Why? Is the average American so much dumber than the average European? Or many Canadians and Latin Americans? Or me?:-> I think the reason more Americans don't learn other languages is sheer intellectual laziness...
Europeans are taught english as a second language since birth, since english is pretty prevlant all over the world. You can usually find someone that knows the language anywhere. We are not taught since birth, so learning as an adult is much more difficult. Besides if i'm expected to learn spanish before going to spain, maybe others visiting america should learn english. Its only polite. And while there are some spanish people that know english, i cannot rely on that most of them do. At any rate, its this thing, when in rome, do as the romans. So tell me, why should i learn the languages of people visiting here, if they are not expected to know my language when going there?
Thats part of the French lawsuit; they want the regular yahoo.com to withhold the Nazi auction items as well. Besides, i doubt that the.fr version is any different; obviously its in french, but for the most part its the same i'd say.
Well, thats one of the things that happen when you have freedom of speech. You have to right to say what you believe in, no matter how stupid. Taking that away is far more dangerous. I think you should spend some time in China as a citizen of that country and see what you'd be missing.
Odd, i didn't know the french could declare another nation's constition void. Personally i don't know why yahoo is even in court. Their response to France should have been a big 'fuck you' and then completely ignore the idiots. It seems that France is becoming as Facist as the Nazis they so 'hated.' Too bad for them that Nazism isn't the only way to be facist.
not to mention that non-profit is a broad category.
Even still, the #s are pretty poor. I'd wager though that the numbers are bad not b/c programmers aren't working, but b/c sys admins are too expensive for a NPO to have too many. i also think its a mistake to equate programming and system administration. Those are two very different things.
Ya, its funny how they say that the bugs shouldn't even be there, yet they also say that testing is a waste of time. Its also by that logic a waste of time to test circut boards, cars, or just about anything else you buy. Computer programs are among the most complex things ever designed and 'built' by man. As such, its expected that large and complex things not be 100% by release, and obviously need to be tested. I got halfway through the article before i couldn't read anymore; its too ubsurd, and written by someone with little to no clue.
I am suprised. I don't trust the police at all. There have been many cases of crooked cops etc in the past. Plus, cops are just people, with the same defects other people have. That would be the same as someone trusting a millionaire, or a priest, just because of thier status. Trust based on that status is misplaced.
And the cop does have a motive for lying; if he admits to a wrongful arrest, there could be no end of trouble to him and his precinct. You can sue for wrongful arrest/prosicution, can't you?
Being in Philly, i can tell you that traffic blocks were few. Most stayed on the sidewalks/exit ramps, but very few actually blocked traffic.
As far as breaking the law and pissing people off. Well a half a million dollar bail is a little excessive for the crime of 'pissing people of..and making a mess of things.' So if i inconvience someone, my bail should be astronomical?
At any rate, the police in Philly have been out of control for some time now, so its not suprising that they arrested alot of people for just being on the sidewalk, even though they hadn't moved from their place of protest the entire time. I find it ironic that the cops complain so much about not being able to uphold the law, so they try to throw away laws that are binding them.
I never click any of those damn things anyway. As for the ?keyword search...i didn't know anyone did that. If i want to search i type in http://www.google.com/ There's alot of crap in 4.x that will bring you to netscape's site, but i never use any of it.
If you owned all the grocery stores, and then marked up prices, cut service, etc etc, new competiton with reasonable prices and service would open, and force you out of business.
Ah ha, now you seem to start to get it. Now image i somehow got a gov't sactioned monopoly, which forbid anyone from competing with me. Thats what the cable and telephone companies have. What would happen to my stores then?
I am not suggesting giving away the use, but they are giving away the infrastructure. IE letting people use the network now, for a low cost, puts the burden of developing and laying all the underlying network only on one company, who is now forced to give away cheap access.
Except that this case is about cable systems, and for the most part the network is already there. Besides, thats the price the company pays for having a gov't sactioned monopoly. Monopolies are bad for capilism and consumers, but we let them exist, although with certain restrictions. Monopolies also get broken up when they begin to abuse thier power. Restrictions like these are aimed at trying to keep the monopoly from gaining even more power.
Nope, local free access has been available for a long, long time. It began as regulation, but now is basically voluntary. It had nothing to do with internet acccess.
Local free access? Where is that? Cheap, yes, free no. Do you honestly think that a phone company would allow competition to its ISP service if they didn't have to? As soon as that regulation was removed, the telcos put an end to all those dialup ISPs. The goal of a buisness is always to elimiate competition, and the goal of capitalism is to have competition. If buinsness wins, captialism falters, i would think you would understand the economy you so eagerly pretend to support.
Listen to me. You have no right to internet access. You have no right to broadband. You have no right to expect
anything, from any company - ever! Thats the nature of capitialism. But you do have options. Complain a lot. Move. Look into wired technology. Dont use the internet. Sell your computer. YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO INTERNET ACCESS. Its plain and simple. Therefore, no company should be forced to do anything with their property, whether or not they are a monopoly. EVER. Period.
Dude, shut up with that alright. Thats all you say, yelling that over and over again. I'm not even talking about rights to broadband, i'm talking about keeping monopolies in check. You said before that this was punishing someone b/c they were successful. Thats not the case at all; the cable companies were handed monopolies from day one. It has nothing to do if they were successful or not. Since the gov't (the people, in the US) GAVE the cable companies thier monopolies, we can tell them to do whatever we want with it. They didn't even earn it, so why do they even have a right to it at all?
The rest world does not care about your broadband access. I dont either. What I care about are people like you, who feel that they have a right to anything they want. And damn it, if its not how I want it, or how I like it, then the government needs to fix the problem for me. People like you dont want to solve the problem themselves - they want a cheap, government mandated fix. If you really wanted broadband access you'd get yourself a T1. Thats what I did. Thats right, moron. I didnt *like* DSL service, or cables flucations in bandwidth. I didnt like the wireless or mirco options. And so now, I have my own fractional T1 in my house. It costs me $300. you want good, reliable access? Then fine. Cough it up.
You don't even know what you're talking about. The problem is there is no competition for the most common form of broadband. Ever buisness should have a competitor. Good for you that you have your own fractional T1. I don't care. It seems to me that you want me to pay 300 just b/c you do. Well i think cable modems are just fine. And i think with some competition would make it even better.
Please, stop dodging the heart of the issue, and being so bitter that you're stupid enough to pay 300 for broadband. I like how nothing below a T1 is suddenly in your eyes not broadband. Tell me, why is creating competition bad? Instead of opening the cable systems network, should we take away the gov't granted monopolies they have on cities? And why is it that you think anyone that doesn't buy part of a T1 doesn't really want broadband? So if i don't buy a porshe, i don't really want a car? Whatever..
The reason AT&T has a monopoly in your area is because they own the cable. Who do you think layed the cable to every house in America? Who? The government? No. The people? No. The only reason AT&T doesnt own all of it (or some other company) is becase the FCC requires that no cable company cover more than a certain number of customers.
AT&T owns no cable (as in cable tv, and cable modem) anywhere near where i live. Time Warner has this entire area. AT&T is not even factor here at all actually. They own 0 miles of cable in this area, telephone or coax. In the area the article was talking about, AT&T does have a monopoly. The ONLY reason they have one is b/c no one else is ALLOWED to compete in that way. Its a gov't sancationed monopoly.
Why should a company,who has spent millions to build infrastructure, now have to give it away.
Dude, you are a complete moron. Forcing the cable company to open its network does NOT mean that it must do it for free. If you had done the reseach i asked of you on the local dialup ISPs, or maybe read my last post in detail, you'd see that the local ISPs have to BUY the connection from the telco. They then turn around and resell that connection. Thats what forcing the cable system open would do. The ISPs buying the connection turn around and try to undercut the telco's ISP service, so that they can get more customers. Its called competition, and it drives the price down. I'll use your last paragraph to show that you are a complete moron.
(cable modem, DSL+ISDN+T1, microwave, wireless radio, and satelite)
Ok, DSL, T1, T3, ISDN. Those are all via your local telco, and the fact that you have more then once choice as ISDN provider, for example, is b/c that local telco IS FORCED TO KEEP ITS NETWORK OPEN. Otherwise, you'd have ONLY one provider for all 4 of those services. Out of those 4 i mentioned, 2 are not practicle for home use; they should not even be considered options, since we are talking about access for the average person. ISDN is all but dead, at least it should be. Its the equal of having 2 56k modems; thas not even broadband. So now we are left with DSL. Where i am, i don't know of anyone but the local telco that provides DSL. Its 39.95/month, with a 1mb down and 128kps up. I've seen it displayed, i doubt its even that fast. Oh, BTW, RoadRunner (TW's cable ISP), is also 39.95/month if you have cable tv, 34.95 without. It offers 2mb down, and 384 kps up. Wait, why would i want DSL now? Especially since my local telco is extermely unreliable. Should DSL go down, i wouldn't expect it back up for at least a week. Microwave and wireless radio? Around here thats not even an option. Tell me, how fast is that, and whats the price? I doubt those are viable solutions for most people. Satelite? You're kidding right? For a packet to leave my computer, it must travel up to the satelite, which is what, 26 miles above the earth? Then it travels down. Thats 52 miles just to get to your provider, and now it has to be injected into the internet and come back. Once its back, its got to travel another 52 miles to reach you. You think thats gonna be faster then traveling 20 miles round trip to your local headend? Or, you can upload with a 56k modem, whoopiee!!! Now, you send even slower, and you STILL are tying up a phone line. Its 50-60 dollars, and you only get 400kps!! Are you on crack?
To summarize:
My choices are one of 10 ISPs that offer 56k (keeping in mind that those 10 would not exist if the local telco was not forced by the gov't to open its networks, and that they offer about the exact same service), or a cable modem if i want broadband access. Now, there's only one cable provider, and its networks are closed. So if i want broadband, i MUST get it from the cable company. Don't say i can pick DSL, its less service, for the same price, and you'd have to be an idiot to pick it over cable.
As for punished for being successful? Well lets say i open a chain of grocery stores, and i'm able to run ALL other grocery stores in your area out of buisness. What am i gonan do now? I"m going to raise prices, and cut service, b/c that will make me alot more money. Now, i'm being very very successful, so by your logic i should be left alone. Nevermind that now alot of people can't afford food, and that alot of what i sell is now substandard. (Thats why the gov't inspects meat, b/c stores would sell diseased meat, so don't tell me that wouldn't happen). Are yo gonna sit and argue with people that want to break my monopoly b/c i really did fairly beat all the competition? Or are you gonna say this is insane? And if i'm forced to raise the quality of food? Ok, but i'm gonna raise price to make up for it. Thats now business works, and i don't think you'd argue with that.
You say that AT&T has been given a monopoly. I dont know if that is true, but if it is.. my answer is still so-what.
Of course its true. How many cable providers are there in your area that can provide service to YOUR house? I know that sometimes cities are split between cable companies, but how does that effect you, if you can still only pick one? Thats the whole reason the fed wants to force AT&T to open its network in that area. To force AT&T to compete.
No company should ever ever be forced to help its competition. No matter how big the monopoly, or how powerful it is. You want high-speed access? There are lots of options. Look around. Just because you dont like the DSL or Cable serivce doesnt mean that the government should force open the private property of some company.
For capitilism to truely work, you need competition. Cable companies have none. Tell me, since you seem to be the expert, what are my other broadband options besides cable or DSL? T1, T3? Nope, thats your local telco also. Satilite? Thats not even broadband. Gov't must absolutly step in to break up monopolies; forcing a company to open its access is one way of doing that.
You want to affect the quality of the service? Cancel your service. Call all your friends. Get them to cancel too. Call everyone who has it, and get them to cancel.
How would that affect service? Do you think if you're the only game in town you'd care if you lost a few customers? Do you really think Ma Bell would've cared if an entire town canceled thier service? Why would Time Warner, or AT&T? All that would happen is they'd sell the francise to someone else, who may or may not get the customers back. And nothing will have changed either. Thats exactly the problem with monopolies, they don't give a fuck about the customer. The local telco here gets fined the maximum penalty under NY law b/c of poor customer service. Do they care? No, its probably cheaper to pay that then to improve service. Tell me you think there's nothing wrong with that if your phone goes out, and you have to wait AT LEAST 3 weeks for them to even begin to look at it.
Besides that, I dont know what you are talking with local dialup. I think you made that up.
You think so? Go do some research. ISPs buy a T1 or T3 or whatever from the local telco. They then setup their own network for you to dialin to, and all the customers share the ISPs line. Now, do you think Bell Atlantic, who offers an ISP service, would allow say Netcarrier, or Voicenet (both local Philly providers i know about) to compete with them using a high speed line they provided? AT&T certainly doesn't want to, why would Bell Atlantic? The answer is simple; b/c the gov't told Bell Atlantic they must open thier network. Do you really think that your mom and pop ISP was allowed to hang wires off the phone companies polls? Even if they did, i'm sure it'd be expensive. Do you think they could afford (or would be allowed) to tear up streets to run their own fiber optics? It would be a very expensive thing, and you'd never see small ISPs b/c starting one would be too expensive. Yet you do. Please, go do some research.
You are whining like high-speed access is your god-given right. Its not.
High-speed access my not be my right, but if you want capitalism to work, you need competition. I'll admit, my cable company has been good so far, but i don't think they'd do anything rash that would cast the impending merger into a bad light. There's also relivitly little that can go wrong with cable, and it still takes a 2-4 weeks to get it installed. I hope you don't have comcast cable for highspeed access and want to VPN to work; you won't be allowed, unless your company purchases a VPN solution from comcast. Don't believe me? Go check out thier contracts. You are not allowed to connect to a noncomcast bought VPN server.
Odd, b/c for me it has, ever time. Just like in 98, if one goes, they all go.
What exactly makes you trust that when Explorer is restarted it's not working 100% again whereas gnome bar is..do you have any proof or is this just a 'feeling' you get?
In Win2k, well no i don't have any proof, i just have years of experience with that being the case in Win9x. Have you ever know in win98 the explorer dying and somehow comming back where it was stable? I never had, and thats what i expect in win2k. MS has made me distrust all of their products with their shoddy track record. I'll admit, i've been pretty impressed with win2k, but now that i've been using it longer, some quirky things have been starting to appear. Anyway, the reason i do trust the gnome bar is b/c its not required to use the gui. I could operate a WM without it all together. (I stand corrected; a quick experiment shows it is possible to kill the start bar in w2k and still somehow use the computer). But at any rate, when a program has died in windows, restarting it will usually cause it to die again, even if given different inputs. Linux apps tend not to care if they just crashed. I think this has to do with the OS properly cleaning up after an app dies.
All this being said, i will admit, win2k has been pretty good, except for some weird quirkyness. But just about all of MS's other OSes have been pretty crappy, so it will still be a while before i fully trust this one.
Sorry, i just don't expect beta software to be that reliable. Its foolish to expect that. Mozilla so far hasn't left the beta stage, i'm not even sure if they are that far yet, since some features haven't even been completed. As far as your NS 4.76 crashing; I think i've had NS crash on me 2 times in the past year. Don't blame the program when the OS is unstable. Its been my experience that the most unstable OSes are (in order) WinME, Win98, Win95, WinNT4, Win2K. Linux seems to be even more stable, since i've never had a kernel panic. Don't moderate or flame me b/c of these views, its just been my experinece. Speaking of moderation, why the hell was my previous post marked as overrated? It only had the default score of 1 i always post at. I guess some fuck moderater doesn't like to see anything good said about nonMS browsers..
So that we as customers will not be screwed. You're a pretty big fucking moron too. The whole problem is ANOTHER COMPANY CANNOT LAY ANY MORE COAX, B/C AT&T WAS GRANTED A MONOPOLY THERE. And no one can lay fiber optic/copper cables b/c the phone company has a monopoly in that area. So your choices are, the phone company offering DSL (which here sucks compared to cable; 1/2 the download, and 1/3 the upload rate of cable), or cable modems. The ONLY reason you do not have only one choice for dialup providers is b/c the local phone company was forced to open its network. And the result of that is pretty good; you can get dialup from $10-20, while cable modems and DSL remain around $50. Which i personally think is reasonable for cable modems, but given the past track record of the cable company, i expect the price will increase over time, and not b/c of inflation. I don't know why the gov't ever tolerates monopolies; the nature of buinsess doesn't allow them to be nice when they have one. I also don't get how they won based off the 1st amendment, which basically allows for freedom of thought. And i don't know why buinesess are covered by the Constitition, they are not people, and as such have no rights at all.
I'd have to agree, i use NS 4.75, and i honstely have never had it crash. IE (Explorer) on the other hand, has caused me to reboot after a crash. thats my biggest complaint with IE, its integration with the OS. Now when IE does crash, its not just browsing that is screwed, but most likely your entire computer. If you've ever killed IE b/c its not responding, you'd notice that the icons on your desktop and your start menu disappear; in win2k, they come back, but my past experience maks me not trust thta its working at 100% again. (Unlike the gnome bar, which doesn't have any problem dying and being restarted).
I don't get why they need thier own domain for that. Wouldn't monopoly.hasbro.com make more sense? In all seriousness i wish ICANN would move to that domain scheme, and bring back the 'one domain name for one company' rule.
Except that we vote for people that will make laws we want. I don't think its as big a difference as you claim, and usually whoever wins the popular vote wins the election (of course this election may be a fluke, but its a fluke that happens only rarely). At any rate my point still stands; satanists are a minority, and as such our laws don't reflect their values.
Really? Is that why the common (stupid) people buy anything they're told to, even if its a stupid purchase. Case in point, the popularity of SUVs. You'd think with something taking 30 gallons to operate people would stop buying them with gas at 1.70/gallon (like here in NY for example). Nope, people keep on buying b/c its the current fad. Not to meantion that fact that alot of people that own them a) never, ever go off road, b) really have no use for that much space. Read Far. 451, and i think you'll see thats probably how most people vote. If not, thats where we are heading.
and even a minority of those wanting copyright justifies it's existence.
So we're not in a majority rules system? Great, then nader should be president, since there is a minority that wants it, and that justifies it.
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I'm sure i've read it more then you. I'm suprised you're even literate.
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Even felons in jail b/c of pointless laws? Why don't we take this to the next level, and say anyone with outstanding parking tickets or points on thier licence can't vote, b/c they 'broke the social contract.' I believe the constition says voting is a right..
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Why? Is the average American so much dumber than the average European? Or many Canadians and Latin Americans? Or me? :-> I think the reason more Americans don't learn other languages is sheer intellectual laziness...
Europeans are taught english as a second language since birth, since english is pretty prevlant all over the world. You can usually find someone that knows the language anywhere. We are not taught since birth, so learning as an adult is much more difficult. Besides if i'm expected to learn spanish before going to spain, maybe others visiting america should learn english. Its only polite. And while there are some spanish people that know english, i cannot rely on that most of them do. At any rate, its this thing, when in rome, do as the romans. So tell me, why should i learn the languages of people visiting here, if they are not expected to know my language when going there?
Thats part of the French lawsuit; they want the regular yahoo.com to withhold the Nazi auction items as well. Besides, i doubt that the .fr version is any different; obviously its in french, but for the most part its the same i'd say.
Well, thats one of the things that happen when you have freedom of speech. You have to right to say what you believe in, no matter how stupid. Taking that away is far more dangerous. I think you should spend some time in China as a citizen of that country and see what you'd be missing.
Odd, i didn't know the french could declare another nation's constition void. Personally i don't know why yahoo is even in court. Their response to France should have been a big 'fuck you' and then completely ignore the idiots. It seems that France is becoming as Facist as the Nazis they so 'hated.' Too bad for them that Nazism isn't the only way to be facist.
not to mention that non-profit is a broad category.
Even still, the #s are pretty poor. I'd wager though that the numbers are bad not b/c programmers aren't working, but b/c sys admins are too expensive for a NPO to have too many. i also think its a mistake to equate programming and system administration. Those are two very different things.
Ya, its funny how they say that the bugs shouldn't even be there, yet they also say that testing is a waste of time. Its also by that logic a waste of time to test circut boards, cars, or just about anything else you buy. Computer programs are among the most complex things ever designed and 'built' by man. As such, its expected that large and complex things not be 100% by release, and obviously need to be tested. I got halfway through the article before i couldn't read anymore; its too ubsurd, and written by someone with little to no clue.
No, the solution would be no one regulating it. Censorship by gov't or by buisness is just as bad either way.
Ok, why don't youpoint out all the details that are completely wrong and fill us in on the correct facts.
I am suprised. I don't trust the police at all. There have been many cases of crooked cops etc in the past. Plus, cops are just people, with the same defects other people have. That would be the same as someone trusting a millionaire, or a priest, just because of thier status. Trust based on that status is misplaced.
And the cop does have a motive for lying; if he admits to a wrongful arrest, there could be no end of trouble to him and his precinct. You can sue for wrongful arrest/prosicution, can't you?
Being in Philly, i can tell you that traffic blocks were few. Most stayed on the sidewalks/exit ramps, but very few actually blocked traffic.
As far as breaking the law and pissing people off. Well a half a million dollar bail is a little excessive for the crime of 'pissing people of..and making a mess of things.' So if i inconvience someone, my bail should be astronomical?
At any rate, the police in Philly have been out of control for some time now, so its not suprising that they arrested alot of people for just being on the sidewalk, even though they hadn't moved from their place of protest the entire time. I find it ironic that the cops complain so much about not being able to uphold the law, so they try to throw away laws that are binding them.
I never click any of those damn things anyway. As for the ?keyword search...i didn't know anyone did that. If i want to search i type in http://www.google.com/ There's alot of crap in 4.x that will bring you to netscape's site, but i never use any of it.
If you owned all the grocery stores, and then marked up prices, cut service, etc etc, new competiton with reasonable prices and service would open, and force you out of business.
Ah ha, now you seem to start to get it. Now image i somehow got a gov't sactioned monopoly, which forbid anyone from competing with me. Thats what the cable and telephone companies have. What would happen to my stores then?
I am not suggesting giving away the use, but they are giving away the infrastructure. IE letting people use the network now, for a low cost, puts the burden of developing and laying all the underlying network only on one company, who is now forced to give away cheap access.
Except that this case is about cable systems, and for the most part the network is already there. Besides, thats the price the company pays for having a gov't sactioned monopoly. Monopolies are bad for capilism and consumers, but we let them exist, although with certain restrictions. Monopolies also get broken up when they begin to abuse thier power. Restrictions like these are aimed at trying to keep the monopoly from gaining even more power.
Nope, local free access has been available for a long, long time. It began as regulation, but now is basically voluntary. It had nothing to do with internet acccess.
Local free access? Where is that? Cheap, yes, free no. Do you honestly think that a phone company would allow competition to its ISP service if they didn't have to? As soon as that regulation was removed, the telcos put an end to all those dialup ISPs. The goal of a buisness is always to elimiate competition, and the goal of capitalism is to have competition. If buinsness wins, captialism falters, i would think you would understand the economy you so eagerly pretend to support.
Listen to me. You have no right to internet access. You have no right to broadband. You have no right to expect
anything, from any company - ever! Thats the nature of capitialism. But you do have options. Complain a lot. Move. Look into wired technology. Dont use the internet. Sell your computer. YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO INTERNET ACCESS. Its plain and simple. Therefore, no company should be forced to do anything with their property, whether or not they are a monopoly. EVER. Period.
Dude, shut up with that alright. Thats all you say, yelling that over and over again. I'm not even talking about rights to broadband, i'm talking about keeping monopolies in check. You said before that this was punishing someone b/c they were successful. Thats not the case at all; the cable companies were handed monopolies from day one. It has nothing to do if they were successful or not. Since the gov't (the people, in the US) GAVE the cable companies thier monopolies, we can tell them to do whatever we want with it. They didn't even earn it, so why do they even have a right to it at all?
The rest world does not care about your broadband access. I dont either. What I care about are people like you, who feel that they have a right to anything they want. And damn it, if its not how I want it, or how I like it, then the government needs to fix the problem for me. People like you dont want to solve the problem themselves - they want a cheap, government mandated fix. If you really wanted broadband access you'd get yourself a T1. Thats what I did. Thats right, moron. I didnt *like* DSL service, or cables flucations in bandwidth. I didnt like the wireless or mirco options. And so now, I have my own fractional T1 in my house. It costs me $300. you want good, reliable access? Then fine. Cough it up.
You don't even know what you're talking about. The problem is there is no competition for the most common form of broadband. Ever buisness should have a competitor. Good for you that you have your own fractional T1. I don't care. It seems to me that you want me to pay 300 just b/c you do. Well i think cable modems are just fine. And i think with some competition would make it even better.
Please, stop dodging the heart of the issue, and being so bitter that you're stupid enough to pay 300 for broadband. I like how nothing below a T1 is suddenly in your eyes not broadband. Tell me, why is creating competition bad? Instead of opening the cable systems network, should we take away the gov't granted monopolies they have on cities? And why is it that you think anyone that doesn't buy part of a T1 doesn't really want broadband? So if i don't buy a porshe, i don't really want a car? Whatever..
In case you want some refernces:
http://www.frontierlightinglink.com/
http://www.rochester.rr.com/
http://www.direcpc.com/
The reason AT&T has a monopoly in your area is because they own the cable. Who do you think layed the cable to every house in America? Who? The government? No. The people? No. The only reason AT&T doesnt own all of it (or some other company) is becase the FCC requires that no cable company cover more than a certain number of customers.
,who has spent millions to build infrastructure, now have to give it away.
AT&T owns no cable (as in cable tv, and cable modem) anywhere near where i live. Time Warner has this entire area. AT&T is not even factor here at all actually. They own 0 miles of cable in this area, telephone or coax. In the area the article was talking about, AT&T does have a monopoly. The ONLY reason they have one is b/c no one else is ALLOWED to compete in that way. Its a gov't sancationed monopoly.
Why should a company
Dude, you are a complete moron. Forcing the cable company to open its network does NOT mean that it must do it for free. If you had done the reseach i asked of you on the local dialup ISPs, or maybe read my last post in detail, you'd see that the local ISPs have to BUY the connection from the telco. They then turn around and resell that connection. Thats what forcing the cable system open would do. The ISPs buying the connection turn around and try to undercut the telco's ISP service, so that they can get more customers. Its called competition, and it drives the price down. I'll use your last paragraph to show that you are a complete moron.
(cable modem, DSL+ISDN+T1, microwave, wireless radio, and satelite)
Ok, DSL, T1, T3, ISDN. Those are all via your local telco, and the fact that you have more then once choice as ISDN provider, for example, is b/c that local telco IS FORCED TO KEEP ITS NETWORK OPEN. Otherwise, you'd have ONLY one provider for all 4 of those services. Out of those 4 i mentioned, 2 are not practicle for home use; they should not even be considered options, since we are talking about access for the average person. ISDN is all but dead, at least it should be. Its the equal of having 2 56k modems; thas not even broadband. So now we are left with DSL. Where i am, i don't know of anyone but the local telco that provides DSL. Its 39.95/month, with a 1mb down and 128kps up. I've seen it displayed, i doubt its even that fast. Oh, BTW, RoadRunner (TW's cable ISP), is also 39.95/month if you have cable tv, 34.95 without. It offers 2mb down, and 384 kps up. Wait, why would i want DSL now? Especially since my local telco is extermely unreliable. Should DSL go down, i wouldn't expect it back up for at least a week. Microwave and wireless radio? Around here thats not even an option. Tell me, how fast is that, and whats the price? I doubt those are viable solutions for most people. Satelite? You're kidding right? For a packet to leave my computer, it must travel up to the satelite, which is what, 26 miles above the earth? Then it travels down. Thats 52 miles just to get to your provider, and now it has to be injected into the internet and come back. Once its back, its got to travel another 52 miles to reach you. You think thats gonna be faster then traveling 20 miles round trip to your local headend? Or, you can upload with a 56k modem, whoopiee!!! Now, you send even slower, and you STILL are tying up a phone line. Its 50-60 dollars, and you only get 400kps!! Are you on crack?
To summarize:
My choices are one of 10 ISPs that offer 56k (keeping in mind that those 10 would not exist if the local telco was not forced by the gov't to open its networks, and that they offer about the exact same service), or a cable modem if i want broadband access. Now, there's only one cable provider, and its networks are closed. So if i want broadband, i MUST get it from the cable company. Don't say i can pick DSL, its less service, for the same price, and you'd have to be an idiot to pick it over cable.
As for punished for being successful? Well lets say i open a chain of grocery stores, and i'm able to run ALL other grocery stores in your area out of buisness. What am i gonan do now? I"m going to raise prices, and cut service, b/c that will make me alot more money. Now, i'm being very very successful, so by your logic i should be left alone. Nevermind that now alot of people can't afford food, and that alot of what i sell is now substandard. (Thats why the gov't inspects meat, b/c stores would sell diseased meat, so don't tell me that wouldn't happen). Are yo gonna sit and argue with people that want to break my monopoly b/c i really did fairly beat all the competition? Or are you gonna say this is insane? And if i'm forced to raise the quality of food? Ok, but i'm gonna raise price to make up for it. Thats now business works, and i don't think you'd argue with that.
You say that AT&T has been given a monopoly. I dont know if that is true, but if it is.. my answer is still so-what.
Of course its true. How many cable providers are there in your area that can provide service to YOUR house? I know that sometimes cities are split between cable companies, but how does that effect you, if you can still only pick one? Thats the whole reason the fed wants to force AT&T to open its network in that area. To force AT&T to compete.
No company should ever ever be forced to help its competition. No matter how big the monopoly, or how powerful it is. You want high-speed access? There are lots of options. Look around. Just because you dont like the DSL or Cable serivce doesnt mean that the government should force open the private property of some company.
For capitilism to truely work, you need competition. Cable companies have none. Tell me, since you seem to be the expert, what are my other broadband options besides cable or DSL? T1, T3? Nope, thats your local telco also. Satilite? Thats not even broadband. Gov't must absolutly step in to break up monopolies; forcing a company to open its access is one way of doing that.
You want to affect the quality of the service? Cancel your service. Call all your friends. Get them to cancel too. Call everyone who has it, and get them to cancel.
How would that affect service? Do you think if you're the only game in town you'd care if you lost a few customers? Do you really think Ma Bell would've cared if an entire town canceled thier service? Why would Time Warner, or AT&T? All that would happen is they'd sell the francise to someone else, who may or may not get the customers back. And nothing will have changed either. Thats exactly the problem with monopolies, they don't give a fuck about the customer. The local telco here gets fined the maximum penalty under NY law b/c of poor customer service. Do they care? No, its probably cheaper to pay that then to improve service. Tell me you think there's nothing wrong with that if your phone goes out, and you have to wait AT LEAST 3 weeks for them to even begin to look at it.
Besides that, I dont know what you are talking with local dialup. I think you made that up.
You think so? Go do some research. ISPs buy a T1 or T3 or whatever from the local telco. They then setup their own network for you to dialin to, and all the customers share the ISPs line. Now, do you think Bell Atlantic, who offers an ISP service, would allow say Netcarrier, or Voicenet (both local Philly providers i know about) to compete with them using a high speed line they provided? AT&T certainly doesn't want to, why would Bell Atlantic? The answer is simple; b/c the gov't told Bell Atlantic they must open thier network. Do you really think that your mom and pop ISP was allowed to hang wires off the phone companies polls? Even if they did, i'm sure it'd be expensive. Do you think they could afford (or would be allowed) to tear up streets to run their own fiber optics? It would be a very expensive thing, and you'd never see small ISPs b/c starting one would be too expensive. Yet you do. Please, go do some research.
You are whining like high-speed access is your god-given right. Its not.
High-speed access my not be my right, but if you want capitalism to work, you need competition. I'll admit, my cable company has been good so far, but i don't think they'd do anything rash that would cast the impending merger into a bad light. There's also relivitly little that can go wrong with cable, and it still takes a 2-4 weeks to get it installed. I hope you don't have comcast cable for highspeed access and want to VPN to work; you won't be allowed, unless your company purchases a VPN solution from comcast. Don't believe me? Go check out thier contracts. You are not allowed to connect to a noncomcast bought VPN server.
Odd, b/c for me it has, ever time. Just like in 98, if one goes, they all go.
What exactly makes you trust that when Explorer is restarted it's not working 100% again whereas gnome bar is..do you have any proof or is this just a 'feeling' you get?
In Win2k, well no i don't have any proof, i just have years of experience with that being the case in Win9x. Have you ever know in win98 the explorer dying and somehow comming back where it was stable? I never had, and thats what i expect in win2k. MS has made me distrust all of their products with their shoddy track record. I'll admit, i've been pretty impressed with win2k, but now that i've been using it longer, some quirky things have been starting to appear. Anyway, the reason i do trust the gnome bar is b/c its not required to use the gui. I could operate a WM without it all together. (I stand corrected; a quick experiment shows it is possible to kill the start bar in w2k and still somehow use the computer). But at any rate, when a program has died in windows, restarting it will usually cause it to die again, even if given different inputs. Linux apps tend not to care if they just crashed. I think this has to do with the OS properly cleaning up after an app dies.
All this being said, i will admit, win2k has been pretty good, except for some weird quirkyness. But just about all of MS's other OSes have been pretty crappy, so it will still be a while before i fully trust this one.
Sorry, i just don't expect beta software to be that reliable. Its foolish to expect that. Mozilla so far hasn't left the beta stage, i'm not even sure if they are that far yet, since some features haven't even been completed. As far as your NS 4.76 crashing; I think i've had NS crash on me 2 times in the past year. Don't blame the program when the OS is unstable. Its been my experience that the most unstable OSes are (in order) WinME, Win98, Win95, WinNT4, Win2K. Linux seems to be even more stable, since i've never had a kernel panic. Don't moderate or flame me b/c of these views, its just been my experinece. Speaking of moderation, why the hell was my previous post marked as overrated? It only had the default score of 1 i always post at. I guess some fuck moderater doesn't like to see anything good said about nonMS browsers..
So that we as customers will not be screwed. You're a pretty big fucking moron too. The whole problem is ANOTHER COMPANY CANNOT LAY ANY MORE COAX, B/C AT&T WAS GRANTED A MONOPOLY THERE. And no one can lay fiber optic/copper cables b/c the phone company has a monopoly in that area. So your choices are, the phone company offering DSL (which here sucks compared to cable; 1/2 the download, and 1/3 the upload rate of cable), or cable modems. The ONLY reason you do not have only one choice for dialup providers is b/c the local phone company was forced to open its network. And the result of that is pretty good; you can get dialup from $10-20, while cable modems and DSL remain around $50. Which i personally think is reasonable for cable modems, but given the past track record of the cable company, i expect the price will increase over time, and not b/c of inflation. I don't know why the gov't ever tolerates monopolies; the nature of buinsess doesn't allow them to be nice when they have one. I also don't get how they won based off the 1st amendment, which basically allows for freedom of thought. And i don't know why buinesess are covered by the Constitition, they are not people, and as such have no rights at all.
My question is, where could i get one? I wouldn't mind turnign it into an X terminal. Anyone know?
I'd have to agree, i use NS 4.75, and i honstely have never had it crash. IE (Explorer) on the other hand, has caused me to reboot after a crash. thats my biggest complaint with IE, its integration with the OS. Now when IE does crash, its not just browsing that is screwed, but most likely your entire computer. If you've ever killed IE b/c its not responding, you'd notice that the icons on your desktop and your start menu disappear; in win2k, they come back, but my past experience maks me not trust thta its working at 100% again. (Unlike the gnome bar, which doesn't have any problem dying and being restarted).
I don't get why they need thier own domain for that. Wouldn't monopoly.hasbro.com make more sense? In all seriousness i wish ICANN would move to that domain scheme, and bring back the 'one domain name for one company' rule.
Except that we vote for people that will make laws we want. I don't think its as big a difference as you claim, and usually whoever wins the popular vote wins the election (of course this election may be a fluke, but its a fluke that happens only rarely). At any rate my point still stands; satanists are a minority, and as such our laws don't reflect their values.
Really? Is that why the common (stupid) people buy anything they're told to, even if its a stupid purchase. Case in point, the popularity of SUVs. You'd think with something taking 30 gallons to operate people would stop buying them with gas at 1.70/gallon (like here in NY for example). Nope, people keep on buying b/c its the current fad. Not to meantion that fact that alot of people that own them a) never, ever go off road, b) really have no use for that much space. Read Far. 451, and i think you'll see thats probably how most people vote. If not, thats where we are heading.
and even a minority of those wanting copyright justifies it's existence.
So we're not in a majority rules system? Great, then nader should be president, since there is a minority that wants it, and that justifies it.
I'm sure i've read it more then you. I'm suprised you're even literate.
Even felons in jail b/c of pointless laws? Why don't we take this to the next level, and say anyone with outstanding parking tickets or points on thier licence can't vote, b/c they 'broke the social contract.' I believe the constition says voting is a right..