Obama, for all his talk of hope, won't be a better President than Clinton, Huckabee, McCain, Paul, et al. He's only human, and thus unfit to govern anybody but himself.
I think your missing one of the key things that I happen to like about Obama though. A r/l friend of mine put it this way: Hillary knows what she wants to do and she knows what's best for the country. If she's elected she's going to run with her ideas and to hell with everyone else. Obama doesn't have all of his positions set in stone yet and he thinks that YOU know what's best for the country. Recall JFK's quote: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"
Obama is the first candidate that I've seen in my lifetime that I actually believe can unite this country. Can he actually pull it off? It's a tall order -- I can't say for sure and neither can anybody else. What I am sure of is that Hillary can't unite this country. It doesn't matter if that's her fault or not -- it's the current reality. You know how most of us feel about Bush? That's how the other side feels about the Clintons. If she wins then we can look forward to four (eight?) more years of slash 'n burn politics, governing from the 51% majority and claiming a "mandate". That's the last thing we need.
With IPv6, every computer in your house, and every piece of dirt in your finger nail (including every finger nail on the planet) can have it's own unique IP address.
Indeed. And the advantages to that are what exactly?
Where's the problem with a LAN dissapearing in this scenario?
I don't see a "problem" I just question whether or not there are any advantages. And I seriously question the authors assumption that LANs as we know them will cease to exist. What if I want to throw together a private network (for whatever reason) without having a connection to the internet?
What is the advantage of every single device in my house having a globally valid address? Sure, I can secure it properly (as can any self-respecting Geek), but what's the point? My TiVo does not need a globally valid IP address. Nor does every piece of dirt on my finger nail;)
and about half of you are too hostile to religion in general to care
I'm not hostile to religion. I'm hostile to anyone that thinks HE has all the answers that I need. In this category I would lump in as many hard-core atheists as I would religious figures. You can tell me what you think but don't you fucking dare try to tell me what I should think. I see little difference between the atheist mocking someone for their faith and the religious zealot telling me that I need to worship his God or burn in the lake of fire.
As for the politics of the Vatican... meh... at least they are consistent nowadays (no abortion, no war, no death penalty, etc)... they don't really have many "EXCEPT WHEN...." statements
Really? No "except when" statements you say? You say this about the organization that moved Priests around to avoid them being discovered as/prosecuted for being child molesters?
Sorry, but the Catholic Church has no claim to the moral high ground in my eyes. I can respect them slightly more then the typical Evangelical Baptist church, because I haven't had any Catholics try and convert me, but they still don't get to claim any sort of moral high ground in my eyes.
that doesn't mean much about the long-term prospects of wireless
I wouldn't be as dismissive of wireless as the GP was, but he does have something of a point. At the end of the day any wireless network is going to be a shared medium. Different sharing methodologies may net you more bandwidth/users (CDMA vs TDMA) but at the end of the day you can't escape the fact that each device is sharing/competing with others for bandwidth.
Regardless of the merits of wireless vs wired though, WTF was the author of that article smoking? The LAN is going away in favor of every device being connected to the internet via wireless? Leaving out the wireless portion of that statement, why the hell would the LAN go away in favor of plugging everything into the internet? Does my TiVo really need a direct connection to the internet, even a firewalled one?
And hell, how are all of these devices going to connect to the internet in the first place? Is each device in my house going to have it's own cable/dsl/wireless modem? I'm guessing that Ethernet is going to be around for a long time.....
And as for housing, we haven't "destroyed the middle class." We've just overvalued housing. That is now correcting itself (you can only lie to your money for so long), and housing prices will approach a more appropriate market value and the "middle class" can afford to buy them again.
Umm, yeah, I don't know where you live, but I don't think the housing bubble has a whole lot to do with the situation that the GP was talking about in Nassau county. Housing prices in and around New York City have always been higher then the national average. It's a win for you if you want to sell your house and move somewhere else, but for those that want to remain in the community it becomes pretty tough -- even if your house is completely paid for you might find that you can't afford your property taxes anymore.
I have family on the island that have encountered this first hand. It completely sucks to be priced out of the neighborhood that you grew up in because of factors beyond your control.
Because you'd have to keep spyware installed on your computer then.
Says who? This is a completely free dial-up provider that I use when I'm on the road with my laptop. It will probably cost you some long distance charges, but those are a moot point for those of us using cell phones to connect or those with unlimited long distance type plans.
The above provider works with a straight PPP connection. No spyware required. I haven't tried it, but I would assume that it would easily work under Linux too.
# Work servers are, of course, monitored. Unless you're the only admin...:)
It's nice being the only admin.....;)
Most of us can't afford a coloc server.
Who needs one? Any halfway decent geek with broadband should be able to have a small server sitting online that he can ssh into. Port blocking won't stop you (ssh doesn't have to run on 22) and there are dynamic dns solutions if your IP changes often enough that you can't remember it.
I don't use my server for much (it's mainly a NAT/firewall box for my workstations/tivo) but it's really handy knowing that I can ssh into it from anywhere. I carry a USB flash drive with putty and my ssh private key on it.
but they were not being ethical in their practices on its roll-out at least at one stage.
Uhh, speaking as someone who has worked with a lot of the field techs from Verizon (and others), I highly doubt that there is any malicious intent on the part of Verizon techs to fuck around with Cox (or any other cable company for that matter).
Beyond the fact that Verizon itself wouldn't condone that (for obvious reasons), I just can't see most of the field techs I know doing it. A lot of them just don't give a shit about Verizon (many of them predate Verizon and be back to GTE -- or even to the Bell System for the old timers) and wouldn't be inclined to purposefully damage a sabotage for them. The ones that actually do tote the company line don't seem to remain field techs very long....
In any case, I would blame it more on an honest mistake of whomever was doing the FiOS install. Ever done installs of CPE at residencies before? They are working with impossible deadlines (pushed by a business office that has no clue what's going on in the field) and wind up cutting corners and making mistakes. "Hmm, I can just follow this wire... let me cut it right here and pull it through...."
Most of us, in practice, aren't worried about the NSA other than in the abstract. We're not organising political protests or anything.
The mere fact that you can state you "aren't worried about the NSA" and in the same paragraph say "we're not organizing political protests or anything" is pretty depressing. And I don't know which part is worse -- thinking that you might actually have a reason to fear the NSA because of political protects (First Amendment, what??) or me being cynical enough to understand why you would draw that conclusion.
NOTE: This is FIOS routed through a wireless router not running in 'g' mode.
Uhh, you realize that actually could be a bottleneck, right?
802.11b networks have a stated capacity of 11mbits. Actual bandwidth after overhead rarely works out to be more then 5.5-6.0mbits for TCP and upwards of 7.0mbits of UDP. Of course if you live in an area saturated with wi-fi networks (or other uses of the 2.4Ghz band) you'll get even less bandwidth then that.
Dunno what tier you have on FiOS, but most of the useful ones would probably be faster then 5.5mbits. I think 15 is pretty common with FiOS. Try it with a direct wired connection and see what happens.
However, the Japanese controlled it by night; the only way to change that was by breaking their control, and that meant surface actions
I've always thought that most of the surface actions around Guadalcanal were defensive in nature, i.e: we were attempting to stop them from attacking our shipping and the land forces on the island. I've never heard them explained as attempting to "break" the control of the Japanese. In fact we got our asses handed to us in a lot of the surface engagements, and it was a combination of air power (preventing Japanese operations during the day) and Japanese mistakes (not attacking our transports after the First Battle of Savo Island) that eventually won the campaign for us.
I'll agree, however, that if Halsey hadn't been so eager to take out the last enemy carriers the Battle of Samar wouldn't have happened
Halsey took the bait hook, line and sinker. It makes you wonder what would have happened if he had been in command during Midway instead of Spruance. It could have wound up being a disaster for us. Would his aggressive nature have been inclined to retire to the east to avoid a night action as Spruance did? What would have happened if he didn't?
As far as the Navy's role in shore bombardment goes, I probably know more about it than you, because I was on the Gun Line in Tonkin Gulf back in '72, doing exactly that. Rail guns, with their impressive range will make it far easier for the Navy to project its power over the horizon without sending highly-expensive carriers in.
Hey, I never disputed your knowledge. Was just trying to figure out the advantages/disadvantages of any rail gun system over existing technology. Shore bombardment is an interesting application for this technology and could fill the gaping hole we currently have in that area since the retirement of the Iowas.
Here's another thought: How do the power requirements of rail guns mesh with the power requirements of potential directed-energy weapons? If we build ships with power plants large enough to power rail guns, will they also be powerful enough to mount directed-energy type weapons, or I am getting ahead of myself here?
Received are free so these minutes last longer compared to a US plan, and with SMS.
I've heard people calling for a similar pricing structure here in the states, but doesn't it cost more money to call mobile users over there? I know that I can make calls to the UK for something like $0.04/min.... UNLESS it's a mobile number, then it's more.
Point taken, but all of the surface actions in the Pacific during WW2 can be attributed to sheer necessity (either nighttime or a lack of carrier forces in the area) or stupidity (Halsey taking Ozawa's bait and leaving the Taffy groups exposed off Samar). The bulk of the decisive actions involved air power. Hell, air power was even the reason why half of those surface actions you cited happened -- most of the battles around Guadalcanal happened because the Japanese were forced to send in surface forces at night because of American dominance of the skies during the day.
In any event, I was responding to the idea that a rail gun would be useful for "sniping" at opposing warships and then "retreating" before they could respond. I would assume that this will mostly be useful for shore bombardment and maybe point defense (smaller rail-gun projectiles could replace/supplement existing CIWS systems). Ships and aircraft can take evasive action so this won't be very useful against them unless the projectiles are guided somehow.
The Arleigh Burke has a range of 4,400 miles at 20 knots, that would be about 2,000 miles at 30 knots. 70 hours of operation (or three days at top speed) is not much (especially considering they would want to fill as often as possible).
It's often said that amateurs study tactics, while professionals study logistics. Having the carrier carry bunker fuel to top off her escorts provides more logistical flexibility to the battle group commander.
Presumably everybody around here has heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor? Half of the reason that the Japanese had to retreat (instead of conducting more strikes) had to do with the fact that remaining on station any longer would have risked running too low on fuel. They stretched their logistical abilities to the max to conduct that attack and weren't in a position to exploit their advantage any further. (Of course the other half of the reason was Nagumo's caution.... but the logistical situation was surely in the back of his mind...)
But if you have a computer to adjust firing angle, firing energy, etc, you can very well make it targeted (by doing the calculation required for it to strike a target XX miles away at XX altitude).
How do you have a projectile with a 200+ mile range that isn't guided?
Even at Mach 8 there's almost a two minute flight time to reach 200 miles. Ignoring wind, the coriolis effect and everything else that could change the course of your projectile, what happens if the target changes course in that time or takes evasive action? A lot can happen in two minutes.....
With the US going in the opposite direction of China, Iran, North Korea... while they go slowly towards democracy
Uhh, yeah, I'll grant that on Iran (with the students and young moderates) and maybe even China, but North Korea???
One cant stop wondering if it will stop halfways
It'll come back around. Look at some of the laws that got put on the books is the US and UK during WW2. Hell, look at some of our actions during that time. Hell, look at some of what happened after the war.
Point being, that in spite of all of that, it eventually came back around towards freedom and liberty. I see no reason why it won't do so again as long as we continue to fight for our rights.
That's a wonderful post with completely valid points. Unfortunately you overlooked the fact that had anybody bothered to connect the dots, 9/11 could have been stopped using the existing laws on the books with the powers that the Government already had.
All the wiretapping in the World isn't going to help you if the President gets a memo saying "[SOMEBODY] determined to attack US" and ignores it. All the wiretapping in the World won't help you if FBI agents in the field are being ignored by headquarters when they attempt to report suspicious activity.
Maybe we should be asking why all of those failures happened instead of bending over backwards to give the Government sweeping new powers to monitor our daily lives.
First they came for the first posters, but I wasn't a first poster so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the people with hot grit fetishes, but I wasn't into that so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the beowulf clusters, but I couldn't afford one so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the immigrants from Soviet Russia, but I wasn't from Soviet Russia so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the people posting lame jokes based on tired old/. cliches... by this time there was nobody left to spea&*)$)(*&@(*)@*(&%&OICARRIER LOST
it say something about not passing laws ex post facto
Umm, IANALOCLS (I am not a lawyer or Constitutional Law Scholar), but my understanding has always been that only prevents the Government from passing retroactive laws that criminalize events in the past... i.e: if alcohol prohibition is passed tomorrow they can't punish me for drinking today. It doesn't prevent them from retroactively decriminalizing something.
Granted, it's a load of shit that they are even considering immunity for these bastards, but I still think you'd lose if you tried to argue against it on the basis of ex post facto laws.
Yet unlike most of the world, SMS is more expensive here than a minute of calling.
So? Granted, they are gouging us on text messages, but I'd rather have dirt cheap voice calling then dirt cheap/free SMS.
Consider this: $39.99/mo for 1k minutes w/unlimited N&W right now from T-Mobile. Counting nights and weekends I use around 2,500 - 3,000 minutes a month on my line. $39.99 / 2500 = $0.016/minute. Granted, that's a promotional plan, but even a non-promotion is still pretty cheap: $59.99 / 2500 = $0.024/min ($59.99 is 900 peak minutes w/unlimited n&w on Sprint/VZW/AT&T).
Either way, if you use a decent number of nights and weekends, which I tend to do because all of my friends have cell phones, it works out to a pretty good per minute rate. Even without N&W it's not that bad -- $39.00 / 1000 = $0.04/min (T-Mobile) | $59.99 / 900 = $0.067/min.
Is there another cellular market in the World where you can make voice calls for those prices?
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I think your missing one of the key things that I happen to like about Obama though. A r/l friend of mine put it this way: Hillary knows what she wants to do and she knows what's best for the country. If she's elected she's going to run with her ideas and to hell with everyone else. Obama doesn't have all of his positions set in stone yet and he thinks that YOU know what's best for the country. Recall JFK's quote: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"
Obama is the first candidate that I've seen in my lifetime that I actually believe can unite this country. Can he actually pull it off? It's a tall order -- I can't say for sure and neither can anybody else. What I am sure of is that Hillary can't unite this country. It doesn't matter if that's her fault or not -- it's the current reality. You know how most of us feel about Bush? That's how the other side feels about the Clintons. If she wins then we can look forward to four (eight?) more years of slash 'n burn politics, governing from the 51% majority and claiming a "mandate". That's the last thing we need.
Indeed. And the advantages to that are what exactly?
Where's the problem with a LAN dissapearing in this scenario?I don't see a "problem" I just question whether or not there are any advantages. And I seriously question the authors assumption that LANs as we know them will cease to exist. What if I want to throw together a private network (for whatever reason) without having a connection to the internet?
What is the advantage of every single device in my house having a globally valid address? Sure, I can secure it properly (as can any self-respecting Geek), but what's the point? My TiVo does not need a globally valid IP address. Nor does every piece of dirt on my finger nail ;)
I'm not hostile to religion. I'm hostile to anyone that thinks HE has all the answers that I need. In this category I would lump in as many hard-core atheists as I would religious figures. You can tell me what you think but don't you fucking dare try to tell me what I should think. I see little difference between the atheist mocking someone for their faith and the religious zealot telling me that I need to worship his God or burn in the lake of fire.
Really? No "except when" statements you say? You say this about the organization that moved Priests around to avoid them being discovered as/prosecuted for being child molesters?
Sorry, but the Catholic Church has no claim to the moral high ground in my eyes. I can respect them slightly more then the typical Evangelical Baptist church, because I haven't had any Catholics try and convert me, but they still don't get to claim any sort of moral high ground in my eyes.
Are you sure yours is working properly? Let me ssh in and take a look at it.....
I wouldn't be as dismissive of wireless as the GP was, but he does have something of a point. At the end of the day any wireless network is going to be a shared medium. Different sharing methodologies may net you more bandwidth/users (CDMA vs TDMA) but at the end of the day you can't escape the fact that each device is sharing/competing with others for bandwidth.
Regardless of the merits of wireless vs wired though, WTF was the author of that article smoking? The LAN is going away in favor of every device being connected to the internet via wireless? Leaving out the wireless portion of that statement, why the hell would the LAN go away in favor of plugging everything into the internet? Does my TiVo really need a direct connection to the internet, even a firewalled one?
And hell, how are all of these devices going to connect to the internet in the first place? Is each device in my house going to have it's own cable/dsl/wireless modem? I'm guessing that Ethernet is going to be around for a long time.....
Umm, yeah, I don't know where you live, but I don't think the housing bubble has a whole lot to do with the situation that the GP was talking about in Nassau county. Housing prices in and around New York City have always been higher then the national average. It's a win for you if you want to sell your house and move somewhere else, but for those that want to remain in the community it becomes pretty tough -- even if your house is completely paid for you might find that you can't afford your property taxes anymore.
I have family on the island that have encountered this first hand. It completely sucks to be priced out of the neighborhood that you grew up in because of factors beyond your control.
Says who? This is a completely free dial-up provider that I use when I'm on the road with my laptop. It will probably cost you some long distance charges, but those are a moot point for those of us using cell phones to connect or those with unlimited long distance type plans.
The above provider works with a straight PPP connection. No spyware required. I haven't tried it, but I would assume that it would easily work under Linux too.
Uhh, yeah, my quote clearly shows the GP stating that it's not running in 'G' mode....
It's nice being the only admin..... ;)
Most of us can't afford a coloc server.Who needs one? Any halfway decent geek with broadband should be able to have a small server sitting online that he can ssh into. Port blocking won't stop you (ssh doesn't have to run on 22) and there are dynamic dns solutions if your IP changes often enough that you can't remember it.
I don't use my server for much (it's mainly a NAT/firewall box for my workstations/tivo) but it's really handy knowing that I can ssh into it from anywhere. I carry a USB flash drive with putty and my ssh private key on it.
Uhh, speaking as someone who has worked with a lot of the field techs from Verizon (and others), I highly doubt that there is any malicious intent on the part of Verizon techs to fuck around with Cox (or any other cable company for that matter).
Beyond the fact that Verizon itself wouldn't condone that (for obvious reasons), I just can't see most of the field techs I know doing it. A lot of them just don't give a shit about Verizon (many of them predate Verizon and be back to GTE -- or even to the Bell System for the old timers) and wouldn't be inclined to purposefully damage a sabotage for them. The ones that actually do tote the company line don't seem to remain field techs very long....
In any case, I would blame it more on an honest mistake of whomever was doing the FiOS install. Ever done installs of CPE at residencies before? They are working with impossible deadlines (pushed by a business office that has no clue what's going on in the field) and wind up cutting corners and making mistakes. "Hmm, I can just follow this wire... let me cut it right here and pull it through...."
Not if the power goes out and your FiOS backup battery dies....... at least POTS on copper is line powered.
The mere fact that you can state you "aren't worried about the NSA" and in the same paragraph say "we're not organizing political protests or anything" is pretty depressing. And I don't know which part is worse -- thinking that you might actually have a reason to fear the NSA because of political protects (First Amendment, what??) or me being cynical enough to understand why you would draw that conclusion.
How far we have fallen.
Uhh, you realize that actually could be a bottleneck, right?
802.11b networks have a stated capacity of 11mbits. Actual bandwidth after overhead rarely works out to be more then 5.5-6.0mbits for TCP and upwards of 7.0mbits of UDP. Of course if you live in an area saturated with wi-fi networks (or other uses of the 2.4Ghz band) you'll get even less bandwidth then that.
Dunno what tier you have on FiOS, but most of the useful ones would probably be faster then 5.5mbits. I think 15 is pretty common with FiOS. Try it with a direct wired connection and see what happens.
I've always thought that most of the surface actions around Guadalcanal were defensive in nature, i.e: we were attempting to stop them from attacking our shipping and the land forces on the island. I've never heard them explained as attempting to "break" the control of the Japanese. In fact we got our asses handed to us in a lot of the surface engagements, and it was a combination of air power (preventing Japanese operations during the day) and Japanese mistakes (not attacking our transports after the First Battle of Savo Island) that eventually won the campaign for us.
I'll agree, however, that if Halsey hadn't been so eager to take out the last enemy carriers the Battle of Samar wouldn't have happenedHalsey took the bait hook, line and sinker. It makes you wonder what would have happened if he had been in command during Midway instead of Spruance. It could have wound up being a disaster for us. Would his aggressive nature have been inclined to retire to the east to avoid a night action as Spruance did? What would have happened if he didn't?
As far as the Navy's role in shore bombardment goes, I probably know more about it than you, because I was on the Gun Line in Tonkin Gulf back in '72, doing exactly that. Rail guns, with their impressive range will make it far easier for the Navy to project its power over the horizon without sending highly-expensive carriers in.Hey, I never disputed your knowledge. Was just trying to figure out the advantages/disadvantages of any rail gun system over existing technology. Shore bombardment is an interesting application for this technology and could fill the gaping hole we currently have in that area since the retirement of the Iowas.
Here's another thought: How do the power requirements of rail guns mesh with the power requirements of potential directed-energy weapons? If we build ships with power plants large enough to power rail guns, will they also be powerful enough to mount directed-energy type weapons, or I am getting ahead of myself here?
Well duh! Anybody could have told you that.... Bono is 80 Kurics of excrement ;)
I've heard people calling for a similar pricing structure here in the states, but doesn't it cost more money to call mobile users over there? I know that I can make calls to the UK for something like $0.04/min.... UNLESS it's a mobile number, then it's more.
Point taken, but all of the surface actions in the Pacific during WW2 can be attributed to sheer necessity (either nighttime or a lack of carrier forces in the area) or stupidity (Halsey taking Ozawa's bait and leaving the Taffy groups exposed off Samar). The bulk of the decisive actions involved air power. Hell, air power was even the reason why half of those surface actions you cited happened -- most of the battles around Guadalcanal happened because the Japanese were forced to send in surface forces at night because of American dominance of the skies during the day.
In any event, I was responding to the idea that a rail gun would be useful for "sniping" at opposing warships and then "retreating" before they could respond. I would assume that this will mostly be useful for shore bombardment and maybe point defense (smaller rail-gun projectiles could replace/supplement existing CIWS systems). Ships and aircraft can take evasive action so this won't be very useful against them unless the projectiles are guided somehow.
It's often said that amateurs study tactics, while professionals study logistics. Having the carrier carry bunker fuel to top off her escorts provides more logistical flexibility to the battle group commander.
Presumably everybody around here has heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor? Half of the reason that the Japanese had to retreat (instead of conducting more strikes) had to do with the fact that remaining on station any longer would have risked running too low on fuel. They stretched their logistical abilities to the max to conduct that attack and weren't in a position to exploit their advantage any further. (Of course the other half of the reason was Nagumo's caution.... but the logistical situation was surely in the back of his mind...)
How do you have a projectile with a 200+ mile range that isn't guided?
Even at Mach 8 there's almost a two minute flight time to reach 200 miles. Ignoring wind, the coriolis effect and everything else that could change the course of your projectile, what happens if the target changes course in that time or takes evasive action? A lot can happen in two minutes.....
Uhh, yeah, I'll grant that on Iran (with the students and young moderates) and maybe even China, but North Korea???
One cant stop wondering if it will stop halfwaysIt'll come back around. Look at some of the laws that got put on the books is the US and UK during WW2. Hell, look at some of our actions during that time. Hell, look at some of what happened after the war.
Point being, that in spite of all of that, it eventually came back around towards freedom and liberty. I see no reason why it won't do so again as long as we continue to fight for our rights.
That's a wonderful post with completely valid points. Unfortunately you overlooked the fact that had anybody bothered to connect the dots, 9/11 could have been stopped using the existing laws on the books with the powers that the Government already had.
All the wiretapping in the World isn't going to help you if the President gets a memo saying "[SOMEBODY] determined to attack US" and ignores it. All the wiretapping in the World won't help you if FBI agents in the field are being ignored by headquarters when they attempt to report suspicious activity.
Maybe we should be asking why all of those failures happened instead of bending over backwards to give the Government sweeping new powers to monitor our daily lives.
First they came for the first posters, but I wasn't a first poster so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the people with hot grit fetishes, but I wasn't into that so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the beowulf clusters, but I couldn't afford one so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the immigrants from Soviet Russia, but I wasn't from Soviet Russia so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the people posting lame jokes based on tired old /. cliches... by this time there was nobody left to spea&*)$)(*&@(*)@*(&%&OICARRIER LOST
Umm, IANALOCLS (I am not a lawyer or Constitutional Law Scholar), but my understanding has always been that only prevents the Government from passing retroactive laws that criminalize events in the past... i.e: if alcohol prohibition is passed tomorrow they can't punish me for drinking today. It doesn't prevent them from retroactively decriminalizing something.
Granted, it's a load of shit that they are even considering immunity for these bastards, but I still think you'd lose if you tried to argue against it on the basis of ex post facto laws.
So? Granted, they are gouging us on text messages, but I'd rather have dirt cheap voice calling then dirt cheap/free SMS.
Consider this: $39.99/mo for 1k minutes w/unlimited N&W right now from T-Mobile. Counting nights and weekends I use around 2,500 - 3,000 minutes a month on my line. $39.99 / 2500 = $0.016/minute. Granted, that's a promotional plan, but even a non-promotion is still pretty cheap: $59.99 / 2500 = $0.024/min ($59.99 is 900 peak minutes w/unlimited n&w on Sprint/VZW/AT&T).
Either way, if you use a decent number of nights and weekends, which I tend to do because all of my friends have cell phones, it works out to a pretty good per minute rate. Even without N&W it's not that bad -- $39.00 / 1000 = $0.04/min (T-Mobile) | $59.99 / 900 = $0.067/min.
Is there another cellular market in the World where you can make voice calls for those prices?