Unfortunately, it'll never happen. It'd be nice if it did but, so long as ISPs have lobbying power, which they do, it'll never come to pass.
If the bill banned caps, I would believe it.
It actually just requires the FCC approval for caps. If ISPs with the most political pull think it will let them have caps while denying them to their competitors, they might well not work too hard to prevent the bill from passing (though they'd still probably say they didn't want it.)
Until you realize they will just lower their speeds.
If the telcos that use caps lowered their speeds, that would make them less able to appear superficially price:performance competitive with their competition, where they have it, so forcing them to be more honest about what they are providing would still be a plus.
Of course, the bill would not prohibit caps, it would make ISPs get FCC approval for caps, which might reduce the imposition of caps, or it might mean that those that have the most political pull would get their caps approved, while those with less pull would not.
So instead of going to flickr I have to know and maintain all of my friends' computer addresses? In what, an address book that I store on my computer? What if I'm at a friend's house and want to show them another friend's picture, but they don't know the address?
If you were going to do this, yeah, you'd store the address book on your computer (ideally, in the form of a web page or something similarly easy for remote access), and if you were at some other computer and needed to get to one of your favorite sites, you wouldn't need to remember the site, only your own address, and you'd go there, get the link, and go to the site you are looking for.
Note, I actually think the idea that every computer will get used as a server like this with IPv6 to be ridiculous (the reason you don't want every computer used this way is because you don't want your desktop/laptop on all the time, drawing power constantly and busy serving remote requests when you want to use for something else, not because there aren't enough IPs -- it makes more sense for a home to get one, low power, always-on server on the home network for anything that it makes sense to share within that network and/or expose (securely) remotely, but continue to share stuff publicly through external servers, even with IPv6.)
What's the alternative? I don't think they can just tell whose house a particular modem on their network is located in.
Why not? Maybe there is some fundamental difference between DSL and Cable infrastructure that prevents this, but when I've switch modems on my DSL line I've just unplugged the old one and plugged in the new one.
This will be a blast of a tool for web developers. Imagine developing your work anywhere on your laptop, regardless of availability of internet connection.
Chances are, you aren't going to use the app you are working on in production with Opera's built in server, so why develop or test it using it, when you can just install whatever server you actually need to develop against on the laptop, instead?
The fact that a pro-democracy, pro human-rights, even pro women's-rights Grand Ayatollah ( Montazeri ) is likely to become the new temporary Supreme Leader while a new constitution is written means nothing to you?
The demand doesn't mean its likely to happen. I'm not at all an expert on Iran, but I'd be willing to bet that if the Guardian Council meets some of the demands (like throwing out the election results and tossing Khamenei), they won't appoint the temporary Supreme Leader proposed by the protestors, but someone else somewhat more conservative but not seen as close to Khamenei.
If Khamenei and Ahmadinejad are turfed tomorrow, the Islamic regime will still be there. There may be some changes, but at the end of the day, and unless an actual proper, focused revolution occurs, the differences won't be substantial.
England hasn't had a "proper, focussed revolution" since the Restoration, but despite the continuity of its government fairly substantial changes have occurred. The US hasn't had a successful "proper, focussed revolution" since the adoption of the Constitution, and the same is true. I see no basis for assuming that the Islamic Republic of Iran, even if it retained its same basic strucutre, would not, likewise, see substantial change over time.
First, let me commend your work in compiling the positions of the Marjas -- that is interesting and illuminating.
Even Mousavi is likely to be temporary now, considering he was only allowed to run because Khamenei approved him.
Since no one is allowed to run for President without the approval of the Guardian Council a whole, I'm not sure I see what is special about this. ISTR that there was at one point a perception that he was preferred by Khamenei as an obstacle to other reformists, but, given Khamenei's initial and subsequent blessing of the results favoring Ahmadinejad, I don't think anyone is going to see Mousavi as a puppet or ally of Khamenei at this point.
This is the saddest part of all of this. There are plenty of reasons for the Iranian people, or at least the middle and upper classes, to loathe Ahmadinejad, but if these proto-revolutionaries think they're fighting to take back Iran from the Ayatollahs, they're sadly mistaken.
As yet, I've heard nothing that indicates that the Iranian opposition that backs Mousavi is generally opposed to "the Ayatollahs", rather than particular current policies. Is it so hard to understand that people can fiercely oppose the policies of an incumbent administration, and even see them as repressive, without opposing the basic -- at least, overt and theoretical -- structure of the government?
Everyone who thinks they are helping by siding with the Iranian opposition has a very poor understanding of Iranian politics. It doesn't matter whether it's from the government or whether it's from regular Western citizens, helping the opposition figures does not help the United States in any way. It just puts a different face on the same anti-Western government. The difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi is on economic policy not foreign policy.
Economic and other domestic policy makes a huge difference to the long-term prospects for freedom and real and durable democracy in Iran, and a big deal (in part because of the preceding, and independently of it) in the long-term prospects for Iran being a peaceful regime, however small the near term foreign policy differences are.
Why is it that every time a new technology is created we have to phrase it as "taking aim" or "taking on" or being a "[blank] killer?" Why can't we all just get along?
Avoiding the generalities, in the specific case of HTML5, its because some of the biggest players pushing (Apple and Google, certainly, as well as others) are specifically pushing it to replace proprietary content delivery mechanisms that are suboptimal for their particular business models.
Google is a Canvas/HTML5 backer, both via their various web properties and via Chrome.
And Android's browser, which is more important than Chrome because its bundled with the OS on Android phones, so on those platforms it has the same (or stronger) position than IE has on Windows devices.
All it will take is a web property like YouTube to put a nice big link up there saying "hey, look at how much cooler YouTube could be without IE), and people will start dropping it like mad.
More likely, it just needs platforms like the iPhone and Android to get popular enough; if you've got a big audience that HTML5 is the best way to reach, HTML5 will get adopted.
Client-side, it's a very different kettle of fish. Silverlight can fight Flash by being bundled with the OS (or installed wia WU); JavaFX can fight it by being bundled with JRE (or installed when JRE is auto-updated). I don't see any similar opportunity for HTML5.
HTML5 support is, increasingly, bundled with the OS on lots of mobile platforms (both Android's browser and Mobile Safari on the iPhone.)
The desktop isn't the only route people get to the Web these days.
If Microsoft choose to not implement HTML5 + CSS3 for 10 years, then HTML5 + CSS3 is, to all intents and purposes, 10 years out.
Assuming environments on which Microsoft browsers are dominant remain the dominant browser environments for that 10 years.
OTOH, if non-Windows smartphones and similar mobile devices continue to proliferate, Microsoft won't be able to use its desktop OS monopoly and consequent "default choice" status among desktop browsers to dictate de facto web standards, and will be forced to either adapt or risk losing its position on the desktop to vendors that do keep up.
But since HTML5 is not owned by a company, it puts Adobe on equal footing with any other company making an editor.
Which puts them behind compared to their situation with regard to Flash, where no one is on equal footing.
If they just changed their product to output HTML5 instead of or in addition to a swf file, they'll keep their strangehold on the editor market.
Sure, but someone will leverage HTML5 itself to build "good enough" editors that, while they won't eliminate the market for commercial editors, will shrink it greatly. And since its a web standard where browser vendors will usually control the implementation, rather than a proprietary standard where Adobe will control the implementation, Adobe won't be able to keep it a moving target to move the goalposts the way they could if someone tried something similar with Flash.
This seems like an awfully expensive solution. Does anyone remember Stratovision? It was too costly to keep a B-29 in the air 24/7 just to broadcast. Why should it be any different with disposable air balloons carrying easily lost technology?
Because both the disposable ballons and the "technology" they carry are cheap and easily replaced, which is decidedly not the case with a WWII-era heavy bomber equipped with contemporaneous TV broadcasting systems.
We shouldn't have interfered in Iraq whenever almost the exact situation was going on
Not to endorse GPs recommendation, but when, exactly, was "almost the exact situation" going on in Iraq? Particular dates and description of the similarities, please.
As much as many here on slashdot like to bash twitter, its clear that social networking tools such as twitter and facebook can be immensely useful in this sort of repressive situation.
The same was true earlier of blogging from within Iraq in the lead up to and during (especially the early part of) the recent Iraq War, and even usenet and other contemporary internet outlets in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. That new media that are not at the top of the regimes radar are of particular utility in getting out information when those in control are trying to keep tight control of information is hardly a new effect, and the reason it is nearly universally true where such media exist should be obvious.
Offer to arm the Iranian insurgency. The bad guys are already armed.
While some aspects of the US have appeal to some elements of the Iranian opposition, the US government is not exactly the most trusted institution among Iranians, and there is a serious risk that any visible connection between the US government and the Iranian opposition would do much to discredit that opposition among Iranians.
The situation would be somewhat different if, with the backing of its mass membership, the Iranian opposition were seeking the involvement of the US.
So what happens then when these untethered balloons are floating up into the jet stream and a Airbus or 747 doesn't pick it up on radar and the damn thing floats right into the jet intake, causing an explosion and bringing down 400 souls to their death?
They are tracked by GPS. It would be fairly trivial to keep the appropriate air traffic control authorities apprised of their location, and, given the kind of concern you point to, I would assume that this is mandatory.
The US constitution specifically states that gold an silver are legal tender.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it state that gold and silver are legal tender. Gold and silver are the only things excluded from the set of things states are prohibited from deciding, on their own, to make legal tender, but that's not the same thing.
As mentioned by a poster somewhere upthread, it would make more sense to tax the actual value of the coin when and if the employee sells it as bullion.
As part of the arrangement was that the employer offered to immediately redeem the coins for their investment value, that makes no difference. Because the value of the payment is then the value of the what the employee is entitled to, which is the greater of the investment or face value of the coins (since, under the arrangement, the employer has made a agreement to pay either at the employee's choice.)
Of course, that it is tax evasion, rather than avoidance, is obvious from the fact that is ignored in most of the comments: the employer didn't report any income to the IRS, whether at the real value of the arrangement or at the face value of the coins, and didn't withhold any of the required taxes from the payments.
No, they aren't. States are expressly forbidden from making anything else legal tender for debts, but Congress is expressly granted the exclusive power to create money, and to regulate the value of all forms of money.
and the federal government must supply and accept gold and silver tender.
Nothing anywhere in the Constitution either requires the government to supply gold or silver coins as money, or to accept it as tender. Arguably, states are permitted to make gold and silver coin legal tender (expressly, Art. I, S. 10 forbids them to make anything else legal tender, and the express exception of gold and silver coin from that prohibition at least strongly implies that they are permitted to make those legal tender), but even if one or more states choose to exercise that right, nothing in the Constitution would bind the federal government to that state action.
If it became popular may also get people asking difficult questions like why a $30 coin is really worth $1000, or more to the point why a $1 federal reserve note can only buy 1% of the value of a $30 dollar coin.
You are contradicting yourself. $1 is not 1% of $1000. But, anyhow, Congress authority in Art. I, Sec. 8 to dictate the legal value of money is express; that any non-vacuous exercise of such power necessarily will result in differences between the relative legal values of some forms of money and their relative commodity values is fairly obvious.
"No State shall [...] make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts [...]" --Article 1, Section 10 of the United States Constitution
Federal Reserve Notes are nothing but counterfeit money.
Nice try, but Federal Reserve Notes are not made tender in payment of debts by any State, as the term "State" is used in the US Constitution, and therefore are not within the scope of that prohibition; they are legal tender by Act of Congress (Coinage Act of 1965, particularly that bit codified at 31 USC Sec. 5103: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." If Congress makes it money, it is real money, not conterfeit, because of Congress' express power in Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have power [...] To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures; [...]"
Slashdot Mirror
If the bill banned caps, I would believe it.
It actually just requires the FCC approval for caps. If ISPs with the most political pull think it will let them have caps while denying them to their competitors, they might well not work too hard to prevent the bill from passing (though they'd still probably say they didn't want it.)
If the telcos that use caps lowered their speeds, that would make them less able to appear superficially price:performance competitive with their competition, where they have it, so forcing them to be more honest about what they are providing would still be a plus.
Of course, the bill would not prohibit caps, it would make ISPs get FCC approval for caps, which might reduce the imposition of caps, or it might mean that those that have the most political pull would get their caps approved, while those with less pull would not.
If you were going to do this, yeah, you'd store the address book on your computer (ideally, in the form of a web page or something similarly easy for remote access), and if you were at some other computer and needed to get to one of your favorite sites, you wouldn't need to remember the site, only your own address, and you'd go there, get the link, and go to the site you are looking for.
Note, I actually think the idea that every computer will get used as a server like this with IPv6 to be ridiculous (the reason you don't want every computer used this way is because you don't want your desktop/laptop on all the time, drawing power constantly and busy serving remote requests when you want to use for something else, not because there aren't enough IPs -- it makes more sense for a home to get one, low power, always-on server on the home network for anything that it makes sense to share within that network and/or expose (securely) remotely, but continue to share stuff publicly through external servers, even with IPv6.)
Why not? Maybe there is some fundamental difference between DSL and Cable infrastructure that prevents this, but when I've switch modems on my DSL line I've just unplugged the old one and plugged in the new one.
Chances are, you aren't going to use the app you are working on in production with Opera's built in server, so why develop or test it using it, when you can just install whatever server you actually need to develop against on the laptop, instead?
I would suggest that requiring that a language be used in as many projects as Fortran ever has been is a ludicrous standard for "flourishing".
The demand doesn't mean its likely to happen. I'm not at all an expert on Iran, but I'd be willing to bet that if the Guardian Council meets some of the demands (like throwing out the election results and tossing Khamenei), they won't appoint the temporary Supreme Leader proposed by the protestors, but someone else somewhat more conservative but not seen as close to Khamenei.
England hasn't had a "proper, focussed revolution" since the Restoration, but despite the continuity of its government fairly substantial changes have occurred. The US hasn't had a successful "proper, focussed revolution" since the adoption of the Constitution, and the same is true. I see no basis for assuming that the Islamic Republic of Iran, even if it retained its same basic strucutre, would not, likewise, see substantial change over time.
First, let me commend your work in compiling the positions of the Marjas -- that is interesting and illuminating.
Since no one is allowed to run for President without the approval of the Guardian Council a whole, I'm not sure I see what is special about this. ISTR that there was at one point a perception that he was preferred by Khamenei as an obstacle to other reformists, but, given Khamenei's initial and subsequent blessing of the results favoring Ahmadinejad, I don't think anyone is going to see Mousavi as a puppet or ally of Khamenei at this point.
As yet, I've heard nothing that indicates that the Iranian opposition that backs Mousavi is generally opposed to "the Ayatollahs", rather than particular current policies. Is it so hard to understand that people can fiercely oppose the policies of an incumbent administration, and even see them as repressive, without opposing the basic -- at least, overt and theoretical -- structure of the government?
Economic and other domestic policy makes a huge difference to the long-term prospects for freedom and real and durable democracy in Iran, and a big deal (in part because of the preceding, and independently of it) in the long-term prospects for Iran being a peaceful regime, however small the near term foreign policy differences are.
Avoiding the generalities, in the specific case of HTML5, its because some of the biggest players pushing (Apple and Google, certainly, as well as others) are specifically pushing it to replace proprietary content delivery mechanisms that are suboptimal for their particular business models.
And Android's browser, which is more important than Chrome because its bundled with the OS on Android phones, so on those platforms it has the same (or stronger) position than IE has on Windows devices.
More likely, it just needs platforms like the iPhone and Android to get popular enough; if you've got a big audience that HTML5 is the best way to reach, HTML5 will get adopted.
HTML5 support is, increasingly, bundled with the OS on lots of mobile platforms (both Android's browser and Mobile Safari on the iPhone.)
The desktop isn't the only route people get to the Web these days.
Assuming environments on which Microsoft browsers are dominant remain the dominant browser environments for that 10 years.
OTOH, if non-Windows smartphones and similar mobile devices continue to proliferate, Microsoft won't be able to use its desktop OS monopoly and consequent "default choice" status among desktop browsers to dictate de facto web standards, and will be forced to either adapt or risk losing its position on the desktop to vendors that do keep up.
Which puts them behind compared to their situation with regard to Flash, where no one is on equal footing.
Sure, but someone will leverage HTML5 itself to build "good enough" editors that, while they won't eliminate the market for commercial editors, will shrink it greatly. And since its a web standard where browser vendors will usually control the implementation, rather than a proprietary standard where Adobe will control the implementation, Adobe won't be able to keep it a moving target to move the goalposts the way they could if someone tried something similar with Flash.
Because both the disposable ballons and the "technology" they carry are cheap and easily replaced, which is decidedly not the case with a WWII-era heavy bomber equipped with contemporaneous TV broadcasting systems.
Not to endorse GPs recommendation, but when, exactly, was "almost the exact situation" going on in Iraq? Particular dates and description of the similarities, please.
The same was true earlier of blogging from within Iraq in the lead up to and during (especially the early part of) the recent Iraq War, and even usenet and other contemporary internet outlets in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. That new media that are not at the top of the regimes radar are of particular utility in getting out information when those in control are trying to keep tight control of information is hardly a new effect, and the reason it is nearly universally true where such media exist should be obvious.
While some aspects of the US have appeal to some elements of the Iranian opposition, the US government is not exactly the most trusted institution among Iranians, and there is a serious risk that any visible connection between the US government and the Iranian opposition would do much to discredit that opposition among Iranians.
The situation would be somewhat different if, with the backing of its mass membership, the Iranian opposition were seeking the involvement of the US.
They are tracked by GPS. It would be fairly trivial to keep the appropriate air traffic control authorities apprised of their location, and, given the kind of concern you point to, I would assume that this is mandatory.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it state that gold and silver are legal tender. Gold and silver are the only things excluded from the set of things states are prohibited from deciding, on their own, to make legal tender, but that's not the same thing.
As part of the arrangement was that the employer offered to immediately redeem the coins for their investment value, that makes no difference. Because the value of the payment is then the value of the what the employee is entitled to, which is the greater of the investment or face value of the coins (since, under the arrangement, the employer has made a agreement to pay either at the employee's choice.)
Of course, that it is tax evasion, rather than avoidance, is obvious from the fact that is ignored in most of the comments: the employer didn't report any income to the IRS, whether at the real value of the arrangement or at the face value of the coins, and didn't withhold any of the required taxes from the payments.
This was a multi-layer tax evasion scam.
No, they aren't. States are expressly forbidden from making anything else legal tender for debts, but Congress is expressly granted the exclusive power to create money, and to regulate the value of all forms of money.
Nothing anywhere in the Constitution either requires the government to supply gold or silver coins as money, or to accept it as tender. Arguably, states are permitted to make gold and silver coin legal tender (expressly, Art. I, S. 10 forbids them to make anything else legal tender, and the express exception of gold and silver coin from that prohibition at least strongly implies that they are permitted to make those legal tender), but even if one or more states choose to exercise that right, nothing in the Constitution would bind the federal government to that state action.
You are contradicting yourself. $1 is not 1% of $1000. But, anyhow, Congress authority in Art. I, Sec. 8 to dictate the legal value of money is express; that any non-vacuous exercise of such power necessarily will result in differences between the relative legal values of some forms of money and their relative commodity values is fairly obvious.
Nice try, but Federal Reserve Notes are not made tender in payment of debts by any State, as the term "State" is used in the US Constitution, and therefore are not within the scope of that prohibition; they are legal tender by Act of Congress (Coinage Act of 1965, particularly that bit codified at 31 USC Sec. 5103: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." If Congress makes it money, it is real money, not conterfeit, because of Congress' express power in Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have power [...] To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures; [...]"