It's understandable to think that it's a crazy price for this. I don't know the specifics of the funding from the government, but usually initial high prices are the result of years of research and development. That R&D has to be paid for some how.
Now, that's not to say that the "government" has never paid stupid amounts of money for things like toilet seats and hammers, but in the case of medicine it's usually justified. Again, I don't know the details but this is usually the case for this sort of thing.
There are similar remedies that until recently were too costly to give to the public, surgical glue based bandages for one. Now you can get them at the grocery store for just a little more than traditional bandages.
This is just like any new technology, like LCD displays. Eventually the R&D will be paid for, and they will be produced in quantities that will become acceptable for the average person to purchase.
I wonder how this will affect those allergic to seafood or shellfish? I know a few people that that are deathly allergic to shrimp, would the military one be able to use this on those that have been screened? Could it cause more harm that good? The technology sounds very interesting though.
The ITU does not regulate phone service, they simply facilitate standards within the systems/countries much like the IETF does for the Internet already. The UN does not collect taxes on phone service, that I'm aware of, and I've looked a little bit during this discussion.
Part of the problem with the Internet DNS is that the.com,.net,.org, etc... domain names were created with out thought of the country tlds.
It would make more sense for the.com,.net, and.org names to go away and all revert back to the country tlds,.uk,.us, etc... This way each country to rule their TLDs as they currently do. I don't think that's going to happen though.
Don't get me wrong, something (food from the UN) is better than nothing (dead people). But is something else (UN regulating Internet) better than what he have now (US overseeing TLDs and no issues).
As far as starving people, genocide, and mines; eliminate the problem... The warlords and dictators who create this crap. This myth of unfair trade and economics (ala live8) is bull... I'd say more, but off topic.
Apples to oranges... The UN does not regulate phone service, mobile or otherwise. Why should it regulate the use of the Internet. It's a bad idea plain and simple.
Are you willing to give up the control of anything that has not been made in the USA to other countries? Didn't think so.
Well, that sentence doesn't even make sense... Are you saying that the UN should make and/or regulate cell phones? Or maybe IRC, I'm sure everyone would love that.
Does the UN say what telephone number I can have, or what name I can have in the phone book? Does it need too?
The Internet (or internet as you put it) was not invented in CERN. What was invented at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee around 1989 was URL/HTML/HTTP which is what most people associate with the Internet.
The Internet started out as a ARPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Research_Pr ojects_Agency) project funded and run solely by the Department of Defense. Oddly enough, it was first called ARPANET (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET).
ARPANET was designed between 1968 and 1969, the first message over the network was at 10:30PM October 29, 1969 between UCLA's SDS Sigma 7 Host computer and SRI's SDS 940 Host computer.
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Intern et
Skip ahead to 1983:
...TCP/IP protocols replaced the earlier NCP protocol as the principal protocol of the ARPANET; in 1984, the U.S. military portion of the ARPANet was broken off as a separate network, the MILNET. At the same time, Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel were working on what would become the Domain Name System.
Now it's starting to look like the Internet we know today, at least underneath. Remember this is still IPv1
At the end of the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Defense decided the network was developed enough for its initial purposes, and decided to stop further funding of the core Internet backbone. The ARPANET was gradually shut down (its last node was turned off in 1989), and NSF, a civilian agency, took over responsibility for providing long-haul connectivity in the U.S.
I should mention something here about Vint Cerf as the real father of the Internet and not Al Gore, if anyone can be considered one it's Vint Cerf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Cerf).
So as you can see, several decades an millions (if not billions) of dollars went into the creation of what we now call the Internet, mostly all by US interests. Of course, the most popular and most life altering one was by Tim Berners-Lee of CERN. But, remember this... HTTP/HTML/URL are all APPLICATIONS that run on the Internet. They are not the Internet.
As far as DNS this too was designed by an American, Dr. Paul Mockapetris(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mock apetris). Which is what gives us names like slashdot.org, and wilwheaton.net to name a few...
Anyway, check out the links to really learn what it's all about if you care...
-illc0mm
Slashdot Mirror
It's understandable to think that it's a crazy price for this. I don't know the specifics of the funding from the government, but usually initial high prices are the result of years of research and development. That R&D has to be paid for some how.
Now, that's not to say that the "government" has never paid stupid amounts of money for things like toilet seats and hammers, but in the case of medicine it's usually justified. Again, I don't know the details but this is usually the case for this sort of thing.
There are similar remedies that until recently were too costly to give to the public, surgical glue based bandages for one. Now you can get them at the grocery store for just a little more than traditional bandages.
This is just like any new technology, like LCD displays. Eventually the R&D will be paid for, and they will be produced in quantities that will become acceptable for the average person to purchase.
-illc0mm
I wonder how this will affect those allergic to seafood or shellfish? I know a few people that that are deathly allergic to shrimp, would the military one be able to use this on those that have been screened? Could it cause more harm that good? The technology sounds very interesting though.
The ITU does not regulate phone service, they simply facilitate standards within the systems/countries much like the IETF does for the Internet already. The UN does not collect taxes on phone service, that I'm aware of, and I've looked a little bit during this discussion.
.com, .net, .org, etc... domain names were created with out thought of the country tlds.
.com, .net, and .org names to go away and all revert back to the country tlds, .uk, .us, etc... This way each country to rule their TLDs as they currently do. I don't think that's going to happen though.
Part of the problem with the Internet DNS is that the
It would make more sense for the
-illc0mm
Don't get me wrong, something (food from the UN) is better than nothing (dead people). But is something else (UN regulating Internet) better than what he have now (US overseeing TLDs and no issues).
Besides, if you really want to do things your way there's always http://www.open-rsc.org/, or http://www.opennic.unrated.net/. Ironically http://www.open-rsc.org/ is down right now.
As far as starving people, genocide, and mines; eliminate the problem... The warlords and dictators who create this crap. This myth of unfair trade and economics (ala live8) is bull... I'd say more, but off topic.
That's fine, we'll just take back our TCP/IP and DNS, and Mosaic/Netscape/IE/Mozilla (yeah, Mozilla becase it was based on Mosaic baby)...
BTW as someone who's used it Gopher rocked, University of Michigan screwed it over with IP nonsense.
-illc0mm
Does the UN say what telephone number I can have, or what name I can have in the phone book? Does it need too?
- illc0mm
So as you can see, several decades an millions (if not billions) of dollars went into the creation of what we now call the Internet, mostly all by US interests. Of course, the most popular and most life altering one was by Tim Berners-Lee of CERN. But, remember this... HTTP/HTML/URL are all APPLICATIONS that run on the Internet. They are not the Internet. As far as DNS this too was designed by an American, Dr. Paul Mockapetris(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Moc