The Amish-American farmers that I live next door to don't seem to be having any problems. (Probably because they choose to use "open source" corn seeds, rather than patented Microsoft....er, Monsanto seeds.) Maybe my neighbors idea of "keeping it simple" is not such a bad idea after all. They certainly appear to be stress-free, and no need to worry about mega-corporations descending upon them like giants.
That's what my teachers taught me in the "dark ages" when encyclopedias were printed on paper, and they should be teaching students the same thing today. Wikipedia or Britannica are great places to get a general understanding, and maybe a few sources, but that's it.
So basically the paris government has forgotten they are THERE TO SERVE THE PEOPLE, not the other way around. It sounds like they think they are petit-monarchs, and the people are scum.
You're not Ebay's customers. The SELLERS are Ebay's customers, and forcing them to use *only* paypal (ebay's service) takes away customer choice, and is an anti-free-market position.
U.S. law doesn't support anti-free-market positions, and tries to give the customers (i.e. Ebay's sellers) as much freedom as possible.
(ASIDE: The threading seems to be broken. I apply directly to a post... and it shows up 2 pages down.)
There has been an anti-French sentiment, not because you're french, but because you did not support the War on Iraq/Afghanistan. A Congressman even went so far as to propose renaming "french fries" and "freedom fries". Once the war's done and forgotten, Americans will go back to like your country again.
It's too bad I wasn't there. I would have defended you, and told them filthy Texans to stop acting like country rednecks. It's totally uncalled for to insult visitors to our country, and leaves behind a bad impression of America. "But then I guess I can't expect any better from people who think 'how brows' is the proper way to say 'hash browns'." (Hash brown == potatoes chopped up into little bits, and then formed into a pancake & fried on a grill.)
There has been an anti-French sentiment, not because you're french, but because you did not support the War on Iraq/Afghanistan. A Congressman even went so far as to propose renaming "french fries" and "freedom fries". Once the war's done and forgotten, Americans will go back to like your country again.
It's too bad I wasn't there. I would have defended you, and told them filthy Texans to stop acting like country rednecks.
You're probably right. (The following is just a joke.)
FRENCHMAN: "Oui! You picked up your bagel with your left hand!" TOURIST: "I did what?" FRENCHWOMAN: "Filthy English tourist. You come here and insult us? How dare you!" TOURIST: "???" FRENCHMAN: "And now he's drinking his milk with a straw. Despicable."
The worst case would be if UMG said, "PReturn our property or else," and I have to waste a dollar on postage returning a piece of junk I never wanted in the first place!
I don't like other people making me lose money.
Personally I think UMG is looking at this issue all wrong. They should be happy that the CDs are being passed person-to-person, thereby doing the job they were intended to do (promote songs), rather than getting thrown into a landfill.
The word "civil" in civilization means "city" in Latin. The first cities were built in Asia and later Europe (greece, rome). The first South American cities were not built until circa 500 A.D.
North America never had any cities prior to 1500, thus the previous comment that "had civilization arose in [North] America before Europe..." is an accurate phrase. The Europeans were the ones to introduce cities to present-day United States.
It's difficult to please a french person. For example if you try to use their language, and don't get the accent quite right, then take it as an insult! (Most nations take it as a compliment that you at least tried.)
Show me a single JCPenney (or sears or target or whatever) that can not accept check or credit card, because it's Mall forces it to only use the Mall's payment services.
Good luck. You won't find it, because it's not legal. Likewise it's not legal for ebay (the internet equivalent of a mall) to dictate to sears_ebay or any other seller that they can only use Ebay's payment service. That's a monopolistic practice and is illegal under the U.S. antitrust laws that were passed circa 1900.
(It was those same laws that led the U.S. DOJ to sue the record companies for CD price-fixing & cartel-like practices.)
Let's not forget the Usenet newsgroups, Fidonet newsgroups, and other similar nets which were created circa 1980 by PRIVATE inventors (not government) to serve the BBS community in the United States, and later around the globe. They operated using long-distance calls via 9 or 18 kbit/sec "high speed" modems.
These have evolved and are now part of the internet (albeit still using their own private protocols). As the previous poster said, the ARPAnet was merely the core. The foundation. The "internet" now consists of many, many different networks all cooperating together, and most of them were not invented by the U.S. DARPA.
>>>"1p/minute. So you are paying about £3.60 for each episode of Dr Who. "
Hmmm.
Well first of all, my signature is just meant to be humorous.
Second, I am fortunate to live in the USA where Verizon (formerly Bell Telephone) charges $10 a month flat rate, $7 for dialup service, and there's about 24*30 hours per month, so it's only 2.3 cents per hour. The total cost is about 14 cents per episode of tv downloaded.
I guess there are advantages to not having a government monopoly running your phone service. Privatization of the american telephone has brought competition and a downward pressure to reduce costs. (Even long-distance is cheap - only 5 cents a minute with Sprint.)
BACK TO TOPIC:
I still hold by my original viewpoint. The website NBC or FOX or CW pays for its side of the connection (uploading content). The customer pays for his/her side of the connection (downloading content). And the people who collect the money (the people who own the actual cables) are the ones who pay the expense required to upgrade the service to meet demand. (Same way that it has worked for the last ~15 years of gradual increases from 14k to 28k to 56k and so on.)
This is how electrical companies and water companies work. They are constantly adding new lines to serve either new homes or higher demand. (By rights the water should be free; after all there's no real cost to just move water around.) (That was a joke.)
A business (ebay) is not allowed to tell its customers (me, the guy selling a used PS2) that I can accept one-and-only-type of payment (paypal), and nothing else. It would like if JCPenney rented space in XYZ Mall, and the Mall demanded that JCPenney can only accept XYX-Mall Payment Services. Not visa, not mastercard, not check, nor cash. Only XYZ Mall's services. That's illegal under U.S. trade and anti-trust law.
(shrug). I thought most people realized that, but I guess if you don't sell on ebay, you don't realize how anti-competitive it is to demand Auctioneers can only use Paypal. It's dictatorial; anti-free trade, and monopolistic. I (the customer of ebay) should be able to accept check if I prefer to use that method of payment.
Requiring paypal only (not check, money order, nor credit card) limits the SELLERS' (who are the true customers of ebay) to zero choices. i.e. No choice. And that is a violation of various anti-monopoly laws within the United States (and likely the European Union too).
Right now, in the U.S., paypal is not required. You may accept check, money order, credit card, or some other internet pay service.
If Ebay Did make paypal mandatory, that would be a violation of Antitrust/monopoly laws, because it stifles competition & limits customer choice to zero. I'd start calling my various contacts within the U.S. and Pennsylvania government to see if I can talk them into Prosecuting Ebay in a court of law. Ebay's done a lot of dumb decisions lately, and pardon my French, but they are _______ me off. This would be the final straw to make me stand-up and demand justice & punishment.
I use Ebay like a garage sale, selling-off used but still "like-new" items.
But they have steadily made me feel unwelcome, as if they don't want my business, and I'm sick of it. Time to tear-down that arrogance the same way AT&T, Microsoft, and the CD Cartel were brought to task. Remind them of their true position in society (servant to the customer).
- The BBC pays for its side of the connection (uploading content)
- And the customer pays for his/her side of the connection (downloading content).
And the people who collect the money, the people who own the actual cables, are the ones who pay the expense required to upgrade the service as needed. Same way that it has worked for the last ~15 years of gradual increases from 9.6k to 14k to 28k to 56k and so on.
When I was that age, all I had was a "keyboard" attached to a 14 inch set. The image was blurry, the sound was 8-bit, and the floppy drive was bigger than a laptop.
Back to topic:
The thing I don't like about wearable computers is that it's like having a kid constantly hanging off your leg, "Dad." "Dad. "Dad." "Dad."
"What?!?!?"
"You got an email."
(rolls eyes)
I don't like being a slave to my email; I like to read email on MY time preferably when I'm lounging in my chair and sipping back an ice tea. The last thing I want is to be "tied" to a gadget constantly hounding me for attention.
>>>"the biggest issue is at the infrastructure level, not the ISP level,"
The ISPs own the infrastructure (folks like Bell or Verizon or AT&T). And they would be happy to expand that infrastructure, but lack the cash reserves to do so.
>>>"Networking hardware uses very little electrical power whether it is passing data or not."
I don't buy that. Using my own PC as example, it uses only 60 watts when idle, but 200 watts when downloading at 1000 kilobits/sec. It's the result of all the transistors switching on-and-off rapidly between different states, and a network server would be no different.
Slashdot Mirror
The Amish-American farmers that I live next door to don't seem to be having any problems. (Probably because they choose to use "open source" corn seeds, rather than patented Microsoft....er, Monsanto seeds.) Maybe my neighbors idea of "keeping it simple" is not such a bad idea after all. They certainly appear to be stress-free, and no need to worry about mega-corporations descending upon them like giants.
Sounds like high school in the 1950s. People who wanted a job, finished high school and became employed. You didn't need anything more.
I bet in another twenty years, I'll find more and more jobs saying, "underqualified" because I "only have a Bachelors" and they'll require more years.
"You can not use the encyclopedia as a source."
That's what my teachers taught me in the "dark ages" when encyclopedias were printed on paper, and they should be teaching students the same thing today. Wikipedia or Britannica are great places to get a general understanding, and maybe a few sources, but that's it.
So basically the paris government has forgotten they are THERE TO SERVE THE PEOPLE, not the other way around. It sounds like they think they are petit-monarchs, and the people are scum.
- XYZ MAll rents space to Sears so Sears can sell products.
- Ebay.com rents space to Sears_ebay so they can sell products online.
It's not a retarded analogy;
it's an identical situation.
You're not Ebay's customers. The SELLERS are Ebay's customers, and forcing them to use *only* paypal (ebay's service) takes away customer choice, and is an anti-free-market position.
U.S. law doesn't support anti-free-market positions, and tries to give the customers (i.e. Ebay's sellers) as much freedom as possible.
(ASIDE: The threading seems to be broken. I apply directly to a post... and it shows up 2 pages down.)
There has been an anti-French sentiment, not because you're french, but because you did not support the War on Iraq/Afghanistan. A Congressman even went so far as to propose renaming "french fries" and "freedom fries". Once the war's done and forgotten, Americans will go back to like your country again.
It's too bad I wasn't there. I would have defended you, and told them filthy Texans to stop acting like country rednecks. It's totally uncalled for to insult visitors to our country, and leaves behind a bad impression of America. "But then I guess I can't expect any better from people who think 'how brows' is the proper way to say 'hash browns'." (Hash brown == potatoes chopped up into little bits, and then formed into a pancake & fried on a grill.)
Does AOL own the 10 billion discs they mailed-out?
Maybe we should all unite and send them back..... them videotape the scene as the AOL office finds itself buried under a massive mound of discs.
There has been an anti-French sentiment, not because you're french, but because you did not support the War on Iraq/Afghanistan. A Congressman even went so far as to propose renaming "french fries" and "freedom fries". Once the war's done and forgotten, Americans will go back to like your country again.
It's too bad I wasn't there. I would have defended you, and told them filthy Texans to stop acting like country rednecks.
You're probably right. (The following is just a joke.)
FRENCHMAN: "Oui! You picked up your bagel with your left hand!"
TOURIST: "I did what?"
FRENCHWOMAN: "Filthy English tourist. You come here and insult us? How dare you!"
TOURIST: "???"
FRENCHMAN: "And now he's drinking his milk with a straw. Despicable."
This is interesting. Languages spoken as a secondary tongue. I wonder why so many speakers use French as a second language?
1. French (190 million)
2. English (150 million)
3. Russian (125 million)
4. Portuguese (28 million)
5. Arabic (21 million)
6. Spanish (20 million)
7. Chinese (20 million)
8. German (9 million)
9. Japanese (8 million)
The worst case would be if UMG said, "PReturn our property or else," and I have to waste a dollar on postage returning a piece of junk I never wanted in the first place!
I don't like other people making me lose money.
Personally I think UMG is looking at this issue all wrong. They should be happy that the CDs are being passed person-to-person, thereby doing the job they were intended to do (promote songs), rather than getting thrown into a landfill.
The word "civil" in civilization means "city" in Latin. The first cities were built in Asia and later Europe (greece, rome). The first South American cities were not built until circa 500 A.D.
North America never had any cities prior to 1500, thus the previous comment that "had civilization arose in [North] America before Europe..." is an accurate phrase. The Europeans were the ones to introduce cities to present-day United States.
>>>"And who pays the intervening network providers?"
Uh. I answered that.
- The BBC pays for its side of the connection (uploading content)
- And the customer pays for his/her side of the connection (downloading content).
The people in the middle (who own the cables) collect the money and use it to maintain the network & expand as needed. It isn't rocket science.
It's difficult to please a french person. For example if you try to use their language, and don't get the accent quite right, then take it as an insult! (Most nations take it as a compliment that you at least tried.)
Show me a single JCPenney (or sears or target or whatever) that can not accept check or credit card, because it's Mall forces it to only use the Mall's payment services.
Good luck. You won't find it, because it's not legal. Likewise it's not legal for ebay (the internet equivalent of a mall) to dictate to sears_ebay or any other seller that they can only use Ebay's payment service. That's a monopolistic practice and is illegal under the U.S. antitrust laws that were passed circa 1900.
(It was those same laws that led the U.S. DOJ to sue the record companies for CD price-fixing & cartel-like practices.)
Let's not forget the Usenet newsgroups, Fidonet newsgroups, and other similar nets which were created circa 1980 by PRIVATE inventors (not government) to serve the BBS community in the United States, and later around the globe. They operated using long-distance calls via 9 or 18 kbit/sec "high speed" modems.
These have evolved and are now part of the internet (albeit still using their own private protocols). As the previous poster said, the ARPAnet was merely the core. The foundation. The "internet" now consists of many, many different networks all cooperating together, and most of them were not invented by the U.S. DARPA.
>>>"1p/minute. So you are paying about £3.60 for each episode of Dr Who. "
Hmmm.
Well first of all, my signature is just meant to be humorous.
Second, I am fortunate to live in the USA where Verizon (formerly Bell Telephone) charges $10 a month flat rate, $7 for dialup service, and there's about 24*30 hours per month, so it's only 2.3 cents per hour. The total cost is about 14 cents per episode of tv downloaded.
I guess there are advantages to not having a government monopoly running your phone service. Privatization of the american telephone has brought competition and a downward pressure to reduce costs. (Even long-distance is cheap - only 5 cents a minute with Sprint.)
BACK TO TOPIC:
I still hold by my original viewpoint. The website NBC or FOX or CW pays for its side of the connection (uploading content). The customer pays for his/her side of the connection (downloading content). And the people who collect the money (the people who own the actual cables) are the ones who pay the expense required to upgrade the service to meet demand. (Same way that it has worked for the last ~15 years of gradual increases from 14k to 28k to 56k and so on.)
This is how electrical companies and water companies work. They are constantly adding new lines to serve either new homes or higher demand. (By rights the water should be free; after all there's no real cost to just move water around.) (That was a joke.)
(sigh)
A business (ebay) is not allowed to tell its customers (me, the guy selling a used PS2) that I can accept one-and-only-type of payment (paypal), and nothing else. It would like if JCPenney rented space in XYZ Mall, and the Mall demanded that JCPenney can only accept XYX-Mall Payment Services. Not visa, not mastercard, not check, nor cash. Only XYZ Mall's services. That's illegal under U.S. trade and anti-trust law.
(shrug). I thought most people realized that, but I guess if you don't sell on ebay, you don't realize how anti-competitive it is to demand Auctioneers can only use Paypal. It's dictatorial; anti-free trade, and monopolistic. I (the customer of ebay) should be able to accept check if I prefer to use that method of payment.
(shakes head)
It should be obvious.
Requiring paypal only (not check, money order, nor credit card) limits the SELLERS' (who are the true customers of ebay) to zero choices. i.e. No choice. And that is a violation of various anti-monopoly laws within the United States (and likely the European Union too).
Right now, in the U.S., paypal is not required. You may accept check, money order, credit card, or some other internet pay service.
If Ebay Did make paypal mandatory, that would be a violation of Antitrust/monopoly laws, because it stifles competition & limits customer choice to zero. I'd start calling my various contacts within the U.S. and Pennsylvania government to see if I can talk them into Prosecuting Ebay in a court of law. Ebay's done a lot of dumb decisions lately, and pardon my French, but they are _______ me off. This would be the final straw to make me stand-up and demand justice & punishment.
I use Ebay like a garage sale, selling-off used but still "like-new" items.
But they have steadily made me feel unwelcome, as if they don't want my business, and I'm sick of it. Time to tear-down that arrogance the same way AT&T, Microsoft, and the CD Cartel were brought to task. Remind them of their true position in society (servant to the customer).
IMHO:
- The BBC pays for its side of the connection (uploading content)
- And the customer pays for his/her side of the connection (downloading content).
And the people who collect the money, the people who own the actual cables, are the ones who pay the expense required to upgrade the service as needed. Same way that it has worked for the last ~15 years of gradual increases from 9.6k to 14k to 28k to 56k and so on.
When I was that age, all I had was a "keyboard" attached to a 14 inch set. The image was blurry, the sound was 8-bit, and the floppy drive was bigger than a laptop.
Back to topic:
The thing I don't like about wearable computers is that it's like having a kid constantly hanging off your leg, "Dad." "Dad. "Dad." "Dad."
"What?!?!?"
"You got an email."
(rolls eyes)
I don't like being a slave to my email; I like to read email on MY time preferably when I'm lounging in my chair and sipping back an ice tea. The last thing I want is to be "tied" to a gadget constantly hounding me for attention.
>>>"the biggest issue is at the infrastructure level, not the ISP level,"
The ISPs own the infrastructure (folks like Bell or Verizon or AT&T). And they would be happy to expand that infrastructure, but lack the cash reserves to do so.
>>>"Networking hardware uses very little electrical power whether it is passing data or not."
I don't buy that. Using my own PC as example, it uses only 60 watts when idle, but 200 watts when downloading at 1000 kilobits/sec. It's the result of all the transistors switching on-and-off rapidly between different states, and a network server would be no different.