Someone could cop-out by arguing that they support neutrality, but they don't want to override the decision of a federal agency. It would be malarkey, but it would probably work.
So how far do you take that? Can the baker refuse to put a giant phallus on the cake? Can the baker refuse to put a KKK clan member on the cake? Who decides what the baker can and cannot refuse to put on a cake?
Reading up on the case, I am confused as to the arguments here. The baker did not refuse to give them a cake! The baker merely refused to put two women getting married on the cake since they considered that offensive. Reading some articles on this, they don't seem to mention the cake at all, they just focus on who the baker refused to make the cake for. Maybe that's what the bakery did wrong here.
The bakery can't refuse to provide products and services to a customer based on the owner's religious beliefs.
Why not? Who says individuals or businesses can't make product decisions based on religious beliefs? I thought a private business could refuse to serve anyone they want for any reason. Hiring is a different matter though.
I too assume the ISPs want a lower minimum. I'm just agree that the lower minimum is appropriate. As for the price thing, the FCC sets a price for telephone service. I dunno how broadband internet is handled. Logically, if the government is talking about subsidizing then price fixing usually goes along with that.
there's no sense in defining broadband as a speed that most people can't even think of a way to use
That sarcasm only makes sense to someone who doesn't understand what we are discussing. The definition of broadband is not the level at which "most people can't even think of a way to use" it. The definition determines the level at which the FCC will start to funnel taxpayer money to telecom companies so they can upgrade their service. We don't need to divert those subsidies to people who have 5 kids and complain that their video quality isn't good enough. We should rather subsidize internet for rural farms who have 1Mbps DSL connections, or no internet at all.
Agreed! Part of the problem is that the FCC is trying to define "broadband" which is a technical term that is already well defined. It has to do with what frequencies are used to transmit. Unfortunately, as you point out, the term has come to mean "fast internet" which is constantly changing and rather ambiguous.
It has never been an issue for a state to issue more restrictive regulations than the feds do. It's only an issue when it is the other way around. So it need not be anti-federalist.
I'm not sure it makes sense to use old habits as a reference point.
You got right down to the crux of the problem. What are we trying to define, and how should we define it? We are trying to define "minimum" here for the purpose of providing taxpayer subsidies to telcos.
We don't want to tie the definition of basic minimum-level "broadband" to the amount of bandwidth required for a premium entertainment system. The household that bought a 4K monitor can afford to get more than the basic service. This is about defining what the minimum level is, so that the FCC can determine broadband penetration in poor and rural areas. The problem is that there are places in America where they still use dial-up or 1Mbps DSL. If we define "broadband" to be 25Mbps then that means everybody who has 20Mbps service will get upgraded to 25Mbps, on the taxpayer's dime. That isn't the goal here. What we need is to define it in such a way that people who have almost no usable internet can be brought into the modern age.
After reading replies, I have another proposal: instead of defining it to be some arbitrary number like "25mbps" or "10mbps" perhaps they should define it in a market-driven way. For example, define it as 1 video stream + 1 person shopping on the web. Similar to how things like the CPI or cost-of-living is determined.
Please be aware that we are talking about the minimum definition of the word "broadband" here. The idea is to get people who have no internet onto some minimal viable internet. But based on some of the replies, it sounds like some Slashdotters would define "minimum viable cable TV" to be "155 channels + HBO, Showtime, Epix, and Cinemax."
I agree with your numbers. Just be aware that are talking about the minimum definition of the word broadband. A household with multiple people streaming video + an entrepreneur isn't really the definition of minimum.
I'm sure I'll be flamed here for this, but I always thought the 25Mbps definition was too high as a "minimum definition." An HD NetFlix stream is 5Mbps. 10Mbps allows two simultaneous HD streams, or one HD stream plus plenty of headroom for other normal activities. I would rather that the FCC define it to be 10Mbps, but actually check that this bandwidth is available consistently during peak usage. The reason to make it as high as 25Mbps is because the telcos rarely actually deliver their promised speeds.
Currently, each representative represents, as close as possible without cutting off body parts, the same number of people. There are 2 ways to do this. One is what you suggested, which is to fix the number people value per representative, then calculate the resulting number of representatives. The way we do it now we fix the number of representatives, then calculate the number of people per representative. The benefit of the current approach is that congressional seats aren't appearing and disappearing every census. So the house won't double in size if suddenly Wyoming's population cuts in half. In terms of fairness I'm not sure it matters. Your calculation, which had a bit of hand-waving around the details, resulted in 600k people/rep instead of the 700k/rep we have now.
Personally I say let it stay, but make all electors proportional to the popular vote in their states.
Agreed. Fortunately, each state can do this by passing their own laws to do so. A few have. But not enough people understand the system well enough to advocate it or stand by it.
At the same time, enlarge the House of Representatives to whatever degree is necessary to make each representative stand for the same number of people, as closely as practical while keeping the total under, say, 600.
Can you clarify? When you say "each representative stand for the same number of people" what are you asking for? Right now, it is approximately one representative for every 700,000 people. It can never be exactly the same number of people per representative, unless we chop representatives into bits and reassembly them in the chamber.:-) Alaska would need about 1.06 representatives - maybe they should send someone with 6 fingers?
...doctors are allocated budgets for the numbers of patients that they have enrolled on their books. It's in their interests to spend as little as possible on keeping their patients as healthy as possible in order to conserve their budgets...
The word "outdated" implies that the system was once good in the past but is no longer good now. Did I interpret your statement correctly? If so, I'd love to know what you consider good about the system in the past that no longer applies today.
DJI’s “GEO” system did offer some guidance on TFRs, but it was problematic; according to the NTSB, DJI responded by disabling the TFR features in GEO some time in August 2017, not restoring it until October. Thus, “relying on the app” was of limited use in September, when Tantashov made his flight. In any event, DJI stresses that GEO is only an “advisory” system and that drone pilots are responsible for knowing what restrictions exist in their areas.
Classic idiot software problem: There is a function called IsItSafe() and when the system does not know, it returned TRUE instead of FALSE. *facepalm* If it did not know for certain that there were no flight restrictions in place, it should have assumed that it was not safe! Better yet, it should display the message "Service temporarily disabled, check https://notams.aim.faa.gov/not... for up-to-date flight restrictions."
A good start is the Wikipedia article on fair use. It specifically enumerates court cases that have decided that fair use must be checked before issuing a DMCA notice. It quotes the relevant judgements and sections of law. Now, we know corporations often don't do that, and that money wins. But the summary's blanket claim that fair use doesn't apply to the "public at large" is fearmongering. Every day someone jailbreaks their phone, or rips a DVD to. Every day dozens of companies sell one or more DVD ripping products.
The trouble the US has is that it has two completely conflicting laws. Heck, even the DMCA itself is self conflicting because it states that possessing and distributing the tools are illegal, while simultaneously state that fair use is an exception.
Breaking DRM or ripping Blu-Rays discs is a crime In the United States. While there are fair use exemptions, these don't apply to the public at large.
wha wha wha? Since when? A quick search turns up dozens of free and commercial DVD rippers. There's a few blu-ray ones too, plus the open source libraries. I can't remember of the last time I saw a court case where someone was sued for using libdvdcss in a fair use manner. This is clearly spelled-out in US copyright law.
That's an interesting argument: that since Facebook is the one doing the filtering, they are thus liable. You are correct that a common carrier would not be doing this. I still think it is a slippery slope though, since Facebook can't possibly enforce the laws of every local government through their web site. Let us try to think of scenarios where it might be perfectly legal for a company to do this. Suppose it was Uber, who has been sued for gender discrimination. It is not unreasonable to imagine them coming under an an injunction where they had to interview more women, or more people of a certain age. Ooh! I just remembered that the Baltimore City Police Department is under such a DOJ watchdog right now for similar practices. Now this theoretical Facebook block would prevent the companies from doing that.
This is why computers should not enforce laws. Computers are dumb machines that pass through information as instructed. Another example might be if a company is doing A/B testing with ads on different age groups. That would be perfectly legal, but Facebook's ad bot wouldn't know that.
Stop "pass through" liability. It increases the cost of doing business everywhere, and hides the real criminals.
That one talks about stores that have been held liable for claim in an their catalogues, for products they sell. It says "the court found that once the retailer actively involved itself in the promotion of the product" which is probably why newspapers have advertising disclaimers. Ad of course, the newspaper is clearly not selling the product in the case of job ads. I'm not sure this applies.
Do you have any examples to show that the newspaper industry is liable here?
Slashdot Mirror
Someone could cop-out by arguing that they support neutrality, but they don't want to override the decision of a federal agency. It would be malarkey, but it would probably work.
So how far do you take that? Can the baker refuse to put a giant phallus on the cake? Can the baker refuse to put a KKK clan member on the cake? Who decides what the baker can and cannot refuse to put on a cake?
Reading up on the case, I am confused as to the arguments here. The baker did not refuse to give them a cake! The baker merely refused to put two women getting married on the cake since they considered that offensive. Reading some articles on this, they don't seem to mention the cake at all, they just focus on who the baker refused to make the cake for. Maybe that's what the bakery did wrong here.
The bakery can't refuse to provide products and services to a customer based on the owner's religious beliefs.
Why not? Who says individuals or businesses can't make product decisions based on religious beliefs? I thought a private business could refuse to serve anyone they want for any reason. Hiring is a different matter though.
It has become a marketing term. Much like "organic."
Thanks, good to know!
I too assume the ISPs want a lower minimum. I'm just agree that the lower minimum is appropriate. As for the price thing, the FCC sets a price for telephone service. I dunno how broadband internet is handled. Logically, if the government is talking about subsidizing then price fixing usually goes along with that.
there's no sense in defining broadband as a speed that most people can't even think of a way to use
That sarcasm only makes sense to someone who doesn't understand what we are discussing. The definition of broadband is not the level at which "most people can't even think of a way to use" it. The definition determines the level at which the FCC will start to funnel taxpayer money to telecom companies so they can upgrade their service. We don't need to divert those subsidies to people who have 5 kids and complain that their video quality isn't good enough. We should rather subsidize internet for rural farms who have 1Mbps DSL connections, or no internet at all.
Agreed! Part of the problem is that the FCC is trying to define "broadband" which is a technical term that is already well defined. It has to do with what frequencies are used to transmit. Unfortunately, as you point out, the term has come to mean "fast internet" which is constantly changing and rather ambiguous.
It has never been an issue for a state to issue more restrictive regulations than the feds do. It's only an issue when it is the other way around. So it need not be anti-federalist.
I'm not sure it makes sense to use old habits as a reference point.
You got right down to the crux of the problem. What are we trying to define, and how should we define it? We are trying to define "minimum" here for the purpose of providing taxpayer subsidies to telcos.
We don't want to tie the definition of basic minimum-level "broadband" to the amount of bandwidth required for a premium entertainment system. The household that bought a 4K monitor can afford to get more than the basic service. This is about defining what the minimum level is, so that the FCC can determine broadband penetration in poor and rural areas. The problem is that there are places in America where they still use dial-up or 1Mbps DSL. If we define "broadband" to be 25Mbps then that means everybody who has 20Mbps service will get upgraded to 25Mbps, on the taxpayer's dime. That isn't the goal here. What we need is to define it in such a way that people who have almost no usable internet can be brought into the modern age.
After reading replies, I have another proposal: instead of defining it to be some arbitrary number like "25mbps" or "10mbps" perhaps they should define it in a market-driven way. For example, define it as 1 video stream + 1 person shopping on the web. Similar to how things like the CPI or cost-of-living is determined.
Please be aware that we are talking about the minimum definition of the word "broadband" here. The idea is to get people who have no internet onto some minimal viable internet. But based on some of the replies, it sounds like some Slashdotters would define "minimum viable cable TV" to be "155 channels + HBO, Showtime, Epix, and Cinemax."
I agree with your numbers. Just be aware that are talking about the minimum definition of the word broadband. A household with multiple people streaming video + an entrepreneur isn't really the definition of minimum.
50% of my comment addresses this. Read the whole thing before responding.
I'm sure I'll be flamed here for this, but I always thought the 25Mbps definition was too high as a "minimum definition." An HD NetFlix stream is 5Mbps. 10Mbps allows two simultaneous HD streams, or one HD stream plus plenty of headroom for other normal activities. I would rather that the FCC define it to be 10Mbps, but actually check that this bandwidth is available consistently during peak usage. The reason to make it as high as 25Mbps is because the telcos rarely actually deliver their promised speeds.
How is that fundamentally different from what they do now?
United States congressional apportionment
Currently, each representative represents, as close as possible without cutting off body parts, the same number of people. There are 2 ways to do this. One is what you suggested, which is to fix the number people value per representative, then calculate the resulting number of representatives. The way we do it now we fix the number of representatives, then calculate the number of people per representative. The benefit of the current approach is that congressional seats aren't appearing and disappearing every census. So the house won't double in size if suddenly Wyoming's population cuts in half. In terms of fairness I'm not sure it matters. Your calculation, which had a bit of hand-waving around the details, resulted in 600k people/rep instead of the 700k/rep we have now.
Personally I say let it stay, but make all electors proportional to the popular vote in their states.
Agreed. Fortunately, each state can do this by passing their own laws to do so. A few have. But not enough people understand the system well enough to advocate it or stand by it.
At the same time, enlarge the House of Representatives to whatever degree is necessary to make each representative stand for the same number of people, as closely as practical while keeping the total under, say, 600.
Can you clarify? When you say "each representative stand for the same number of people" what are you asking for? Right now, it is approximately one representative for every 700,000 people. It can never be exactly the same number of people per representative, unless we chop representatives into bits and reassembly them in the chamber. :-) Alaska would need about 1.06 representatives - maybe they should send someone with 6 fingers?
...doctors are allocated budgets for the numbers of patients that they have enrolled on their books. It's in their interests to spend as little as possible on keeping their patients as healthy as possible in order to conserve their budgets...
That's the part I was talking about.
FYI: This is how HMOs operate in the US.
outdated electoral college system.
The word "outdated" implies that the system was once good in the past but is no longer good now. Did I interpret your statement correctly? If so, I'd love to know what you consider good about the system in the past that no longer applies today.
No argument there.
DJI’s “GEO” system did offer some guidance on TFRs, but it was problematic; according to the NTSB, DJI responded by disabling the TFR features in GEO some time in August 2017, not restoring it until October. Thus, “relying on the app” was of limited use in September, when Tantashov made his flight. In any event, DJI stresses that GEO is only an “advisory” system and that drone pilots are responsible for knowing what restrictions exist in their areas.
Classic idiot software problem: There is a function called IsItSafe() and when the system does not know, it returned TRUE instead of FALSE. *facepalm* If it did not know for certain that there were no flight restrictions in place, it should have assumed that it was not safe! Better yet, it should display the message "Service temporarily disabled, check https://notams.aim.faa.gov/not... for up-to-date flight restrictions."
A good start is the Wikipedia article on fair use. It specifically enumerates court cases that have decided that fair use must be checked before issuing a DMCA notice. It quotes the relevant judgements and sections of law. Now, we know corporations often don't do that, and that money wins. But the summary's blanket claim that fair use doesn't apply to the "public at large" is fearmongering. Every day someone jailbreaks their phone, or rips a DVD to. Every day dozens of companies sell one or more DVD ripping products.
The trouble the US has is that it has two completely conflicting laws. Heck, even the DMCA itself is self conflicting because it states that possessing and distributing the tools are illegal, while simultaneously state that fair use is an exception.
Breaking DRM or ripping Blu-Rays discs is a crime In the United States. While there are fair use exemptions, these don't apply to the public at large.
wha wha wha? Since when? A quick search turns up dozens of free and commercial DVD rippers. There's a few blu-ray ones too, plus the open source libraries. I can't remember of the last time I saw a court case where someone was sued for using libdvdcss in a fair use manner. This is clearly spelled-out in US copyright law.
That's an interesting argument: that since Facebook is the one doing the filtering, they are thus liable. You are correct that a common carrier would not be doing this. I still think it is a slippery slope though, since Facebook can't possibly enforce the laws of every local government through their web site. Let us try to think of scenarios where it might be perfectly legal for a company to do this. Suppose it was Uber, who has been sued for gender discrimination. It is not unreasonable to imagine them coming under an an injunction where they had to interview more women, or more people of a certain age. Ooh! I just remembered that the Baltimore City Police Department is under such a DOJ watchdog right now for similar practices. Now this theoretical Facebook block would prevent the companies from doing that.
This is why computers should not enforce laws. Computers are dumb machines that pass through information as instructed. Another example might be if a company is doing A/B testing with ads on different age groups. That would be perfectly legal, but Facebook's ad bot wouldn't know that.
Stop "pass through" liability. It increases the cost of doing business everywhere, and hides the real criminals.
Newspaper Tort Liability for Harmful Advertising
Sounds to me like advertisers are not typically liable for the content of ads, except in the court of public opinion. Here's another one:
The Scope Of Liability For False Advertising Claims
That one talks about stores that have been held liable for claim in an their catalogues, for products they sell. It says "the court found that once the retailer actively involved itself in the promotion of the product" which is probably why newspapers have advertising disclaimers. Ad of course, the newspaper is clearly not selling the product in the case of job ads. I'm not sure this applies.
Do you have any examples to show that the newspaper industry is liable here?