It's pretty annoying if you want to things like run unofficial drivers, making it arguably the biggest flaw in 64-bit Windows.
Ebola. You're either dead or cured within two weeks. With AIDS, you linger and die slowly for years, as well as spread the damn thing.
In computer terms, a crash right away is better than a buffer overflow resulting in memory corruption and malware infection which makes your macine a part of a zombie network that keeps selling people illegal Viagra and spreading the infection. This is why managed environments are superior and should be used whenever possible.
Ebola is better than AIDS, just like Java is better than C++.
The question is, would they tell us -- the general public -- if any of them were a real threat?
Probably not. Judging by how our leaders react to every other problem, an extinction-level event 50 years from now will be kicked to the next administration to deal with, who will kick it still forward, and so on. After all, the current crop won't be alive anymore by then, so why endanger their re-election by raising taxes to fund doing something about it? And, since there's always a chance of error, they'll be telling themselves that we should be sure before doing anything costly. Just look how the global warming debate has gone: the "sceptics" are pretty much grasping at any straw to pretend that gobal warming isn't happening, isn't influenced by humanity, and won't cause any harm ("I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything", as a T-shirt once said).
But suppose the impact will happen just a few years from now? Well, there's nothing they can do to stop it then; the only chance is to build underground shelters and hide there. But it's impossible to build enough for everyone, so who's going to get a place? Well, if you never tell the masses, they don't get a say, right? And clearly, if you have money or political power, that's evidence that you are the cream of the human crop, and should be the one to survive. Selfishness is, after all, a virtue, at least as far as powers that be are concerned.
So no, they won't tell us. That's one of the reasons why we should invest heavily in colonizing space: even if we could deflect planetary-scale disasters, we won't, unless it's trivially cheap, which it won't be unless we have a permanent, large and independent-of-Earth presence in space. And of course, if we do have such a presence, then humanity can survive the destruction of Earth.
So basically, what you're saying is that keeping kids indoors ensures that they won't hang out with the kind of people you disapprove of even when they're adults? Granted, it's because nobody tolerates having them around, but hey, whatever works, right? And as an added bonus, they won't be having any of that eeeevil sex either, for the same reason.
No, OR is correct here. AND doesn't find any rows because field "name" has only a single value, so 'name = "foo" AND name = "bar"' can't ever be true for any row. You want something like
SELECT article_id FROM article_tags WHERE name = "foo" INTERSECT SELECT article_id FROM article_tags WHERE name = "bar"
One of the major hurdles gaming as an entertainment medium needs to overcome before it is taken as seriously as movies, theater and such by more than its major demographic is the pandering to the immature teenage obsession with sex and violence.
As opposed to the mature obsession with sex and violence that is pandered by movies, theater and such?
Hollywood panders to obsession with violence. European "art" films pander to obsession with sex. Some pander to both. And how could they not? Apart from titillating the senses, almost all human behaviour is driven by either lust or survival instinct; you can't have drama without these elements. If anything, having a greater focus on sex and sexuality in games would allow far greater storylines with better rounded characters, not to mention enable all kinds of dramatic options in both conflict and its resolution.
You aren't going to find any medium where sex and violence aren't at the central focus, because they are the focus of human existence.
Even worse is when the amount of nudity or sex in a game is treated like some sort of sacred phenomenon like in God of War.
God of War is very tame and nice compared the original Greek myths. What should they had done, copied Disney's Hercules?
I wait patiently for more games like braid, heavy rain, the monkey islands remakes or portal, although they may not all have the most amazing stories, they push the capabilities of the medium or are rewarding because of the way they make you think, their humor or their beautiful art style.
Beautiful art style, yes... Care to guess which two subjects have been the main focus of art from the very first cave paintings to modern-day painters, sculptors and such? And, for that matter, the subject matter of most humour? Or pretty much every story?
Games are slowly but surely moving from being kid's toys into mainstream entertainment, and that means they're going to get a lot more sex to go with the violence. You can dislike it, but it's what all mainstream entertainment has been made of for the duration of entire human history, and prehistory too. And I, for one, am just fine with that.
My motto as it is for a lot of other ppl tired of Welfare state is....
"Starve the Beast"
[...]
The MSM even covered stories of returning injured not getting the care they needed.
Well, if you dislike the welfare state, then rejoice! The Beast is getting starved, it no longer has resources to take care of all those unable to do soe themselves! You got what you wanted. Enjoy.
You do realize that "welfare state" means a place where injured get taken care of, right? And that in non-welfare states those crippled in wars or by other means tend to end up begging on the streets?
The main difference between ocean sailing and solar sailing is the rudder.
No, the main difference is that a sailboat is pushed by the wind, while a solar sail deflects the light; the force vector depends on the angle of deflection - for a flat solar sail it is always perpendicular to the sail itself, however it also gets weaker the farther the sail gets from being perpendicular to the direction of light. Oh, and space has no friction. And you can do huge course corrections with very little effort since your path is determined by the inherently chaotic orbital mechanics.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that wind sailing and solar sailing have nothing to do with each other.
In your scenario, the gouverment/commercial entity is evil enough to cut peoples network access. Thus, you have to assume that in doubt, they would simply cut the access at each endpoint where "infringing" traffic enters the public network, effectively cutting the whole mesh from the net.
A government that cuts a whole city off the Net is not going to be a government for very long. Also, please understand that even if they do, the city is still connected to the larger Internet through the suburbs extending from it to other nearby cities - just like you would be connected to the road network, even if every highway within a thousand miles of your home would be closed. The connection would just become slower.
That's kind of the point of this system: to make the Internet a kind of global mesh where high-speed connections simply make things faster, but aren't strictly required to make things work, and attempts to cut any particular person from the Net causes as much collateral damage as possible, hopefully acting as a deterrent.
I've seen people fined for copyright infraction for operating an open WiFi router (which is basically a "one-hop mesh"), when they could prove they have been on vacation during the time of the infringement.
Yes, because adding any "meshiness" to the Net makes it harder to control, which is why powers that be want to discourage such behaviour. That's yet more evidence that such a system needs to be implemented ASAP.
The Internet itself happened by accident: nobody paid attention to it until it had already reached critical mass, which is why it's as open as it is. If we let it be controlled by political and financial interests, we might not get another chance.
Mesh routing is cool and all, but where do you connect your mesh to?
To local public communication infrastructure, such as fiber-optic cables; however, it becomes impossible to cut any single person's access away, since said person's packets can be routed through multiple routes even at the very beginning.
Compare this to the road network: while we have highways and such, individuals connect to the network through a mesh of small roads, and can in fact cross the whole country through them if necessary.
Interconnecting the globe without any commercial or gouvermental entity involved is no easy task. Providing reasonable bandwidth across the ocean without using fiber is hard, if not almost impossible.
Naturally. I'm simply arguing against the current system, where your access can be cut off by either a commercial entity or the government. The whole point is to move from identifiable endpoints to a system where the mesh, as a whole, is an endpoint.
Communication is far too important to let either the RIAA, Comcast, or their paid representatives to mess with it.
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You pump it empty when you have excess energy, then let water flow in again when you need some. However, it would have to be one huge hole...
"You told me to turn right!"
"Left is right, from a certain point of view."
Come on now, it's just baby Skynet taking its first steps :).
Wouldn't an electric fan be far more effective?
Yes, and since single-core machines have run their course, and shared-memory multicore is busily banging its head against memory bandwidth wall, you either port your application or accept that it'll be outcompeted by those that are ported.
The problem: the performance of a single core is about as good as it's ever going to get. This means that any faster systems will be multicored, and exponential growth means that we'll switch from current 2-4 -core systems into dozens, then hundreds, then thousands in a decade or so.
This leads to another problem, namely memory bandwidth. It was already insufficient even for a single core, leading to the need for several levels of caches and designing algorithms to avoid cache misses by obeying locality of reference. This kind of architechture can do a small number of operations for a small amount of data very fast, and is very slow if either code or data size increases, or either is accessed in a pattern different than what the processor expects. And once we have hundrends of cores competing for memory access, the problem becomes hundreds of times worse. The only way to solve it is to have each core (or a small group of cores, but why not go all-out?) have its own memory. This then leads to the next problem:
There's no way a human being can program a machine with hundreds of cores and non-shared memory with our current tools. The effort required is simply too much. We'll be switching to a new model out of necessity; and a dataflow language is a natural fit.
So, in short, I'm suggesting a solution to a problem that we have right now, and will only get worse as time passes.
No, the people who require massive computing power are using "cloud-like" distributed computing solutions to work around the lack of power in a single computer. It would be far better to have all the processors in the same box, since that way communication latency would be minimized and bandwidth maximized.
The only way to avoid massively multi-core PCs in the future is if the evolution of personal computers stops completely. There simply isn't any other way to increase their power anymore.
To be fair, most boards nowadays have both networking and sound integrated, so it's not like the average consumer needs that many (or any, to put it bluntly) PCI slots. Add a graphic card, and that's it.
The program? I dunno about you, but I run plenty of programs at once. And having 4 cores means that I have a few on standby whenever I feel like doing input, even when the machine is busy processing stuff.
The real issue I see is memory access. Even with a single core did we run into memory bandwidth/latency bottleneck; with 4-6 cores those are 4-6 times as much. In the long run we have to give up Neumann architechture; it simply can't scale to our needs. A NUMA might be an acceptable compromise, but in the long run we need to change to a dataflow architechture, and that also means a step beyond C/C++ and other Algol-descended languages which have dominated our thinking these past decides.
We need to switch to a system with lots of cores, all with their own local memory, and able to send each other messages. As an added bonus, such a system is also a natural fit for artificial intelligence.
That being the reason why I said it's a long-term solution :). The thing is, the Sun is slowly but surely getting hotter due to its evolution in the Main Series, so eventually we must do this if we wish to keep Earth habitable. Of course it'll be a few million years more, but still... In a way we evolved in the last possible moment.
The Libertarians are against it because it'll require government regulation to force power producers to bear the external costs. The Conservatists are against it because it might lessen corporate profits. The Greens are against nuclear power, thus forcing us to keep using polluting oil and coal instead. Everyone is against windmills at sea because they "spoil the view".
Basically, any attempt to transfer to green power has to fight both the oh-so-fashionable right-wing ideologue and corporate lobbyists, and then run the gauntlet of NIMBY. It's hopeless. We'd better just get used to live with a superwarm planet, and energy shortage once oil runs out. Any attempt to do something about it runs against the brick wall of the usual assholes, both well-meaning and malicious.
I can only hope that humanity survives long enough to get over its fear of nuclear power, and uses it to colonizes a few other planets, to serve as our springboard to the stars. The other choice is that we die, and Earth dies once Sun gets bright enough.
I also hope there's a special place in Hell for BP executives and Greenpeace members both.
Idiocy: lack of intelligence, which is the ability to figure out the likely consequences of a given action.
Psychopathy: lack of empathy, which is caring about how other people will be affected by the consequences of a given action.
The two things are not the same, and likely not even related. While both imply neurological damage, the brain areas affected aren't the same at all. Even dogs are capable of empathy, despite being stupid enough to eat their own shit.
And that actually works?
Were I a salesperson, I would backup all my company issued gear daily, precisely to avoid this kind of problems. Do you perhaps think that actual salespersons are such idiots that they don't?
The solution is simple: use only GPL- or BSD-licensed stuff. Problem solved.
Using proprietary software at all is asking for trouble.
Yeah. If you're new to computers (who is, these days?), you should use a command line. Seriously, you should. There's no more intuitive way to use a computer than typing in commands as text and having it respond in kind, expect perhaps speech recognition. Compared to that a graphical user interface is far harder to use.
When I used Linux, the one application I used the most was gnome-term running bash. Bash is also the only Linux app I really miss on Windows: I could automate pretty much anything, could do pretty much anything, and didn't need someone write a wizard to do basic stuff.
Alternatively, GUIs need to move beyond their current state to actually allow complex operations. As is, they usually just get in the way.
One last thing: Ubuntu, why did you name "download and install new software" to "Synaptic package manager"? I mean, seriously, WTF? Are you trying to make it difficult for newbies to figure out what it does? Or maybe you figured it would appeal to neurosurgeons?
It doesn't matter who's fault it is; what matters is what consequences it has for us, and what can we do about it if - as is likely - the consequences are bad.
Optimal level of glaciation from our point of view is what our infrastructure is built for, which of course would be the current one, or the one a few decades back.
Now this is an interesting question. In the long term the most effective means would likely be to control the amount of sunlight that reaches Earth with space-based sunshades and mirors, but right now we don't really have many tools besides controlling the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
Nothing short of fully sentient artificial intelligence can tell malicious code from non-malicious code. And even that can only make an educateted guess, and will be wrong every now and then.
This can be worked around, but the steps are quite arcane. It's pretty annoying if you want to things like run unofficial drivers, making it arguably the biggest flaw in 64-bit Windows.
Yeah, you sure earned your paycheck today. I guess astroturfing pays well if you don't have a problem with lying, eh?
Ebola. You're either dead or cured within two weeks. With AIDS, you linger and die slowly for years, as well as spread the damn thing.
In computer terms, a crash right away is better than a buffer overflow resulting in memory corruption and malware infection which makes your macine a part of a zombie network that keeps selling people illegal Viagra and spreading the infection. This is why managed environments are superior and should be used whenever possible.
Ebola is better than AIDS, just like Java is better than C++.
Probably not. Judging by how our leaders react to every other problem, an extinction-level event 50 years from now will be kicked to the next administration to deal with, who will kick it still forward, and so on. After all, the current crop won't be alive anymore by then, so why endanger their re-election by raising taxes to fund doing something about it? And, since there's always a chance of error, they'll be telling themselves that we should be sure before doing anything costly. Just look how the global warming debate has gone: the "sceptics" are pretty much grasping at any straw to pretend that gobal warming isn't happening, isn't influenced by humanity, and won't cause any harm ("I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything", as a T-shirt once said).
But suppose the impact will happen just a few years from now? Well, there's nothing they can do to stop it then; the only chance is to build underground shelters and hide there. But it's impossible to build enough for everyone, so who's going to get a place? Well, if you never tell the masses, they don't get a say, right? And clearly, if you have money or political power, that's evidence that you are the cream of the human crop, and should be the one to survive. Selfishness is, after all, a virtue, at least as far as powers that be are concerned.
So no, they won't tell us. That's one of the reasons why we should invest heavily in colonizing space: even if we could deflect planetary-scale disasters, we won't, unless it's trivially cheap, which it won't be unless we have a permanent, large and independent-of-Earth presence in space. And of course, if we do have such a presence, then humanity can survive the destruction of Earth.
So basically, what you're saying is that keeping kids indoors ensures that they won't hang out with the kind of people you disapprove of even when they're adults? Granted, it's because nobody tolerates having them around, but hey, whatever works, right? And as an added bonus, they won't be having any of that eeeevil sex either, for the same reason.
No, OR is correct here. AND doesn't find any rows because field "name" has only a single value, so 'name = "foo" AND name = "bar"' can't ever be true for any row. You want something like
SELECT article_id FROM article_tags WHERE name = "foo" INTERSECT SELECT article_id FROM article_tags WHERE name = "bar"
As opposed to the mature obsession with sex and violence that is pandered by movies, theater and such?
Hollywood panders to obsession with violence. European "art" films pander to obsession with sex. Some pander to both. And how could they not? Apart from titillating the senses, almost all human behaviour is driven by either lust or survival instinct; you can't have drama without these elements. If anything, having a greater focus on sex and sexuality in games would allow far greater storylines with better rounded characters, not to mention enable all kinds of dramatic options in both conflict and its resolution.
You aren't going to find any medium where sex and violence aren't at the central focus, because they are the focus of human existence.
God of War is very tame and nice compared the original Greek myths. What should they had done, copied Disney's Hercules?
Beautiful art style, yes... Care to guess which two subjects have been the main focus of art from the very first cave paintings to modern-day painters, sculptors and such? And, for that matter, the subject matter of most humour? Or pretty much every story?
Games are slowly but surely moving from being kid's toys into mainstream entertainment, and that means they're going to get a lot more sex to go with the violence. You can dislike it, but it's what all mainstream entertainment has been made of for the duration of entire human history, and prehistory too. And I, for one, am just fine with that.
Well, if you dislike the welfare state, then rejoice! The Beast is getting starved, it no longer has resources to take care of all those unable to do soe themselves! You got what you wanted. Enjoy.
You do realize that "welfare state" means a place where injured get taken care of, right? And that in non-welfare states those crippled in wars or by other means tend to end up begging on the streets?
No, the main difference is that a sailboat is pushed by the wind, while a solar sail deflects the light; the force vector depends on the angle of deflection - for a flat solar sail it is always perpendicular to the sail itself, however it also gets weaker the farther the sail gets from being perpendicular to the direction of light. Oh, and space has no friction. And you can do huge course corrections with very little effort since your path is determined by the inherently chaotic orbital mechanics.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that wind sailing and solar sailing have nothing to do with each other.
A government that cuts a whole city off the Net is not going to be a government for very long. Also, please understand that even if they do, the city is still connected to the larger Internet through the suburbs extending from it to other nearby cities - just like you would be connected to the road network, even if every highway within a thousand miles of your home would be closed. The connection would just become slower.
That's kind of the point of this system: to make the Internet a kind of global mesh where high-speed connections simply make things faster, but aren't strictly required to make things work, and attempts to cut any particular person from the Net causes as much collateral damage as possible, hopefully acting as a deterrent.
Yes, because adding any "meshiness" to the Net makes it harder to control, which is why powers that be want to discourage such behaviour. That's yet more evidence that such a system needs to be implemented ASAP.
The Internet itself happened by accident: nobody paid attention to it until it had already reached critical mass, which is why it's as open as it is. If we let it be controlled by political and financial interests, we might not get another chance.
To local public communication infrastructure, such as fiber-optic cables; however, it becomes impossible to cut any single person's access away, since said person's packets can be routed through multiple routes even at the very beginning.
Compare this to the road network: while we have highways and such, individuals connect to the network through a mesh of small roads, and can in fact cross the whole country through them if necessary.
Naturally. I'm simply arguing against the current system, where your access can be cut off by either a commercial entity or the government. The whole point is to move from identifiable endpoints to a system where the mesh, as a whole, is an endpoint.
Communication is far too important to let either the RIAA, Comcast, or their paid representatives to mess with it.