For the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer and its pilot Steve Fossett to set a world record for the first solo, non-stop, non-refuelled circumnavigation of the world they will have to follow a strict set of rules laid down by the governing body of aviation record attempts, the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.
"Hmmm its leaking slowly now...what happens if it starts to leak alot suddenly?"
Well, in this specific case, the answer may have been couched in a great deal of relief, because then they could land the sucker without fuel-laden wings smacking the ground and igniting a big fireball.
Seriously, if the thing is going to suddenly dump fuel and pile in, I think the ocean is a mighty fine place for that to happen (rather than, say, Beverly Hills, al a the recently fictionalized HH crash.)
To Everyone: I know, I know, "don't feed the trolls". Can't help it this time. Sorry.
To Eno2001:
You, my friend, are talking out your ass from so far up in there I barely recognize the words, much less the back asswards logic of a arguing that an unregulated telephony market is a win for everyone.
Before we start, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the Unregulated Telecommunications Industry all told me to give you a shout out from the Land of Make Believe. They're missing you.
You do understand that the "vaunted" Telecom industry revenue model is based on government regulated and tarriffed pricing, subsidies and government-supported last-mile loop monopolies? So your unregulated, service-quality based example lies opposed to both reality and your already contradictory argument: that it's not problematic to criminalize (e.g. *strictly* regulate) VoIP to protect a vaunted industry, but that industries shouldn't be hindered by "filthy hippies" or government regulations. BTW, I work in telecom, and I've never been threatened by a hippy, filthy or not.
So, should telecom be regulated, or not? You're not clear.
And your yacht example leaves me wondering one thing:
What if the Gecko disciple CEO perhaps gave up the $40 million golden parachute for getting fired (Hi Carly!) so that, oh, 8 other executives could spend 10% of their performance-based $5 million bonuses on *eight* $500,000 yachts, wouldn't that be even better for the yacht company employees?
The point about his logic stills is not irrelevant to the argument. The second point is that he is just the same as every other joe coffee out there - hardly an attack.
Ad hominem arguments (no hyphen BTW) are those that address an opponent's skills/abilities, education, motive, or character (e.g. directly involving an opponent in any way) and not addressing his/her assertions. You said:
You're certaintly not well educated in logic, that much is apparent
Ergo, ad hominem.
Furthermore, ad hominem arguments don't need to be insults (i.e. "attacks") to be fallacy. So you are misinformed as to the definition of ad hominem, and should probably not apply the term in discussions until you've got it straight.
As for irony, again you can find this word defined in many places
And the pop song you referenced is an incorrect one...
To state the obvious, I was referring to the irony of you arguing ad hominem and then attempting to scold me for the same.
I can only assume you are referring to the use of the word facetious...
Glad you had a chance to look that up...
blah blah
Anytime you address an opponent, at all, instead of addressing the content of their argument, you are ad hominem. Figure it out and then get back to me.
You're certaintly not well educated in logic, that much is apparent... You try and hold literature as a way of separating yourself from others in society, to feel smug and superior, above others, when in fact you are exactly the same as the rest of us... Don't try comparing yourself to others, there is always someone out better than you are.
Interesting. Now for some of that irony we spoke of earlier...
I think many advertisers make the client (the company selling stuff) *think* that it works.
This is probably true too, to a degree, but the cottage industry of online advertising is obviously making folks money, or it wouldn't exist. And I'm not inclined to think that a majority companies are pie-eyed to false ad agency claims of increased sales.
Hubris knows no bounds.
[sigh] Agreed.
Perhaps if users started sending messages to the companies in the advertisements...
Well, they may hear complaints, but money talks louder and faster. Boycotts work sometimes. Educating the proverbial "fool who is soon parted from his money" is especially futile.
People rise up in anger over the fact that advertisers are annoying us with advertisements.
The problem is that not everybody rises up. Advertisers, online or otherwise, often need only a 1-3% response from their target audience to earn a profit. In fact, the lower-bound is usually a fraction of one percent. The math is not in favor of the annoyed.
Advertisers could think "Hey, we are being annoying and people hate that, lets work on more subtle methods to advertise that don't offend".
If they water down their message or method, they probably risk losing more sales than they gain by being safe.
But no they find better ways to piss us off, and they think we will buy what ever they are selling.
But people are buying what they're selling. That's why advertisements, and new incarnations thereof, persist.
Imagine walking down a street minding your own business. This guy suddenly pops out and hassles you. "You want to buy this? Check this out! Wow, you need to check this out!". He won't stop. When you finally get pissed off and punch the guy he is all surprised and doesn't understand why you won't buy his stuff. That sums up the online add industry.
Don't fool yourself. Most ad campaigns would be considered a rousing success if 10% of the audience bought the product/service while the other 90% were completely alienated. In your analogy, the profit from one successful sale often dulls the pain of nine punches.
When are they going to learn that they are just PISSING US OFF!
And I suppose all of this data you are referring to is in my and your local libraries? I doubt that very much, since my local library is about twice the size of my small flat. You'd do better on the internet finding this information.
Oh. I didn't realize we were just talking about your library or my library. I thought we were comparing libraries as a whole to the web. If we're reducing scope, we should do it on both sides of the argument. So let's go: My local library has more information than your website does.
Maps, newspapers and periodicals it has in spades, so much so that I don't bother with printed copies now unless I know I absolutely want to be AFK while reading
Yes, you can find many maps, magazines and newspapers online (not in their entirety however), but what I was talking about are archives dating back to the 1800s that I have found in some libraries. Most online periodicals archive back to 1995 if you're lucky. I have often found historical maps and photos in libraries that are not online.
Local libraries are not likely to have a law or medical reference section either, you need to go to university or specialty libraries for that. As for diaries, the web has it all over anything you will find in the libraries.
Again, if we want to scope locally, your website is really lacking, and mine even moreso. As far as diaries go, I'd rather not read Joe Public's diary, so I could care less about the volume of personal diaries online. I want historical journals and logs written by prominent figures in their time. These may or may not be found online. But they are all in a library hold somewhere.
As for blogging, I don't, and I don't know why you assume I do
I assumed nothing. I compared your misunderstanding of words to a typical bloggers.
And the ad-hominem attack
While I have nothing against a well-crafted ad hominem attack, I didn't engage in one with you. I used your misuse of a phrase as evidence of my own assertion that poor writing is of little value. I didn't attack your intellect or motives (hence not ad hominem) and I wasn't being fecesious (sic).
1) I'll take that bet, and win. There are drawings, maps, periodicals, newspapers, diaries, medical and law journals, masters & doctoral theses, the collective works of societies that have little to no exposure to the internet, and many other things that you will not find *meaningful* reference to online. BTW, you misused the phrase "public domain" as badly as AM misused the word "ironic" in her noted song. Neither of you seem to understand what words mean, and that's part of the problem with bloggers. Opinions based on misunderstanding and ignorance dilute the value of researched, reasoned and informed writing. You find much more of the first online, and much less of the second.
3) Not all of them. Not nearly.
He had a perfectly valid point, and libraries consist of much more than just books.
Uh, I "thing what is" (sic) talking about may be more generally explained by your "Subject".
Blogs are often just poorly written or poorly reasoned opinion essays that feed authors (and readers) need to validate their own world views. Much like my/. posts.
The "expert" blog of someone well versed in their subject matter is only an exception to the rule.
Well, I don't know if the AC poster has a PC, a home network, a LAN, or is an SP too. Regardless, he/she had a point.
I do know that as a senior network engineer/planner for an ISP averaging about 500Mbps transit, I fully encourage my competitors[1] to by default block any traffic they unilaterally deem "undesirable" and force their customers to "opt out" of such filtering reactively. It can only be good for my business.
These modern printers sure are frail compared to my old daisy wheel and dot matrix printers. They could print reams of paper before they dried up and sit silent for months at a time.
Yep. Much like a 1836 covered wagon could handle deep ruts better than a 2005 minivan. Of course, it took "months at a time" of hard, perilous journey in inclimate weather to get cross-country, instead of several days of upholstered, climate-controlled DVD-watching comfort.
Performance improvements often come from increasing systemic complexity, and complexity often compromises the durability of simpler systems.
I suppose my concern is that governments would use their leverage on this to push the competing services out of the municipal area. I'm not naieve enough to believe that the telecom companies have no dirt on their hands in trying to block these municipal-run services entirely.
I work for a telco/ISP (not affiliated with my municipal internet service at home). I can't emphasize enough that you are over-estimating the power of most municipal govnernments and congruently underestimating entrenched last-mile service providers. Don't confuse local government with state and federal government. Their structures, motivations and capabilities are very, very different in many ways.
Bear in mind that in many rural US service areas, the local carrier (LEC) is often privately owned by one of the wealthier (and more influential) residents. It is not uncommon for these owners to be prominent local or state politicians.
In other rural towns and meduim to large metro areas the local Bell operating company (RBOC) usually has *much* deeper pockets than most municipalities want spend on: 1) lobbying state governments; and 2) duplicationg last-mile infrastructure.
imagine a situation in which nearly every major city starts offering broadband at a subsidized cost
Very unlikely. It's simply not feasible financially or logistically for some municipalities to deploy a metro-wide wireless network. If the city doesn't own other existing cable infrastructure (especially power) then it's even harder to justify the cost of replicating existing telco infrastructure.
Telecom pulls out of the city since the meager revenues aren't worth the cost of running/maintaining cable, and all you're left with is the one municipal service... ... which connects to whom via what copper/fiber infrastructure? If the telco is gone, the city has to bury and maintain even more money to get to the telco one town over... but that telco left when that town provided wireless service, so you go one more town... and one more... It just doesn't play out in a practical way.
Also, a question about your figures. Do you know whether or not the service was subsidized by taxpayers, i.e., like the post office? I'd like to know.
Well, it depends on how you define "subsidized" I suppose. No, I don't believe any local tax revenue was directly applied to my town's wireless network, as I understand it was funded by muni power company operating revenues. Is the power company subsidized? Maybe, I just moved there so I don't know.
You could also argue that putting wireless APs on existing power poles is a subsidy of sorts, since that infrastructure may not be available to commercial providers. But then telco copper/fiber and cable TV infrastructure is not available wholesale to the city either.
I do know the cost to offer service to our entire town (population 16K) with 200 APs and current customer site bridges was only $430K so far. That, being in the same business I can assure you, is a sublimely inexpensive design. Keep in mind though that they did it without having to employ lobbyists, and they used existing Internet access purchased from a commercial CLEC/ISP. Supplying new money for either of those things would have killed it's viability.
I would, of course, have a huge problem with government monopolizing control over access to the Internet. But I do not have a problem with muni governments offering an internet service that I can either take or leave as a service option.
My folks had muni-operated fiber-to-the-home 'Net/TV/Phone at one of their old addresses, which gave them 4down/4up Mbps for $30/month in 1998!!
I have muni-operated 802.1B where I live and get 2Mb down/512Kb up for $16/mo. Cable/DSL, and of course Dial, are all options I could move to if I were afraid of Orwellian problems though. Right now I enjoy the cost savings and have had no problems with "controlled" access.
At the risk of being mod'ed "flamebait" again...:^/ What a shame that some can't abide a respectfully contrary perspective...
Why should I not be able to expect that the intention under which I published my email address will be respected?
You have to acknowledge the public nature of the web. It contains the same spectrum of humanity that exists in the physical world. You will encounter respectful, honorable folks and disrespectful, often criminal, scoundrels. They will behave as you would expect them to.
As when you go to a grocery store or a movie theater, there will be folks who behave poorly and disturbingly. They probably are not following acceptable rules, mores, or possibly even laws, but you have no direct control over them. The best you can expect is that there is an attentive and empowered authoritative body to act on your behalf.
I'm not arguing about what currently is, I'm asking, why can't it be better?
I am not arguing against stronger spam laws, if that's the context here.
Why is it that, in order for to maintain any level of privacy in the US, do I have to hide inside my home? Why can I not post my email address, state that it is only being posted for use with items pertaining to my web site, and expect for that to be respected.
When you leave the controlled comfort of your home, electronically or physically, you give up control over your environment. That's been the nature (and risk) of life since we crawled from the primordial ooze.
And the problem regarding privacy in the US is apparently not as significant for me as it is for you, because I just don't feel that same pain. I'm guessing it's because I'm equal parts cautious, naive, and oblivious. Anyway, I get by and I'm no paranoid hermit.
[disclaimer]I hate spam and I think spammers suck mighty hard. I have no beef with stiff civil and criminal penalties for spamming, and consider this a discussion about personal discretion with personal information.[/disclaimer]
If I put an email address on my web site, so that users of my site...
Is the address just available to *just* "users" or is it somewhere on the site where random visitors have access to it?
If it is the former, then I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to set and enforce terms of use for that address.
If it's the latter, then you haven't just given it to your users, you've published it to the websurfing public, and should expect that the only terms of use are any currently applicable laws.
What I am arguing is that people play a significant role in controlling their own privacy. If you mean to tell just audience X something, but, for whatever reason, you tell a much larger audience, that's kind of your own fault, not theirs.
No, it's to have pertinent sent to. My email address appears above this post -- if you want to discuss it with me, fine, if you want to attempt to sell me V1AGRA, then kindly...
Doesn't personal discretion play a role in personal privacy? If you broadcast contact information on a public channel (website/phonebook), I can't see how you can rightfully expect discrete control over how it's used.
Absent a predetermined agreement on explicit terms of use, do you not hand over control of information to when you provide it to a given audience? If you choose "the public" as your audience, I'm finding a privacy claim is difficult to understand.
If you want others to handle your personal information with discretion, should you not handle it with similar discretion?
I hate SPAM as much as anyone, but I don't see how publicly published information could ever be considered private.
Slashdot Mirror
From the official website for the project:
For the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer and its pilot Steve Fossett to set a world record for the first solo, non-stop, non-refuelled circumnavigation of the world they will have to follow a strict set of rules laid down by the governing body of aviation record attempts, the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.
"Hmmm its leaking slowly now...what happens if it starts to leak alot suddenly?"
Well, in this specific case, the answer may have been couched in a great deal of relief, because then they could land the sucker without fuel-laden wings smacking the ground and igniting a big fireball.
Seriously, if the thing is going to suddenly dump fuel and pile in, I think the ocean is a mighty fine place for that to happen (rather than, say, Beverly Hills, al a the recently fictionalized HH crash.)
The lower court decision left M$ vulnerable to damages. The appeals court partial reversed it. A poorly written sentence indeed.
Um, perhaps the rate of loss is relatively low and consistent? No one said fuel is dumping like an F-16 with afterburner ignited.
Some understanding of math and physics may ease the feeling of panic...
Yahoo indexes more sites?
Google does better at culling/surpressing dups & subordinate content?
Ah. Just noticed your [tt] journal entry. :^\
To Everyone: I know, I know, "don't feed the trolls". Can't help it this time. Sorry.
To Eno2001:
You, my friend, are talking out your ass from so far up in there I barely recognize the words, much less the back asswards logic of a arguing that an unregulated telephony market is a win for everyone.
Before we start, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the Unregulated Telecommunications Industry all told me to give you a shout out from the Land of Make Believe. They're missing you.
You do understand that the "vaunted" Telecom industry revenue model is based on government regulated and tarriffed pricing, subsidies and government-supported last-mile loop monopolies? So your unregulated, service-quality based example lies opposed to both reality and your already contradictory argument: that it's not problematic to criminalize (e.g. *strictly* regulate) VoIP to protect a vaunted industry, but that industries shouldn't be hindered by "filthy hippies" or government regulations. BTW, I work in telecom, and I've never been threatened by a hippy, filthy or not.
So, should telecom be regulated, or not? You're not clear.
And your yacht example leaves me wondering one thing:
What if the Gecko disciple CEO perhaps gave up the $40 million golden parachute for getting fired (Hi Carly!) so that, oh, 8 other executives could spend 10% of their performance-based $5 million bonuses on *eight* $500,000 yachts, wouldn't that be even better for the yacht company employees?
Geeks are easily distracted by shiny things.
Maybe new-school geeks, but old-school geeks value durability, supportability and sustainability over shiny new toys.
I think this is analogous to the differences between "new money" (rich) and "old money" (wealthy).
The point about his logic stills is not irrelevant to the argument. The second point is that he is just the same as every other joe coffee out there - hardly an attack.
...
Ad hominem arguments (no hyphen BTW) are those that address an opponent's skills/abilities, education, motive, or character (e.g. directly involving an opponent in any way) and not addressing his/her assertions. You said:
You're certaintly not well educated in logic, that much is apparent
Ergo, ad hominem.
Furthermore, ad hominem arguments don't need to be insults (i.e. "attacks") to be fallacy. So you are misinformed as to the definition of ad hominem, and should probably not apply the term in discussions until you've got it straight.
As for irony, again you can find this word defined in many places
And the pop song you referenced is an incorrect one
To state the obvious, I was referring to the irony of you arguing ad hominem and then attempting to scold me for the same.
I can only assume you are referring to the use of the word facetious...
Glad you had a chance to look that up...
blah blah
Anytime you address an opponent, at all, instead of addressing the content of their argument, you are ad hominem. Figure it out and then get back to me.
You're certaintly not well educated in logic, that much is apparent ... You try and hold literature as a way of separating yourself from others in society, to feel smug and superior, above others, when in fact you are exactly the same as the rest of us ... Don't try comparing yourself to others, there is always someone out better than you are.
...
Interesting. Now for some of that irony we spoke of earlier
And the ad-hominem attack, well, it just goes to show that you prefer to attack the person rather than their argument or position. Try a little harder in future.
I think many advertisers make the client (the company selling stuff) *think* that it works.
...
This is probably true too, to a degree, but the cottage industry of online advertising is obviously making folks money, or it wouldn't exist. And I'm not inclined to think that a majority companies are pie-eyed to false ad agency claims of increased sales.
Hubris knows no bounds.
[sigh] Agreed.
Perhaps if users started sending messages to the companies in the advertisements
Well, they may hear complaints, but money talks louder and faster. Boycotts work sometimes. Educating the proverbial "fool who is soon parted from his money" is especially futile.
People rise up in anger over the fact that advertisers are annoying us with advertisements.
The problem is that not everybody rises up. Advertisers, online or otherwise, often need only a 1-3% response from their target audience to earn a profit. In fact, the lower-bound is usually a fraction of one percent. The math is not in favor of the annoyed.
Advertisers could think "Hey, we are being annoying and people hate that, lets work on more subtle methods to advertise that don't offend".
If they water down their message or method, they probably risk losing more sales than they gain by being safe.
But no they find better ways to piss us off, and they think we will buy what ever they are selling.
But people are buying what they're selling. That's why advertisements, and new incarnations thereof, persist.
Imagine walking down a street minding your own business. This guy suddenly pops out and hassles you. "You want to buy this? Check this out! Wow, you need to check this out!". He won't stop. When you finally get pissed off and punch the guy he is all surprised and doesn't understand why you won't buy his stuff. That sums up the online add industry.
Don't fool yourself. Most ad campaigns would be considered a rousing success if 10% of the audience bought the product/service while the other 90% were completely alienated. In your analogy, the profit from one successful sale often dulls the pain of nine punches.
When are they going to learn that they are just PISSING US OFF!
When revenue from advertising drys up.
And I suppose all of this data you are referring to is in my and your local libraries? I doubt that very much, since my local library is about twice the size of my small flat. You'd do better on the internet finding this information.
Oh. I didn't realize we were just talking about your library or my library. I thought we were comparing libraries as a whole to the web. If we're reducing scope, we should do it on both sides of the argument. So let's go: My local library has more information than your website does.
Maps, newspapers and periodicals it has in spades, so much so that I don't bother with printed copies now unless I know I absolutely want to be AFK while reading
Yes, you can find many maps, magazines and newspapers online (not in their entirety however), but what I was talking about are archives dating back to the 1800s that I have found in some libraries. Most online periodicals archive back to 1995 if you're lucky. I have often found historical maps and photos in libraries that are not online.
Local libraries are not likely to have a law or medical reference section either, you need to go to university or specialty libraries for that. As for diaries, the web has it all over anything you will find in the libraries.
Again, if we want to scope locally, your website is really lacking, and mine even moreso. As far as diaries go, I'd rather not read Joe Public's diary, so I could care less about the volume of personal diaries online. I want historical journals and logs written by prominent figures in their time. These may or may not be found online. But they are all in a library hold somewhere.
As for blogging, I don't, and I don't know why you assume I do
I assumed nothing. I compared your misunderstanding of words to a typical bloggers.
And the ad-hominem attack
While I have nothing against a well-crafted ad hominem attack, I didn't engage in one with you. I used your misuse of a phrase as evidence of my own assertion that poor writing is of little value. I didn't attack your intellect or motives (hence not ad hominem) and I wasn't being fecesious (sic).
1) I'll take that bet, and win. There are drawings, maps, periodicals, newspapers, diaries, medical and law journals, masters & doctoral theses, the collective works of societies that have little to no exposure to the internet, and many other things that you will not find *meaningful* reference to online. BTW, you misused the phrase "public domain" as badly as AM misused the word "ironic" in her noted song. Neither of you seem to understand what words mean, and that's part of the problem with bloggers. Opinions based on misunderstanding and ignorance dilute the value of researched, reasoned and informed writing. You find much more of the first online, and much less of the second.
3) Not all of them. Not nearly.
He had a perfectly valid point, and libraries consist of much more than just books.
Uh, I "thing what is" (sic) talking about may be more generally explained by your "Subject".
/. posts.
Blogs are often just poorly written or poorly reasoned opinion essays that feed authors (and readers) need to validate their own world views. Much like my
The "expert" blog of someone well versed in their subject matter is only an exception to the rule.
Well, I don't know if the AC poster has a PC, a home network, a LAN, or is an SP too. Regardless, he/she had a point.
I do know that as a senior network engineer/planner for an ISP averaging about 500Mbps transit, I fully encourage my competitors[1] to by default block any traffic they unilaterally deem "undesirable" and force their customers to "opt out" of such filtering reactively. It can only be good for my business.
[1] Paraphrasing a well known NANOGer
That is an absurd comparison.
Why?
I'd apply a blocklist on my proxy just to deny these assholes any chance to get anything.
I hope you're a LAN admin, and not an ISP admin.
These modern printers sure are frail compared to my old daisy wheel and dot matrix printers. They could print reams of paper before they dried up and sit silent for months at a time.
Yep. Much like a 1836 covered wagon could handle deep ruts better than a 2005 minivan. Of course, it took "months at a time" of hard, perilous journey in inclimate weather to get cross-country, instead of several days of upholstered, climate-controlled DVD-watching comfort.
Performance improvements often come from increasing systemic complexity, and complexity often compromises the durability of simpler systems.
I suppose my concern is that governments would use their leverage on this to push the competing services out of the municipal area. I'm not naieve enough to believe that the telecom companies have no dirt on their hands in trying to block these municipal-run services entirely.
... ... which connects to whom via what copper/fiber infrastructure? If the telco is gone, the city has to bury and maintain even more money to get to the telco one town over ... but that telco left when that town provided wireless service, so you go one more town ... and one more ... It just doesn't play out in a practical way.
I work for a telco/ISP (not affiliated with my municipal internet service at home). I can't emphasize enough that you are over-estimating the power of most municipal govnernments and congruently underestimating entrenched last-mile service providers. Don't confuse local government with state and federal government. Their structures, motivations and capabilities are very, very different in many ways.
Bear in mind that in many rural US service areas, the local carrier (LEC) is often privately owned by one of the wealthier (and more influential) residents. It is not uncommon for these owners to be prominent local or state politicians.
In other rural towns and meduim to large metro areas the local Bell operating company (RBOC) usually has *much* deeper pockets than most municipalities want spend on: 1) lobbying state governments; and 2) duplicationg last-mile infrastructure.
imagine a situation in which nearly every major city starts offering broadband at a subsidized cost
Very unlikely. It's simply not feasible financially or logistically for some municipalities to deploy a metro-wide wireless network. If the city doesn't own other existing cable infrastructure (especially power) then it's even harder to justify the cost of replicating existing telco infrastructure.
Telecom pulls out of the city since the meager revenues aren't worth the cost of running/maintaining cable, and all you're left with is the one municipal service
Also, a question about your figures. Do you know whether or not the service was subsidized by taxpayers, i.e., like the post office? I'd like to know.
Well, it depends on how you define "subsidized" I suppose. No, I don't believe any local tax revenue was directly applied to my town's wireless network, as I understand it was funded by muni power company operating revenues. Is the power company subsidized? Maybe, I just moved there so I don't know.
You could also argue that putting wireless APs on existing power poles is a subsidy of sorts, since that infrastructure may not be available to commercial providers. But then telco copper/fiber and cable TV infrastructure is not available wholesale to the city either.
I do know the cost to offer service to our entire town (population 16K) with 200 APs and current customer site bridges was only $430K so far. That, being in the same business I can assure you, is a sublimely inexpensive design. Keep in mind though that they did it without having to employ lobbyists, and they used existing Internet access purchased from a commercial CLEC/ISP. Supplying new money for either of those things would have killed it's viability.
I would, of course, have a huge problem with government monopolizing control over access to the Internet. But I do not have a problem with muni governments offering an internet service that I can either take or leave as a service option.
My folks had muni-operated fiber-to-the-home 'Net/TV/Phone at one of their old addresses, which gave them 4down/4up Mbps for $30/month in 1998!!
I have muni-operated 802.1B where I live and get 2Mb down/512Kb up for $16/mo. Cable/DSL, and of course Dial, are all options I could move to if I were afraid of Orwellian problems though. Right now I enjoy the cost savings and have had no problems with "controlled" access.
At the risk of being mod'ed "flamebait" again ... :^/ What a shame that some can't abide a respectfully contrary perspective ...
Why should I not be able to expect that the intention under which I published my email address will be respected?
You have to acknowledge the public nature of the web. It contains the same spectrum of humanity that exists in the physical world. You will encounter respectful, honorable folks and disrespectful, often criminal, scoundrels. They will behave as you would expect them to.
As when you go to a grocery store or a movie theater, there will be folks who behave poorly and disturbingly. They probably are not following acceptable rules, mores, or possibly even laws, but you have no direct control over them. The best you can expect is that there is an attentive and empowered authoritative body to act on your behalf.
I'm not arguing about what currently is, I'm asking, why can't it be better?
I am not arguing against stronger spam laws, if that's the context here.
Why is it that, in order for to maintain any level of privacy in the US, do I have to hide inside my home? Why can I not post my email address, state that it is only being posted for use with items pertaining to my web site, and expect for that to be respected.
When you leave the controlled comfort of your home, electronically or physically, you give up control over your environment. That's been the nature (and risk) of life since we crawled from the primordial ooze.
And the problem regarding privacy in the US is apparently not as significant for me as it is for you, because I just don't feel that same pain. I'm guessing it's because I'm equal parts cautious, naive, and oblivious. Anyway, I get by and I'm no paranoid hermit.
This law simply brings these CRTC rules to eMail.
If so, this sounds like a very good "predetermined agreement on explicit terms of use" to me. Enough said.
[disclaimer]I hate spam and I think spammers suck mighty hard. I have no beef with stiff civil and criminal penalties for spamming, and consider this a discussion about personal discretion with personal information.[/disclaimer]
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If I put an email address on my web site, so that users of my site
Is the address just available to *just* "users" or is it somewhere on the site where random visitors have access to it?
If it is the former, then I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to set and enforce terms of use for that address.
If it's the latter, then you haven't just given it to your users, you've published it to the websurfing public, and should expect that the only terms of use are any currently applicable laws.
What I am arguing is that people play a significant role in controlling their own privacy. If you mean to tell just audience X something, but, for whatever reason, you tell a much larger audience, that's kind of your own fault, not theirs.
No, it's to have pertinent sent to. My email address appears above this post -- if you want to discuss it with me, fine, if you want to attempt to sell me V1AGRA, then kindly ...
Doesn't personal discretion play a role in personal privacy? If you broadcast contact information on a public channel (website/phonebook), I can't see how you can rightfully expect discrete control over how it's used.
Absent a predetermined agreement on explicit terms of use, do you not hand over control of information to when you provide it to a given audience? If you choose "the public" as your audience, I'm finding a privacy claim is difficult to understand.
If you want others to handle your personal information with discretion, should you not handle it with similar discretion?
I hate SPAM as much as anyone, but I don't see how publicly published information could ever be considered private.