How does this make commercial ISPs necessary? Sure this is significantly less evil, and truth be told my favorite solution, but it's hardly the only option. Around here our electric company is owned by the city and does a good job of providing cheap electricity in a reliable fashion. We didn't need to farm out billing and customer service to private companies to make it work.
I read the summary yes, and had you read the summary you would notice that it wasn't just requiring them to get public input, it was requiring them to jump through numerous other loop holes like setting up a completely separate department to handle it rather than allowing whoever it is that typically handles IT do it. And barring them from using tax dollars to subsidize the services
If it were just requiring study and public comment I wouldn't have an issue, but telling municipalities what types of services they can set up is clearly not going to be good for the folks needing broadband access.
The difference is that Apple isn't the dominant player in the computer market. Plus a $199 coupon or free product is generous, but it's not that generous for some of the more high end laptops they sell. And they aren't in danger of controlling the market just because they're giving away a few iPods.
No, it's not a ban, in the same way that I'm not banned from parking in handicap spaces, it's just really unaffordable to pay all those tickets and those pesky impound fees.
What the bill does is make it unaffordable for municipalities to set up their own broadband. Keep in mind that these are small municipalities where the normal ISPs refuse to provide service.
I've felt for some time that companies should be barred from running ISPs and handling the underlying infrastructure. The infrastructure in given areas should be owned by the government and rented to companies to manage. Those companies would be granted access for fixed periods of time and required to bid for it to continue the contract.
Or better yet, treat it like the electric company and make the infrastructure be run like a utility. Our electricity rates are low and the service in general is quite good, I cannot say the same about our broadband options. Seriously, duopolies of private firms suck.
This isn't a competitive industry. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure where you got the idea that internet service was competitive. Somebody owns the wires going to your house, and they get to charge whatever they like for that knowing that there are at most one or two other options.
Around here the mayor wanted to do something like this 6 years ago and was told by Qwest that they'd be doing something about the problem in the near future. Well, it's 6 years later, the infrastructure still sucks and Qwest hasn't done jack shit about it. They just keep taking people's money because we don't have other options. Comcast managing to be even worse than Qwest.
When you take into consideration the fact that these towns weren't profitable to provide service in the first place, I'm really curious as to what the justification for pretending that treating broadband as a utility is so bad.
Damn straight, we all know that corporations are good and that gubmint is evil and providing quality services will ultimately lead to us all being slaves to the all power President.
No, it isn't. Even if it is just what the summary says, you have to adjust for the fact that the person who says it is almost certain to believe that any time the government provides a service at any price that it drives businesses out of business clear across the country.
I fail to see how communities creating their own broad band in areas where commercial ISPs aren't willing to create the service is going to create an unfair advantage to those communities. The main motivation behind the bill is pandering to a greedy and incompetent telecommunications industry.
If there were some reasonable hope of commercial ISPs going there, then yes this might be a problem. But I live in Seattle and we're likely to have to go this route because the ISPs refuse to provide us with decent affordable service. I'm fairly lucky where I live to only have to pay $50 a month and have the privilege of getting 5mbps for that, whereas in other parts of the country it's trivial to get 40mbps for $55 a month.
I think that if we were going to do it, these sorts of regulations would make some sense, but even there if the community is making a broad band network that works, I fail to see why we need commercial ISPs at all.
That's not true, there are degrees, some need to do that to serve ads, others don't. Some require tracking the individual by GPS and other means and others don't.
Unfortunately, that's typically not true. They do actually send products, but they're frequently tampered with and contain little if any of the ingredients promised. Which means that not only are the people paying money for less than what they were wanting, they might end up with dangerous drug interactions when the medication isn't what they think it is.
Additionally because these firms don't employ doctors or pharmacists there's no way of knowing what sorts of dangerous side effects are going to be over looked to make the sale.
With spammers you don't need to go that route. Because they typically have more capacity to send than to receive, routing one unsubscribe request per spam received is frequently enough to take down their website. Sort of a slashdotting of the site. And even if the site doesn't go down, it definitely cuts into their profits to have people not only not buying, but expending resources in their quest to not buy.
Blue frog was having some luck doing something along those lines. Basically whenever a subscriber got an email from a spammer, they would send one unsubscribe request to the ISP for the whole group. If that failed, they would instruct the client to leave a generic opt out at the advertised website. And the total number of requests would typically overwhelm the server as most of the spammers were using botnets to send the spam, but only a small number of servers to actually take orders. Which was totally legal as it was individual clients leaving precisely one opt out request per email received, not leaving multiples per spam message.
This has been a strategy for a while now, look for ways of making the business of spamming more expensive. And there's all sorts of things that can be done, such as switching to a greylist, cleaning up malware infestations, shutting down ISPs that look the other way to spam complaints and other such things. The goal with that isn't so much to shut it down, but it's to make it so expensive that hopefully it will be less expensive to conduct email marketing legally.
You could have just rephrased the question. I mean how many IT workers haven't sold their soul to Satan at some point when they desperately needed to know where that dagburned backup tape was?
You're right, there are also religious nut jobs that believe that God won't allow any flooding because the Bible doesn't foresee ones. And the libertarians that are opposed to any and all regulations on the basis of them being entitled to do whatever they like so long as there isn't an indisputable conflict with other people's rights. And then don't forget the people who don't actually have any education on the matter who are skeptics mainly because Fox News tells them to be afraid of the vast liberal conspiracy to take away their rights.
Hmm, if that's all it costs, I want one. Seriously, a good SATA card will set you back more than that. Granted that is like double the cost of a USB 3.0 card, but given that this is a somewhat different type of interface with other uses, that doesn't seem to be unreasonable. Especially given that Thunderbolt isn't being manufactured at scale yet.
It's more likely the fact that people here actually understand the implications of Apple's iPad strategy, the privacy problems with Facebook. I'm not sure specifically what is wrong with Twitter, but it's probably the fact that it encourages twats to tweet about twits and give people the idea that we care about those sorts of arrogant gits.
As far as Thunderbolt goes, I think it's at least a reasonable debate to have. Right now I can't imagine it being of any particular utility for the mainstream. Although, it could be quite useful for laptops.
One of the problems is that some ad software that free apps use seems to need to spy on people in order to work. You can opt not to install that software but the marketplace lacks transparency when it comes to what the app is actually doing with that permission. And I'm not aware of any way of keeping an eye on apps to make sure that they aren't doing anything nefarious with the permissions. Trust but verify ought to be the way with apps that you've decided to trust.
Additionally, some functionality like placing phone calls from within an app is either all or none, the platform doesn't provide a middle ground for apps which might from time to time have a legitimate reason to place calls.
That's a solid point, this site is likely to get more valuable in the near future when the current bubble in the equities market pops. Same for the housing market, the price of houses has gone down a lot, but it still hasn't hit the kind of rock bottom prices that were needed to get rid of the bubble. In the mean time Wall Street firms are making out like thieves borrowing at virtually 0% and lending that money back the US government at 3-4%.
I've got a feeling that this has more to do with them not being able to secure rights to the newspapers. At least for the more recent ones they would require authorization to do so from the copyright owner. I'm not sure why the older ones aren't being scanned though. Perhaps that's a matter of Google needing access and most of those papers being held by the newspapers that published them originally.
Slashdot Mirror
How does this make commercial ISPs necessary? Sure this is significantly less evil, and truth be told my favorite solution, but it's hardly the only option. Around here our electric company is owned by the city and does a good job of providing cheap electricity in a reliable fashion. We didn't need to farm out billing and customer service to private companies to make it work.
I read the summary yes, and had you read the summary you would notice that it wasn't just requiring them to get public input, it was requiring them to jump through numerous other loop holes like setting up a completely separate department to handle it rather than allowing whoever it is that typically handles IT do it. And barring them from using tax dollars to subsidize the services
If it were just requiring study and public comment I wouldn't have an issue, but telling municipalities what types of services they can set up is clearly not going to be good for the folks needing broadband access.
[citation needed]
The difference is that Apple isn't the dominant player in the computer market. Plus a $199 coupon or free product is generous, but it's not that generous for some of the more high end laptops they sell. And they aren't in danger of controlling the market just because they're giving away a few iPods.
No, it's not a ban, in the same way that I'm not banned from parking in handicap spaces, it's just really unaffordable to pay all those tickets and those pesky impound fees.
What the bill does is make it unaffordable for municipalities to set up their own broadband. Keep in mind that these are small municipalities where the normal ISPs refuse to provide service.
I've felt for some time that companies should be barred from running ISPs and handling the underlying infrastructure. The infrastructure in given areas should be owned by the government and rented to companies to manage. Those companies would be granted access for fixed periods of time and required to bid for it to continue the contract.
Or better yet, treat it like the electric company and make the infrastructure be run like a utility. Our electricity rates are low and the service in general is quite good, I cannot say the same about our broadband options. Seriously, duopolies of private firms suck.
This isn't a competitive industry. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure where you got the idea that internet service was competitive. Somebody owns the wires going to your house, and they get to charge whatever they like for that knowing that there are at most one or two other options.
Around here the mayor wanted to do something like this 6 years ago and was told by Qwest that they'd be doing something about the problem in the near future. Well, it's 6 years later, the infrastructure still sucks and Qwest hasn't done jack shit about it. They just keep taking people's money because we don't have other options. Comcast managing to be even worse than Qwest.
When you take into consideration the fact that these towns weren't profitable to provide service in the first place, I'm really curious as to what the justification for pretending that treating broadband as a utility is so bad.
Damn straight, we all know that corporations are good and that gubmint is evil and providing quality services will ultimately lead to us all being slaves to the all power President.
No, it isn't. Even if it is just what the summary says, you have to adjust for the fact that the person who says it is almost certain to believe that any time the government provides a service at any price that it drives businesses out of business clear across the country.
I fail to see how communities creating their own broad band in areas where commercial ISPs aren't willing to create the service is going to create an unfair advantage to those communities. The main motivation behind the bill is pandering to a greedy and incompetent telecommunications industry.
If there were some reasonable hope of commercial ISPs going there, then yes this might be a problem. But I live in Seattle and we're likely to have to go this route because the ISPs refuse to provide us with decent affordable service. I'm fairly lucky where I live to only have to pay $50 a month and have the privilege of getting 5mbps for that, whereas in other parts of the country it's trivial to get 40mbps for $55 a month.
I think that if we were going to do it, these sorts of regulations would make some sense, but even there if the community is making a broad band network that works, I fail to see why we need commercial ISPs at all.
That's not true, there are degrees, some need to do that to serve ads, others don't. Some require tracking the individual by GPS and other means and others don't.
Unfortunately, that's typically not true. They do actually send products, but they're frequently tampered with and contain little if any of the ingredients promised. Which means that not only are the people paying money for less than what they were wanting, they might end up with dangerous drug interactions when the medication isn't what they think it is.
Additionally because these firms don't employ doctors or pharmacists there's no way of knowing what sorts of dangerous side effects are going to be over looked to make the sale.
Yes, but how do you know if spam is the same as a duck?
With spammers you don't need to go that route. Because they typically have more capacity to send than to receive, routing one unsubscribe request per spam received is frequently enough to take down their website. Sort of a slashdotting of the site. And even if the site doesn't go down, it definitely cuts into their profits to have people not only not buying, but expending resources in their quest to not buy.
Blue frog was having some luck doing something along those lines. Basically whenever a subscriber got an email from a spammer, they would send one unsubscribe request to the ISP for the whole group. If that failed, they would instruct the client to leave a generic opt out at the advertised website. And the total number of requests would typically overwhelm the server as most of the spammers were using botnets to send the spam, but only a small number of servers to actually take orders. Which was totally legal as it was individual clients leaving precisely one opt out request per email received, not leaving multiples per spam message.
It seemed to be working until they gave up.
This has been a strategy for a while now, look for ways of making the business of spamming more expensive. And there's all sorts of things that can be done, such as switching to a greylist, cleaning up malware infestations, shutting down ISPs that look the other way to spam complaints and other such things. The goal with that isn't so much to shut it down, but it's to make it so expensive that hopefully it will be less expensive to conduct email marketing legally.
I assumed that was going to be PM. Because the faithful would know not to give up hope until then.
Damn you, now I have to do that.
You could have just rephrased the question. I mean how many IT workers haven't sold their soul to Satan at some point when they desperately needed to know where that dagburned backup tape was?
You're right, there are also religious nut jobs that believe that God won't allow any flooding because the Bible doesn't foresee ones. And the libertarians that are opposed to any and all regulations on the basis of them being entitled to do whatever they like so long as there isn't an indisputable conflict with other people's rights. And then don't forget the people who don't actually have any education on the matter who are skeptics mainly because Fox News tells them to be afraid of the vast liberal conspiracy to take away their rights.
Hmm, if that's all it costs, I want one. Seriously, a good SATA card will set you back more than that. Granted that is like double the cost of a USB 3.0 card, but given that this is a somewhat different type of interface with other uses, that doesn't seem to be unreasonable. Especially given that Thunderbolt isn't being manufactured at scale yet.
It's more likely the fact that people here actually understand the implications of Apple's iPad strategy, the privacy problems with Facebook. I'm not sure specifically what is wrong with Twitter, but it's probably the fact that it encourages twats to tweet about twits and give people the idea that we care about those sorts of arrogant gits.
As far as Thunderbolt goes, I think it's at least a reasonable debate to have. Right now I can't imagine it being of any particular utility for the mainstream. Although, it could be quite useful for laptops.
Perhaps if Netcraft would have some sort of means of confirmation it might finally be settled.
One of the problems is that some ad software that free apps use seems to need to spy on people in order to work. You can opt not to install that software but the marketplace lacks transparency when it comes to what the app is actually doing with that permission. And I'm not aware of any way of keeping an eye on apps to make sure that they aren't doing anything nefarious with the permissions. Trust but verify ought to be the way with apps that you've decided to trust.
Additionally, some functionality like placing phone calls from within an app is either all or none, the platform doesn't provide a middle ground for apps which might from time to time have a legitimate reason to place calls.
That's a solid point, this site is likely to get more valuable in the near future when the current bubble in the equities market pops. Same for the housing market, the price of houses has gone down a lot, but it still hasn't hit the kind of rock bottom prices that were needed to get rid of the bubble. In the mean time Wall Street firms are making out like thieves borrowing at virtually 0% and lending that money back the US government at 3-4%.
It's going to get really ugly in the near future.
I've got a feeling that this has more to do with them not being able to secure rights to the newspapers. At least for the more recent ones they would require authorization to do so from the copyright owner. I'm not sure why the older ones aren't being scanned though. Perhaps that's a matter of Google needing access and most of those papers being held by the newspapers that published them originally.