I did hear about Verizon finally winning their suit against the county. Just a few weeks ago, wasn't it?
I also live in Rockville. It's inspiring to see you so involved in this issue. I'll keep tabs on your blog and hell, I'll help you participate in this stuff when it comes up.
On top of that, the node only goes into the complex in general. So while you're promised 3mbps at 60$ a month (which other providers like AT&T will give for 20$/month), you actually get 3mbps divided by however many people in the complex happen to be using it at the time.
The net result, at least here, ends up in a 60$/month dial-up connection quality internet.
I also have Comcast and our node is set up the same way.
On the average Sunday afternoon or early weeknight evening, I'm lucky if I can simply browse the internet. Even small web pages take some time to open (and no, I'm not talking 3 seconds vs. 1 second, I'm talking I sit here for 45-60 seconds for pages like yahoo.com to load).
But unless your county officials belong in a federal prison for corruption, the reason you don't have cable competition is that no competitors are interested in laying cable.
I live in the same area as the GP. I can tell you that Verizon is trying like NOBODY's business to try to displace Comcast and get as much FiOS cable laid as they possibly can. The problem is that in this area, most of the apartment complexes are owned by 2 or 3 very large real estate companies, and they have exclusive contracts with Comcast and Cox. Verizon is having a very hard time making inroads in the renter's markets, but they've had more success in the residential areas (homes, condos, townhomes). Several of my coworkers have FiOS. They pay less, the signal quality is better, the service is better, the signing perks are incredible.
I REALLY want to get FiOS, but of course, I live in an apartment complex that has an exclusive contract. I pay an ungodly amount every month just for basic cable and internet access. The same package with Verizon is less than half the price.
Lately Comcast has been running ads here about how allowing additional cable operators in the area stifles competition. Every time I see/hear one of these commercials, I want to rip the radio out of the dashboard (or smash the tv against the wall). The contradiction in the ads is so incredibly blatant that it would shock me if anyone actually fell for them, but the sick part is, the sheep will almost always choose to defend the wolf. It's the craziest thing..
Real estate, food, fuel, cars, insurance, governmental fees and the general cost of doing business. About everything except the cheap stuff wal-mart sells
Doubling in 10 years is a sign of 7% growth and that is what the economy is growing at.
This is something I've noticed in the congressional districts surrounding DC (I live in Montgomery County). The congressman here rarely run (seriously) opposed. Sure there's always more than one name on the ballot, but nobody ever votes for them. It's a strange system of incumbency I see here. (I moved here 3 years ago).
Am I the first to notice that Comcast may have removed the filter? Last night I started the Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon DVD download. I thought it would be done this morning, but I noticed the network switch still blinking like crazy. I logged in and checked the status. The download is done. I checked the upload status...
Hmmm interesting. I will retry some of my LiveCD downloads tonight. I gave up on them because of the throttling (they would have taken months to finish) but this sounds promising.
I agree, there are a lot of Linux ISO's out there that need to be seeded.
Number one reason I don't try more Linux Live CD's. HTTP downloads are atrociously slow because most Linux distros don't have vast quantities of cash to buy fast hosting, so the only alternative is BitTorrent. Except that I tried to torrent several LiveCD's and it would have taken me something like 45 DAYS to complete the download.
I'd love to try out Linux more than I have but until there's a better way to actually download the cd images, I really can't.
hmmm... the %20 issue brings up an interesting point. If I type in something with spaces, does my browser fill in the %20 or does the receiving server do it? Is it possible to send an actual URL string with the Space character? If not, then their claim of 'free text' after the domain name is null. Then it JUST comes down to the 'lack of ANYTHING else' after the domain name as a search qualifier claim. Haven't seen an example of both posted here yet.
The browser adds it. The RFC specification disallows URLs that contain spaces. So the browser makes sure that all web requests use URLs without spaces. In short, the browser converts the "Space" character to %20. Every major browser does this. What the receiving server sees looks like "Some%20Search%20Term" and has to url-decode the string to generate the search.
This patent is absolute crap. They're basically patenting a feature of the HTTP specification itself, and functionality that has existed in Apache for 15 years. Hell, I used exactly this sort of feature in a website I made 3 years ago, just before they submitted this patent. And I didn't come up with the technique on my own - I used several very well developed tutorials to do so. It's a feature that has been widely used on the web for at least the past 7 years.
I simply cannot believe this one ever even got submitted. This is THE definition of patent trolling.
This is the laugher of the day! Why would the feds go through all the expense and hassle of reading your email looking for political dissidents when they could just go to the nearest Code Pink rally or raid the offices of MoveOn.org!!!
And that's just one incident. HE PERSONALLY has experienced and documented dozens more. You really don't see what's right in front of your face, do you?
It is common knowledge that they used the FBI to dig up dirt on political opponents. Now it is coming to light the they intercepted wireless phone calls of political opponents to listen in. At least this administration lets you know they are doing it.
You say that as though it justifies it. How about "they're both wrong, let's string BOTH of them up for treason"?
Also... there's this little problem called "who is going to invest the money to create a product" if there is no copyright.
Precisely, which is why the Founders of the US chose to include a provision for it in the Constitution. A world without copyright might have some advantages, but we've long seen that a world with copyright has better ones.
Copyright has a place. Simply not the abusive place in which it currently exists.
My question is, will today's generations go down in history as protectors or destroyers of the great experiment that is the United States of America? Will we be a beacon of freedom for others, or a sad footnote of history? Will we sit on our hands until the destruction of civil war rips the fabric of the nation, or will we have the wisdom to settle conflicts peacefully (hold public policy makers to a higher standard)?
If you have to ask that question, you already know the answer.
If you really need to figure out that answer, go out on the street and ask 5 people how much they care about this. Then ask 50. Then ask 200. Then check yourself into a mental hospital for depression.
Generations like The Greatest Generation existed because ultimately, people cared about this nation's principles and the rights upon which it is based. Thing is, it's all so easy now. We take it for granted, so we won't defend it when it's truly threatened.
A Gov like that is going to presume you're guilty of something.
In which case your attempt to appease them with legal porn is probably not going to help. A government like that will find something to charge you with no matter what you do, so why give in so damned easily?
So corporate entities do things for the greater good of us all, not for the chance to sell people updated, non-cripped, feature-rich versions of their "free" packages?
The two ends aren't necessarily contradictory. While I'm no fan of corporate corruption (simply look at my other posts here), I'm willing to grant when they actually do something right.
And why should Google or any other $SERVER give you this expensive-to-gather information phishing sites blacklist for Free??
For the same reason many anti-virus vendors have free versions of their products that they keep up to date for free: it reduces the overall infection rate and makes the internet a generally safer place.
I'm willing to exchange some small information for this service if it were so asked, but I'm not going to exchange my mail or searches for it. I might exchange my browsing history. I'm not going to exchange my security for my privacy.
I'd like to see some of these software companies that do this get sued for such poor coding practices.
So would I, because it would stop this never-ending process of "faster, cheaper" that permeates software development. Nobody wants to spend time on architecture and debugging, they want to get it written as quickly and cheaply as possible to get it out the door.
There's no negative reinforcement for that behavior because so long as they include the standard "this application is not guaranteed to do anything useful" disclaimer, no court will ever find them liable for the damage their system causes - like, oh, say, causing a power grid to shut down for 6 hours.
larger credit lines do not decrease credit scores.
At a certain point they do. Since the scoring algorithms aren't transparent, we can't know at what point, but once you've got enough credit to potentially owe far more than you can repay, your score is going to go down.
The score takes into account how much debt you can potentially be in tomorrow, if you suddenly decide to spend every cent of credit you have. The higher your credit limit relative to your earnings, the more that counts against you.
If credit card is really interested in screwing you, they wouldn't increase your credit line. Instead they'd report to credit agencies that you were late with your payment 3 times by more than 30 days, which'll put your rating in the toilet so much faster.
No, because the instant you realize your credit report is inaccurate, you change it and they lose their edge.
It's much more advantageous to dangle a carrot in front of you that's poisoned, and benefit when you take it. Then, the fault is ENTIRELY yours, YOU entered into the agreement and there's nothing inaccurate about it.
And if you think they haven't thought of this, and build their business practices around it, you're naive. Their WHOLE JOB is to think of things like this.
and the telecoms wonder why we call for net neutrality.
Although there are good ethical arguments for it, I look at net neutrality in its most practical sense: I'm aware that people, being people, generally desire as much profit and control as they can muster. Capitalism depends on those forces. That being the case, it's only natural to demand there be safeguards against the most egregious of those behaviors.
There's no reason to expect people will just sit around and let you take as much control as you want. Thus, Net Neutrality is born.
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Yep, I've been seeing this too. Random intervals of 5-20 minutes when I simply can't get Google to load at all.
Comcast in MD.
I did hear about Verizon finally winning their suit against the county. Just a few weeks ago, wasn't it?
I also live in Rockville. It's inspiring to see you so involved in this issue. I'll keep tabs on your blog and hell, I'll help you participate in this stuff when it comes up.
I also have Comcast and our node is set up the same way.
On the average Sunday afternoon or early weeknight evening, I'm lucky if I can simply browse the internet. Even small web pages take some time to open (and no, I'm not talking 3 seconds vs. 1 second, I'm talking I sit here for 45-60 seconds for pages like yahoo.com to load).
It's very frustrating.
I live in the same area as the GP. I can tell you that Verizon is trying like NOBODY's business to try to displace Comcast and get as much FiOS cable laid as they possibly can. The problem is that in this area, most of the apartment complexes are owned by 2 or 3 very large real estate companies, and they have exclusive contracts with Comcast and Cox. Verizon is having a very hard time making inroads in the renter's markets, but they've had more success in the residential areas (homes, condos, townhomes). Several of my coworkers have FiOS. They pay less, the signal quality is better, the service is better, the signing perks are incredible.
I REALLY want to get FiOS, but of course, I live in an apartment complex that has an exclusive contract. I pay an ungodly amount every month just for basic cable and internet access. The same package with Verizon is less than half the price.
Lately Comcast has been running ads here about how allowing additional cable operators in the area stifles competition. Every time I see/hear one of these commercials, I want to rip the radio out of the dashboard (or smash the tv against the wall). The contradiction in the ads is so incredibly blatant that it would shock me if anyone actually fell for them, but the sick part is, the sheep will almost always choose to defend the wolf. It's the craziest thing..
Wow. You really need to retake Economics 101.
Intriguing.. thank you!
And the joke is saved! The crowd goes wild! :D
This is something I've noticed in the congressional districts surrounding DC (I live in Montgomery County). The congressman here rarely run (seriously) opposed. Sure there's always more than one name on the ballot, but nobody ever votes for them. It's a strange system of incumbency I see here. (I moved here 3 years ago).
Hmmm interesting. I will retry some of my LiveCD downloads tonight. I gave up on them because of the throttling (they would have taken months to finish) but this sounds promising.
Number one reason I don't try more Linux Live CD's. HTTP downloads are atrociously slow because most Linux distros don't have vast quantities of cash to buy fast hosting, so the only alternative is BitTorrent. Except that I tried to torrent several LiveCD's and it would have taken me something like 45 DAYS to complete the download.
I'd love to try out Linux more than I have but until there's a better way to actually download the cd images, I really can't.
Comcast customer in MD, by the way.
The browser adds it. The RFC specification disallows URLs that contain spaces. So the browser makes sure that all web requests use URLs without spaces. In short, the browser converts the "Space" character to %20. Every major browser does this. What the receiving server sees looks like "Some%20Search%20Term" and has to url-decode the string to generate the search.
This patent is absolute crap. They're basically patenting a feature of the HTTP specification itself, and functionality that has existed in Apache for 15 years. Hell, I used exactly this sort of feature in a website I made 3 years ago, just before they submitted this patent. And I didn't come up with the technique on my own - I used several very well developed tutorials to do so. It's a feature that has been widely used on the web for at least the past 7 years.
I simply cannot believe this one ever even got submitted. This is THE definition of patent trolling.
You cannot possibly be so naive as to actually believe that.
And that's just one incident. HE PERSONALLY has experienced and documented dozens more. You really don't see what's right in front of your face, do you?
You say that as though it justifies it. How about "they're both wrong, let's string BOTH of them up for treason"?
Precisely, which is why the Founders of the US chose to include a provision for it in the Constitution. A world without copyright might have some advantages, but we've long seen that a world with copyright has better ones.
Copyright has a place. Simply not the abusive place in which it currently exists.
That's when you thank them for developing that closed source product for you, buy one copy, and sell a million of them at a lower price.
Their software isn't protected either, remember?
If you have to ask that question, you already know the answer.
If you really need to figure out that answer, go out on the street and ask 5 people how much they care about this. Then ask 50. Then ask 200. Then check yourself into a mental hospital for depression.
Generations like The Greatest Generation existed because ultimately, people cared about this nation's principles and the rights upon which it is based. Thing is, it's all so easy now. We take it for granted, so we won't defend it when it's truly threatened.
New keyboard. Now. You owe me.
In which case your attempt to appease them with legal porn is probably not going to help. A government like that will find something to charge you with no matter what you do, so why give in so damned easily?
The two ends aren't necessarily contradictory. While I'm no fan of corporate corruption (simply look at my other posts here), I'm willing to grant when they actually do something right.
Thus my moniker.
For the same reason many anti-virus vendors have free versions of their products that they keep up to date for free: it reduces the overall infection rate and makes the internet a generally safer place.
I'm willing to exchange some small information for this service if it were so asked, but I'm not going to exchange my mail or searches for it. I might exchange my browsing history. I'm not going to exchange my security for my privacy.
So would I, because it would stop this never-ending process of "faster, cheaper" that permeates software development. Nobody wants to spend time on architecture and debugging, they want to get it written as quickly and cheaply as possible to get it out the door.
There's no negative reinforcement for that behavior because so long as they include the standard "this application is not guaranteed to do anything useful" disclaimer, no court will ever find them liable for the damage their system causes - like, oh, say, causing a power grid to shut down for 6 hours.
At a certain point they do. Since the scoring algorithms aren't transparent, we can't know at what point, but once you've got enough credit to potentially owe far more than you can repay, your score is going to go down.
The score takes into account how much debt you can potentially be in tomorrow, if you suddenly decide to spend every cent of credit you have. The higher your credit limit relative to your earnings, the more that counts against you.
No, because the instant you realize your credit report is inaccurate, you change it and they lose their edge.
It's much more advantageous to dangle a carrot in front of you that's poisoned, and benefit when you take it. Then, the fault is ENTIRELY yours, YOU entered into the agreement and there's nothing inaccurate about it.
And if you think they haven't thought of this, and build their business practices around it, you're naive. Their WHOLE JOB is to think of things like this.
Although there are good ethical arguments for it, I look at net neutrality in its most practical sense: I'm aware that people, being people, generally desire as much profit and control as they can muster. Capitalism depends on those forces. That being the case, it's only natural to demand there be safeguards against the most egregious of those behaviors.
There's no reason to expect people will just sit around and let you take as much control as you want. Thus, Net Neutrality is born.
It has been replaced with:
The customer owes us profitability!!!!!
Yes.
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