The article fails to mention that Synaesthete won $2500 at the Independent Games Festival at the Game Developer's Conference in 2008. I wonder where the $2500 went? To the school? To the students? I guess it should go to the school since the school owns the game right? Or did they give it to the students because it is their game?
Okay, thanks. That gives me a lot to Google on. The ILECs maintain the lines + provide local phone service right? If so, seems like it won't ever be truly competitive until we separate those two functions.
Back when everyone was on dial-up that is the way it was. Your local phone company had nothing to do with your internet access. They just provided end-to-end communications to your ISP. There were gzillions of ISPs, each offering different quality of service, rates, features, etc. We need to get that back.
Thank you, that was awesome to know. That is exactly how I want it to be done here in the US, but nobody seems to understand. In my state, they did this with power and it works great. You pay one company a fixed fee for the power lines, then per-usage fee to the power company of your choosing.
Under the proposed model, it's the content provider who pays.
Link please? That's not mentioned in the reuters article about the bill. If that is what this law says, then it has nothing to do with net neutrality. Net neutrality is not about who pays. It is about the pipes that deliver the content being neutral to what the content is. The pricing model should stay the way it is.
When and how was the telecom industry de-regulated?
In every state I am familiar with, there is one company that has a government granted monopoly to maintain the phone lines and to provide service over them. That's not deregulation to me.
I know that some states have laws that force that company to lease the lines to other providers, but it usually doesn't work since they aren't required to lease them at a fair price, and nobody can compete with the company that maintains the lines any way.
I use whatever works. For me, the nVidia closed source driver works better than any open source driver.
I use it too. But the question wasn't about who will use the driver. The question is who will use the API. APIs are used by developers, and Linux developers don't like closed APIs or closed drivers. So I don't see them being big supporters of this.
Alternative to what? This is an API that accesses a proprietary feature of a specific video card. Nobody was asking for one. Who would use it and why? I just don't get it.
Now, if nVidia proposed an open standard video playback API, and implemented it in their video driver, and released the source - then I could see Linux devs using it.
Why would anyone use a proprietary video API provided by a closed source driver tied to a particular piece of hardware... on an open source platform? Huh?
That's okay, I'm not here to be everyone's personal Google. Anyone really interested can do a quick search and find it easily enough. Or follow the links and the discussion to the Slashdot article I already posted. Or check the creative labs discussion boards. Or buy a Creative labs card.
Next thing I know, people will be asking me to prove that Obama won the presidency, or that Vista sucks, or something else really obvious.
Yeah, there's tons of stuff about Creative's lack of driver support in Vista. As of 2 months ago, they still only had drivers for the SB Live in "beta" and they only supported the basics - none of the advanced features, hardware mixing, 3D surround, etc.
This is one of the fundamental flaws in our democracy today. If the constitution said "Congress shall make no law against wearing blue clothing" then congress would merely create the Federal Clothing Commission, who would then make a rule banning blue clothing. And somehow, that would not violate the constitution.
The problem with the National Journal report is that they don't actually measure liberal -vs- conservative votes. Instead, they measure Democrat -vs- Republican votes. IMHO, this is one of the problems going on today. People assume that anything the Republican party stands for us conservative, even though that is often far from the case.
309/S1927 Renew FISA which allows wire tapping The FISA is an example of an extreme liberal position. It increases government powers and bypasses constitutional protections. Yet the National Journal says voting against that is liberal.
77/SConRes20 Funding for US troops An example of a liberal foreign policy would be nation building and preeminent attacks (Ironically, in 2000 Bush commented about how nation building is a terrible mistake and the US needs to get out of it). Yet in modern society people assume that anything military = Republican = conservative. But that isn't true. A defensive volunteer-only military is conservative. An aggressive military that invades other nations and rebuilds them is liberal. Yet the National Journal thinks that any vote that is in favor of bigger military = conservative.
In today's society, party affiliation trumps philosophy. Most people pick their party, then follow it no matter what it does. In order to break out of that people need to understand different philosophies without the context of a party. Check out sites like The Political Compass and skim Wikipedia articles on Socialism, Communism, Conservative, Liberal, etc. for details on what these ideas really mean.
Believe it or not, those European views save American lives and American dollars.
It matters When those Europeans have to decide if they want to cover our backs in Iraq, or turn tail and run. It matters when we are nation-building in the Middle East: the European, Asian, and Middle-Eastern neighbors can either support us, or send in armed freedom fighters to stir things up. It matters when OPEC decides that perhaps selling oil in Euros instead of Dollars is more stable. (FYI - If that makes no sense, we are essentially on an oil-backed dollar rather these days). It matters when the FBI contacts another European nation and asks them to freeze the bank account of a suspected terrorist - and they have to decide to comply or not.
We depend on the world very much. Our reputation determines how much cooperation we get. We need Europe because we need allies and friends. We need Asia because we need manufacturing. We need South America for food and wage workers. We need the Middle East for oil.
Okay, I give up. You are right. We should continue to support the existing two parties because including additional parties would not do anything at all.
1) That after that party is elected once, they're never elected again. After all, you can't say that they have nothing (potentially) to hide once that third party is elected the second time into office.
Gotcha. A party elected into office twice is equally powerful to a party that has been elected hundreds of times. And since there is a chance that they will be elected twice, we should not try to elect them once.
2) That lobbyists have no quick and easy methods to find their way into the sitting room with whatever president is in office (and they probably do).
Okay, I see. So decades of lobbying power and influence will take effect instantly, as soon as the lobbyist enters the sitting room. (I gotta get me a room like that for meetings.)
3) That a third party isn't just a front for the same ol' people we used to know as Democratic or Republican. These people are usually businessmen as well as politicians. Never heard of front companies?
It is possible that some 3rd-party is a front for an existing party in power. So we should just assume that all 3rd-parties are fronts, and not listen to any them.
---- The problem here is not that your points are not valid, but that they are taken to extremes. Just because someone is elected twice doesn't mean they are evil from the start. Just because some 3rd-party might be a front, doesn't mean all 3rd-parties are and that they should all be ignored. Just because lobbyists will find their way into discussions doesn't mean that the lobbyists will have equal sway with new and established parties. There is a gray area here that you need to see.
I don't understand how any of this requires government regulation. Cogent is supposed to provide internet access to users and other companies. They are not doing that, so they either need to find someone else to peer with, or be sued for breach of contract. I wonder how many companies and individuals Cogent services? I bet they would make other arrangements real fast if their phones were ringing off the hook and the postman delivered a truck-load of court summons.
Or else it would just add more types of incompetence and corruption to the government.
Good point, we should just have a single party, or better yet, a King, so that there is only a single type of incompetence and corruption. (/me sticks tongue out):-)
...take money from all the same bribes and do the same things.
I think they would take money from different bribes and do different things. The point is not that a 3rd-party would be saintly. The point is that they would do things differently, which would help to balance things out.
Mom, is that you? I love the people who tell me I'm naive but provide no new facts or insights.
What exactly makes you think that a libertarian candidate would be any better?
The reason that, in theory, any 3rd-party would be better is because: - They would have no need to protect or hide the sins of their predecessor. They might even gain PR points by exposing them. - They would have fewer ties to lobbyists - Cycling between a greater number of parties makes it harder for them to collude with each other. Someone will always have much to gain by exposing things. Just like how capitalism works: having more players reduces the likelihood of price fixing than a duopoly or monopoly. Or like how separation of powers works (or...could work, if we had more parties to split power)
I'm sure someone could speculate on other reasons as well.
No, but it means the knee-jerk reaction of "oh, things will be better under the other party" isn't going to work either. If we want real oversight, we need to get a 3rd-party involved. I bet if we had a Libertarian executive would have a whole lot of opening of government.
There is a problem in computer science referred to as the "digital cash problem" which deals with how to create an anonymous, disconnected, auditable, guaranteed, atomic token exchange system. Elections basically amount to this. Although there are solutions, they are very complex and involve lots of encryption, hashing, and key management.
Because it is so difficult to copy/modify physical objects, and so easy to do the same with bits, paper-based systems will remain at the forefront of solutions to this class of problems. This will change if/when we have miniature devices that can fabricate paper and ink.
Slashdot Mirror
The article fails to mention that Synaesthete won $2500 at the Independent Games Festival at the Game Developer's Conference in 2008. I wonder where the $2500 went? To the school? To the students? I guess it should go to the school since the school owns the game right? Or did they give it to the students because it is their game?
Okay, thanks. That gives me a lot to Google on. The ILECs maintain the lines + provide local phone service right? If so, seems like it won't ever be truly competitive until we separate those two functions.
Back when everyone was on dial-up that is the way it was. Your local phone company had nothing to do with your internet access. They just provided end-to-end communications to your ISP. There were gzillions of ISPs, each offering different quality of service, rates, features, etc. We need to get that back.
Thank you, that was awesome to know. That is exactly how I want it to be done here in the US, but nobody seems to understand. In my state, they did this with power and it works great. You pay one company a fixed fee for the power lines, then per-usage fee to the power company of your choosing.
Under the proposed model, it's the content provider who pays.
Link please? That's not mentioned in the reuters article about the bill. If that is what this law says, then it has nothing to do with net neutrality. Net neutrality is not about who pays. It is about the pipes that deliver the content being neutral to what the content is. The pricing model should stay the way it is.
When and how was the telecom industry de-regulated?
In every state I am familiar with, there is one company that has a government granted monopoly to maintain the phone lines and to provide service over them. That's not deregulation to me.
I know that some states have laws that force that company to lease the lines to other providers, but it usually doesn't work since they aren't required to lease them at a fair price, and nobody can compete with the company that maintains the lines any way.
I use whatever works. For me, the nVidia closed source driver works better than any open source driver.
I use it too. But the question wasn't about who will use the driver. The question is who will use the API. APIs are used by developers, and Linux developers don't like closed APIs or closed drivers. So I don't see them being big supporters of this.
Alternative to what? This is an API that accesses a proprietary feature of a specific video card. Nobody was asking for one. Who would use it and why? I just don't get it.
Now, if nVidia proposed an open standard video playback API, and implemented it in their video driver, and released the source - then I could see Linux devs using it.
Or did I somehow misunderstand what they did?
Why would anyone use a proprietary video API provided by a closed source driver tied to a particular piece of hardware... on an open source platform? Huh?
I think once the rovers can't run their internal heaters various vital parts will freeze and they will die for good.
E.
A.
That's okay, I'm not here to be everyone's personal Google. Anyone really interested can do a quick search and find it easily enough. Or follow the links and the discussion to the Slashdot article I already posted. Or check the creative labs discussion boards. Or buy a Creative labs card.
Next thing I know, people will be asking me to prove that Obama won the presidency, or that Vista sucks, or something else really obvious.
Yeah, there's tons of stuff about Creative's lack of driver support in Vista. As of 2 months ago, they still only had drivers for the SB Live in "beta" and they only supported the basics - none of the advanced features, hardware mixing, 3D surround, etc.
Maybe next, Creative will start making drivers for Vista?
(Seriously - this is not a joke)
Please tell that to all the Comcast users.
This is one of the fundamental flaws in our democracy today. If the constitution said "Congress shall make no law against wearing blue clothing" then congress would merely create the Federal Clothing Commission, who would then make a rule banning blue clothing. And somehow, that would not violate the constitution.
The problem with the National Journal report is that they don't actually measure liberal -vs- conservative votes. Instead, they measure Democrat -vs- Republican votes. IMHO, this is one of the problems going on today. People assume that anything the Republican party stands for us conservative, even though that is often far from the case.
For some examples, take a look at their 2007 Vote Ratings.
309/S1927 Renew FISA which allows wire tapping
The FISA is an example of an extreme liberal position. It increases government powers and bypasses constitutional protections. Yet the National Journal says voting against that is liberal.
77/SConRes20 Funding for US troops
An example of a liberal foreign policy would be nation building and preeminent attacks (Ironically, in 2000 Bush commented about how nation building is a terrible mistake and the US needs to get out of it). Yet in modern society people assume that anything military = Republican = conservative. But that isn't true. A defensive volunteer-only military is conservative. An aggressive military that invades other nations and rebuilds them is liberal. Yet the National Journal thinks that any vote that is in favor of bigger military = conservative.
In today's society, party affiliation trumps philosophy. Most people pick their party, then follow it no matter what it does. In order to break out of that people need to understand different philosophies without the context of a party. Check out sites like The Political Compass and skim Wikipedia articles on Socialism, Communism, Conservative, Liberal, etc. for details on what these ideas really mean.
Believe it or not, those European views save American lives and American dollars.
It matters When those Europeans have to decide if they want to cover our backs in Iraq, or turn tail and run. It matters when we are nation-building in the Middle East: the European, Asian, and Middle-Eastern neighbors can either support us, or send in armed freedom fighters to stir things up. It matters when OPEC decides that perhaps selling oil in Euros instead of Dollars is more stable. (FYI - If that makes no sense, we are essentially on an oil-backed dollar rather these days). It matters when the FBI contacts another European nation and asks them to freeze the bank account of a suspected terrorist - and they have to decide to comply or not.
We depend on the world very much. Our reputation determines how much cooperation we get. We need Europe because we need allies and friends. We need Asia because we need manufacturing. We need South America for food and wage workers. We need the Middle East for oil.
Okay, I give up. You are right. We should continue to support the existing two parties because including additional parties would not do anything at all.
1) That after that party is elected once, they're never elected again. After all, you can't say that they have nothing (potentially) to hide once that third party is elected the second time into office.
Gotcha. A party elected into office twice is equally powerful to a party that has been elected hundreds of times. And since there is a chance that they will be elected twice, we should not try to elect them once.
2) That lobbyists have no quick and easy methods to find their way into the sitting room with whatever president is in office (and they probably do).
Okay, I see. So decades of lobbying power and influence will take effect instantly, as soon as the lobbyist enters the sitting room. (I gotta get me a room like that for meetings.)
3) That a third party isn't just a front for the same ol' people we used to know as Democratic or Republican. These people are usually businessmen as well as politicians. Never heard of front companies?
It is possible that some 3rd-party is a front for an existing party in power. So we should just assume that all 3rd-parties are fronts, and not listen to any them.
----
The problem here is not that your points are not valid, but that they are taken to extremes. Just because someone is elected twice doesn't mean they are evil from the start. Just because some 3rd-party might be a front, doesn't mean all 3rd-parties are and that they should all be ignored. Just because lobbyists will find their way into discussions doesn't mean that the lobbyists will have equal sway with new and established parties. There is a gray area here that you need to see.
Absolutism != Wisdom.
I don't understand how any of this requires government regulation. Cogent is supposed to provide internet access to users and other companies. They are not doing that, so they either need to find someone else to peer with, or be sued for breach of contract. I wonder how many companies and individuals Cogent services? I bet they would make other arrangements real fast if their phones were ringing off the hook and the postman delivered a truck-load of court summons.
Or else it would just add more types of incompetence and corruption to the government.
Good point, we should just have a single party, or better yet, a King, so that there is only a single type of incompetence and corruption. (/me sticks tongue out) :-)
...take money from all the same bribes and do the same things.
I think they would take money from different bribes and do different things. The point is not that a 3rd-party would be saintly. The point is that they would do things differently, which would help to balance things out.
Oh, come ON. How can anyone be THAT naive?
Mom, is that you? I love the people who tell me I'm naive but provide no new facts or insights.
What exactly makes you think that a libertarian candidate would be any better?
The reason that, in theory, any 3rd-party would be better is because:
- They would have no need to protect or hide the sins of their predecessor. They might even gain PR points by exposing them.
- They would have fewer ties to lobbyists
- Cycling between a greater number of parties makes it harder for them to collude with each other. Someone will always have much to gain by exposing things. Just like how capitalism works: having more players reduces the likelihood of price fixing than a duopoly or monopoly. Or like how separation of powers works (or...could work, if we had more parties to split power)
I'm sure someone could speculate on other reasons as well.
No, but it means the knee-jerk reaction of "oh, things will be better under the other party" isn't going to work either. If we want real oversight, we need to get a 3rd-party involved. I bet if we had a Libertarian executive would have a whole lot of opening of government.
For now, physical security is the best security.
There is a problem in computer science referred to as the "digital cash problem" which deals with how to create an anonymous, disconnected, auditable, guaranteed, atomic token exchange system. Elections basically amount to this. Although there are solutions, they are very complex and involve lots of encryption, hashing, and key management.
Because it is so difficult to copy/modify physical objects, and so easy to do the same with bits, paper-based systems will remain at the forefront of solutions to this class of problems. This will change if/when we have miniature devices that can fabricate paper and ink.
They were going to buy a Hummer, but the fighter jet gets better gas mileage.