No one really involved in the argument suggested it was the pressure. The dead animals showed signs of decompression, meaning they surfaced in a hurry. If someone walked up to you and said "boo" you would jump. Fight or flight. If you are an air breathing mammal thousands of metres underwater and you decide to flee, there is only one direction - up. The rapid change in pressure is what does the damage. I find it hard to believe that a "real life SONAR engineer" would miss that distinction.
The OP didn't mention the noble savage. They inferred that we were less civilised than that. No suggestion we should return to that state. Merely that humans have a duty to protect our environment, all of it, and if you have to ask why, it's BECAUSE WE CAN. No whale has the ability to protect the environment, nor has any other animal. We have intelligence, we understand cause and effect. There must be a reason for that intelligence, and if you think that reason is so we can rape pillage and destroy lesser beings, you need a lesson in humility.
If there were a law specifically regulating the Navy's use of sonar I think they would uphold it, but, absent any law, this case is similar to arguing that the Army can't practice shooting because the bullets are full of lead.
More like "the Army can't practice shooting because they are in a shopping mall".
Yeah, way to go standing up for yourself and what's right. Your solution requires complete acquiescence to a superior power, but that's ok, coz you can still get food somewhere else. If your main source of food is where you are, just moving is not an option. In fact you would be whining to the govt. to get the flights stopped. That's without mentioning the fact that you're lying. If you had paid $1M for a house then the F22s started flying over it at supersonic speeds a year or so later, you would not be so glib. Even though there are thousands of square miles of land for you to move to.
I realise that you are not advocating nationwide anarchy, but your demonstration of what anarchy could be like is misleading. Even you know it could not work, so I am at a loss as to why you use it as an example. I could post a similar argument using Glastonbury festival, but I know it is the event that holds things together, not enlightened self-interest of those attending. I post here for the benefit of those who might take it more seriously.
The ultimate evolution of anarchy as you have described it is monarchy. If another free thinking anarchist group were to set up camp a few miles from yours, then you would have two groups, or tribes. In cases of hardship you may work together for mutual benefit, or as is more likely in desperate times, you will try to take what they have. In order to do that, you need organisation, which puts paid to your "You're not the boss of me" argument. As I said, this eventually leads to monarchy, because who wants to be part of the losing tribe. One tribe will naturally dominate until they are the only tribe left. Then you usually attack tribes further away. War becomes necessary and natural. If you think this won't happen then you are not thinking clearly. Even in an anarchist society you need rules (don't murder each other). Someone has to arbitrate those rules, so they inevitably have power over you. In order to prevent you just ignoring or eliminating those arbiters, there must be some defence force dedicated to defending the arbiters and hence the rules. You can not have an anarchist society. A meeting of wannabees for a few weeks a year does not a society make. If you want to see anarchy for real, go to the gang neighbourhoods in a big city - red v blues, or whatever. Ask yourself these questions: Do they peacefully co-exist ? Would they be less violent and self-interested if there were no overall government ? Do you really think that society was so much better 1000 years ago ? Are you happy that Bush and his cronies have been able to get away with what they have ? Imagine a system where you had no way to remove him from power without resorting to violence. That is what anarchists seem to be advocating, and if they deny that it would happen, then they don't understand what they are asking others to accept on their word. (and if they're NOT asking us to accept it, then they must either mean to enforce it or they are just playing at it). There is only one way to not have a "boss" and that is to BE the boss. The problem is recursive.
So finally, in regard to the main thrust of the OPs assessment of capitalism, I don't believe you can have pure anything (communism, capitalism, anarchy, theocracy, monarchy). It is the subtle mix of something from all those disciplines that we experience today, and that mix is being constantly refined. It is not perfect because it is a mixture. It can never be perfect for the same reasons. There can never be a "free" market. So that said, regulation of commerce is entrenched and necessary leaving those who are proponents of a free market with no argument that can outweigh the demands of society. The degree of regulation is always up for discussion, but never for complete elimination. Price fixing is bad for society whether the fix is high or low. Supermarkets compete for low prices which leads to farmers being screwed and intensive farming techniques using dead cow for cattle feed. Supermarkets also buy land merely to prevent a competitor buying that land and breaking into the local market. The condition of society today does not allow for competitors to charge higher prices for a better product. On paper it looks fine, but how many of you are willing to drive into the countryside to buy your provisions at a higher price ? There are no prime locations available in cities for a farmer to set up in competition to supermarkets. The barrier to entry is set by the supermarkets willingness to pay more just to keep you out. A similar condition exists with credit. With lax regulation, anybody can appear to have money to burn, which fuels trade
No need to go that far. A nice bit of weed puts you in just as nice a place. (disclaimer: I've done LSD and shrooms too, as well as other substances). That's why the trees seem so much greener, and violent childish acts seem so much more prevalent amongst people who don't "get it". I'm re-re-re-rereading Thomas Covenant at the moment, and I can relate to being able to "see" health and likewise ill health. Also, regarding the celestia comment above, does anyone have an idea of how far away from Earth you would have to go before you would need to use an electron microscope to distinguish individual humans on an image of our region of the universe ?(assuming infinite resolution was possible). I don't imagine that it would be that far (cosmically speaking), maybe Andromeda ? Or (to put it another way), on what scale would humans be equivalent to atoms ? It would be nice to have an A4 photo of a region of space and be able to say that you would need an electron microscope to see a human in that picture. Not really useful, but quite profound.
One person may not be able to stop a mass murderer but a whole police force may be able to. That is the premise of civilized society. That I think you fail to grasp. We live in a fallen state and some sort of law enforcement is always required.
Please emphasise "enforcement". The police are not there to prevent law breaking, merely to apprehend those who do. THAT is the premise of civilised society, not enforcement before the fact. The mass murderer must have already murdered for the police to chase and charge on those grounds. To expect or allow them to proceed before the crime has been committed is oppression.
Afraid I've got to interject here. I'm in the early stages of writing a dissertation, and OOo3 Writer just does not have the same feature set as even Word 2003 (which I'm using for it, under wine) for serious document composure.
I don't think the document cares which software you use. So maybe you might use a certain program for serious composition, but never for composure. I hope your dissertation isn't for an English class. Composure = state of mind. Composition = the act/result of composing.( root - composite) Besides which, investing hours in learning Word and then trying OOorg is hardly fair. Why would you waste your time by learning one program then using another ? Try doing it the other way around in future.
Rent space on a webserver. You can get a month for around £15, with ample bandwidth and transfer capacity. Most of them don't have restrictive contracts, so after a month, let it die. Or are you expecting somebody else to re-encode your content as well as host it ? But then of course *you'll* be liable for copyright infringement if you upload whole TV programs. Easier, cheaper and more discrete to use dvds to share your videos.
* I have no affiliation with the linked site, it came up in a search.
How is that relevant ?
I have linux installed on a compact flash card, and it sees itself as residing on hda because it is connected via adapter to an ide socket. It might be seen as sda if it were connected to a SATA connection. No physical ide (or SATA) drive needed. There might easily be interface emulation to ease the porting of the OS to solid state devices.
Hah. You get modded interesting. When I suggested that companies such as microsoft would not be allowed(by the govt.) to die because of their influence on the market I was called a troll. What a difference a day makes ! All I got was accusations of re-distributing wealth and I should just let them die, no matter the consequences for the helpless people who HAVE THEIR PENSION INVESTED IN THEM !
So in a world where governments are trying to effectively monitor every part of your daily life, and are mainly held back by incompetence, do you think it's a good idea to have some body in charge who actually knows what they are doing ?
That's right, it's just a blank page - nothing to see here. Idiot. If you were really in the know you would squirt lemon juice on your monitor and see the writing appear.
You do realise that Scotland has a separate government don't you ? And that the ruling party is the SNP (Scottish National Party), who do not subscribe to most of labours crappy policies. And the senior labour Scottish MP has been regularly in the shit for opposing mainstream UK labour policies. I'm very tempted to move there, I can tell you. I was up there recently and it even FEELS better. You mention the electorate having short memories, but our alternative is the damn conservatives. Have you forgotten the fucking state the country was in before we all got pissed off enough to vote labour in in the first place ? They sold off our essential services to foreign companies, looted everything valuable we had in terms of national resources and then let themselves get voted out so they wouldn't have to face the consequences. Labour are attempting to do exactly the same. They WANT to get thrown out, before they get the blame for all the shit that is building up right now. Why do you think they are producing more and more ludicrous schemes ? Proportional representation is our only way forward out of this recurring cycle. At least then the government will actually REPRESENT THE PEOPLE rather than 30% of them.
Twat. As we all know, Polish immigrants have infiltrated right to the highest levels of the UK government, so it is only a matter of time before we have to learn the Communist anthem. What's that, Poland ISN'T Communist anymore ? The Polish who come here actually WORK HARDER than the fucking fat lazy English they are replacing, and get paid less ? If only some English people had the BALLS to go to a foreign country on spec, where hardly anyone speaks their language, find a job then stay for months on end just to have money to send back to their families. But then again, you're probably on the sick and claiming benefit for everything anyway, what with your 3 cars and Sky TV, and your fucking council house full of hoody kids. Asshole !
Most people are monkeys who like pre-fab machines.
And those people are the ones who will make up "the cloud". Real operating systems will always remain the preserve of the technically minded. But that's not to say that linux can't be a part of the cloud, in fact it will be its biggest strength. Please don't dumb down linux to appeal to people who will never "get it".
While your words are correct, the definitions have changed. I realise this refers to DVB-T but the principle remains - These are the frequencies in use. These are the "channels" per mux. Each geographical region has its own range of frequencies to provide the muxes. ie I am in the Band iv channel (21 to 38), while my parents 20 miles away are in the Band V channel (39 to 68). I have reason to believe that different areas use different parts of their respective "channels", ie Band V but only 52 to 68. It's a bit like satellite in that the same program channel appears on many different frequencies. You'll notice how many places are as yet unoccupied. (ok some are radio but still...) Here's an old image from last year for bitrate and resolution, while this is from right now for frequency - different channel though. (You'll notice my graphics card is dying). There is a lot of capacity in digital transmission.
Informative huh ? 1)The Bluetooth class 1 range is 100 METRES not 100 feet, so roughly 3x what you state. 2)According to the A2DP spec, A2DP *requires* a sampling frequency of both 44.1KHz and 48KHz for SNK and either one of 44.1 or 48 for SRC. Read (pdf) it for yourself.
Just some comments IMHO. I always go for TY discs, they seem to be best so far for DVD storage. BUT, don't get full face printable (I would hope that stick on labels would be an obvious no no). The partial printable seem to be fine but full face seem to die quite rapidly after printing (< 1 year). The last time this subject came up, I bitched about a Matrix pressed DVD I bought in 2002 that wouldn't read (circa 2006/7). I take that back. I have tried the disc in another drive since then and found it reads fine - so drives play a significant part in reliability of reading. (hint - don't use pioneer). NEC drives I've found to be quite reliable, and also the newer LG models. I second the "burn at 8x" posts. I use CDs like floppies these days, so I don't care as long as they last long enough to do one job. However, I do have CDs from the 90's that still read fine, but they are mostly TDK. I use whatever CD is cheapest these days.
You're proposing that the government should rule on what's in a given company's shareholders' best interests?
No I'm not. I'm suggesting that if a de facto monopoly shuts down its service there must be continuity of service. Do you suggest we shut the web down for a few months while another company spools up to fill the void ? If they want to change their business model - fine. But as a monopoly they should not be allowed to just fuck off and leave us all in the shit. There should be contingencies to deal with such an occurrence. What takes precedence, private shareholders or the health of the entire nations web services ? Maybe you missed the last year or so, because I saw governments making business decisions for plenty of BANKS because they fucked us over. Sometimes there are more important issues than 1 company's selfish choices. I repeat - we are talking about monopoly status. Which is why it is irrelevant because they aren't a monopoly. If you want to continue to argue about a moot point, carry on my friend.
If a large company becomes that way by NOT charging for access to some of its products, then most certainly it should not be allowed to just turn it off on a whim. Should gmail suddenly get turned off because they offer it for free ? Is that in the shareholders best interest ? I don't see where redistribution of wealth is involved here. The search is currently free - maintaining that status requires no redistribution of anything. And I take no financial profit from using google for search. What about all the advertisers with Adwords etc. are they supposed to see the market penetration drop overnight ? What about their profits ? And they actually PAID for the service ! We are not talking about a small company that has 100,000 users - it is a behemoth that controls the search market virtually worldwide. Maybe you would be happier if the govt. instigated a "search tax" to publicly finance google so that the ordinary person wouldn't have to use their credit card every time they wanted to search. Got to protect (and increase) those corporate profits ! If I created a company such as google has become, then providing free searches is fundamental to my success. Why would I balk at continuing as I already have ? Christ, you make it sound as if we are proposing google should be forcibly sold off and the founders tarred and feathered. That's the trouble with straw man arguments, you very rarely actually consider your argument properly, you just spout shite to sound informative. You sound like you are in favour of the drug dealers approach - the first hit is free.
All that aside, this is getting so far away from the point that it's getting ridiculous. The story is about google dropping their bid for yahoo, because of potential monopoly concerns. So in fact none of this idle speculation is relevant. If they had closed the deal and become the de facto monopolist search engine then maybe we could argue about their obligations, but they haven't, they aren't and we shouldn't.
Slashdot Mirror
No one really involved in the argument suggested it was the pressure. The dead animals showed signs of decompression, meaning they surfaced in a hurry. If someone walked up to you and said "boo" you would jump. Fight or flight. If you are an air breathing mammal thousands of metres underwater and you decide to flee, there is only one direction - up. The rapid change in pressure is what does the damage. I find it hard to believe that a "real life SONAR engineer" would miss that distinction.
Could you please point to a paper that does a statistical analysis of US wars of aggression with and without physical threats to mainland USA ?
The OP didn't mention the noble savage. They inferred that we were less civilised than that. No suggestion we should return to that state. Merely that humans have a duty to protect our environment, all of it, and if you have to ask why, it's BECAUSE WE CAN. No whale has the ability to protect the environment, nor has any other animal. We have intelligence, we understand cause and effect. There must be a reason for that intelligence, and if you think that reason is so we can rape pillage and destroy lesser beings, you need a lesson in humility.
More like "the Army can't practice shooting because they are in a shopping mall".
Yeah, way to go standing up for yourself and what's right. Your solution requires complete acquiescence to a superior power, but that's ok, coz you can still get food somewhere else. If your main source of food is where you are, just moving is not an option. In fact you would be whining to the govt. to get the flights stopped.
That's without mentioning the fact that you're lying. If you had paid $1M for a house then the F22s started flying over it at supersonic speeds a year or so later, you would not be so glib. Even though there are thousands of square miles of land for you to move to.
I realise that you are not advocating nationwide anarchy, but your demonstration of what anarchy could be like is misleading. Even you know it could not work, so I am at a loss as to why you use it as an example. I could post a similar argument using Glastonbury festival, but I know it is the event that holds things together, not enlightened self-interest of those attending. I post here for the benefit of those who might take it more seriously.
The ultimate evolution of anarchy as you have described it is monarchy. If another free thinking anarchist group were to set up camp a few miles from yours, then you would have two groups, or tribes. In cases of hardship you may work together for mutual benefit, or as is more likely in desperate times, you will try to take what they have. In order to do that, you need organisation, which puts paid to your "You're not the boss of me" argument. As I said, this eventually leads to monarchy, because who wants to be part of the losing tribe. One tribe will naturally dominate until they are the only tribe left. Then you usually attack tribes further away. War becomes necessary and natural.
If you think this won't happen then you are not thinking clearly. Even in an anarchist society you need rules (don't murder each other). Someone has to arbitrate those rules, so they inevitably have power over you. In order to prevent you just ignoring or eliminating those arbiters, there must be some defence force dedicated to defending the arbiters and hence the rules.
You can not have an anarchist society. A meeting of wannabees for a few weeks a year does not a society make. If you want to see anarchy for real, go to the gang neighbourhoods in a big city - red v blues, or whatever. Ask yourself these questions: Do they peacefully co-exist ? Would they be less violent and self-interested if there were no overall government ? Do you really think that society was so much better 1000 years ago ? Are you happy that Bush and his cronies have been able to get away with what they have ? Imagine a system where you had no way to remove him from power without resorting to violence. That is what anarchists seem to be advocating, and if they deny that it would happen, then they don't understand what they are asking others to accept on their word. (and if they're NOT asking us to accept it, then they must either mean to enforce it or they are just playing at it). There is only one way to not have a "boss" and that is to BE the boss. The problem is recursive.
So finally, in regard to the main thrust of the OPs assessment of capitalism, I don't believe you can have pure anything (communism, capitalism, anarchy, theocracy, monarchy). It is the subtle mix of something from all those disciplines that we experience today, and that mix is being constantly refined. It is not perfect because it is a mixture. It can never be perfect for the same reasons. There can never be a "free" market. So that said, regulation of commerce is entrenched and necessary leaving those who are proponents of a free market with no argument that can outweigh the demands of society. The degree of regulation is always up for discussion, but never for complete elimination. Price fixing is bad for society whether the fix is high or low. Supermarkets compete for low prices which leads to farmers being screwed and intensive farming techniques using dead cow for cattle feed. Supermarkets also buy land merely to prevent a competitor buying that land and breaking into the local market. The condition of society today does not allow for competitors to charge higher prices for a better product. On paper it looks fine, but how many of you are willing to drive into the countryside to buy your provisions at a higher price ? There are no prime locations available in cities for a farmer to set up in competition to supermarkets. The barrier to entry is set by the supermarkets willingness to pay more just to keep you out. A similar condition exists with credit. With lax regulation, anybody can appear to have money to burn, which fuels trade
No need to go that far. A nice bit of weed puts you in just as nice a place. (disclaimer: I've done LSD and shrooms too, as well as other substances). That's why the trees seem so much greener, and violent childish acts seem so much more prevalent amongst people who don't "get it". I'm re-re-re-rereading Thomas Covenant at the moment, and I can relate to being able to "see" health and likewise ill health.
Also, regarding the celestia comment above, does anyone have an idea of how far away from Earth you would have to go before you would need to use an electron microscope to distinguish individual humans on an image of our region of the universe ?(assuming infinite resolution was possible). I don't imagine that it would be that far (cosmically speaking), maybe Andromeda ?
Or (to put it another way), on what scale would humans be equivalent to atoms ? It would be nice to have an A4 photo of a region of space and be able to say that you would need an electron microscope to see a human in that picture. Not really useful, but quite profound.
Please emphasise "enforcement". The police are not there to prevent law breaking, merely to apprehend those who do. THAT is the premise of civilised society, not enforcement before the fact. The mass murderer must have already murdered for the police to chase and charge on those grounds. To expect or allow them to proceed before the crime has been committed is oppression.
Fixed that for you.
The residue in your solution would be radio-active for thousands of years, but at a level consistent with almost background readings.
Big threat = short half-life
Small threat = long half-life.
"This relationship between the half-life and the decay constant shows that highly radioactive substances are quickly spent, while those that radiate weakly endure longer." (bottom of page just before "See Also")
I don't think the document cares which software you use. So maybe you might use a certain program for serious composition, but never for composure. I hope your dissertation isn't for an English class.
Composure = state of mind.
Composition = the act/result of composing.( root - composite)
Besides which, investing hours in learning Word and then trying OOorg is hardly fair. Why would you waste your time by learning one program then using another ? Try doing it the other way around in future.
Rent space on a webserver. You can get a month for around £15, with ample bandwidth and transfer capacity. Most of them don't have restrictive contracts, so after a month, let it die. Or are you expecting somebody else to re-encode your content as well as host it ?
But then of course *you'll* be liable for copyright infringement if you upload whole TV programs. Easier, cheaper and more discrete to use dvds to share your videos.
* I have no affiliation with the linked site, it came up in a search.
Carry on mate !
How is that relevant ?
I have linux installed on a compact flash card, and it sees itself as residing on hda because it is connected via adapter to an ide socket. It might be seen as sda if it were connected to a SATA connection.
No physical ide (or SATA) drive needed. There might easily be interface emulation to ease the porting of the OS to solid state devices.
Hah.
You get modded interesting. When I suggested that companies such as microsoft would not be allowed(by the govt.) to die because of their influence on the market I was called a troll. What a difference a day makes ! All I got was accusations of re-distributing wealth and I should just let them die, no matter the consequences for the helpless people who HAVE THEIR PENSION INVESTED IN THEM !
So in a world where governments are trying to effectively monitor every part of your daily life, and are mainly held back by incompetence, do you think it's a good idea to have some body in charge who actually knows what they are doing ?
That's right, it's just a blank page - nothing to see here. Idiot.
If you were really in the know you would squirt lemon juice on your monitor and see the writing appear.
You do realise that Scotland has a separate government don't you ? And that the ruling party is the SNP (Scottish National Party), who do not subscribe to most of labours crappy policies. And the senior labour Scottish MP has been regularly in the shit for opposing mainstream UK labour policies.
I'm very tempted to move there, I can tell you. I was up there recently and it even FEELS better.
You mention the electorate having short memories, but our alternative is the damn conservatives. Have you forgotten the fucking state the country was in before we all got pissed off enough to vote labour in in the first place ? They sold off our essential services to foreign companies, looted everything valuable we had in terms of national resources and then let themselves get voted out so they wouldn't have to face the consequences. Labour are attempting to do exactly the same. They WANT to get thrown out, before they get the blame for all the shit that is building up right now. Why do you think they are producing more and more ludicrous schemes ?
Proportional representation is our only way forward out of this recurring cycle. At least then the government will actually REPRESENT THE PEOPLE rather than 30% of them.
Twat.
As we all know, Polish immigrants have infiltrated right to the highest levels of the UK government, so it is only a matter of time before we have to learn the Communist anthem. What's that, Poland ISN'T Communist anymore ? The Polish who come here actually WORK HARDER than the fucking fat lazy English they are replacing, and get paid less ? If only some English people had the BALLS to go to a foreign country on spec, where hardly anyone speaks their language, find a job then stay for months on end just to have money to send back to their families.
But then again, you're probably on the sick and claiming benefit for everything anyway, what with your 3 cars and Sky TV, and your fucking council house full of hoody kids.
Asshole !
And those people are the ones who will make up "the cloud".
Real operating systems will always remain the preserve of the technically minded. But that's not to say that linux can't be a part of the cloud, in fact it will be its biggest strength. Please don't dumb down linux to appeal to people who will never "get it".
Seriously , nine ?
I struggle with 2000 in daylight.
While your words are correct, the definitions have changed. ...)
I realise this refers to DVB-T but the principle remains -
These are the frequencies in use.
These are the "channels" per mux.
Each geographical region has its own range of frequencies to provide the muxes. ie I am in the Band iv channel (21 to 38), while my parents 20 miles away are in the Band V channel (39 to 68). I have reason to believe that different areas use different parts of their respective "channels", ie Band V but only 52 to 68.
It's a bit like satellite in that the same program channel appears on many different frequencies. You'll notice how many places are as yet unoccupied. (ok some are radio but still
Here's an old image from last year for bitrate and resolution, while this is from right now for frequency - different channel though. (You'll notice my graphics card is dying). There is a lot of capacity in digital transmission.
Informative huh ?
1)The Bluetooth class 1 range is 100 METRES not 100 feet, so roughly 3x what you state.
2)According to the A2DP spec, A2DP *requires* a sampling frequency of both 44.1KHz and 48KHz for SNK and either one of 44.1 or 48 for SRC.
Read (pdf) it for yourself.
Just some comments IMHO. I always go for TY discs, they seem to be best so far for DVD storage. BUT, don't get full face printable (I would hope that stick on labels would be an obvious no no). The partial printable seem to be fine but full face seem to die quite rapidly after printing (< 1 year).
The last time this subject came up, I bitched about a Matrix pressed DVD I bought in 2002 that wouldn't read (circa 2006/7). I take that back. I have tried the disc in another drive since then and found it reads fine - so drives play a significant part in reliability of reading. (hint - don't use pioneer). NEC drives I've found to be quite reliable, and also the newer LG models.
I second the "burn at 8x" posts.
I use CDs like floppies these days, so I don't care as long as they last long enough to do one job. However, I do have CDs from the 90's that still read fine, but they are mostly TDK. I use whatever CD is cheapest these days.
No I'm not. I'm suggesting that if a de facto monopoly shuts down its service there must be continuity of service. Do you suggest we shut the web down for a few months while another company spools up to fill the void ?
If they want to change their business model - fine. But as a monopoly they should not be allowed to just fuck off and leave us all in the shit. There should be contingencies to deal with such an occurrence. What takes precedence, private shareholders or the health of the entire nations web services ? Maybe you missed the last year or so, because I saw governments making business decisions for plenty of BANKS because they fucked us over. Sometimes there are more important issues than 1 company's selfish choices.
I repeat - we are talking about monopoly status. Which is why it is irrelevant because they aren't a monopoly. If you want to continue to argue about a moot point, carry on my friend.
If a large company becomes that way by NOT charging for access to some of its products, then most certainly it should not be allowed to just turn it off on a whim. Should gmail suddenly get turned off because they offer it for free ? Is that in the shareholders best interest ?
I don't see where redistribution of wealth is involved here. The search is currently free - maintaining that status requires no redistribution of anything. And I take no financial profit from using google for search. What about all the advertisers with Adwords etc. are they supposed to see the market penetration drop overnight ? What about their profits ? And they actually PAID for the service !
We are not talking about a small company that has 100,000 users - it is a behemoth that controls the search market virtually worldwide. Maybe you would be happier if the govt. instigated a "search tax" to publicly finance google so that the ordinary person wouldn't have to use their credit card every time they wanted to search. Got to protect (and increase) those corporate profits !
If I created a company such as google has become, then providing free searches is fundamental to my success. Why would I balk at continuing as I already have ? Christ, you make it sound as if we are proposing google should be forcibly sold off and the founders tarred and feathered. That's the trouble with straw man arguments, you very rarely actually consider your argument properly, you just spout shite to sound informative. You sound like you are in favour of the drug dealers approach - the first hit is free.
All that aside, this is getting so far away from the point that it's getting ridiculous. The story is about google dropping their bid for yahoo, because of potential monopoly concerns. So in fact none of this idle speculation is relevant. If they had closed the deal and become the de facto monopolist search engine then maybe we could argue about their obligations, but they haven't, they aren't and we shouldn't.