Well, according to the manual page for 'shred', you can't do that reliably on ANY filesystems such as
log-structured or journaled filesystems, such as those supplied with AIX and Solaris (and JFS, ReiserFS, XFS, Ext3, etc.)
filesystems that write redundant data and carry on even if some writes fail, such as RAID-based filesystems
filesystems that make snapshots, such as Network Appliance's NFS server
filesystems that cache in temporary locations, such as NFS version 3 clients
compressed filesystems
So in other words you can't reliably delete a file on many modern filesystems anyway (unless there are more advanced programs than shred?), and ZFS is no different. I think that melting your hard drive is the suggested solution.
I don't know.. sure, he was a voice against the atrocities carried out under stalin, but he has some pretty controversial view himself, I understand, such as his nationalism and religious views. EG from the wikipedia article:
"According to his critics, the book [Two Hundred Years Together] confirmed Solzhenitsyn's strongly anti-semitic views as well as his ideas of Russian supremacy to other nations."
Now, I don't keep up with him myself, but I've talked to others (liberal americans) who had strong negative opinions of him.
I disagree. My (non-expert) impression is that this research is really about the physics of receptor (detector) proteins. The neural system is irrelevant because what we are worried about here is whether the receptor triggers a reaction or not. Once the receptor is triggered, the psychology is the same: a signal passing down the nerve into the brain.
The idea seems plausible to me, at least it is worth investigating. What it proposes is a new way a receptor could be triggered by a molecule. Here, once the molecule has 'docked' into the receptor, if its electronic vibrations are matched to the receptor it will allow a charge to tunnel from one part of the receptor protein to another, triggering a larger reaction (like in photosynthesis). So, this receptor can detect electronic vibrations.
Actually, I think that how receptors and other membrane proteins work is fairly poorly understood (compared to other areas of physics), and there is a lot of research time going into it. Even the protein for photosynthesis isn't totally understood (though we know a lot). Last summer I was considering doing some modelling of a potassium channel, a homolog of the one essential to our nervous system. "The" potassium channel. Actually, we don't really know how it works! Previous models have suggested that some charged cylinders slide through the protein, pulled by the potential across the membrane and causing it to open, however the new theory (based on the recent crystallography data) is that it is actually a charged lever that gets pulled by the potential, opening the channel as it tilts. In other words, we still in the educated guessing stage, even for this essential protein.
My Point: How these proteins work really isn't understood. The idea seems plausible on surface glance. Maybe this guy is on to something big!
From the summary in the article, it looks like this new device also relies on a temperature differential (and not just a temperature): The electrons are ejected from a hot metal plate and condense on a cold metal plate.
So, it's not that revolutionary/counter to the laws of physics. As you say, it's similar in effect to a thermocouple.
I had the chance to visit the Sudbury Neurtrino Observatory (SNO) and their system uses 1000 tons of heavy water. The detector sits in a big (ten-story) chamber filled with heavy water, which also gets pumped around to purify and test for contaminants (a large part of the facility is dedicated to this). The water has a value of $300 million, but they do not own it, rather they loan it from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. So, they have to make sure it stays super clean, and that it does not leak much, since they have to give it back at the end of the experiment.
It's a pretty cool place. All these big facilities seem like out of science fiction. The detector (photo) is permentantly walled off (except for a hatch they can put a miniature submarine into), so you can't see it, but the huge masses of pipes and wires there is impressive
I remember in the documentary "Lessons of Darkness" (about the gulf war) there was a fly-over of the remains of oil wells that had been set on fire (and then extinguished with a lot of work). All the metal structures and equipment of the well were totally deformed and melted by the fire. And this was an open fire (not inside a building like 9/11) and it wasn't jet fuel but unprocessed oil (I presume). I think the gp was right about ignition vs actual temperature, that was my understanding as well, and I have heard of uncontrolled fires melting metals in other cases too (though I don't remember the specifics).
(great documentary by the way - very surreal, eg views where the land is pitch black with oil all the way to the horizon, with big towers of fire. looks like hell)
The spreadsheet for the federal budget is here. I've never really looked at it before, interesting. It looks to me like the iraq war really is a small part of the picture.
Military spending is currently 20% of the budget, up from 16% in 1998. However, looking back through the history, it looks like the late 90s have it exceptionally low: It is consistently around 25% from 1975 to 1990, then 20% through to 1995. (and a whopping 50% to 70% in the 50s and 60s). So really Bush just brought it back to early 90s levels. The 2008+ esimates say it should go back down to 16% again by then.
Overall, it looks like the Bush administration has increased spending in all areas (since the late 90s) except 'net interest' which has been halved from 15% to 7%. I assume 'net interest' spending means paying back loans/bonds/debts. The overally size of the budged as %gdp is ~20%, as it has been since 1950, so nothing unusual there.
then out of nowhere two undercover riaa-police goons tackle you to the ground and handcuff you. As you hear your rights being read to you, you think that maybe the custom OS wasn't such a great idea.
offtopic and gossip.. but you inspired me to to check up on that
The police say they found his wife's blood splattered in his house and car. He had tried to hide the car from the police and took the back seat out, and bought books about homicide investigations (though that is understandable, him being a suspect).
But he doesn't see that it is analog, and that thoughts, memories, and emotions are chemical reactions while digital computers are complex abacuses working exactly like an abacus (except it ises base 2 instead of base 10).
Not that I agree with much of what he says, but I think that was exactly his point (and I agree): There's nothing special about our 'analog' brain. If we can run it on a computer, then that is really an intelligence with thoughts, memories, and emotions of its own. How is a computer intelligence any more of a 'simulation' of intelligence than our chemical intelligence? They do the same thing, but one with electric signals and the other with chemical signals.
Also, we don't think in base ten. Intelligent thought has no 'base'. Also, there is nothing obviously special about the number 10 in our brain machinery.
I think the 'costly new hardware' issue you propose is irrelevant to the real issue in net neutrality. It seems to me that when people talk about net neutrality, two relatively unrelated issues are often mixed together: 1. Common carriage laws 2. QoS/tiered internet. I don't see how one implies the other. It seems like Common carriage is the only 'important' issue with respect to fragmentation of the internet.
I think maintaining common carriage laws is essential, no question.
What the confusion seems to be is that people think that a tiered internet will give ISPs the ability to discriminate against content providers. However, although I am a layman in this, I see no technical reason why a tiered internet wouldn't naturally be anonymous, giving no easy way to discriminate. All an ISP needs to know is that 'this is a tier 1 packet', and nothing more about what the data is. And anyway, if they want to discriminate, they can already do it now by data analysis (which they would do in the same way on an anonymous tiered internet). So really, having a tiered internet does not change inything with respect to content discrimination. To stop content discrimination, common carriage laws are used. They are working so far, and I see no reason why they wouldn't stop working on a tiered internet. They would be just as hard/easy to enforce as now.
I don't know where the confusion is coming from (or maybe I'm confused?). It could very well be the ISPs who are trying to sneak in the removal of common carriage laws into their proposal for a tiered internet. But really, the issues are unrelated.
-----
Actually it seems to me that a tiered internet could be a good thing, and that common carriage would still apply. Really, what a tiered internet does is add an additional factor in the price of internet services: Latency. If you don't need low latency, you don't need to pay for it. In fact, one reason I can think why internet companies would like a tiered internet is that it would help fix the problems they have overselling their service: They wouldn't need to oversell as much. Consumers should like that too. So, I think it could be an improvement.
As you say, it is not clear whether a tiered internet really is better economically for all involved. I think it could be. But anyway, as I say, this is not the real issue of net neutrality.
Hmm. So it looks like the problem really is that 'last mile' ISPs are able to tell where data is coming from. Maybe it would work if they only know 1. 'this packet is on tier 1', and 2. who it is being sent to. If they do not know which company is sending it they aren't able to extort anyone.
Is there really no way to encrypt/hide what the data is and where it comes from? I don't know the technicalities. I can see how it might be impossible (at some point the user has to know where to return data to the company), but maybe a backbone provider would provide some hiding mechanism for its content providers. (heh, I am dreaming of an encryption war between isps and content providers.)
I am more conviced net netrality is good. But still, the ISPs really have to go out of their way to do a really sleazy thing. Are people really that corrupt? (rhetorical) Also, it almost seems like a simple law outlawing this extortion would be an effective fix.
Ok, I think see more where the problem is. I'll have to go read more on this.
But, why wouldn't all the internet companies make deals like I hear they do for bandwidth: EG You put my tier 1 packets on your tier 1, and I'll do the same for you. So that there end up being internet-wide tiers. I assume the ISPs wouldn't be able to tell that is is specifically my Voip company's packet, but they can tell that it is coming from my backbone provider, who hopefully has made such a deal. It seems like a bad move *not* to make such deals for any ivolved companies.
I can see it could be complicated.
Sure, baybe ISPs with monopolies would try to hold their area hostage, but it sounds like a monopoly-breaking move to me, as it will get their customers quite angry. And also, in the first place the ISPs have to be able to make a deal their backbone provider likes, right? Otherwise they get no deal, and go bankrupt.
Instead of the internet being lots of bandwidth deals, it becomes lots of bandwidth-on-that-tier deals.
Anyway, your post points me in the right direction....I am not sure I can learn much more by slashdot conversations. My rough logic isn't enough anymore.
OK, so I read more into your post than you wrote. I was restating what I (wrongly) thought your argument was. (to doubleckeck)
By 'moral argument' I was referring exactly to them doing something like artificially limiting a connection in order to get more money, which I think *I* would consider wrong and against society, all else equal. But you weren't talking about that.
So anyway, your point that tiered is not necessarily better economically is good. Thats all! Thanks.
So according to you, the issue is really purely practical: You say that if you work out the costs, a neutral net is cheaper and easier. There is no moral aspect to it.
The moral aspect comes in by reasoning as follows: given that a neutral net is cheaper, why would the telcos want a tiered net unless they wanted to do unsavoury things?
But, what if you are wrong about the neutral net being cheaper? Then everything is ok, and the telcos are not doing bad things. So the whole issue depends on whether a tiered net is technically better.
I have to say I don't find this very convincing.
(and btw, I meant 'in favor' rather than 'against' at the top of my last post.)
I am not an 'internet geek' but I want to understand the 'network
neutrality' issue. Slashdot users seem strongly against it, but I don't see what
the big problem is. So, here is my understanding, please correct me.
The issue is network neutrality vs tiered internet. We have network neutrality
now, where companies or people are charged on bandwidth and total amount of
data sent (a data cap) but tiered internet wants to additionaly charge for
things like latency, packet drop rate and error rate.
Economically it makes sense to me: Only pay for what you need. If you just have
a personal web site and you don't need low latency, you don't need to pay for
it. With tiered internet you have a choice while you didn't before. The higher
service costs more because it is harder/more expensive to maintain, and can't
support as many users. (the price for a tier should increase/decrease until the
number of users just matches the number that can be supported, efficiently using
available resources)
Peole are assuming that *everything* will cost more. As long as no one is
abusing monopolies, shouldn't the prices for each tier converge to their proper
value? The high latency one will decrease in price. The exact price depends on
how many companies need low latency.(I'm not a libertarian by the way).
I realize this is a simplified view of economics. But is it really that wrong?
Here is another common argument I read for neutrality: ISPs will artificially give priority to some companies, including itself, even
when the competition is better, thus skewing the market and creating monopolies.
How is it any different from now where ISPs could throttle the bandwidth
selectively? Of course ISPs should not be allowed to charge based on who they
are making a contract with. They are allowed to charge on bandwidth, data and
now latency, (just plain numbers) but not allowed to make special deals with
Yahoo just 'cause it's Yahoo! Nor should they charge by application. Only
by the numbers, since they represent the actual cost in materials. That's just
reasonable, for all parties.
If one company requires high bandwidth, so will all its competitors (who produce
a similar product). So they all have the same costs.
I will also point out that this problem is seperate from the problem of ISPs
overselling their service. That is truly a problem. But as it happens, I think
tiered internet would help solve it.
Sadly though, I don't think most of those people will ever hear about her, since what they don't want to hear won't be reported to them. (by the media they listen to). So it goes...
Sure, there may be no 'true' image. But you can at least rate images on truthfulness, and that's all you really need --
It's common sense that a 'true' image should be the image the average person would see with their eyes if they were there. (at least for images meant to be viewed by humans) And in that sense the doctored images are false, while the original image is true(er). If the contrast, sharpess, depth of field etc is not as people would see it in real life, it is not 'true'. I guess the question in my mind is how to rate the pictures, but that is at least easily qualitatively done (just ask people to compare).
Also, your philosophy is also useless in practice (no offense!): It says that there is nothing to say about the reality of a picture. Similarily, maybe our world is a figment of our imagination (a la matrix). Could be. But that's a similarily pointless idea because we can't do anything with it, unlike science which tries to model our reality and allows us to 'do' things.. (like a 'real' picture does).
and offtopic, in some sense digital can be more 'true' than chemical because you can change many more of the parameters to get closer to whatever you believe is 'true' than in chemical film, where you are stuck with the color of your chemicals and their set of reactions.
I'm not a photographer though... please don't hurt me:)
I don't actually know how it works, but it's not necessarily so simple. There could be an initial cost of simply making the connection, and then after that the low cost of maintaining the connection. Eg 8 cents to make connection, and then some very small cents/byte after that. Maybe that's why they charge per minute on the minute (at least mine does), so there is a minimum one minute cost.
That said, I still think you're right about greed being involved, the prices don't feel right.
Out of curiosity, did you see Gore's documentary? I thought the graphs he has are pretty convincing.
If you're at all interested in the subject, I recommend seeing it.
Well anyway, the video is really stupid. Is the best they can do to say that global warming is boring? That's the counter to Gore's argument? How about the economy then, that's boring so we should ignore it.
I actually thought Gore's documentary was very good. It actually shows proof for what it says, and in a way I didn't feel cheated by the statistics (as often happens for me in documentaries), and clearly shows the scale of the problem. Way better than nonsensical trash like what Michael Moore puts out, which makes me ashamed to be 'liberal'.
Gore in 2008!....though I know he said he wouldn't:(
Slashdot Mirror
So in other words you can't reliably delete a file on many modern filesystems anyway (unless there are more advanced programs than shred?), and ZFS is no different. I think that melting your hard drive is the suggested solution.
I don't know.. sure, he was a voice against the atrocities carried out under stalin, but he has some pretty controversial view himself, I understand, such as his nationalism and religious views. EG from the wikipedia article:
"According to his critics, the book [Two Hundred Years Together] confirmed Solzhenitsyn's strongly anti-semitic views as well as his ideas of Russian supremacy to other nations."
Now, I don't keep up with him myself, but I've talked to others (liberal americans) who had strong negative opinions of him.
I disagree. My (non-expert) impression is that this research is really about the physics of receptor (detector) proteins. The neural system is irrelevant because what we are worried about here is whether the receptor triggers a reaction or not. Once the receptor is triggered, the psychology is the same: a signal passing down the nerve into the brain.
The idea seems plausible to me, at least it is worth investigating. What it proposes is a new way a receptor could be triggered by a molecule. Here, once the molecule has 'docked' into the receptor, if its electronic vibrations are matched to the receptor it will allow a charge to tunnel from one part of the receptor protein to another, triggering a larger reaction (like in photosynthesis). So, this receptor can detect electronic vibrations.
Actually, I think that how receptors and other membrane proteins work is fairly poorly understood (compared to other areas of physics), and there is a lot of research time going into it. Even the protein for photosynthesis isn't totally understood (though we know a lot). Last summer I was considering doing some modelling of a potassium channel, a homolog of the one essential to our nervous system. "The" potassium channel. Actually, we don't really know how it works! Previous models have suggested that some charged cylinders slide through the protein, pulled by the potential across the membrane and causing it to open, however the new theory (based on the recent crystallography data) is that it is actually a charged lever that gets pulled by the potential, opening the channel as it tilts. In other words, we still in the educated guessing stage, even for this essential protein.
My Point: How these proteins work really isn't understood. The idea seems plausible on surface glance. Maybe this guy is on to something big!
From the summary in the article, it looks like this new device also relies on a temperature differential (and not just a temperature):
The electrons are ejected from a hot metal plate and condense on a cold metal plate.
So, it's not that revolutionary/counter to the laws of physics. As you say, it's similar in effect to a thermocouple.
Anecdote related to heavy water and its cost:
I had the chance to visit the Sudbury Neurtrino Observatory (SNO) and their system uses 1000 tons of heavy water. The detector sits in a big (ten-story) chamber filled with heavy water, which also gets pumped around to purify and test for contaminants (a large part of the facility is dedicated to this). The water has a value of $300 million, but they do not own it, rather they loan it from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. So, they have to make sure it stays super clean, and that it does not leak much, since they have to give it back at the end of the experiment.
It's a pretty cool place. All these big facilities seem like out of science fiction. The detector (photo) is permentantly walled off (except for a hatch they can put a miniature submarine into), so you can't see it, but the huge masses of pipes and wires there is impressive
.
I remember in the documentary "Lessons of Darkness" (about the gulf war) there was a fly-over of the remains of oil wells that had been set on fire (and then extinguished with a lot of work). All the metal structures and equipment of the well were totally deformed and melted by the fire. And this was an open fire (not inside a building like 9/11) and it wasn't jet fuel but unprocessed oil (I presume). I think the gp was right about ignition vs actual temperature, that was my understanding as well, and I have heard of uncontrolled fires melting metals in other cases too (though I don't remember the specifics).
(great documentary by the way - very surreal, eg views where the land is pitch black with oil all the way to the horizon, with big towers of fire. looks like hell)
The spreadsheet for the federal budget is here. I've never really looked at it before, interesting. It looks to me like the iraq war really is a small part of the picture.
Military spending is currently 20% of the budget, up from 16% in 1998. However, looking back through the history, it looks like the late 90s have it exceptionally low: It is consistently around 25% from 1975 to 1990, then 20% through to 1995. (and a whopping 50% to 70% in the 50s and 60s). So really Bush just brought it back to early 90s levels. The 2008+ esimates say it should go back down to 16% again by then.
Overall, it looks like the Bush administration has increased spending in all areas (since the late 90s) except 'net interest' which has been halved from 15% to 7%. I assume 'net interest' spending means paying back loans/bonds/debts. The overally size of the budged as %gdp is ~20%, as it has been since 1950, so nothing unusual there.
then out of nowhere two undercover riaa-police goons tackle you to the ground and handcuff you. As you hear your rights being read to you, you think that maybe the custom OS wasn't such a great idea.
offtopic and gossip.. but you inspired me to to check up on that
The police say they found his wife's blood splattered in his house and car. He had tried to hide the car from the police and took the back seat out, and bought books about homicide investigations (though that is understandable, him being a suspect).
link
Doesn't look promising... but as you point out 'innocent until proven guilty'. (and I'm guilty of gossip here)
oh, you were talking about the abacus. never mind about the 'bases'.
Not that I agree with much of what he says, but I think that was exactly his point (and I agree): There's nothing special about our 'analog' brain. If we can run it on a computer, then that is really an intelligence with thoughts, memories, and emotions of its own. How is a computer intelligence any more of a 'simulation' of intelligence than our chemical intelligence? They do the same thing, but one with electric signals and the other with chemical signals.
Also, we don't think in base ten. Intelligent thought has no 'base'. Also, there is nothing obviously special about the number 10 in our brain machinery.
I think the 'costly new hardware' issue you propose is irrelevant to the real issue in net neutrality. It seems to me that when people talk about net neutrality, two relatively unrelated issues are often mixed together: 1. Common carriage laws 2. QoS/tiered internet. I don't see how one implies the other. It seems like Common carriage is the only 'important' issue with respect to fragmentation of the internet.
I think maintaining common carriage laws is essential, no question.
What the confusion seems to be is that people think that a tiered internet will give ISPs the ability to discriminate against content providers. However, although I am a layman in this, I see no technical reason why a tiered internet wouldn't naturally be anonymous, giving no easy way to discriminate. All an ISP needs to know is that 'this is a tier 1 packet', and nothing more about what the data is. And anyway, if they want to discriminate, they can already do it now by data analysis (which they would do in the same way on an anonymous tiered internet). So really, having a tiered internet does not change inything with respect to content discrimination. To stop content discrimination, common carriage laws are used. They are working so far, and I see no reason why they wouldn't stop working on a tiered internet. They would be just as hard/easy to enforce as now.
I don't know where the confusion is coming from (or maybe I'm confused?). It could very well be the ISPs who are trying to sneak in the removal of common carriage laws into their proposal for a tiered internet. But really, the issues are unrelated.
-----
Actually it seems to me that a tiered internet could be a good thing, and that common carriage would still apply. Really, what a tiered internet does is add an additional factor in the price of internet services: Latency. If you don't need low latency, you don't need to pay for it. In fact, one reason I can think why internet companies would like a tiered internet is that it would help fix the problems they have overselling their service: They wouldn't need to oversell as much. Consumers should like that too. So, I think it could be an improvement.
As you say, it is not clear whether a tiered internet really is better economically for all involved. I think it could be. But anyway, as I say, this is not the real issue of net neutrality.
How to do Square roots by hand:
It's called algorism.
quick guide
Hmm. So it looks like the problem really is that 'last mile' ISPs are able to tell where data is coming from. Maybe it would work if they only know 1. 'this packet is on tier 1', and 2. who it is being sent to. If they do not know which company is sending it they aren't able to extort anyone.
Is there really no way to encrypt/hide what the data is and where it comes from? I don't know the technicalities. I can see how it might be impossible (at some point the user has to know where to return data to the company), but maybe a backbone provider would provide some hiding mechanism for its content providers. (heh, I am dreaming of an encryption war between isps and content providers.)
I am more conviced net netrality is good. But still, the ISPs really have to go out of their way to do a really sleazy thing. Are people really that corrupt? (rhetorical) Also, it almost seems like a simple law outlawing this extortion would be an effective fix.
Ok, I think see more where the problem is. I'll have to go read more on this.
...I am not sure I can learn much more by slashdot conversations.
But, why wouldn't all the internet companies make deals like I hear they do for bandwidth: EG You put my tier 1 packets on your tier 1, and I'll do the same for you. So that there end up being internet-wide tiers. I assume the ISPs wouldn't be able to tell that is is specifically my Voip company's packet, but they can tell that it is coming from my backbone provider, who hopefully has made such a deal. It seems like a bad move *not* to make such deals for any ivolved companies.
I can see it could be complicated.
Sure, baybe ISPs with monopolies would try to hold their area hostage, but it sounds like a monopoly-breaking move to me, as it will get their customers quite angry. And also, in the first place the ISPs have to be able to make a deal their backbone provider likes, right? Otherwise they get no deal, and go bankrupt.
Instead of the internet being lots of bandwidth deals, it becomes lots of bandwidth-on-that-tier deals.
Anyway, your post points me in the right direction.
My rough logic isn't enough anymore.
OK, so I read more into your post than you wrote. I was restating what I (wrongly) thought your argument was. (to doubleckeck)
By 'moral argument' I was referring exactly to them doing something like artificially limiting a connection in order to get more money, which I think *I* would consider wrong and against society, all else equal. But you weren't talking about that.
So anyway, your point that tiered is not necessarily better economically is good. Thats all! Thanks.
Thanks.
So according to you, the issue is really purely practical: You say that if you work out the costs, a neutral net is cheaper and easier.
There is no moral aspect to it.
The moral aspect comes in by reasoning as follows: given that a neutral net is cheaper, why would the telcos want a tiered net unless they wanted to do unsavoury things?
But, what if you are wrong about the neutral net being cheaper? Then everything is ok, and the telcos are not doing bad things. So the whole issue depends on whether a tiered net is technically better.
I have to say I don't find this very convincing.
(and btw, I meant 'in favor' rather than 'against' at the top of my last post.)
I am not an 'internet geek' but I want to understand the 'network neutrality' issue. Slashdot users seem strongly against it, but I don't see what the big problem is. So, here is my understanding, please correct me.
The issue is network neutrality vs tiered internet. We have network neutrality now, where companies or people are charged on bandwidth and total amount of data sent (a data cap) but tiered internet wants to additionaly charge for things like latency, packet drop rate and error rate.
Economically it makes sense to me: Only pay for what you need. If you just have a personal web site and you don't need low latency, you don't need to pay for it. With tiered internet you have a choice while you didn't before. The higher service costs more because it is harder/more expensive to maintain, and can't support as many users. (the price for a tier should increase/decrease until the number of users just matches the number that can be supported, efficiently using available resources)
Peole are assuming that *everything* will cost more. As long as no one is abusing monopolies, shouldn't the prices for each tier converge to their proper value? The high latency one will decrease in price. The exact price depends on how many companies need low latency.(I'm not a libertarian by the way).
I realize this is a simplified view of economics. But is it really that wrong?
Here is another common argument I read for neutrality: ISPs will artificially give priority to some companies, including itself, even when the competition is better, thus skewing the market and creating monopolies.
How is it any different from now where ISPs could throttle the bandwidth selectively? Of course ISPs should not be allowed to charge based on who they are making a contract with. They are allowed to charge on bandwidth, data and now latency, (just plain numbers) but not allowed to make special deals with Yahoo just 'cause it's Yahoo! Nor should they charge by application. Only by the numbers, since they represent the actual cost in materials. That's just reasonable, for all parties.
If one company requires high bandwidth, so will all its competitors (who produce a similar product). So they all have the same costs.
I will also point out that this problem is seperate from the problem of ISPs overselling their service. That is truly a problem. But as it happens, I think tiered internet would help solve it.
You're right, she makes a good symbol.
Sadly though, I don't think most of those people will ever hear about her, since what they don't want to hear won't be reported to them. (by the media they listen to). So it goes...
Sure, there may be no 'true' image. But you can at least rate images on truthfulness, and that's all you really need --
:)
It's common sense that a 'true' image should be the image the average person would see with their eyes if they were there. (at least for images meant to be viewed by humans) And in that sense the doctored images are false, while the original image is true(er). If the contrast, sharpess, depth of field etc is not as people would see it in real life, it is not 'true'. I guess the question in my mind is how to rate the pictures, but that is at least easily qualitatively done (just ask people to compare).
Also, your philosophy is also useless in practice (no offense!): It says that there is nothing to say about the reality of a picture. Similarily, maybe our world is a figment of our imagination (a la matrix). Could be. But that's a similarily pointless idea because we can't do anything with it, unlike science which tries to model our reality and allows us to 'do' things.. (like a 'real' picture does).
and offtopic, in some sense digital can be more 'true' than chemical because you can change many more of the parameters to get closer to whatever you believe is 'true' than in chemical film, where you are stuck with the color of your chemicals and their set of reactions.
I'm not a photographer though... please don't hurt me
I don't actually know how it works, but it's not necessarily so simple. There could be an initial cost of simply making the connection,
and then after that the low cost of maintaining the connection. Eg 8 cents to make connection, and then some very small cents/byte after that. Maybe that's why they charge per minute on the minute (at least mine does), so there is a minimum one minute cost.
That said, I still think you're right about greed being involved, the prices don't feel right.
I'm a skeptic on global warming, ...
Out of curiosity, did you see Gore's documentary? I thought the graphs he has are pretty convincing.
If you're at all interested in the subject, I recommend seeing it.
Well anyway, the video is really stupid. Is the best they can do to say that global warming is boring? That's the counter to Gore's argument? How about the economy then, that's boring so we should ignore it.
....though I know he said he wouldn't :(
I actually thought Gore's documentary was very good. It actually shows proof for what it says, and in a way I didn't feel cheated by the statistics (as often happens for me in documentaries), and clearly shows the scale of the problem. Way better than nonsensical trash like what Michael Moore puts out, which makes me ashamed to be 'liberal'.
Gore in 2008!
John Potter for President!
(US Postmaster General)
current stealth techniques (sticking to shadows, stay in buildings, etc.)
:)
You mean 'current' as in the past 10,000 years? Hiding in buildings isn't exactly 'high tech'.