Canadian actually. I suppose *everyone* has heard all about Eritrea wherever the hell it is your from?
I did wiki them after posting. Tiny insignificant African country is being kind, particularly when used in the same breath as China, Iran, Cuba, Burma (which is really the Union of Myanmar).
Former colony of Italy. Got 5 million people and border conflict with Ethiopia and has only been a country since the 1990's. About the size of Newfoundland, one of 10 provinces and two territories of Canada.
Its economy is based on 80% subsistence farming, and apparently exports nothing of value. They are world wide known as the most expensive place to buy fuel however!
Sounds like a real peach of a country. I will have to remember this one and highlight it on a map so that I can go visit someday. That would be just swell.
Ah I see your from England's highly famed pompous region. Pip pip and tally ho good sir!
Great so it will just be like Enemy Territory then? Medics running around poking people with syringes... Word to the wise medics, if ET has taught me anything, it's shoot the Medics first, so don't be so proud of this technological terror you have created. I find you lack of faith disturbing.
After some Google I see it is a different organization. The Canadian Private Copying Collective, check out the nifty website: http://cpcc.ca/english/index.htm
Anyway I am still of the mind they deserve an independent audit, as well as an investigation/assessment of their actions.
To be honest when I started reading this article, I thought it was about the fact that in Canada we pay a tax on every piece of digital media that ASSUMES that we will pirate music on it. Compact Discs, DVD, iPods, thumb drives, etc... everything assumes every Canadian is pirating music on every type of digital media. The part that I thought they were getting sued about is that they (the CRIA) gets this money and is *supposed* to distribute this money according to some formula to artists. Over the decade that this has been taking place, how much of that money has made it to artists do you suppose? I am going to go out on a limb and say zero. The amount is huge by now I am sure, and I doubt they have distributed to anyone except their own pockets, lobbyists, lawyers, and politicians.
I guess that class action suit is still pending...
OK I get the others, but who the hell are "Eritrea"? They must do a REALLY good job of arresting reporters as I have never heard of this country before!
Not sure how much you have downloaded before, but it is very hard to tell sometimes.
Yes I did queue up a LOT. As it was day 1 of the month, and I had 60GB to play with. Many times things start out very low and give a long time to download (sometime 1 week+ depending on how obscure), which is why you run a lot at the same time... It just happened that I lucked into some crazy speed and finished a bunch of stuff. That said if I had a way to see my bandwidth in real time I could have killed some processes and saved myself some coin.
I would argue by checking the tool provided to monitor my "Internet Usage" I am doing my due diliganece and taking responsibility for my my actions. I am just saying that they should provide me a tool that does this in real time if they propose to limit me by cap or charge me extra for going over, I don't think that is an reasonable expectation.
Seeing as I have no choice in options, and little recource I guess I will have to look at 3rd party solutions so that this doesn't happen again. As I said I am trying my best to say within the limits they make me adhere to but they certainly are not making it easy.
I can google some bandwidth monitors, but if you have any suggestions I am all ears...
I just got my bill from Cogeco Cable the other day up here in Ontario, Canada.
I has rather pissed to see that I got charged an additional 30$ on top of the 70$ I already pay monthly for my CableTV/Internets. My cap is 60GB and I exceeded that. I don't contest that. I also concede that Cogeco has a right to charge for extra bandwidth over cap.
What does piss me off, is that they charge 1.50$ a GB, where it should be more inline with 0.25$ a GB. They and Bell are using their duopoly to artificially inflate their numbers as usual.
However even that I could maybe live with, what really pisses me off is that we are more less blind. You see, as part of your online account services you can monitor your "Internet Usage" which I did use to make sure I didn't exceed my cap. In most cases I can schedule my downloading appropriately to my cap, and if I REALLY want to download, then I have full disclosure and know how much it will cost me if I so choose. However, what they DON'T tell you (if you search around it is in small print someplace) is that the stupid POS "Internet Usage" tool, only updates every day or two. So what happened to me is I starting downloading, hit some great speeds, and basically killed my cap and exceeded it in TWO days without notice. Then on the third day I see I am at 150% of my cap, up from 0%. That sure is a useful tool!
Sure one could argue, that its your responsibility to keep track of this sort of thing, however I would argue they your wrong. For one you are paying for this service they should be required to provide this better, and secondly they are the ones stipulating a limit on you, they should be responsible for monitoring not me. At any time (and I never have) I could march outside and look at my electric meter, and see exactly how much I have used and are currently using.
If covering the Balloon Boy story counts as journalism, then good riddance.
I understand that news providers need to make a profit, and I also know that in order to do that people have to pay attention to them, however for the past 10 years or so they haven't been doing themselves many favors.
Sure the occasional story comes out that is well thought out, well researched, and legitimate journalism. The problem is that these few kernels of truth are usually buried under so much dross you have to be be a severely critical thinker to glean any tangible facts. I take every story I hear now with a HUGE helping of salt regardless of source now, because to compete they all do the same thing. The fear mongering, the shameless celebrity coverage, the over opinionated and never factual left or right (usually right), infotainment etc... all contributes to erode the credibility of the whole. Some try to sneak a grain of true honest reporting, some even seem apologetic about it, but it is all about ratings, and they will push the envelope in order to achieve that. In the end it is about trust, and I have to say, call me paranoid, but I don't trust any of them. The good ones might make a retraction and a apology after making a gaff, but the fact that they pander to the lowest common denominator at all in the first place is what the problem is. Also "Facts" and "Evidence" just seem to get in the way of a story most the time, and I don't think I go a day without hearing something that is plainly wrong, where the "journalist" is either too stupid, too lazy, or too preoccupied with anything but the truth, and often times it is something that doesn't even require all that much specialized knowlege. Anyway that is my rant. The reason they are loosing customers is a matter of trust, why the hell should I believe you who have lied so often before, I think I will check my own sources on the internet thanks. I will be my own journalist, as apparently your not up to the job.
I don't think anyone has EVER said that per captia China or India are big polluters (due to their massive populations and poverty).
Per captia it IS the developed world that are big polluters.
However China and India as whole contries DO pollute a lot and that the growth of pollution is increasing by several orders of magnitude higher than anyone else in the entire world.
This is the whole rational of what I have written, and what the currently proposed accords agree on. That is the developed world already has high pollution, but for the most part has leveled off. That the developed world will be hit harder as the development and pollution in both China and India are in growth.
What IS being said that given the amount of growth, the amount of pollution both will potentially emit will be astronomical (and thus what is the point in doing anything about it, let alone limiting our own economies). The ONLY reason why both are relatively low in comparison is that much of the population in both countries is rural, poor, and undeveloped, which is changing.
I don't know about India, but China like the USA has VAST resources of coal, which is really what this is all about. It is cheap and fueling the energy driving development and pollution.
Having said all that, the amount of "cheap" oil is in decline and likely over the next 40 years will only become more so. Not to mention China is a huge importer. Also on top of that China is already coming to grips with massive pollution due to coal usage and the inherent problems assoicated with that.
So it may be that China will have to no choice but to come to grips with its own budding energy addiction on the way and perhaps make better choices than was made in the past by other developed nations. China's commitments modest as they might be may be higher than required by any accord for the reason.
This is all acedemic though as the political situation is a mess both in the topic, as well as the closely linked economic one. If you are a diplomat, buisness is good!
Science apparently is saying something much be done soon, however the political situation is such that makes that all but impossible from my perspective (at least in any meaningful timeframe).
"My big worry, is that we as a nation, if we start having to be obligated to other countries... Like, in this conference they're going to try to take our money and send it to third world countries, because of since we spend so much oil, and these other countries have suffered, then we're going to give our money to these third world countries."
I don't know about you, but I found this comment to be hilarious in its absurdity!
1) Biggest objector to a Climate Change accord: USA. 2) The reason? Because the big polluters out there like China and India will not contribute. 3) The reason? Because the USA et al. have been doing it for decades and as a result are very developed (wealthy). China and India figure it is their turn, why should their development be held back, its not fair. 4) The impasse?: Every accord that has been done basically severally cuts emissions in developed countries, while barely touching those of 3rd world or developing countries. 5) The result?: Developed countries will have tighter restrictions likely leading in a decline of their economy, while developing countries will continue to grow and will have boom economies.
So in one sense Chuck Norris is correct, on some level there will be a redistribution of wealth from rich developed countries to poor developing countries. However in another sense he is an idiot, as the USA currently OWES China something in the tune of 800 Billion dollars and growing anyway.
Let Wall Street at them... soon they will be trading Rum Derivatives or some such BS, and what is more risky business than freaking being a pirate... then comes the debt collapse... Unfortunately they will likely rule that the pirates of an entire nation are too big to fail, and will get a bailout... which will artificially keep them afloat (pardon the pun)... people will scream about regulation, but the pirates will drown (pardon the pun again... geez!) out the naysayers with "Yo Ho Hos" and "Shiver Me Timbers", and eventually it will all happen again.
Does he actually have 16 million dollars? Because if he doesn't wtf is the point in any of this? To send a message? What message that apparently they are retarded? Message received, over and out.
Quit pissing about and fine him 16 Billi... no Quardrillion dollars, that'll teach'em!
has nothing to do with global warming. It has to do (in at least my opinion) people making the wrong decision about what is right.
Basically you have some SCIENTISTS arguing that this research and information should NOT be available to the public, as they feel they are the only ones qualified to understand it.
Essentially, they want to avoid having to spend time defending their conclusions from people they view as biased or crackpots.
To my mind this is wrong on so many levels I find it hard to contemplate. I understand their frustration, and I sympathize, however this type of behavior is wrong.
First the arrogance to think, that only they know better than anyone else, it is just mind shattering. Sure they have specialized training that enables them to use this information likely better than most, but that is not to say that nobody else cannot reason for themselves.
Secondly, if they cannot defend their conclusions or their postulations from a bunch of biased crackpots, then they need to work harder at formulating concrete analysis and conclusions, and stop being lazy by saying "oh they are just crazy, it is a waste of time to defend MY theories". I am sorry, its called scientific method. Prove your shit, and defend it you bums.
Thirdly, if trying to build confidence in your cause and support for your conclusions, promoting an air of secrecy is not the way to do it. Science should be done in a transparent manner. You know, so your findings can be replicated, and your conclusions tested by others.
Anyway their simple lack of common sense here disturbing.
Slashdot Mirror
Canadian actually. I suppose *everyone* has heard all about Eritrea wherever the hell it is your from?
I did wiki them after posting. Tiny insignificant African country is being kind, particularly when used in the same breath as China, Iran, Cuba, Burma (which is really the Union of Myanmar).
Former colony of Italy. Got 5 million people and border conflict with Ethiopia and has only been a country since the 1990's. About the size of Newfoundland, one of 10 provinces and two territories of Canada.
Its economy is based on 80% subsistence farming, and apparently exports nothing of value. They are world wide known as the most expensive place to buy fuel however!
Sounds like a real peach of a country. I will have to remember this one and highlight it on a map so that I can go visit someday. That would be just swell.
Ah I see your from England's highly famed pompous region. Pip pip and tally ho good sir!
Lets suspend all privacy already! If your not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide right?
Big Brother is watching!
doubleplusgoodspeak/
LOL for someone suspected of being so smart, what a stupid thing to say. Bad CEO, Bad!
Great so it will just be like Enemy Territory then? Medics running around poking people with syringes... Word to the wise medics, if ET has taught me anything, it's shoot the Medics first, so don't be so proud of this technological terror you have created. I find you lack of faith disturbing.
After some Google I see it is a different organization. The Canadian Private Copying Collective, check out the nifty website: http://cpcc.ca/english/index.htm
Anyway I am still of the mind they deserve an independent audit, as well as an investigation/assessment of their actions.
To be honest when I started reading this article, I thought it was about the fact that in Canada we pay a tax on every piece of digital media that ASSUMES that we will pirate music on it. Compact Discs, DVD, iPods, thumb drives, etc... everything assumes every Canadian is pirating music on every type of digital media. The part that I thought they were getting sued about is that they (the CRIA) gets this money and is *supposed* to distribute this money according to some formula to artists. Over the decade that this has been taking place, how much of that money has made it to artists do you suppose? I am going to go out on a limb and say zero. The amount is huge by now I am sure, and I doubt they have distributed to anyone except their own pockets, lobbyists, lawyers, and politicians.
I guess that class action suit is still pending...
OK I get the others, but who the hell are "Eritrea"? They must do a REALLY good job of arresting reporters as I have never heard of this country before!
"inappropriate conversation with a child"
LOL - Now that's funny.
Anyone that has ever been on XBOX Live knows that A) it is full of kids, and B) there is not such thing an an appropriate conversion.
That's nothing. You think Canada Geese are actual birds! They even fly in formation for christsakes!
The fact that the poop everywhere is just due to some twisted Canadian engineers, sick bastards!
Not sure how much you have downloaded before, but it is very hard to tell sometimes.
Yes I did queue up a LOT. As it was day 1 of the month, and I had 60GB to play with. Many times things start out very low and give a long time to download (sometime 1 week+ depending on how obscure), which is why you run a lot at the same time... It just happened that I lucked into some crazy speed and finished a bunch of stuff. That said if I had a way to see my bandwidth in real time I could have killed some processes and saved myself some coin.
I would argue by checking the tool provided to monitor my "Internet Usage" I am doing my due diliganece and taking responsibility for my my actions. I am just saying that they should provide me a tool that does this in real time if they propose to limit me by cap or charge me extra for going over, I don't think that is an reasonable expectation.
Seeing as I have no choice in options, and little recource I guess I will have to look at 3rd party solutions so that this doesn't happen again. As I said I am trying my best to say within the limits they make me adhere to but they certainly are not making it easy.
I can google some bandwidth monitors, but if you have any suggestions I am all ears...
I just got my bill from Cogeco Cable the other day up here in Ontario, Canada.
I has rather pissed to see that I got charged an additional 30$ on top of the 70$ I already pay monthly for my CableTV/Internets. My cap is 60GB and I exceeded that. I don't contest that. I also concede that Cogeco has a right to charge for extra bandwidth over cap.
What does piss me off, is that they charge 1.50$ a GB, where it should be more inline with 0.25$ a GB. They and Bell are using their duopoly to artificially inflate their numbers as usual.
However even that I could maybe live with, what really pisses me off is that we are more less blind. You see, as part of your online account services you can monitor your "Internet Usage" which I did use to make sure I didn't exceed my cap. In most cases I can schedule my downloading appropriately to my cap, and if I REALLY want to download, then I have full disclosure and know how much it will cost me if I so choose. However, what they DON'T tell you (if you search around it is in small print someplace) is that the stupid POS "Internet Usage" tool, only updates every day or two. So what happened to me is I starting downloading, hit some great speeds, and basically killed my cap and exceeded it in TWO days without notice. Then on the third day I see I am at 150% of my cap, up from 0%. That sure is a useful tool!
Sure one could argue, that its your responsibility to keep track of this sort of thing, however I would argue they your wrong. For one you are paying for this service they should be required to provide this better, and secondly they are the ones stipulating a limit on you, they should be responsible for monitoring not me. At any time (and I never have) I could march outside and look at my electric meter, and see exactly how much I have used and are currently using.
God I hate them so much.
If covering the Balloon Boy story counts as journalism, then good riddance.
I understand that news providers need to make a profit, and I also know that in order to do that people have to pay attention to them, however for the past 10 years or so they haven't been doing themselves many favors.
Sure the occasional story comes out that is well thought out, well researched, and legitimate journalism. The problem is that these few kernels of truth are usually buried under so much dross you have to be be a severely critical thinker to glean any tangible facts. I take every story I hear now with a HUGE helping of salt regardless of source now, because to compete they all do the same thing. The fear mongering, the shameless celebrity coverage, the over opinionated and never factual left or right (usually right), infotainment etc... all contributes to erode the credibility of the whole. Some try to sneak a grain of true honest reporting, some even seem apologetic about it, but it is all about ratings, and they will push the envelope in order to achieve that. In the end it is about trust, and I have to say, call me paranoid, but I don't trust any of them. The good ones might make a retraction and a apology after making a gaff, but the fact that they pander to the lowest common denominator at all in the first place is what the problem is. Also "Facts" and "Evidence" just seem to get in the way of a story most the time, and I don't think I go a day without hearing something that is plainly wrong, where the "journalist" is either too stupid, too lazy, or too preoccupied with anything but the truth, and often times it is something that doesn't even require all that much specialized knowlege. Anyway that is my rant. The reason they are loosing customers is a matter of trust, why the hell should I believe you who have lied so often before, I think I will check my own sources on the internet thanks. I will be my own journalist, as apparently your not up to the job.
I don't think anyone has EVER said that per captia China or India are big polluters (due to their massive populations and poverty).
Per captia it IS the developed world that are big polluters.
However China and India as whole contries DO pollute a lot and that the growth of pollution is increasing by several orders of magnitude higher than anyone else in the entire world.
This is the whole rational of what I have written, and what the currently proposed accords agree on. That is the developed world already has high pollution, but for the most part has leveled off. That the developed world will be hit harder as the development and pollution in both China and India are in growth.
What IS being said that given the amount of growth, the amount of pollution both will potentially emit will be astronomical (and thus what is the point in doing anything about it, let alone limiting our own economies). The ONLY reason why both are relatively low in comparison is that much of the population in both countries is rural, poor, and undeveloped, which is changing.
I don't know about India, but China like the USA has VAST resources of coal, which is really what this is all about. It is cheap and fueling the energy driving development and pollution.
Having said all that, the amount of "cheap" oil is in decline and likely over the next 40 years will only become more so. Not to mention China is a huge importer. Also on top of that China is already coming to grips with massive pollution due to coal usage and the inherent problems assoicated with that.
So it may be that China will have to no choice but to come to grips with its own budding energy addiction on the way and perhaps make better choices than was made in the past by other developed nations. China's commitments modest as they might be may be higher than required by any accord for the reason.
This is all acedemic though as the political situation is a mess both in the topic, as well as the closely linked economic one. If you are a diplomat, buisness is good!
Science apparently is saying something much be done soon, however the political situation is such that makes that all but impossible from my perspective (at least in any meaningful timeframe).
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/12/chuck-norris-takes-obamas-climate-one-world-order
"My big worry, is that we as a nation, if we start having to be obligated to other countries ... Like, in this conference they're going to try to take our money and send it to third world countries, because of since we spend so much oil, and these other countries have suffered, then we're going to give our money to these third world countries."
I don't know about you, but I found this comment to be hilarious in its absurdity!
1) Biggest objector to a Climate Change accord: USA.
2) The reason? Because the big polluters out there like China and India will not contribute.
3) The reason? Because the USA et al. have been doing it for decades and as a result are very developed (wealthy). China and India figure it is their turn, why should their development be held back, its not fair.
4) The impasse?: Every accord that has been done basically severally cuts emissions in developed countries, while barely touching those of 3rd world or developing countries.
5) The result?: Developed countries will have tighter restrictions likely leading in a decline of their economy, while developing countries will continue to grow and will have boom economies.
So in one sense Chuck Norris is correct, on some level there will be a redistribution of wealth from rich developed countries to poor developing countries. However in another sense he is an idiot, as the USA currently OWES China something in the tune of 800 Billion dollars and growing anyway.
Oops!
Its just a ploy for a blood drive.
If you give blood, they will tell you your blood type, then you can look on the silly chart and see your "personality type"...
Just supposed to be a fun way to get people involved and giving blood.
Let Wall Street at them... soon they will be trading Rum Derivatives or some such BS, and what is more risky business than freaking being a pirate... then comes the debt collapse... Unfortunately they will likely rule that the pirates of an entire nation are too big to fail, and will get a bailout... which will artificially keep them afloat (pardon the pun)... people will scream about regulation, but the pirates will drown (pardon the pun again... geez!) out the naysayers with "Yo Ho Hos" and "Shiver Me Timbers", and eventually it will all happen again.
Wait, what were we talking about again...
"...RealWorld 1.0. It's like a MMORPG, but with real sex."
Liar!
People read those things?
Does he actually have 16 million dollars? Because if he doesn't wtf is the point in any of this? To send a message? What message that apparently they are retarded? Message received, over and out.
Quit pissing about and fine him 16 Billi... no Quardrillion dollars, that'll teach'em!
I'm from Soviet Canuckistan you insensitive clods!
Seriously though, I would think that IT and the health industry would be about increased service (say in patient records) not about saving money.
OK, so lets say we clone human meat... would that still constitute cannibalism, even though no actual humans are involved or harmed?
What about specific flavors, like that jerk Steve in accounting?
Ya ya, I know, disturbing I am.
Was that with or without planet eating black holes? Because if the world isn't destroyed yet, it probably isn't working properly.
Ninjas obviously.
Not a Pirate, more of a buccaneer really!
has nothing to do with global warming. It has to do (in at least my opinion) people making the wrong decision about what is right.
Basically you have some SCIENTISTS arguing that this research and information should NOT be available to the public, as they feel they are the only ones qualified to understand it.
Essentially, they want to avoid having to spend time defending their conclusions from people they view as biased or crackpots.
To my mind this is wrong on so many levels I find it hard to contemplate. I understand their frustration, and I sympathize, however this type of behavior is wrong.
First the arrogance to think, that only they know better than anyone else, it is just mind shattering. Sure they have specialized training that enables them to use this information likely better than most, but that is not to say that nobody else cannot reason for themselves.
Secondly, if they cannot defend their conclusions or their postulations from a bunch of biased crackpots, then they need to work harder at formulating concrete analysis and conclusions, and stop being lazy by saying "oh they are just crazy, it is a waste of time to defend MY theories". I am sorry, its called scientific method. Prove your shit, and defend it you bums.
Thirdly, if trying to build confidence in your cause and support for your conclusions, promoting an air of secrecy is not the way to do it. Science should be done in a transparent manner. You know, so your findings can be replicated, and your conclusions tested by others.
Anyway their simple lack of common sense here disturbing.