But your cell phone provider can degrade the quality of your call just a little bit to free up space, you just don't notice that much.
Only on CDMA networks. On GSM using the TDMA air interface there's a finite number of slots. If I get one then it's mine to use as I see fit and you can't kick me off it.
That said, the point I wanted to make was that perhaps the problem lies in selling as "unlimited" a finite resource. In the end it shouldn't matter if I use 100GB of bittorrent or 100GB of VPN to my office. If they don't have the capacity to be selling it as unlimited then perhaps they shouldn't be selling it as unlimited.
I for one would rather be limited to a sane amount of traffic per month and have full speed downloads for my uses of bittorrent then have my usage degraded by a QoS scheme that thinks my neighbors packets are more important because they aren't bittorrent (even though he may use more bandwidth then me in the end).
...how does an ISP recognize BitTorrent traffic? As far as I can tell, it's really easy to change the port numbers used by the BitTorrent tracker and by the end user. I now that my uTorrent client is set to randomize a port and then use uPnP to ask my router to open it.
More to the point, I can set my BitTorrent client (Azureus) to encrypt all traffic. Currently I have it set to default to encryption and fallback to plaintext -- but it would be a simple matter to reject unencrypted connections.
Throttling traffic is stupid. Build your network to support the load or stop selling "unlimited" service. My cell phone provider doesn't get to decide who I can talk or what I can talk about. Why should my ISP?
Actually, on my LG 9900 (Verizon markets it as the enV, I think) I can change every one of the D-Pad shortcuts and by default the only one
I can't speak for particular phones. I can only tell you that of all my friends the only one who can do any sort of customizations to his phone is the one who got the Motorola E815 -- and that was the last (non PDA) phone that our local VZW store sold that didn't have their crappy UI installed on it. On my old VZW phone (the V325) I couldn't change three of the four d-pads. The firmware update that they came out with (required because the original was buggy and you couldn't charge the phone while talking on it) disabled my ability to download my own ringtones via picture messaging. Their solution: Use get-it-now, because downloading your own violates copyright. Yeah, ever heard of fair use, you bastards?
People on/. seem to think that a company is inherently evil if it tries to make a profit. That's an inherently socialist point of view, if you ask me. If some company develops a technology that people feel is worth paying for, then why should the company be under any obligation to give away that technology for free? That's simply capitalism. Nobody forced Verizon to use CDMA -- there were other competing standards at the time that Verizon standardized on CDMA.
I can't speak for/. I can only speak from my own experiences. In my own experiences CDMA carriers lock down features and phones. As far as I know you can't buy an unbranded/unlocked CDMA phone. With GSM I can buy an unbranded phone and just pop my SIM card into it. The carrier might disable features but I have the option of going out and buying my own. For the record I don't think making a profit is evil -- but I do think that standards for things like telecommunications probably need to be open and published.
Anyway, from looking at the features on my phone, it appears that Verizon is starting to shape up a bit in regards to customer friendliness.
A bit? A heck of a lot more then a bit. I put up with the crippled phone and the ugly user interface for quite awhile (11 months). The last straw was the arrogance of the people in the local store and on the customer service number. To make a long story short calls at my house started randomly going to voicemail, despite the fact that I have four bars of service. I knew it wasn't the phone (I tried two different old phones that I had) -- it was a network issue that could probably have been quickly resolved by an engineer -- but they insisted on blaming the phone anyway. Then they gave me bullshit excuses like "These new phones have a lot of technology in them, so you need to take the battery out once a day to reset it", "Leave your antenna extended when you are at home" and "Unplug your Microwave when it's not in use. Sometimes they leak microwaves and jam cell phones". Those "answers" are just plain insulting and clearly suggested to me that they don't give a damn about existing customers. Lock 'em up in a contract with a hefty termination fee and fuck 'em if they have any problems, cuz we don't care.
As I said before, in general cell companys all suck.
Eh, that's why I went with T-Mo. Customer service means more to me then almost anything else. I took a coverage hit going to them but it works at my house (most important factor) and in 85-90% of the places that my VZW did -- so I'm happy. Hopefully they stay good.
To be honest, Sprint treated me the best out of all of the providers I've used.
Your the only person I've ever heard say that! I have heard people that got screwed over by Cingular (hence why T-Mo was my first GSM choice) so I can't blame you for blacklisting them. I've never heard of anybody that had good experiences with Sprint though. Find something new every day I guess:)
The sad truth is that Verizon has the best (consistent) coverage in the northeast once you get outside of high population areas.
Umm. Cingular seems to match them pretty well in Upstate NY. There's a few areas where Verizon isn't that Cingular is -- and a few areas where Cingular isn't that Verizon is. Sprint and T-Mo users have almost the same coverage -- via roaming with VZW and Cingular.
In any case I decided it wasn't worth putting up with big red's bullshit for those three or four times a year that I'm out in the boonies where only VZW has service.
So cell phone carriers all suck. I don't suppose that's news. Verizon just sucks more then most. Name another one of the big four (T-Mobile, Sprint, Cingular, Verizon) that disables native phone features to force you to buy stuff from them. Name another one of the big four that prevents you from changing something as simple as a d-pad shortcut on your phone (they all go to paid VZW services).
Factor all that in with the fact that Verizon uses CDMA/IS-95 (a proprietary standard patented and owned by one company) and it's not that hard to see why most/. geeks don't like them. Last I checked GSM is a largely (completely?) open standard.
I also loved the old school Kyocera user interface. They had the neatest speed dial feature ever and I've never seen it duplicated on any other brand of phone (perhaps they have a patent on it?).
Your name in my phone book is "Jason Smith". I dial "52766" and it will list all the users that match "Jason" on screen. I select your name and hit dial. I need only dial enough digits to get a unique match. It was the most obvious idea ever and still nobody else has adopted it. Direct dialing right from the main screen.
The Kyocera 2325 was the perfect phone. Great signal, perfect user interface, a handful of free games and a black & white screen for prolonged battery life. What more do you need? Now they come branded with "Get It Now", crippled bluetooth and a UI that can't be customized for anything. And a lot of the phones are of subpar quality compared to years past.
Just a few of the many reasons why I ditched big red.
Phone selection matters regardless of your provider. On VZW I had the best luck with (and you'll laugh at me for this) the old Kyocera's. Some of the new Motorola's are ok -- but the VZW version of the RAZR is a cheap POS with lousy RF performance in my experience. With T-Mobile I've had the best luck with Motorola and Nokia. The Samsungs that they sell are garbage.
In any case it sucks that you are stuck with big red. My agency is stuck with them because they do transports for our patients and VZW has the best rural coverage. I took a coverage hit to switch to T-Mo but it was worth it to me to escape big red. All the more so when I looked at my Verizon bill and realized that 75% of my calls and 90% of my minute usage was coming from home.
It's all well and good to have the best rural coverage but if you only use it once or twice a year then I don't think it's worth dealing with VZW's bullshit. In your case you probably don't have a choice (you need data) but most others do. They are just too stupid to look past the "It's the network" hype and realize how badly VZW is screwing them. Until they actually get screwed -- by then they are facing a $175.00 ETF. Then when the contract finally ends they get a new phone at cheap prices and extend for two more years because it's a "good deal". Rinse and repeat.
Well, for me, it comes down to coverage. I work in the Hudson Valley and travel by train between New York City and Albany nearly every day of the week.
T-Mo has solid coverage up the Thurway between NYC and Albany. Dunno about the route that your train takes though. Might be worth looking into.
The only difference between RIAA and Verizon Wireless is that Verizon actually does have complete control over their users. And Verizon markets it better.
So what self respecting/. user uses Verizon? And if you use it and pay for it out of pocket... WHY???
I just dumped them and switched to T-Mobile for exactly this reason. Never mind the data transfer and PC connections -- with Verizon's new UI you can't even customize your d-pad buttons (besides the down one). Three of them go to VZW services that cost extra money. Screw that! I took a coverage hit to switch to T-Mobile because they don't pull this shit. My T-Mo phone will work for about 80% of the calls and 90% of the minutes that I used with VZW. I'm willing to take this coverage hit in order to stop putting up with big red's bullshit.
Anybody else looking to escape from the clutches from a VZW contract should know that they are raising their administrative fees effective 3/15/07. Once the notice of this increase hits your bill (mine showed up on 1/25/07) you have 60 days to cancel without paying an early termination fee. Goodbye big red. Hello little pink. Only bad thing you can say about T-Mobile is that they parted ways with Catherine Zeta-Jones
They won't take it, and you can't make them. Call the police and they'll ask you to pay in another way.
Not true. I tried to pay for $45.00 worth of gas with a $50 bill once. The clerk refused to take it because "We can't make change for that much". I pointed out that he only owed me $5.00 in change and asked what he would do if I paid with three $20s (requiring $15 of change). He said he'd take them. I pointed out that it was legal tender and he had to take it, he called the cops.
The cops asked me if I had another way to pay and I said I didn't. They said that he could accept the money or let me leave -- they had no grounds to retain me. In a similiar situation I would suggest telling the clerk to accept the money or just walking out the door. What's he gonna do? Call the cops? They won't arrest you -- you offered to pay.
In any case those policies only exist to keep people from buying a pack of gum with a $100 bill. If you buy $90 of gas and try to pay with a $100 bill then they damn well better accept it.
But the lack of public-transport (inter-state) will seriously harm your economy, once oil gets so expensive that only the rich can buy it (which is how it all began - gasoline was formerly only available in pharmacies).
Then we'll find another source of mobile energy. I welcome oil becoming expensive because it will force people to adopt alternatives that aren't as nasty to the environment. Hydrogen, fuel cells, battery electric vehicles, etc, etc, etc. They will all become more affordable and mainstream. In the mean time anything that encourages people to buy hybrids instead of SUVs is a good thing.
Building towns where two shops are 500m apart (and next to nothing in between) also doesn't help.
You can make that argument for urban sprawl but at a certain point it ceases to be valid. Have you ever been to the rural United States? Or even rural Europe? I stayed at a Tuscan Villa a few years back. We were about 5-8km from the nearest town. Now think about America -- there are rural farming communities that are 30 - 50km from anything resembling civilization. How do you get by in such a place without personal transportion (i.e: automobiles)? You can't buy groceries, you can't go to work, you can't visit friends, etc, etc, etc.
Even ignoring the cultural impact, the automobile is critical to daily American life. I'd make the argument that it's critical to a large number of Europeans as well. Does this mean that I'm advocating against research into renewable/carbon netural automobiles? Hardly. But I have a hard time picturing America or Canada without cars in the next hundred years.
Anyhow, how does making the licensing process really expensive weed out bad drivers? All it does is ensure that most of the bad drivers will be rich. In any case you are more likely to have your identity stolen then you are of dying in a car accident.
In the end, we all get the politicians we deserve.
DRM is getting more pervasive and he says it's no big deal.
You didn't RTFA did you?
According to Torvalds, both DRM technology and GPLv3 will cause "lots of arguments" but in the bigger scheme of things, neither will stop good technology from prevailing.
and that they have the arrogance to take the name of the continent they live in.
At least we aren't arrogant enough to make up a name and change geography for our "continent". For the record, Europe doesn't exist. Its called Eurasia.
Eh, most grand jury's are simply rubber stamps for the prosecution. I don't think that requiring them would decrease anything.
Only because most defendants don't appear before the Grand Jury because it isn't typically in their interest. In NYS the Grand Jurors (and DA) can ask you any question they want and you can't refuse to answer. Obviously if you are guilty of something then appearing before the Grand Jury isn't in your best interest.
If you are innocent then often times you can stop the whole criminal process at the Grand Jury. I'm speaking from experience here. The Grand Jury is not a rubber stamp if you appear before them and state your case.
In my country (Germany, and most of Europe) it does, surprisingly.
In my country (America), unless you live in a handful of big cities (New York, LA, Washington, Chicago) then odds are that you can't make a living, buy groceries or do much of anything without a car. A $1,500 - $2,000 licensing process would ruin a lot of livelihoods.
Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
It exists, in theory. In practice you have to actively defend yourself. I got mixed up in something and in over my head once. It went as far as the grand jury. Had I remained silent (as is my right) I would have been indicted. Had I remained silent at trial I probably would have been convicted.
"Innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" doesn't work if you (the defendant) don't provide the reasonable doubt. If two people say that they saw you blow away the cashier and you don't point out that you were somewhere else at the time it happened then get ready to meet Bubba...
According to Grok, there's no case I can find of someone being forced to turn over an encryption key.
They are trying it in the UK. A country that until recently valued personal freedom and the common law more then the police state.
Also the key escrow database, as you mentioned, was _proposed_. When it actually exists, please let me know. Also, when every PC has a clipper chip installed, also, let me know.
And your point is? That was an attempt at a power grab. You really think it will be the last one?
Seriously, you're suggesting that having DBs full of DNA, phone records, facial recognition signatures, etc, will somehow create a police state where one would not otherwise exist. That a leader in some future day would say "You know, the rule of law is nice and all, and the whole government of the people is an interesting concept, but since we've already got these databases anyway we ought to just oppress everyone."
I'm sorry but even if I completely trusted Government and had no fears of abuse of power I still wouldn't see a compelling reason to allow the Gov't to compile databases (of anything! fingerprints, DNA, calling records) on people that haven't done anything wrong. I can't support it.
It's clear to me that you're not approaching this in a rational way.
It's clear to me that rather then discuss the issues at hand you are more interested in pointing the finger at my "paranoia" and accusing me of not being rational. I have yet to hear a compelling reason for why the NSA should be building a database of who I call. Or a compelling reason to put cameras on the street that use technology to match faces and track movements.
And I truly mean it that so many people who think like you are CRYING WOLF. By blowing up something trivial like a computer analyzing phone records to look for nefarious patterns, you will get peoples attention.
One persons "trivial" is another persons invasion of privacy.
And watch out for that Canadian currency. I hear they're trying to bug you. Probably trying to figure out your encryption keys.
The sarcasm doesn't become you. I would have had more respect for you if you had "let's agree to disagree" instead of playing the sarcasm card and attacking me personally (paranoid person who cries wolf) instead of my positions.
You expect the citizenry to live in the 21st century but the government to stay in the 1950's.
Hardly. You don't see me bitching about DNA technology (properly used on suspects) or wiretaps, or databases. You see me bitching about using this technology to build profiles of all Americans regardless of whether or not they've been accused of a crime. You also see me bitching about the prospect of a surveillance society with cameras on every corner.
You make this giant leap between Gitmo and wiretapping and totalitarian 1984ish control.
I'm not making a leap. I'm saying that if cameras exist on every street corner and the Gov't has a DNA database of all citizens then it's that much easier to become 1984. Every bit of freedom that we surrender makes it easier. Does that mean it will happen? Probably not. But why make it easy?
The idea that government has to prove that it needs cameras is silly. Besides, you've yet to give me any actual reason why you think you have a right not to be filmed in public places. There is no right to privacy in the constitution.
Did I say that I have a problem being filmed? I said I would have a problem living somewhere where the Gov't feels the need to put cameras on every lamppost. I have a problem with them using software to build a database of my movements. I don't have a problem with cameras.
Seriously, if you hate technology this much, I hear there's a cabin in the deep woods in Montana that was vacated about a decade ago.
And what makes you think I hate technology?
And as for your encryption issues: when was the last time you've heard of the government forbidding the use of some encryption technology? The only restrictions are on the export of such technology.
Ever hear of the clipper chip? The purposed key-escrow database?
And you're wrong. They cannot force you to hand over encryption keys. The only way they could is by granting you complete blanket immunity.
BULLSHIT! They can force you to turn over anything they want if can talk a judge into it. Ever hear of a compelled DNA sample? Or compelled blood samples to prove a DWI? Your only choice with encryption keys would be to refuse the order and be held in contempt. Blood samples they will physically restrain you and draw by force if you try to refuse.
Oh and I wasn't talking about the wiretaps. I was talking about the NSA call database. Explain to me how the Gov't knowing that I call my GF three times a day is going to help fight terrorism?
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But your cell phone provider can degrade the quality of your call just a little bit to free up space, you just don't notice that much.
Only on CDMA networks. On GSM using the TDMA air interface there's a finite number of slots. If I get one then it's mine to use as I see fit and you can't kick me off it.
That said, the point I wanted to make was that perhaps the problem lies in selling as "unlimited" a finite resource. In the end it shouldn't matter if I use 100GB of bittorrent or 100GB of VPN to my office. If they don't have the capacity to be selling it as unlimited then perhaps they shouldn't be selling it as unlimited.
I for one would rather be limited to a sane amount of traffic per month and have full speed downloads for my uses of bittorrent then have my usage degraded by a QoS scheme that thinks my neighbors packets are more important because they aren't bittorrent (even though he may use more bandwidth then me in the end).
More to the point, I can set my BitTorrent client (Azureus) to encrypt all traffic. Currently I have it set to default to encryption and fallback to plaintext -- but it would be a simple matter to reject unencrypted connections.
Throttling traffic is stupid. Build your network to support the load or stop selling "unlimited" service. My cell phone provider doesn't get to decide who I can talk or what I can talk about. Why should my ISP?
Actually, on my LG 9900 (Verizon markets it as the enV, I think) I can change every one of the D-Pad shortcuts and by default the only one
I can't speak for particular phones. I can only tell you that of all my friends the only one who can do any sort of customizations to his phone is the one who got the Motorola E815 -- and that was the last (non PDA) phone that our local VZW store sold that didn't have their crappy UI installed on it. On my old VZW phone (the V325) I couldn't change three of the four d-pads. The firmware update that they came out with (required because the original was buggy and you couldn't charge the phone while talking on it) disabled my ability to download my own ringtones via picture messaging. Their solution: Use get-it-now, because downloading your own violates copyright. Yeah, ever heard of fair use, you bastards?
People on /. seem to think that a company is inherently evil if it tries to make a profit. That's an inherently socialist point of view, if you ask me. If some company develops a technology that people feel is worth paying for, then why should the company be under any obligation to give away that technology for free? That's simply capitalism. Nobody forced Verizon to use CDMA -- there were other competing standards at the time that Verizon standardized on CDMA.
I can't speak for /. I can only speak from my own experiences. In my own experiences CDMA carriers lock down features and phones. As far as I know you can't buy an unbranded/unlocked CDMA phone. With GSM I can buy an unbranded phone and just pop my SIM card into it. The carrier might disable features but I have the option of going out and buying my own. For the record I don't think making a profit is evil -- but I do think that standards for things like telecommunications probably need to be open and published.
Anyway, from looking at the features on my phone, it appears that Verizon is starting to shape up a bit in regards to customer friendliness.
A bit? A heck of a lot more then a bit. I put up with the crippled phone and the ugly user interface for quite awhile (11 months). The last straw was the arrogance of the people in the local store and on the customer service number. To make a long story short calls at my house started randomly going to voicemail, despite the fact that I have four bars of service. I knew it wasn't the phone (I tried two different old phones that I had) -- it was a network issue that could probably have been quickly resolved by an engineer -- but they insisted on blaming the phone anyway. Then they gave me bullshit excuses like "These new phones have a lot of technology in them, so you need to take the battery out once a day to reset it", "Leave your antenna extended when you are at home" and "Unplug your Microwave when it's not in use. Sometimes they leak microwaves and jam cell phones". Those "answers" are just plain insulting and clearly suggested to me that they don't give a damn about existing customers. Lock 'em up in a contract with a hefty termination fee and fuck 'em if they have any problems, cuz we don't care.
As I said before, in general cell companys all suck.
Eh, that's why I went with T-Mo. Customer service means more to me then almost anything else. I took a coverage hit going to them but it works at my house (most important factor) and in 85-90% of the places that my VZW did -- so I'm happy. Hopefully they stay good.
To be honest, Sprint treated me the best out of all of the providers I've used.
Your the only person I've ever heard say that! I have heard people that got screwed over by Cingular (hence why T-Mo was my first GSM choice) so I can't blame you for blacklisting them. I've never heard of anybody that had good experiences with Sprint though. Find something new every day I guess :)
The sad truth is that Verizon has the best (consistent) coverage in the northeast once you get outside of high population areas.
Umm. Cingular seems to match them pretty well in Upstate NY. There's a few areas where Verizon isn't that Cingular is -- and a few areas where Cingular isn't that Verizon is. Sprint and T-Mo users have almost the same coverage -- via roaming with VZW and Cingular.
In any case I decided it wasn't worth putting up with big red's bullshit for those three or four times a year that I'm out in the boonies where only VZW has service.
So cell phone carriers all suck. I don't suppose that's news. Verizon just sucks more then most. Name another one of the big four (T-Mobile, Sprint, Cingular, Verizon) that disables native phone features to force you to buy stuff from them. Name another one of the big four that prevents you from changing something as simple as a d-pad shortcut on your phone (they all go to paid VZW services).
Factor all that in with the fact that Verizon uses CDMA/IS-95 (a proprietary standard patented and owned by one company) and it's not that hard to see why most /. geeks don't like them. Last I checked GSM is a largely (completely?) open standard.
I also loved the old school Kyocera user interface. They had the neatest speed dial feature ever and I've never seen it duplicated on any other brand of phone (perhaps they have a patent on it?). Your name in my phone book is "Jason Smith". I dial "52766" and it will list all the users that match "Jason" on screen. I select your name and hit dial. I need only dial enough digits to get a unique match. It was the most obvious idea ever and still nobody else has adopted it. Direct dialing right from the main screen. The Kyocera 2325 was the perfect phone. Great signal, perfect user interface, a handful of free games and a black & white screen for prolonged battery life. What more do you need? Now they come branded with "Get It Now", crippled bluetooth and a UI that can't be customized for anything. And a lot of the phones are of subpar quality compared to years past. Just a few of the many reasons why I ditched big red.
Phone selection matters regardless of your provider. On VZW I had the best luck with (and you'll laugh at me for this) the old Kyocera's. Some of the new Motorola's are ok -- but the VZW version of the RAZR is a cheap POS with lousy RF performance in my experience. With T-Mobile I've had the best luck with Motorola and Nokia. The Samsungs that they sell are garbage.
In any case it sucks that you are stuck with big red. My agency is stuck with them because they do transports for our patients and VZW has the best rural coverage. I took a coverage hit to switch to T-Mo but it was worth it to me to escape big red. All the more so when I looked at my Verizon bill and realized that 75% of my calls and 90% of my minute usage was coming from home.
It's all well and good to have the best rural coverage but if you only use it once or twice a year then I don't think it's worth dealing with VZW's bullshit. In your case you probably don't have a choice (you need data) but most others do. They are just too stupid to look past the "It's the network" hype and realize how badly VZW is screwing them. Until they actually get screwed -- by then they are facing a $175.00 ETF. Then when the contract finally ends they get a new phone at cheap prices and extend for two more years because it's a "good deal". Rinse and repeat.
Well, for me, it comes down to coverage. I work in the Hudson Valley and travel by train between New York City and Albany nearly every day of the week.
T-Mo has solid coverage up the Thurway between NYC and Albany. Dunno about the route that your train takes though. Might be worth looking into.
The only difference between RIAA and Verizon Wireless is that Verizon actually does have complete control over their users. And Verizon markets it better.
So what self respecting /. user uses Verizon? And if you use it and pay for it out of pocket... WHY???
I just dumped them and switched to T-Mobile for exactly this reason. Never mind the data transfer and PC connections -- with Verizon's new UI you can't even customize your d-pad buttons (besides the down one). Three of them go to VZW services that cost extra money. Screw that! I took a coverage hit to switch to T-Mobile because they don't pull this shit. My T-Mo phone will work for about 80% of the calls and 90% of the minutes that I used with VZW. I'm willing to take this coverage hit in order to stop putting up with big red's bullshit.
Anybody else looking to escape from the clutches from a VZW contract should know that they are raising their administrative fees effective 3/15/07. Once the notice of this increase hits your bill (mine showed up on 1/25/07) you have 60 days to cancel without paying an early termination fee. Goodbye big red. Hello little pink. Only bad thing you can say about T-Mobile is that they parted ways with Catherine Zeta-Jones
They won't take it, and you can't make them. Call the police and they'll ask you to pay in another way.
Not true. I tried to pay for $45.00 worth of gas with a $50 bill once. The clerk refused to take it because "We can't make change for that much". I pointed out that he only owed me $5.00 in change and asked what he would do if I paid with three $20s (requiring $15 of change). He said he'd take them. I pointed out that it was legal tender and he had to take it, he called the cops.
The cops asked me if I had another way to pay and I said I didn't. They said that he could accept the money or let me leave -- they had no grounds to retain me. In a similiar situation I would suggest telling the clerk to accept the money or just walking out the door. What's he gonna do? Call the cops? They won't arrest you -- you offered to pay.
In any case those policies only exist to keep people from buying a pack of gum with a $100 bill. If you buy $90 of gas and try to pay with a $100 bill then they damn well better accept it.
Shell, Coca Cola, Union Carbide, DeBeers, ExxonMobil...
Care to provide an example of Coca Cola rounding someone up and torturing him or her?
But the lack of public-transport (inter-state) will seriously harm your economy, once oil gets so expensive that only the rich can buy it (which is how it all began - gasoline was formerly only available in pharmacies).
Then we'll find another source of mobile energy. I welcome oil becoming expensive because it will force people to adopt alternatives that aren't as nasty to the environment. Hydrogen, fuel cells, battery electric vehicles, etc, etc, etc. They will all become more affordable and mainstream. In the mean time anything that encourages people to buy hybrids instead of SUVs is a good thing.
Building towns where two shops are 500m apart (and next to nothing in between) also doesn't help.
You can make that argument for urban sprawl but at a certain point it ceases to be valid. Have you ever been to the rural United States? Or even rural Europe? I stayed at a Tuscan Villa a few years back. We were about 5-8km from the nearest town. Now think about America -- there are rural farming communities that are 30 - 50km from anything resembling civilization. How do you get by in such a place without personal transportion (i.e: automobiles)? You can't buy groceries, you can't go to work, you can't visit friends, etc, etc, etc.
Even ignoring the cultural impact, the automobile is critical to daily American life. I'd make the argument that it's critical to a large number of Europeans as well. Does this mean that I'm advocating against research into renewable/carbon netural automobiles? Hardly. But I have a hard time picturing America or Canada without cars in the next hundred years.
Anyhow, how does making the licensing process really expensive weed out bad drivers? All it does is ensure that most of the bad drivers will be rich. In any case you are more likely to have your identity stolen then you are of dying in a car accident.
In the end, we all get the politicians we deserve.
What does that have to do with anything?
DRM is getting more pervasive and he says it's no big deal.
You didn't RTFA did you?
According to Torvalds, both DRM technology and GPLv3 will cause "lots of arguments" but in the bigger scheme of things, neither will stop good technology from prevailing.
How is that point not valid?
even "yankee". Which I think is a perfect term for someone from USA.
Try calling someone from the American South that and see how far it gets you. Probably a black eye.
and that they have the arrogance to take the name of the continent they live in.
At least we aren't arrogant enough to make up a name and change geography for our "continent". For the record, Europe doesn't exist. Its called Eurasia.
Eh, most grand jury's are simply rubber stamps for the prosecution. I don't think that requiring them would decrease anything.
Only because most defendants don't appear before the Grand Jury because it isn't typically in their interest. In NYS the Grand Jurors (and DA) can ask you any question they want and you can't refuse to answer. Obviously if you are guilty of something then appearing before the Grand Jury isn't in your best interest.
If you are innocent then often times you can stop the whole criminal process at the Grand Jury. I'm speaking from experience here. The Grand Jury is not a rubber stamp if you appear before them and state your case.
In my country (Germany, and most of Europe) it does, surprisingly.
In my country (America), unless you live in a handful of big cities (New York, LA, Washington, Chicago) then odds are that you can't make a living, buy groceries or do much of anything without a car. A $1,500 - $2,000 licensing process would ruin a lot of livelihoods.
Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
It exists, in theory. In practice you have to actively defend yourself. I got mixed up in something and in over my head once. It went as far as the grand jury. Had I remained silent (as is my right) I would have been indicted. Had I remained silent at trial I probably would have been convicted.
"Innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" doesn't work if you (the defendant) don't provide the reasonable doubt. If two people say that they saw you blow away the cashier and you don't point out that you were somewhere else at the time it happened then get ready to meet Bubba...
Doesn't care about cuddling, didn't want a fancy wedding or engagement ring.... you lucky bastard.
:P
I hate you, btw
She doesn't like cuddling or romance. If she want to get laid she just tells me.
And what's the problem exactly?
and now men spend as much time worrying about their appearance as women. Remember metrosexuals?
Speak for yourself. I'm still quite content with the t-shirt and jeans/shorts when I go out.
Ford aint giving garantee for their 2000 models cars either.
And Ford doesn't get my business either. 10 year / 100,000 miles. Thank you Kia and Suzuki.
And a big middle finger to Microsoft for this move.
You must not bother to read if you assume that's what I was refering to.
According to Grok, there's no case I can find of someone being forced to turn over an encryption key.
They are trying it in the UK. A country that until recently valued personal freedom and the common law more then the police state.
Also the key escrow database, as you mentioned, was _proposed_. When it actually exists, please let me know. Also, when every PC has a clipper chip installed, also, let me know.
And your point is? That was an attempt at a power grab. You really think it will be the last one?
Seriously, you're suggesting that having DBs full of DNA, phone records, facial recognition signatures, etc, will somehow create a police state where one would not otherwise exist. That a leader in some future day would say "You know, the rule of law is nice and all, and the whole government of the people is an interesting concept, but since we've already got these databases anyway we ought to just oppress everyone."
I'm sorry but even if I completely trusted Government and had no fears of abuse of power I still wouldn't see a compelling reason to allow the Gov't to compile databases (of anything! fingerprints, DNA, calling records) on people that haven't done anything wrong. I can't support it.
It's clear to me that you're not approaching this in a rational way.
It's clear to me that rather then discuss the issues at hand you are more interested in pointing the finger at my "paranoia" and accusing me of not being rational. I have yet to hear a compelling reason for why the NSA should be building a database of who I call. Or a compelling reason to put cameras on the street that use technology to match faces and track movements.
And I truly mean it that so many people who think like you are CRYING WOLF. By blowing up something trivial like a computer analyzing phone records to look for nefarious patterns, you will get peoples attention.
One persons "trivial" is another persons invasion of privacy.
And watch out for that Canadian currency. I hear they're trying to bug you. Probably trying to figure out your encryption keys.
The sarcasm doesn't become you. I would have had more respect for you if you had "let's agree to disagree" instead of playing the sarcasm card and attacking me personally (paranoid person who cries wolf) instead of my positions.
You expect the citizenry to live in the 21st century but the government to stay in the 1950's.
Hardly. You don't see me bitching about DNA technology (properly used on suspects) or wiretaps, or databases. You see me bitching about using this technology to build profiles of all Americans regardless of whether or not they've been accused of a crime. You also see me bitching about the prospect of a surveillance society with cameras on every corner.
You make this giant leap between Gitmo and wiretapping and totalitarian 1984ish control.
I'm not making a leap. I'm saying that if cameras exist on every street corner and the Gov't has a DNA database of all citizens then it's that much easier to become 1984. Every bit of freedom that we surrender makes it easier. Does that mean it will happen? Probably not. But why make it easy?
The idea that government has to prove that it needs cameras is silly. Besides, you've yet to give me any actual reason why you think you have a right not to be filmed in public places. There is no right to privacy in the constitution.
Did I say that I have a problem being filmed? I said I would have a problem living somewhere where the Gov't feels the need to put cameras on every lamppost. I have a problem with them using software to build a database of my movements. I don't have a problem with cameras.
Seriously, if you hate technology this much, I hear there's a cabin in the deep woods in Montana that was vacated about a decade ago.
And what makes you think I hate technology?
And as for your encryption issues: when was the last time you've heard of the government forbidding the use of some encryption technology? The only restrictions are on the export of such technology.
Ever hear of the clipper chip? The purposed key-escrow database?
And you're wrong. They cannot force you to hand over encryption keys. The only way they could is by granting you complete blanket immunity.
BULLSHIT! They can force you to turn over anything they want if can talk a judge into it. Ever hear of a compelled DNA sample? Or compelled blood samples to prove a DWI? Your only choice with encryption keys would be to refuse the order and be held in contempt. Blood samples they will physically restrain you and draw by force if you try to refuse.
Oh and I wasn't talking about the wiretaps. I was talking about the NSA call database. Explain to me how the Gov't knowing that I call my GF three times a day is going to help fight terrorism?