Yup. The internet provided the entertainment distributors with its worst nightmare: a cheap channel where everyone can be a distributor. The RIAA/MPAA wants to return to the good old days of one-directional pipes. A smart network is the first requirement for this. Everything else is secondary. I hope the current organizations die out before they can push this through.
Personally, I think EA has two reasons to acquire Take Two: Remove 2k Sports as competitor, and get GTA in the process. 2K Sports was a major thorn in EA's side, as it forced EA to reduce the price of its sports game to 19.99 for a little while. That's $40 per game in lost revenue. Not all games would have sold, but I can guarantee you that this was a serious hit to EA's bottom line. I'd even argue that this deal, contrary to the one that paid nearly $1B for Bioware and Pandemic, will have a positive ROI within a few years, based on nothing but GTA profits and lack of competition from 2K Sports.
It's a bit different from the prisoners dilemma, as you can communicate via actions. Furthermore, the outcome is generally either all sides get nothing, or they slowly slog towards a semi-common goal. It's very rare that one side gets completely ahead, as that requires support from the other teams.
Nevertheless, you're right - it's impossible to know whether this approach would be any more successful than the current ones without actually implementing. Then again, I also think that it is only slightly different from what's currently being practiced by both sides, with the main difference being that positive actions are basically not rewarded.
It's a good question. Honestly, I don't know the answer to that. Yes, there are moral and psychological implications to that approach that are not very enticing. However, all I know is that the current approach isn't working, and that the other extreme of complete non-violent response (and I do consider erection of the security wall to be economic violence) is not really workable either (Ghandi didn't have to deal with religious fanatics). From the responses so far, the biggest problem with this approach that would prevent proper resolution is that rocket launch sites would be selected based on who in Palestine is disliked the most by terrorist. Random targets would resolve that issue, but then you are truly becoming your enemy.
I don't think there's really any good solution by now, as both sides think the other is out to get them, no matter what happens. I'd be more curious to see if any of the professionals involved have ever seriously considered this approach.
There are a number of games that you can play where the optimal result requires perfect cooperation between the different teams/players, but where individual greediness can lead to a significant individual gain. That individual gain of course comes at the expense of all other players.
There is a variant of this type of game that disallows communication between teams. It's been shown that with that setup, there is exactly one way to play: 1st round: no information is available, so assume maximal cooperation from all other teams, and play your turn accordingly. 2nd round: Reciprocate the other teams' play: if they played greedy, play greedy. If they played nice, play nice. 3rd round: repeat approach from round 2 until the end.
The logic behind this is that greedy players will only play nice when they see the exact consequences of their actions imposed on themselves, and when they see that playing nice is rewarded.
Applied to the Israel/Palestine conflict, it could mean that the appropriate response to random rocket launches is an immediate retaliatory strike with equal destructive power, aimed at the source of the rockets. On the other hand, the appropriate response to suicide bombers is a little more fuzzy. Send in robot-bombers? Drop a bomb in a random place? Also, it is unclear what the positive feedback for no rocket launches or suicide bombers would be. Resume normal conditions? Stay put? Unlock frozen support funds for hamas?
I definitely think though that Palestinians in general have to understand that rockets being launched from their territory means that rockets will be launched against them in general as well. It'd be difficult to implement, as it's a completely different approach to dealing with rocket attacks and suicide bombers: personal responsibility and punishment is out, collective punishment is in. Not to mention that a lot of the current preventive measures would have to go out the window as well.
I doubt that anybody in Israel has the courage to experiment with that.
Another way this approach was discredited: at the place of birth, the gravitational field of the delivering doctor is greater than the gravitational field of Neptune.
Wow. I expected the "go somewhere else" reply, but the "it ain't real"? I just hope you never come down with anything like it. Otherwise, I can come up with a few methods that will kill you, and that involve nothing illegal on my side.
It 100% isn't that cut and dry. My girlfriend suffers from severe asthma. Outside, yes, it's possible for her to move her ass. Inside, while sitting a table having lunch? It's basically impossible, and she can't be within 10 feet of a smoker without having difficulties breathing. So whose personal liberty takes precedent? Hers to breathe freely? Someone elses to smoke? Who should get up and go somewhere else?
I watch plenty of TV without paying directly for it. It's called over-the-air. Here's the point that you're missing: it is impossible for me to determine whether an open URL was supposed to be open or was simply the result of stupid design. I refuse to get into the business of second-guessing web-site operators whether their web-design monkeys knew what they were doing or were simply throwing shit at the wall. Or do you want me to call up CmdrTaco to check whether I really, really do have access to all the public URLs on slashdot.org?
Here's the second point that you're missing: there's something called civility and accountability. If you screw up, I expect you to take responsibility for screwing up and fixing whatever it is that needs to be fixed. I might help you fix your screw-up if you ask me nicely. I will not help you if you're being a dick.
In short: MobiTV screwed up, big time. When they try to fix their crap by blaming me, I will just give them the finger and try to screw them out of as much revenue as I can. Sadly, I don't own a phone or a browser that recognizes these URLs, otherwise I'd be all over it.
I think what Schneier is saying is that two people in different power structures exchanging the same information (exchanging names during a traffic stop, etc.) does not lead to equal power. Instead, the exchange of information needs to be directed in such a fashion that it negates the pre-existing differences in power structures.
However, I do believe that his example was indeed poorly chosen. If both the kid and the police had walked away with the recording of the initial conversation, the police would not have had the power to do what it attempted to do during the prosecution: commit perjury with no risk of discovery of said perjury. Instead, what I think Schneier is getting at is that in order to diminish power differences between government officials and regular citizens, government officials need to be subjected to greater scrutiny than regular citizens. In other words, while citizens might be monitored on streets and have their phones tapped, government officials ought to be monitored 24/7 with the feed available in real-time to the public.
This is an obvious exaggeration and fraught with problems (do I really want to see Senator Larry Craig have sex with other men in a bathroom?), but the point is that equal access to similar data is not enough when the different parties start at different power levels. Instead, data access needs to be constructed in such a way that it reduces existing power differences. This requires that the party that starts with less institutional power needs to be able to access more data about the other party.
It is also one of the cheapest ways to expand living space in your home.
Correction: it is one of the cheapest ways to expand living space if you don't have the space to just slap on an extension, or put something on top of the garage. There are pretty much two reasons why basements exist: surface space is too limited to expand there, and to provide cheap protection from atmospheric effects (whether it's temperature or wind - or bombs, if you happened to live in Europe).
Aside from that, basements are a pain. If your house is on a hill, you need to make sure that it's completely waterproofed. Otherwise, water pressure on the hill side will make it a permanent water tank. You need proper ventilation if you want to have people stay in there for extended periods. Lack of natural light makes it a depressing place, unless its use precludes natural light anyway (home theater, for example). My parents have exactly two uses for basements: storage of wine, pickles and various food stuffs, and storage of anything unsightly and kinda smelly (water boilers, oil furnace, grandma's old luggage contents, etc.).
Actually, technology has changed business models. What do you think all the hoopla around end-user content creation is all about? Technology has lowered the barrier of entry into distribution (around which business models in creative arts are centered) to damn near zero, and the cost of copying is for all intents and purposes zero. As a result of this, everyone can be a publisher, distributor and copy-creator. This removes a very large chunk of the raison d'etre for publishers and distributors. And which is one of the main drivers of all the recent copyright changes.
The Ars article got a few things wrong, but this wasn't one of them.
The Ghost in the Shell series had an interesting take on how people would deal with global and instant surveillance: hacks that directly affected observers, be they cameras or people with sight implants. I doubt that it will be possible to reverse the accumulation of observers, and hence the accumulation of power in those who have access to that data. The easier solution - as far-fetched as it may be - is to directly reduce the effectiveness of the observation methods.
Hoodies and generic clothes are one approach. The next is active camouflage. The final is direct tampering of what is being observed.
And which is why you see her turning to Florida and Michigan, who had their delegates revoked because of their early primary, and the superdelegates, who will be happy to engage in all kinds of tit for tat.
This race is far from over. And it has nothing to do with the actual voting, but all to do with what kind of backroom deals Hillary can swing. Personally, I was disgusted when I heard the governor of Ohio support her because "she proved she can win in a swing state". Because apparently, beating Obama is the same as beating McCain. The only thing that I can figure that happened here is that the governor figured that it was more important to his career to make Hillary happy than it was to make Obama happy.
You missed one key concept with the panopticon: the surveillance device is accessible only to authority, not to inmates. With Google Street View - and every example you mentioned - the inmates have access to the same surveillance info. Not to mention that authority itself can be subjected to surveillance.
I'd say that rather than the panopticon, the situation is evolving into a true global village, with the complete loss of anonymity that used to go along with living in a village.
All I can say to this is: you're driving too close to the person in front of you. To me, the safety issue isn't that people do stupid things you can't predict, but that people think the proper distance between two cars traveling at 50 mph is less than a car length (to prevent others from cutting in front of you, of course). Accidents would dramatically decrease once people actually keep the proper 150 feet of distance when traveling at those speeds. That way, if something unexpected does happen, YOU can control what happens to YOU.
And while I'm waiting for that, I'd like a pony, too.
Don't read the stories that don't interest you. If you find that there's no reason left to read slashdot, don't read it. But don't expect it to cater exactly to your wants and needs. Personally, I couldn't care less about the latest hissy fit between RMS and Theo, the latest Ballmer antics, or most of the other crap you listed. Why should Slashdot cater to you rather than me?
I know my personal threshold for when I'll stop reading it. I've seen a few stories that make me question what editors were smoking. But I take serious offense when people try to pretend that their view of geekdom is the only valid one, and that slashdot should only cater to their exact view of it.
Andd btw, there's no confusion about Family Guy being geek. If you would have watched more than one or two episodes, you'd know that it is chock-full of geek humor, geek issues and geek cred.
In short, hand in your geek card, sign up for a frat, and stand in line for initiation paddling.
Actually, the reason I love to ask riddles is that I want to see if people can think. I really don't care about the solution. The point of the riddle is not whether you know the answer, it is to see the thought process that a person uses to solve a problem. I'll take an answer of "I'll google it" in the case of known problems, I'll take an answer of "I'll ask someone who knows" - I'll pretty much take anything short of "I don't know" or a bullshit answer.
There are really two things I look for in an interview: do they know what they say they know and can they think on their own. Bonus if they're personable. Everything else can be taught or looked up.
Uh..... You sure you posted this in the right place? Nowhere did I say that windpower comes at no cost. Nor that removing energy from a weather system will have no impact on the local climate. Not to mention that I'd like to see a source for your number of bird kills. I haven't seen any exact statistics.
You have interesting questions, but.... that post was just a complete non sequitur.
So if decreasing sea ice proves global warming, wouldn't increasing sea ice DISprove global warming? I mean, I am not a climatologist and all, but I am a thinker.
Apparently, you slept through the theory of science in philosophy. A single data point doesn't prove squat. In either direction. If you're looking for trends, you need to look at series of data points.
Furthermore, to know whether a trend will continue in the future, you need to understand the driving mechanisms behind it. If current theories for Global Warming show no natural upper bound, and if the numbers predicted by those theories match collected data more closely than anything else, then the current numbers are cause for concern.
Then again, I doubt that makes a difference to you. What with not understanding climatology, but still willing to make grand pronounciations on whether climate models are right or wrong.
Average temperatures during one year differs from average temperature during previous year. Shocking, I know. So when next year's average temperature will be higher than this year's, does that mean that Global Warming is true? Or simply that a trend consists of more than one data point?
Just out of curiosity - what's your opinion on off-shoring? I sure hope your attitude isn't borne of a "not my problem" syndrome, and that you're fully committed to accepting all consequences of your statement.
Yes, because solar and wind farms are built in forests. Good grief, have you ever seen any of these? They are located: - off-shore - on ridges - in plains with heavy prevailing winds - in deserts - on rooftops
In short, no place that actually needs to be cleared of anything. Not to mention that building ANYTHING requires the use of fossil fuels. ESPECIALLY your precious nuclear plants, whose fuel has to be dug out of mines with giant excavation equipment.
Seriously. There are plenty of reasons to rail against Gore and environmentalists, but your reasons are not part of it. Not to mention that they make absolutely no sense.
Can't believe someone actually modded you insightful. Scratch that, if one person out of a couple of thousand can be idiotic enough to miss the foot icon, 3 people can too.
The only one who is looking like an idiot is every last person complaining about flash, (flashblock), specific stories (filter) or the quality of posters (Pot, meet Kettle).
It means that ISPs intercept server requests and redirect the user to a different server. In this particular case, you're right - whether I get Firefox to display a 404 message or a page from RR, Verizon or any DSL that essentially says "This site doesn't exist, but try searching through here" doesn't matter to me. I'll just type the address in again.
However, there is one instance where this issue matters right now: a lot of site monitoring still relies on pings or basic server lookups to figure out whether the server is up and running. This feature would immediately screw with that kind of monitoring. Basically, you cannot assume anymore that because a dns lookup or a ping returns a positive result that the server with that hostname is actually alive or in the DNS tables. Yes, there are ways around that, but it basically breaks one of the central tenets of the internet: the intelligence is on the edge of the network, and everything in between is just a packet forwarder.
More significantly though is that it redirects a user to a place that wasn't requested. Basically, it means that from a technological perspective, this no different than RR or Verizon taking my request to www.google.com and redirecting it to their own search page. See why this can easily become a very, very big deal? I can guarantee you that this is a trial balloon by the ISPs to see how users react to this. If this goes through, expect that at some point in the future, you will have to jump through hoops to get to the site you want, and not the site your ISP thinks you ought to want.
This is another problem that will most likely have to be enshrined in actual law: ISPs shall not take a request and redirect it elsewhere. The potential for and likelihood of abuse is just too large otherwise.
Welcome to the intelligent network. It'll be a nightmare.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. The internet provided the entertainment distributors with its worst nightmare: a cheap channel where everyone can be a distributor. The RIAA/MPAA wants to return to the good old days of one-directional pipes. A smart network is the first requirement for this. Everything else is secondary. I hope the current organizations die out before they can push this through.
Personally, I think EA has two reasons to acquire Take Two: Remove 2k Sports as competitor, and get GTA in the process. 2K Sports was a major thorn in EA's side, as it forced EA to reduce the price of its sports game to 19.99 for a little while. That's $40 per game in lost revenue. Not all games would have sold, but I can guarantee you that this was a serious hit to EA's bottom line. I'd even argue that this deal, contrary to the one that paid nearly $1B for Bioware and Pandemic, will have a positive ROI within a few years, based on nothing but GTA profits and lack of competition from 2K Sports.
It's a bit different from the prisoners dilemma, as you can communicate via actions. Furthermore, the outcome is generally either all sides get nothing, or they slowly slog towards a semi-common goal. It's very rare that one side gets completely ahead, as that requires support from the other teams.
Nevertheless, you're right - it's impossible to know whether this approach would be any more successful than the current ones without actually implementing. Then again, I also think that it is only slightly different from what's currently being practiced by both sides, with the main difference being that positive actions are basically not rewarded.
It's a good question. Honestly, I don't know the answer to that. Yes, there are moral and psychological implications to that approach that are not very enticing. However, all I know is that the current approach isn't working, and that the other extreme of complete non-violent response (and I do consider erection of the security wall to be economic violence) is not really workable either (Ghandi didn't have to deal with religious fanatics). From the responses so far, the biggest problem with this approach that would prevent proper resolution is that rocket launch sites would be selected based on who in Palestine is disliked the most by terrorist. Random targets would resolve that issue, but then you are truly becoming your enemy.
I don't think there's really any good solution by now, as both sides think the other is out to get them, no matter what happens. I'd be more curious to see if any of the professionals involved have ever seriously considered this approach.
There are a number of games that you can play where the optimal result requires perfect cooperation between the different teams/players, but where individual greediness can lead to a significant individual gain. That individual gain of course comes at the expense of all other players.
There is a variant of this type of game that disallows communication between teams. It's been shown that with that setup, there is exactly one way to play:
1st round: no information is available, so assume maximal cooperation from all other teams, and play your turn accordingly.
2nd round: Reciprocate the other teams' play: if they played greedy, play greedy. If they played nice, play nice.
3rd round: repeat approach from round 2 until the end.
The logic behind this is that greedy players will only play nice when they see the exact consequences of their actions imposed on themselves, and when they see that playing nice is rewarded.
Applied to the Israel/Palestine conflict, it could mean that the appropriate response to random rocket launches is an immediate retaliatory strike with equal destructive power, aimed at the source of the rockets. On the other hand, the appropriate response to suicide bombers is a little more fuzzy. Send in robot-bombers? Drop a bomb in a random place? Also, it is unclear what the positive feedback for no rocket launches or suicide bombers would be. Resume normal conditions? Stay put? Unlock frozen support funds for hamas?
I definitely think though that Palestinians in general have to understand that rockets being launched from their territory means that rockets will be launched against them in general as well. It'd be difficult to implement, as it's a completely different approach to dealing with rocket attacks and suicide bombers: personal responsibility and punishment is out, collective punishment is in. Not to mention that a lot of the current preventive measures would have to go out the window as well.
I doubt that anybody in Israel has the courage to experiment with that.
Another way this approach was discredited: at the place of birth, the gravitational field of the delivering doctor is greater than the gravitational field of Neptune.
Wow. I expected the "go somewhere else" reply, but the "it ain't real"? I just hope you never come down with anything like it. Otherwise, I can come up with a few methods that will kill you, and that involve nothing illegal on my side.
It 100% isn't that cut and dry. My girlfriend suffers from severe asthma. Outside, yes, it's possible for her to move her ass. Inside, while sitting a table having lunch? It's basically impossible, and she can't be within 10 feet of a smoker without having difficulties breathing. So whose personal liberty takes precedent? Hers to breathe freely? Someone elses to smoke? Who should get up and go somewhere else?
I watch plenty of TV without paying directly for it. It's called over-the-air. Here's the point that you're missing: it is impossible for me to determine whether an open URL was supposed to be open or was simply the result of stupid design. I refuse to get into the business of second-guessing web-site operators whether their web-design monkeys knew what they were doing or were simply throwing shit at the wall. Or do you want me to call up CmdrTaco to check whether I really, really do have access to all the public URLs on slashdot.org?
Here's the second point that you're missing: there's something called civility and accountability. If you screw up, I expect you to take responsibility for screwing up and fixing whatever it is that needs to be fixed. I might help you fix your screw-up if you ask me nicely. I will not help you if you're being a dick.
In short: MobiTV screwed up, big time. When they try to fix their crap by blaming me, I will just give them the finger and try to screw them out of as much revenue as I can. Sadly, I don't own a phone or a browser that recognizes these URLs, otherwise I'd be all over it.
I think what Schneier is saying is that two people in different power structures exchanging the same information (exchanging names during a traffic stop, etc.) does not lead to equal power. Instead, the exchange of information needs to be directed in such a fashion that it negates the pre-existing differences in power structures.
However, I do believe that his example was indeed poorly chosen. If both the kid and the police had walked away with the recording of the initial conversation, the police would not have had the power to do what it attempted to do during the prosecution: commit perjury with no risk of discovery of said perjury. Instead, what I think Schneier is getting at is that in order to diminish power differences between government officials and regular citizens, government officials need to be subjected to greater scrutiny than regular citizens. In other words, while citizens might be monitored on streets and have their phones tapped, government officials ought to be monitored 24/7 with the feed available in real-time to the public.
This is an obvious exaggeration and fraught with problems (do I really want to see Senator Larry Craig have sex with other men in a bathroom?), but the point is that equal access to similar data is not enough when the different parties start at different power levels. Instead, data access needs to be constructed in such a way that it reduces existing power differences. This requires that the party that starts with less institutional power needs to be able to access more data about the other party.
Correction: it is one of the cheapest ways to expand living space if you don't have the space to just slap on an extension, or put something on top of the garage. There are pretty much two reasons why basements exist: surface space is too limited to expand there, and to provide cheap protection from atmospheric effects (whether it's temperature or wind - or bombs, if you happened to live in Europe).
Aside from that, basements are a pain. If your house is on a hill, you need to make sure that it's completely waterproofed. Otherwise, water pressure on the hill side will make it a permanent water tank. You need proper ventilation if you want to have people stay in there for extended periods. Lack of natural light makes it a depressing place, unless its use precludes natural light anyway (home theater, for example). My parents have exactly two uses for basements: storage of wine, pickles and various food stuffs, and storage of anything unsightly and kinda smelly (water boilers, oil furnace, grandma's old luggage contents, etc.).
Actually, technology has changed business models. What do you think all the hoopla around end-user content creation is all about? Technology has lowered the barrier of entry into distribution (around which business models in creative arts are centered) to damn near zero, and the cost of copying is for all intents and purposes zero. As a result of this, everyone can be a publisher, distributor and copy-creator. This removes a very large chunk of the raison d'etre for publishers and distributors. And which is one of the main drivers of all the recent copyright changes.
The Ars article got a few things wrong, but this wasn't one of them.
The Ghost in the Shell series had an interesting take on how people would deal with global and instant surveillance: hacks that directly affected observers, be they cameras or people with sight implants. I doubt that it will be possible to reverse the accumulation of observers, and hence the accumulation of power in those who have access to that data. The easier solution - as far-fetched as it may be - is to directly reduce the effectiveness of the observation methods.
Hoodies and generic clothes are one approach. The next is active camouflage. The final is direct tampering of what is being observed.
And which is why you see her turning to Florida and Michigan, who had their delegates revoked because of their early primary, and the superdelegates, who will be happy to engage in all kinds of tit for tat.
This race is far from over. And it has nothing to do with the actual voting, but all to do with what kind of backroom deals Hillary can swing. Personally, I was disgusted when I heard the governor of Ohio support her because "she proved she can win in a swing state". Because apparently, beating Obama is the same as beating McCain. The only thing that I can figure that happened here is that the governor figured that it was more important to his career to make Hillary happy than it was to make Obama happy.
You missed one key concept with the panopticon: the surveillance device is accessible only to authority, not to inmates. With Google Street View - and every example you mentioned - the inmates have access to the same surveillance info. Not to mention that authority itself can be subjected to surveillance.
I'd say that rather than the panopticon, the situation is evolving into a true global village, with the complete loss of anonymity that used to go along with living in a village.
All I can say to this is: you're driving too close to the person in front of you. To me, the safety issue isn't that people do stupid things you can't predict, but that people think the proper distance between two cars traveling at 50 mph is less than a car length (to prevent others from cutting in front of you, of course). Accidents would dramatically decrease once people actually keep the proper 150 feet of distance when traveling at those speeds. That way, if something unexpected does happen, YOU can control what happens to YOU.
And while I'm waiting for that, I'd like a pony, too.
Don't read the stories that don't interest you. If you find that there's no reason left to read slashdot, don't read it. But don't expect it to cater exactly to your wants and needs. Personally, I couldn't care less about the latest hissy fit between RMS and Theo, the latest Ballmer antics, or most of the other crap you listed. Why should Slashdot cater to you rather than me?
I know my personal threshold for when I'll stop reading it. I've seen a few stories that make me question what editors were smoking. But I take serious offense when people try to pretend that their view of geekdom is the only valid one, and that slashdot should only cater to their exact view of it.
Andd btw, there's no confusion about Family Guy being geek. If you would have watched more than one or two episodes, you'd know that it is chock-full of geek humor, geek issues and geek cred.
In short, hand in your geek card, sign up for a frat, and stand in line for initiation paddling.
Actually, the reason I love to ask riddles is that I want to see if people can think. I really don't care about the solution. The point of the riddle is not whether you know the answer, it is to see the thought process that a person uses to solve a problem. I'll take an answer of "I'll google it" in the case of known problems, I'll take an answer of "I'll ask someone who knows" - I'll pretty much take anything short of "I don't know" or a bullshit answer.
There are really two things I look for in an interview: do they know what they say they know and can they think on their own. Bonus if they're personable. Everything else can be taught or looked up.
Uh..... You sure you posted this in the right place? Nowhere did I say that windpower comes at no cost. Nor that removing energy from a weather system will have no impact on the local climate. Not to mention that I'd like to see a source for your number of bird kills. I haven't seen any exact statistics.
You have interesting questions, but.... that post was just a complete non sequitur.
Apparently, you slept through the theory of science in philosophy. A single data point doesn't prove squat. In either direction. If you're looking for trends, you need to look at series of data points.
Furthermore, to know whether a trend will continue in the future, you need to understand the driving mechanisms behind it. If current theories for Global Warming show no natural upper bound, and if the numbers predicted by those theories match collected data more closely than anything else, then the current numbers are cause for concern.
Then again, I doubt that makes a difference to you. What with not understanding climatology, but still willing to make grand pronounciations on whether climate models are right or wrong.
Average temperatures during one year differs from average temperature during previous year. Shocking, I know. So when next year's average temperature will be higher than this year's, does that mean that Global Warming is true? Or simply that a trend consists of more than one data point?
Just out of curiosity - what's your opinion on off-shoring? I sure hope your attitude isn't borne of a "not my problem" syndrome, and that you're fully committed to accepting all consequences of your statement.
Yes, because solar and wind farms are built in forests. Good grief, have you ever seen any of these? They are located:
- off-shore
- on ridges
- in plains with heavy prevailing winds
- in deserts
- on rooftops
In short, no place that actually needs to be cleared of anything. Not to mention that building ANYTHING requires the use of fossil fuels. ESPECIALLY your precious nuclear plants, whose fuel has to be dug out of mines with giant excavation equipment.
Seriously. There are plenty of reasons to rail against Gore and environmentalists, but your reasons are not part of it. Not to mention that they make absolutely no sense.
Can't believe someone actually modded you insightful. Scratch that, if one person out of a couple of thousand can be idiotic enough to miss the foot icon, 3 people can too.
The only one who is looking like an idiot is every last person complaining about flash, (flashblock), specific stories (filter) or the quality of posters (Pot, meet Kettle).
Now get off my lawn.
It means that ISPs intercept server requests and redirect the user to a different server. In this particular case, you're right - whether I get Firefox to display a 404 message or a page from RR, Verizon or any DSL that essentially says "This site doesn't exist, but try searching through here" doesn't matter to me. I'll just type the address in again.
However, there is one instance where this issue matters right now: a lot of site monitoring still relies on pings or basic server lookups to figure out whether the server is up and running. This feature would immediately screw with that kind of monitoring. Basically, you cannot assume anymore that because a dns lookup or a ping returns a positive result that the server with that hostname is actually alive or in the DNS tables. Yes, there are ways around that, but it basically breaks one of the central tenets of the internet: the intelligence is on the edge of the network, and everything in between is just a packet forwarder.
More significantly though is that it redirects a user to a place that wasn't requested. Basically, it means that from a technological perspective, this no different than RR or Verizon taking my request to www.google.com and redirecting it to their own search page. See why this can easily become a very, very big deal? I can guarantee you that this is a trial balloon by the ISPs to see how users react to this. If this goes through, expect that at some point in the future, you will have to jump through hoops to get to the site you want, and not the site your ISP thinks you ought to want.
This is another problem that will most likely have to be enshrined in actual law: ISPs shall not take a request and redirect it elsewhere. The potential for and likelihood of abuse is just too large otherwise.
Welcome to the intelligent network. It'll be a nightmare.