I have a 2007 Prius subject to the recall. The mats are held down via two hooks that stick out of the floor at the rear edge. I find it hard to believe that they could slide forward at all.
Got plastic floor mat covers (the ones used to protect the floor mats from mud)? These don't have holes where the hooks are. They can slip forward. I drilled holes in mine to solve the problem.
What I really don't understand is how the car continues to accelerate when people have both feet on the brakes. I have tried this with two BMWs - floor the throttle and step on the brake. The brakes win every time.
I'm guessing the cars that have the problem don't close the throttle when the brake is pressed. I don't know about BMWs, but I think the nature of a hybrid design implies the throttle will close when you step on the brake; I would imagine a drive-by-wire conventional engine would do this, too.
I agree on the drive-by-wire not being inherently more dangerous. Just a different set of failure modes which may or may not lead to greater risk.
I had sudden acceleration twice in my Prius. It was due to the floor mat -- or to be exact, to the plastic floor mat cover, which did not have holes where the anchor hooks are that hold the floor mats in place. After the second time, I drilled a pair of holes in that sucker and these now sit over the same two hooks that hold the floor mat in place. It hasn't happened again in the (I'm guessing) three years since I did that.
But my point about the drive-by-wire is this: Not only did it not play a role in causing the sudden acceleration, in my case anyway, but as soon as I put my foot on the brake pedal, the engine stopped revving. If there had been a mechnical linkage to the throttle, then getting out of trouble would have been more difficult.
Didn't believe you at first, but I got my EEE900 and a pair of cargo shorts, and sure enough...but it's a tight fit, I can't snap the pocket shut over the netbook, and I don't think it'd be comfortable carrying that kind of weight in my pocket for more than a very short time.
You are are restricted with what you can do with your private property in so far as it might cause injury to someone else or their property. This kind of comparison is not apt for ISPs because a business relationship exists between the ISP and the their customer which either party may voluntarily terminate at any time.
Sorry, I have to call bullshit. "Because a business relationship exists" does not excuse bad behavior. Any provision in a contract that allows illegal behavior by one of the parties is void. So if the government lays down the law requiring net neutrality, I get protection that my contract alone doesn't provide, and that is a good thing. Also, my ISP does not have a business relationship with the sites I visit, so even if you wanted to use the business relationship as an excuse for discriminating against their packets, you couldn't. You seem to think the customer will be the only victim.
In all your examples, people are doing something anti-social that causes harm to another.
Any non-neutral behavior by an ISP is an act of aggression. No better than someone blocking my driveway.
What are ISPs going to do that warrants the formation of a new set of regulatory rules? Why not wait for them to start doing those things before we make new regulations?
Some such as Comcast are certainly testing the waters. The party previously in power in the US has signaled that non-neutrality is OK, a dangerous position. It will be good to define the boundaries now, rather than wait for an experimentation phase to settle out. Otherwise, we'll have the results of that old adage, "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission".
If the road were owned by a private company (and that is sometimes the case, for example in gated communities or condominium developments), it wouldn't matter. You'd still not be entitled to block my driveway.
We limit what you are allowed to do with a car or with a gun, even though you may own such things.
We also require easements for things like public access to beaches when private property stands between a road and the public part of the beach. These are well-established legal traditions in many states and countries (IIRC it goes back to the Romans). I believe it's codified in both Oregon and California, and I would guess other states as well. In my view, the goal of network neutrality is not very different from a public easement.
A big problem with your "They get the authority to do so from their ability to do so" is that the government has the ability to regulate commerce, therefore by your own argument they have the very authority you want to deny. They have the authority, but it comes from the Constitution (in the US, at least), not from "because we can". If you want to change the fundamental legal structure of society (and get rid of all those pesky easements and laws against blocking driveways or shooting people), you'll need something stronger to go on.
Sorry, that was me...I wasn't logged in at the time. And I still feel your question was disingenuous. I'm using standard English and don't feel I should have to provide definitions for common terms.
I brought up public libraries to illustrate why your fish analogy doesn't work. You are saying websites are analogous to fish in a stream. I'm saying they are analogous to books in a library. Nobody owns the Internet. It is like a public library.
The Internet as a whole forms a commons. Nobody is forced to connect their network to the commons, but most do because there is a mutual benefit. Much of that benefit would be lost if private parties (ISPs) are allowed unreasonable control over access, giving preferential treatment to some content providers over others.
Even if you want to go the route of insisting that the sites on the Internet don't constitute a public resource because they are privately owned, I have to point out that nearly every website I visit is *not* owned by my ISP. Ownership of a portion of the pipes doesn't give them a legal right to control access to other portions of the pipes. The signs held by protesters in a public park are owned by them and not by the public; does that mean someone who owns land between me and that venue should be allowed to make if difficult for me to get to that park? Or to use a car analogy, just because you own your car, are you entitled to park it so as to block my driveway? That is why I'm not satisfied with your original answer that "They get the authority to do so from their ability to do so. That's what the concept of property is all about".
If you care to try to rebut my statement, go ahead. But don't ask disingenuous questions. I'm here to express and exchange opinions, not to waste my time wrangling over definitions.
Well, yes, but in that case we are talking about the device being lost, stolen, or confiscated. Simply changing the bootloader on said device does not give access to the encrypted volume.
GP is correct, there should be no supposition that encrypted drives are inherently safe from physical attacks that take place while you are merely away from the system for a while.
Either these companies own their Internet infrastructure or they don't. The net neutrality people are essentially saying that they don't.
No, they are saying that when private parties have the power to prevent or limit access to public resources, then that is undue power, and therefore it is a power in need of regulation. Property conveys privilege, which is fine, but it should never convey undue power over others. That is why we give the government power to regulate commerce. Once you place your property into a commercial venture, you are subject to that power. That has never meant that it is no longer your property. Now in this context, it suddenly does?
The "sustainable" part of "sustainable free society" comes from government.
Any mechanism you put in place to guarantee sustainability (i.e., that no factions can arise that have undue power over others) is a de facto government.
Of course, there are plenty of governments that came about to sustain powerful factions (aristocracies, plutocracies, oligarchies, monarchies). The ideal of liberalism is to avoid such governments (seems to be very difficult to achieve, though).
In return for the privileges that corporations receive (and for the inherent power they gain over individuals), some price has to be paid. Regulating commerce is exactly one of the things we the people (in an enlightened liberal state) specifically empower government to do.
This would hold even if the pipes were not subsidized with public money.
Of the 16 people tested, six people -- over a third -- thought Sky Songs ('version B') was the higher-quality audio. Conversely, ten people identified Spotify ('version A') as being the higher-quality track.
That means 16 out of 16 did report a difference, which is a long way from "1/3 of people can't tell the difference". I actually wouldn't be surprised if 1/3 couldn't, though, because practically everyone loses high-frequency hearing as they age, and probably 1/3 of people are old enough to be affected by that.
Of course, the tiny sample size speaks for itself...
Slashdot Mirror
How is it any less of a religion
Just a wild guess, but maybe lack of the supernatural has something to do with it?
Hmm, girlintraining is a guy?
Water beats rock every time.
No, paper beats rock. There's no water in the game.
We don't need this particular "innovation". The value of the Internet is enhanced by its openness.
I have a 2007 Prius subject to the recall. The mats are held down via two hooks that stick out of the floor at the rear edge. I find it hard to believe that they could slide forward at all.
Got plastic floor mat covers (the ones used to protect the floor mats from mud)? These don't have holes where the hooks are. They can slip forward. I drilled holes in mine to solve the problem.
What I really don't understand is how the car continues to accelerate when people have both feet on the brakes. I have tried this with two BMWs - floor the throttle and step on the brake. The brakes win every time.
I'm guessing the cars that have the problem don't close the throttle when the brake is pressed. I don't know about BMWs, but I think the nature of a hybrid design implies the throttle will close when you step on the brake; I would imagine a drive-by-wire conventional engine would do this, too.
I agree on the drive-by-wire not being inherently more dangerous. Just a different set of failure modes which may or may not lead to greater risk.
I had sudden acceleration twice in my Prius. It was due to the floor mat -- or to be exact, to the plastic floor mat cover, which did not have holes where the anchor hooks are that hold the floor mats in place. After the second time, I drilled a pair of holes in that sucker and these now sit over the same two hooks that hold the floor mat in place. It hasn't happened again in the (I'm guessing) three years since I did that.
But my point about the drive-by-wire is this: Not only did it not play a role in causing the sudden acceleration, in my case anyway, but as soon as I put my foot on the brake pedal, the engine stopped revving. If there had been a mechnical linkage to the throttle, then getting out of trouble would have been more difficult.
Didn't believe you at first, but I got my EEE900 and a pair of cargo shorts, and sure enough...but it's a tight fit, I can't snap the pocket shut over the netbook, and I don't think it'd be comfortable carrying that kind of weight in my pocket for more than a very short time.
You are are restricted with what you can do with your private property in so far as it might cause injury to someone else or their property. This kind of comparison is not apt for ISPs because a business relationship exists between the ISP and the their customer which either party may voluntarily terminate at any time.
Sorry, I have to call bullshit. "Because a business relationship exists" does not excuse bad behavior. Any provision in a contract that allows illegal behavior by one of the parties is void. So if the government lays down the law requiring net neutrality, I get protection that my contract alone doesn't provide, and that is a good thing. Also, my ISP does not have a business relationship with the sites I visit, so even if you wanted to use the business relationship as an excuse for discriminating against their packets, you couldn't. You seem to think the customer will be the only victim.
In all your examples, people are doing something anti-social that causes harm to another.
Any non-neutral behavior by an ISP is an act of aggression. No better than someone blocking my driveway.
What are ISPs going to do that warrants the formation of a new set of regulatory rules? Why not wait for them to start doing those things before we make new regulations?
Some such as Comcast are certainly testing the waters. The party previously in power in the US has signaled that non-neutrality is OK, a dangerous position. It will be good to define the boundaries now, rather than wait for an experimentation phase to settle out. Otherwise, we'll have the results of that old adage, "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission".
If the road were owned by a private company (and that is sometimes the case, for example in gated communities or condominium developments), it wouldn't matter. You'd still not be entitled to block my driveway.
We limit what you are allowed to do with a car or with a gun, even though you may own such things.
We also require easements for things like public access to beaches when private property stands between a road and the public part of the beach. These are well-established legal traditions in many states and countries (IIRC it goes back to the Romans). I believe it's codified in both Oregon and California, and I would guess other states as well. In my view, the goal of network neutrality is not very different from a public easement.
A big problem with your "They get the authority to do so from their ability to do so" is that the government has the ability to regulate commerce, therefore by your own argument they have the very authority you want to deny. They have the authority, but it comes from the Constitution (in the US, at least), not from "because we can". If you want to change the fundamental legal structure of society (and get rid of all those pesky easements and laws against blocking driveways or shooting people), you'll need something stronger to go on.
Sorry, that was me...I wasn't logged in at the time. And I still feel your question was disingenuous. I'm using standard English and don't feel I should have to provide definitions for common terms.
I brought up public libraries to illustrate why your fish analogy doesn't work. You are saying websites are analogous to fish in a stream. I'm saying they are analogous to books in a library. Nobody owns the Internet. It is like a public library.
The Internet as a whole forms a commons. Nobody is forced to connect their network to the commons, but most do because there is a mutual benefit. Much of that benefit would be lost if private parties (ISPs) are allowed unreasonable control over access, giving preferential treatment to some content providers over others.
Even if you want to go the route of insisting that the sites on the Internet don't constitute a public resource because they are privately owned, I have to point out that nearly every website I visit is *not* owned by my ISP. Ownership of a portion of the pipes doesn't give them a legal right to control access to other portions of the pipes. The signs held by protesters in a public park are owned by them and not by the public; does that mean someone who owns land between me and that venue should be allowed to make if difficult for me to get to that park? Or to use a car analogy, just because you own your car, are you entitled to park it so as to block my driveway? That is why I'm not satisfied with your original answer that "They get the authority to do so from their ability to do so. That's what the concept of property is all about".
The meaning of that last sentence would shift if "only" modified "twice a day", instead of "to use".
Do you honestly require a definition?
If you care to try to rebut my statement, go ahead. But don't ask disingenuous questions. I'm here to express and exchange opinions, not to waste my time wrangling over definitions.
For a very real example with ATMs: Lebanese Loop.
Well, yes, but in that case we are talking about the device being lost, stolen, or confiscated. Simply changing the bootloader on said device does not give access to the encrypted volume.
GP is correct, there should be no supposition that encrypted drives are inherently safe from physical attacks that take place while you are merely away from the system for a while.
Either these companies own their Internet infrastructure or they don't. The net neutrality people are essentially saying that they don't.
No, they are saying that when private parties have the power to prevent or limit access to public resources, then that is undue power, and therefore it is a power in need of regulation. Property conveys privilege, which is fine, but it should never convey undue power over others. That is why we give the government power to regulate commerce. Once you place your property into a commercial venture, you are subject to that power. That has never meant that it is no longer your property. Now in this context, it suddenly does?
The "sustainable" part of "sustainable free society" comes from government.
Any mechanism you put in place to guarantee sustainability (i.e., that no factions can arise that have undue power over others) is a de facto government.
Of course, there are plenty of governments that came about to sustain powerful factions (aristocracies, plutocracies, oligarchies, monarchies). The ideal of liberalism is to avoid such governments (seems to be very difficult to achieve, though).
Aside from the fact that you need to learn to spell "neutral"...
Does this mean libertarians believe you are free to use your "property" to regulate access to public resources?
What, in the mind of the libertarian, did you do to deserve such power?
sequel to Venus on the Half Shell
Why not?
whatcouldpossiblygowrong?
In return for the privileges that corporations receive (and for the inherent power they gain over individuals), some price has to be paid. Regulating commerce is exactly one of the things we the people (in an enlightened liberal state) specifically empower government to do.
This would hold even if the pipes were not subsidized with public money.
Of the 16 people tested, six people -- over a third -- thought Sky Songs ('version B') was the higher-quality audio. Conversely, ten people identified Spotify ('version A') as being the higher-quality track.
That means 16 out of 16 did report a difference, which is a long way from "1/3 of people can't tell the difference". I actually wouldn't be surprised if 1/3 couldn't, though, because practically everyone loses high-frequency hearing as they age, and probably 1/3 of people are old enough to be affected by that.
Of course, the tiny sample size speaks for itself...
(as with Sir Robin's minstrels)
Please do not start an article (or summary of an article) with "It", even if the referent appears in the title.
s/pillows/pillars
s/smoting/smiting
Disproving the Bible, in whole or in part, does not disprove the existence of diving being(s).
I know such beings exist; I've seen them in the Olympics.