go to the maximum allowed power and maximum allowed antenna gain, and then set the network up using a protocol that can handle thousands of hops
Because it's that important to be able to rip off your entertainment! A massive, slow, thousand-hop mesh network makes far more sense than $1.50 video on demand that actually helps to pay to create the entertainment you'd rather steal. Sure, I'm following you. A lot of people would be all for someone else setting them up with a giant content-stealing network, since they'd like to leech off of their engineering efforts just like they'd like to continue to leech off of film makers and musicians.
so would you mind building out our network for us, and pay us extra for the privilege of doing so
Nonsense. I bought a unit to extend Verizon's coverage into the areas of my house that the local tower just can't handle. Like, down in the basement - a level of service that no carrier is going to say they'll promise. Verizon doesn't charge me anything for using it, other than the cost of the hardware - a one-time purchase that I gladly, gladly made. And I can sell the unit any time I want, and any other Verizon customer can use it - and there's no account-related paperwork involved. The devices just work. They look for a DHCP server on your LAN, and off you go. You do need to fire them up near a window until they get their GPS bearings, though. But they don't have to stay there.
You know what else is nice? The household mobile phones now only have to talk to a transciever that's a stone's throw away, instead of a quarter of a mile or more away. That means much better battery life when they're not tethered to a charger.
Really? So, your argument for fingerprint-based life or death gun reliability is to guess how much money I make, and to ignore how little most patrol officers make? You're thinking this improves your credibility... how?
Regardless, I think that a lot of those underpaid cops probably know (unlike you) the difference between "then" and "than."
Wouldn't a fingerprint scanner on the grip be more reliable and safer in case you were disarmed?
Sure, as long as all of your activity takes place in a clean room, with climate control to prevent sweat or glove wearing, and nobody who might need a gun even eats fried chicken. I can see you've never actually talked to someone who carries are relies on a gun in the real world.
We can assume the assailant has already gained access to your house
Why should we assume that? A lot of people will wake up while hearing someone in the middle of trying to gain access to their house. There's a brief period of time between hearing some glass break, or a screen being cut, etc., and being able to arm yourself. That time has to be a lot longer if you have to fiddle with your magic wristwatch, and make sure that it never gets farther from your gun than eight inches from it. It would be a shame, wouldn't it, if you had to put the gun in your other hand while you grabbed your phone to dial 911, or reached for a lightswitch or flashlight or to restrain a dog, and had your gun disable itself. What an absurd thing.
With a regular firearm, in your scenario you are already screwed.
Sure, not counting all of the times that people in home invasions are not screwed, and are in fact saved because they reached for a gun. Not counting the number of people who simply turn and run when someone brandishes a gun, or who are held at gunpoint until the cops arrive. We slowed down a crazy guy trying to breack through our back door in the middle of the night, and did so by quickly displaying a gun. Still took the cops a long time to show up... and he would have been through that glass and into the house if not for even his drug-addled brain recognizing the deterrent being showed to him at 3:00AM. I'm very glad that no magic battery-powered wrist transmitter was required. I would never rely on such a device. It's crazy.
I only mention her in that context because she actually is a villain. Mentioning her doesn't make sides, it points out that she's on a "side" that is mendacious, toxic to liberty, and just generally cloying in its Nanny State sensibilities. That "side" on which she sits is what it is. And the majority of the people in the country specifically disapprove of both her position on policies and her legislative tactics. And since she stares in the camera with that creepy unblinking gaze and lies about those exact things, she's a villain. I don't have to apologize for using her name in exactly that way, because I'm actually being generous.
I think you'd be hardpressed to explain why a government sponsored institution (all corporations) should be allowed to do what a government cannot.
That corporation (formed by people, without whom it would not exist) can do things the government cannot for the same reasons that individual people (just like groups of them acting in concert) can also do things the government cannot. The constitution is all about the things the government cannot do.
Or can I not eat a hamburger without a corporation providing 20 references?
That's exactly why there's a centuries-old tradition of writing travelogs, and having private parties whose reviews you can trust. That's why Consumer Reports and UL have thrived for decades, and why we don't have the Federal Department Of Restaurant Ratings.
Imagine, for a second, the CEO of GE decides to screw his shareholders and board of directors, and to throw a billion dollars at the next campaign cycle
That's already the case. It's called "NBC News" and "MSNBC" et al. That's a big part of why Obama got elected. The difference is that a company actually buying political ads or making donations has to go on the record in doing so, whereas GE just spun the news on NBC, just as was done on every other media outlet. Since most of them spun towards the left as usual, you get what you get. Buying ads is an entirely different matter. Because... they're ads. Buying all of the news coverage provided by half a dozen networks requires a lot more effort - though that clearly paid off.
where one side decided it really didn't want to run a proper campaign
Right, that's all there was to it. Had nothing to do with the issues, no, not at all.
Never mind that she was hugely up in the polls right up until her party's leaders announced a couple more attrocious back-room deals on the monstrosity of a bill they were trying to push, and she didn't show any indication of disapproving. And he did. And the polls switched, immediately, to him. That wasn't an abberation, that was substance. And that's all it takes.
companies don't have to disclose contributions in advance
So, why would you invest in a company that has a board of directors you don't trust? Why would you hold onto stock in a company that operates according to principles with which you disagree?
And - just to be clear, here - most corporations aren't publicly held anyway. Most are small operations, privately held. If a candiate is swearing that their purpose in life is to get elected and outlaw (for example) restaurants that serve pork... why shouldn't the guy and his wife that incorporated to start a BBQ joint be able to run an ad saying that perhaps this guy shouldn't be elected?
When a politician's means of becoming elected (money) is provided by a sole source, and is stable over a long enough period (their career), provided that the politician does what the provider wants, then what incentive does the politician have to listen to anyone else?
Who cares? All he needs is competition that points out how non-representative that relationship is, and enough voters who agree. The one-track-mind politician goes away. The person who just lost the Senate race in Massachusetts was on the receiving end of tons of focused campaign cash, and emergency panic landing by Air Force One in her race, and the all-out attempts by her party's political machine to give her the seat that her party's have-it-for-life predecessor had for decades. A guy with much less cash but with a better message and some hustle pointed out the substantial differences between them, and she lost. That's the incentive.
But that's not really what it's about. It's about corporations that you own stock in having the unlimited ability to donate your money achieve political goals you disagree with.
I see. And you were forced to buy stock in such a company how? And prevented from selling your stock in such a company how? Ah.
Like a labor union could outspend some corporation...
So, you've got labor unions (and unions of unions) that have hundreds of thousands of members (think SEIU, for example), and you've got corporations made up of ten people. Are you even listening to yourself?
And the general welfare is not served by allowing the rights of one group of people to trample over another, simply because the one group has more money or influence.
How is a campaign donation a trampling of someone's rights? What is a person being blocked from doing because someone else has made a publicly viewable campaign donation? Be specific.
Yes, it's much better if we let the earlier poster continue to propogate the notion that we have no rights unless we get them from Nancy Pelosi. That's a much better idea.
If your purchasing of that advertisement threatens the fundamentals of democracy, than it is absolutely the purview of the government to limit such purchases
Straw man argument. Are you suggesting that libelous ads or slander are somehow now protected because they are bought/run by a labor union or group of people that have formed a company? How does free (non-libelous, non-fraudulant) speech threaten democracy? I can, though, think of a lot of ways that silencing speech does that.
Ah. And your rights to donate campaign money (which is, to the penny, open to all public scrutiny and reporting), or the ability of you and your business partner to do the same - you think that's "corporatism?"
Regardless, here's an actual definition of Fascism (rather than a comment from a brutal dictator, which you seem to prefer):
Fasicm: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
So, if a labor union wants to donate - in a publicly viewable way - money to Obama's campaign, or a plumbing company wants to donate to his opponent's, that plugs into the actual definition of that word how? I see. You'd prefer that speach were suppressed, in the name of freedom. Thank you, Mr. Orwell.
We need to replace the "conservatives" on the supreme court who don't understand that corporations should not have the constitutional rights of citizens.
The constitution doesn't give you, or a business formed by you and a friend, any rights. The constitution is there to limit the government's ability to take those rights away. Being able to buy a newspaper advertisement or broadcast an advertisement isn't something that the goverment should be able to prevent you (or the company you've formed) from doing. Likewise for labor unions, advocacy groups, churches, scouting troops, bowling leagues, open source code projects, or anyone else.
I'm always amazed at how many misguided people think their rights come from the government. That explains a lot about why statists like Pelosi and Reid think they have so much more traction than they really do. Don't give it to them, now matter how much you want the government to be your Nanny.
It was the first virtual world which I could see as real
Actually, the only phony two-dimensional portrayals in that film were Corporate Goons (tm) and the Evil U.S. Marines->Mercenaries (tm). I felt more of a credibility gulf between me and those characters than I did between me and the blue dudes.
such as respecting people's "religious" views even if you think they are silly
Why would a movie like Avatar help anyone respect religion? The Na'vi culture, as portrayed, is based on an actual, tangible, real aspect of their biology and their environment. So, it's not religious for them to speak in terms of their interconnectedness, etc., because it's real. This, as opposed to real-life religions here on earth, which are based on magical thinking, childish fantasy, and mostly on people who want social power and know perfectly well that the frameworks on which they've built their social clubs are pure fiction. See? What Cameron is really doing with Avatar is reminding you to look at your own religion and realize what a fake it is, and to get on with a life that derives its meaning from your own actions, based on reality, and not from the dream of post-death reward/punishment system that doesn't exist.
Not only enough commas, but a bonus! A completely wrong, extra apostrophe! I hereby assign you to an afternoon of reading "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss.
Are you using some sort of programmable, logic-controlled toaster? I've never seen one that wasn't electro-mechanical. I highly doubt that your toaster, your clothes dryer, or your washing machine use a single watt when you're not actually running them.
Also: there are power strips/supplies with switches on them, so that you don't have to fuss over the wear and tear of actually unplugging things.
Until the government throws out special interest, lobyists, and other bogus groups...
Out of curiosity, what do you suppose makes a special interest group special? Say that you and a hundred (or a hundred thousand) of your friends think it's really important to support net neutrality. And in the interests of making your point well heard and understood by busy, non-technical legislators, you collectively throw in a few dollars to pay someone to sit down over lunch with a parade of congressional representatives and senators (or their staffers) to make the issue - and the stakes - clear, in a consistent, readily vote-able way.
I guess that makes you an eeeevil special interest using eeeeeevil lobbyists to do your dark bidding, right? Why is it that when a group of people pool their resources to make a point, you no longer consider each of those people to be as valuable a citizen as yourself?
Or are people who talk to legislators about an agenda that actually matters to a large group of people somehow not legitimate, but people who rant in the streets, carry giant puppets, and look the other way when their buddy smashes the windows of the local Starbucks are just plain folks who should count more? Why?
Incidentally, I agree that these four years are going to be a fiscal (and otherwise) disaster. But it's because of people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and because of Obama's passivity that it will be so. He's an empty suit, just the way they like it.
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go to the maximum allowed power and maximum allowed antenna gain, and then set the network up using a protocol that can handle thousands of hops
Because it's that important to be able to rip off your entertainment! A massive, slow, thousand-hop mesh network makes far more sense than $1.50 video on demand that actually helps to pay to create the entertainment you'd rather steal. Sure, I'm following you. A lot of people would be all for someone else setting them up with a giant content-stealing network, since they'd like to leech off of their engineering efforts just like they'd like to continue to leech off of film makers and musicians.
so would you mind building out our network for us, and pay us extra for the privilege of doing so
Nonsense. I bought a unit to extend Verizon's coverage into the areas of my house that the local tower just can't handle. Like, down in the basement - a level of service that no carrier is going to say they'll promise. Verizon doesn't charge me anything for using it, other than the cost of the hardware - a one-time purchase that I gladly, gladly made. And I can sell the unit any time I want, and any other Verizon customer can use it - and there's no account-related paperwork involved. The devices just work. They look for a DHCP server on your LAN, and off you go. You do need to fire them up near a window until they get their GPS bearings, though. But they don't have to stay there.
You know what else is nice? The household mobile phones now only have to talk to a transciever that's a stone's throw away, instead of a quarter of a mile or more away. That means much better battery life when they're not tethered to a charger.
They make more money then you
... how?
Really? So, your argument for fingerprint-based life or death gun reliability is to guess how much money I make, and to ignore how little most patrol officers make? You're thinking this improves your credibility
Regardless, I think that a lot of those underpaid cops probably know (unlike you) the difference between "then" and "than."
Wouldn't a fingerprint scanner on the grip be more reliable and safer in case you were disarmed?
Sure, as long as all of your activity takes place in a clean room, with climate control to prevent sweat or glove wearing, and nobody who might need a gun even eats fried chicken. I can see you've never actually talked to someone who carries are relies on a gun in the real world.
We can assume the assailant has already gained access to your house
Why should we assume that? A lot of people will wake up while hearing someone in the middle of trying to gain access to their house. There's a brief period of time between hearing some glass break, or a screen being cut, etc., and being able to arm yourself. That time has to be a lot longer if you have to fiddle with your magic wristwatch, and make sure that it never gets farther from your gun than eight inches from it. It would be a shame, wouldn't it, if you had to put the gun in your other hand while you grabbed your phone to dial 911, or reached for a lightswitch or flashlight or to restrain a dog, and had your gun disable itself. What an absurd thing.
With a regular firearm, in your scenario you are already screwed.
Sure, not counting all of the times that people in home invasions are not screwed, and are in fact saved because they reached for a gun. Not counting the number of people who simply turn and run when someone brandishes a gun, or who are held at gunpoint until the cops arrive. We slowed down a crazy guy trying to breack through our back door in the middle of the night, and did so by quickly displaying a gun. Still took the cops a long time to show up... and he would have been through that glass and into the house if not for even his drug-addled brain recognizing the deterrent being showed to him at 3:00AM. I'm very glad that no magic battery-powered wrist transmitter was required. I would never rely on such a device. It's crazy.
Pelosi ... They need a villain
I only mention her in that context because she actually is a villain. Mentioning her doesn't make sides, it points out that she's on a "side" that is mendacious, toxic to liberty, and just generally cloying in its Nanny State sensibilities. That "side" on which she sits is what it is. And the majority of the people in the country specifically disapprove of both her position on policies and her legislative tactics. And since she stares in the camera with that creepy unblinking gaze and lies about those exact things, she's a villain. I don't have to apologize for using her name in exactly that way, because I'm actually being generous.
I think you'd be hardpressed to explain why a government sponsored institution (all corporations) should be allowed to do what a government cannot.
That corporation (formed by people, without whom it would not exist) can do things the government cannot for the same reasons that individual people (just like groups of them acting in concert) can also do things the government cannot. The constitution is all about the things the government cannot do.
Or can I not eat a hamburger without a corporation providing 20 references?
That's exactly why there's a centuries-old tradition of writing travelogs, and having private parties whose reviews you can trust. That's why Consumer Reports and UL have thrived for decades, and why we don't have the Federal Department Of Restaurant Ratings.
Imagine, for a second, the CEO of GE decides to screw his shareholders and board of directors, and to throw a billion dollars at the next campaign cycle
That's already the case. It's called "NBC News" and "MSNBC" et al. That's a big part of why Obama got elected. The difference is that a company actually buying political ads or making donations has to go on the record in doing so, whereas GE just spun the news on NBC, just as was done on every other media outlet. Since most of them spun towards the left as usual, you get what you get. Buying ads is an entirely different matter. Because... they're ads. Buying all of the news coverage provided by half a dozen networks requires a lot more effort - though that clearly paid off.
where one side decided it really didn't want to run a proper campaign
Right, that's all there was to it. Had nothing to do with the issues, no, not at all.
Never mind that she was hugely up in the polls right up until her party's leaders announced a couple more attrocious back-room deals on the monstrosity of a bill they were trying to push, and she didn't show any indication of disapproving. And he did. And the polls switched, immediately, to him. That wasn't an abberation, that was substance. And that's all it takes.
companies don't have to disclose contributions in advance
... why shouldn't the guy and his wife that incorporated to start a BBQ joint be able to run an ad saying that perhaps this guy shouldn't be elected?
So, why would you invest in a company that has a board of directors you don't trust? Why would you hold onto stock in a company that operates according to principles with which you disagree?
And - just to be clear, here - most corporations aren't publicly held anyway. Most are small operations, privately held. If a candiate is swearing that their purpose in life is to get elected and outlaw (for example) restaurants that serve pork
When a politician's means of becoming elected (money) is provided by a sole source, and is stable over a long enough period (their career), provided that the politician does what the provider wants, then what incentive does the politician have to listen to anyone else?
Who cares? All he needs is competition that points out how non-representative that relationship is, and enough voters who agree. The one-track-mind politician goes away. The person who just lost the Senate race in Massachusetts was on the receiving end of tons of focused campaign cash, and emergency panic landing by Air Force One in her race, and the all-out attempts by her party's political machine to give her the seat that her party's have-it-for-life predecessor had for decades. A guy with much less cash but with a better message and some hustle pointed out the substantial differences between them, and she lost. That's the incentive.
But that's not really what it's about. It's about corporations that you own stock in having the unlimited ability to donate your money achieve political goals you disagree with.
I see. And you were forced to buy stock in such a company how? And prevented from selling your stock in such a company how? Ah.
Like a labor union could outspend some corporation...
So, you've got labor unions (and unions of unions) that have hundreds of thousands of members (think SEIU, for example), and you've got corporations made up of ten people. Are you even listening to yourself?
And the general welfare is not served by allowing the rights of one group of people to trample over another, simply because the one group has more money or influence.
How is a campaign donation a trampling of someone's rights? What is a person being blocked from doing because someone else has made a publicly viewable campaign donation? Be specific.
Yes, it's much better if we let the earlier poster continue to propogate the notion that we have no rights unless we get them from Nancy Pelosi. That's a much better idea.
If your purchasing of that advertisement threatens the fundamentals of democracy, than it is absolutely the purview of the government to limit such purchases
Straw man argument. Are you suggesting that libelous ads or slander are somehow now protected because they are bought/run by a labor union or group of people that have formed a company? How does free (non-libelous, non-fraudulant) speech threaten democracy? I can, though, think of a lot of ways that silencing speech does that.
Ah. And your rights to donate campaign money (which is, to the penny, open to all public scrutiny and reporting), or the ability of you and your business partner to do the same - you think that's "corporatism?"
Regardless, here's an actual definition of Fascism (rather than a comment from a brutal dictator, which you seem to prefer):
Fasicm: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
So, if a labor union wants to donate - in a publicly viewable way - money to Obama's campaign, or a plumbing company wants to donate to his opponent's, that plugs into the actual definition of that word how? I see. You'd prefer that speach were suppressed, in the name of freedom. Thank you, Mr. Orwell.
The U(F)SA is now a de facto fascist state.
(citation needed)
Or, perhaps just a functioning definition of the word "fascist," which you clearly don't have. Idiot.
We need to replace the "conservatives" on the supreme court who don't understand that corporations should not have the constitutional rights of citizens.
The constitution doesn't give you, or a business formed by you and a friend, any rights. The constitution is there to limit the government's ability to take those rights away. Being able to buy a newspaper advertisement or broadcast an advertisement isn't something that the goverment should be able to prevent you (or the company you've formed) from doing. Likewise for labor unions, advocacy groups, churches, scouting troops, bowling leagues, open source code projects, or anyone else.
I'm always amazed at how many misguided people think their rights come from the government. That explains a lot about why statists like Pelosi and Reid think they have so much more traction than they really do. Don't give it to them, now matter how much you want the government to be your Nanny.
It was the first virtual world which I could see as real
Actually, the only phony two-dimensional portrayals in that film were Corporate Goons (tm) and the Evil U.S. Marines->Mercenaries (tm). I felt more of a credibility gulf between me and those characters than I did between me and the blue dudes.
such as respecting people's "religious" views even if you think they are silly
Why would a movie like Avatar help anyone respect religion? The Na'vi culture, as portrayed, is based on an actual, tangible, real aspect of their biology and their environment. So, it's not religious for them to speak in terms of their interconnectedness, etc., because it's real. This, as opposed to real-life religions here on earth, which are based on magical thinking, childish fantasy, and mostly on people who want social power and know perfectly well that the frameworks on which they've built their social clubs are pure fiction. See? What Cameron is really doing with Avatar is reminding you to look at your own religion and realize what a fake it is, and to get on with a life that derives its meaning from your own actions, based on reality, and not from the dream of post-death reward/punishment system that doesn't exist.
enough comma's for yah?
Not only enough commas, but a bonus! A completely wrong, extra apostrophe! I hereby assign you to an afternoon of reading "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss.
That is epic. If i had mod points I'd mod you up for having the coolest damn toaster on earth
No, he's a loser. My toaster is in low earth orbit.
toaster
Are you using some sort of programmable, logic-controlled toaster? I've never seen one that wasn't electro-mechanical. I highly doubt that your toaster, your clothes dryer, or your washing machine use a single watt when you're not actually running them.
Also: there are power strips/supplies with switches on them, so that you don't have to fuss over the wear and tear of actually unplugging things.
Until the government throws out special interest, lobyists, and other bogus groups ...
Out of curiosity, what do you suppose makes a special interest group special? Say that you and a hundred (or a hundred thousand) of your friends think it's really important to support net neutrality. And in the interests of making your point well heard and understood by busy, non-technical legislators, you collectively throw in a few dollars to pay someone to sit down over lunch with a parade of congressional representatives and senators (or their staffers) to make the issue - and the stakes - clear, in a consistent, readily vote-able way.
I guess that makes you an eeeevil special interest using eeeeeevil lobbyists to do your dark bidding, right? Why is it that when a group of people pool their resources to make a point, you no longer consider each of those people to be as valuable a citizen as yourself?
Or are people who talk to legislators about an agenda that actually matters to a large group of people somehow not legitimate, but people who rant in the streets, carry giant puppets, and look the other way when their buddy smashes the windows of the local Starbucks are just plain folks who should count more? Why?
Incidentally, I agree that these four years are going to be a fiscal (and otherwise) disaster. But it's because of people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and because of Obama's passivity that it will be so. He's an empty suit, just the way they like it.