It should also be noted that most people that are homeless aren't homeless for very long. It's the chronic homeless that are the ones with mental illness and/or addiction issues. For better or worse, we can not force them into treatment and into receiving medical care (which is actually available - though there's often a bit of a wait as beds are limited) unless they're a danger to themselves or to other people - and provably so, to a judge.
People like to blame it on Reagan but (and I support this) it was actually really started with a few suits and some publicity in the early 1970s, maybe the late 1960s. The ACLU brought a number of suits, notably in New York State being one of the first, which basically resulted in a couple of different things happening. One, they had to start treating the patients like humans and stop abusing them. Two, they had to let them go if they weren't an obvious danger to themselves or others - and that was a pretty low bar (and still is).
It made housing and processing them very expensive. They let 'em loose and some even got bus tickets to new jurisdictions. California's thought to be warm and was a popular destination as was Arizona, Nevada, and Florida.
At any rate, the chronically homeless (a different subject altogether and needs to be addressed differently) is usually due to mental health issues. We, as a country, have decided that we can't lock people up against their will. This is the result of that. We can'tn force them into residential treatment. We can't force them into community housing. We can't force them to do much of anything unless they're judged to be incompetent. Some will view that is inhumane and others will view that as freedom. It's complicated but I'm in the freedom camp and side with the ACLU on this one. Sometimes, you accept the greater of two evils for the sake of principle.
You wouldn't happen to know anyone affiliated with this, would you? I'd be willing to send 'em a couple of bucks to help pay for the utility bills seeing as the non-profit will be the one that's covering those expenses. I should think that Amazon would be happy with the goodwill and trivial expense (unless power is outlandishly expensive there) but it would appear not. If you happen to know someone whom I can contact then I'd be interested in sending a few dollars there way to help cover the utility bills for the duration of their stay.
I'm not sure what would make you think that. I realize you're new here so you probably don't know a whole lot but, rest assured, that is not true. On top of that, this article really doesn't have a whole lot to do with Windows. In fact, it specifically mentions that it's applications running on computers that use the Linux kernel (though I suppose there might be a few Windows servers with JBoss installed but I'm not sure if they'd have Destiny - I don't really keep up with Windows much anymore).
But no... You're new. Stick around and you might see that your opinion is unsubstantiated. Windows has been called out for security issues many, many times. It has even been called out when it was not to blame but rather the fault was the application(s) that were running on it. The various distros are, by no means, completely secure - nor is the kernel itself. There are security issues on a regular basis. Such is life and only a fool relies on an application for their security needs. Security is a process, not an application.
Stick around, learn a little. We were all new once.
Yes but they got to enjoy it just as much, if not more, the second or third time around.
To put this into another light, there are whole documentary series (some of great length) that I've watched multiple times and each time been able to enjoy it - and learn more things from it. You've a very narrow definition of what's good and what is not good if you insist that you get maximum enjoyment the first time around. I can think of many things that I've enjoyed many times over and I'm grateful for that.
I... I understand. I don't think many realize how introspective, almost profound, your statement was. I test like a genius. I really am not that smart. I don't even have long-term memory, it's like it holds it long enough to be dumped. When it no longer needs it, it cycles out the unimportant (it thinks) stuff and leaves me with vague recollections. On paper, I'm a genius. My thesis was the hardest thing I've done in my life - I'm also not even very creative.
In classes where I could get away with it, I used to read the books in the first week of the semester/year and just leave it and not bother with it for the rest of the year. That was rather effective until I hit college. I have my Ph.D. but it was a pain in the ass. On paper, I look like I'm brilliant. That's not even remotely the case. I just seem to retain things really well - until it gets dumped. Once it's dumped, it quickly fades unless there's a reason for me to keep using it.
It's why I'll reference stuff like, "It was in that documentary, by what's his face - the guy who has the photo technique named after him... Burns, yeah, him... Anyhow, it was in that documentary but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was about but I know they mentioned it and had several references for it. Oh, it was also about the rum-running, so it must have been his prohibition documentary or, wait, wait... It might have actually been about the period before and during prohibition - but it was about it, nonetheless. And that's what it reminds me of."
It's like my brain functions a bit like RAM. I liken it to a hard drive that needs to be defragged or given a full low-level reformat but it's more like RAM in that once it is used and no longer needed then it is freed up for another application with no remnants left behind unless you have special forensic tools.:/ Once the test is over, the paper's handed in, the questions asked, and the data no longer needed - it's fading, fading with an alarming speed. I'm a couple of years younger than you, I swear it feels like I can feel my brain plasticize. So, I keep doing things to ensure my memory is getting a work out. I keep learning new things. I've returned to doing some programming - I've been retired for eight years now. I've even started to put a few things online and I'm working on a few other projects - all to keep the memory from going.
I fear that more than I fear death. I don't think that's vanity speaking, I seriously need what memory I have. I've just never really retained it, not very well, unless it was something that got lots of recollection, work, or emphasis. Even then, it's tough to be motivated when you can just reread it and retain it well enough for the next exam. How very true, it can (and might) foster laziness - and apathy.
Actually, it's not that far off. Though I've never taken a course or anything, I am able to read really quickly. I can eat a Stephen King novel in an afternoon. I retain it for a few hours, maybe a day and that's it. If I read at speedy rates, I retain very little of it. I'll remember the gist of it but I won't even remember character names, locations, or things like that. I recall some specific events - probably enough to be almost conversational so long as I'm honest about having not actually read it with the goal to retain it.
I do so quite frequently, even here on Slashdot. If it's a thread or a person's name then I slow down and pay more attention but the average comment is just one that I glance over. If it looks interesting (and not too stupid) then I'll slow down and maybe even restart that post and read it again but a bit slower. I find it comes in handy as I'm not always out to learn something. Sometimes, I am just wanting to be entertained. My brain is already full of silly things. I don't need to try to cram more stuff in there all the time. Sometimes, I just want to be entertained.
A certain subset of users still use (expensive, even) CRT displays. My understanding is that the color reproduction is more faithful and that they're more realistically calibrated with the prints. On the other hand, I can't speak to the reality of that - I'm progressively colorblind but not dangerously so. I just can't tell the difference between tones and shades all the time. I might mistake yellow or red for orange, greens for blue, blue for purple, black for blue, etc...
I actually thought everybody was fucking with me. "No, Dave. That's blue." Me, "Like fuck it is, stop screwing with me." Eventually, enough people did it and I got my eyeball doctor to look into it. The thing is, I do pattern recognition really well so I pass all the colorblindness tests - plus, it seems, it gets worse with age. So, if you've ever seen something I've designed and I didn't use a color wheel or someone else's template, now you know why it might just look the way it does.
It doesn't much matter. Albums used to be something that went together, often times. You had an album and you could listen to it - entirely. It often told a story. It meant something. It was a singular body of work. Even singles released from an album were part of that story, they were (perhaps) the introduction or preface to the story.
Today, in the world of digital releases and streaming music, the concept of the album seems to have gone away. The concept of the album being a piece of work, a statement, a period of time, an artistic interpretation of a moment or series of moments, is gone in favor of a single hit and filler material that serves no value other than to pad their work.
I find the loss of the album, as a concept and a work, to be disheartening. But, who am I to judge? The world goes where it wants to go and there's fuck all I can do about it.
I'm over 50 and I hate vinyl. Well, I don't hate it. I prefer digital audio. You can pump digital out over a tubed amp anyhow.
That said, my favorite vinyl was, of course, the White Album. There was a Jame's Taylor's Greatest Hits on vinyl that was pretty good too. Thick as a Brick and Aqualung were pretty good. Man, I got laid with those albums playing in the background so often... Stupid 80s and the AIDS scare. Ah well... I lived through it, I guess. Somehow, I never ended up with AIDS or Hep or any of that interesting stuff. I don't even get cold sores. No herpes, no anything.
I'm the furthest thing from an audiophile but... Umm... Err... I'm also old. I also play a variety of musical instruments. I also have some tubed amps.
You can absolutely tell the difference between a warmed up tube-driven system and one just started. It's not just a little different, it's a lot different.
I really doubt you built it yourself. On the other hand, I do imagine you have the requisite skills to assemble a computer. Most anyone with opposable thumbs can put a computer together. Very few of us, including myself, have the ability to build a computer worth a damn. Well, I can make a pretty mean abacus.
I am not affiliated. I am a *very* happy customer. I bought one for my son and I liked it so much that I bought one for me. You can deck it out nicely. I went way overboard and even ended up buying the most expensive GPU with it too. Yeah, it was a bit pricey but it was worth it. I gotta tell you, it's like a portable supercomputer. It's also just the right size and getting a laptop with dual drives is getting hard these days.
I don't know exactly how much it was but it wasn't that bad. Just about $5500 with the way I had it configured - no OS but i did pay for the extra warranty. I also grabbed a couple of their overpriced externals but you can skip those.
I took a look at the paper. It's funny... They include things like medical expenses while actually not considering the taxes paid by the companies. Here's the best part...
They want to count all the external costs. They don't even begin to consider the externalized benefits. You know, how far would our economy and society work without fossil fuels today? How far would it have come without them?
Yeah, it's bullshit. But, they repeat it often so it must be true.
There is no nice way to say this so I'm going to just come out and say it. You're an idiot.
Have you ever been to Somalia? No? I didn't think so. I have. In fact, I spent almost six weeks there. If there's one thing Somalia has, it's an overabundance of government. Yes, you read that right. No, I'm not wrong. You could even say that they're probably more strictly regulated than most other countries on the planet.
Why idiots keep repeating this, why idiots thing Libertarians are against government, is beyond me - but, they're idiots. There's no way to apply logic and figure out why it is that they do and think the stupid things they do.
About six months ago, I took a look at the "decade until depletion" numbers that were being tossed around. You're most likely quoting someone else and believe them to be authoritative. I encourage you to actually go look for the numbers and do some math yourself.
They seem to be one of those people who are inclined to say that people should do as they say and not as they do. They're kvetching about electricity use while wasting electricity to post on Slashdot. Yes, yes they are...
Back home in Maine there's a house that was on the property when I bought it. I had a new house built further up the side of the mountain. I was going to tear that old one down but it kind of grew on me so I had it rehabbed. In the basement, there's a giant (probably about six feet across) round boiler that burns wood or coal. I'm not there to look but I think it's called a Homart.
Lemme Google...
Yeah, the logo looks right but Google Image Search doesn't appear to have one. Maybe I'll take some pictures of it and upload them somewhere for posterity. I doubt there are many left. It's from the late 1800s and can be used to heat water as well as using ducts to pipe heat all over the house. It's really quite remarkable.
At any rate, I don't use the house myself but it does get used at times. I don't like the phrase, it seems a bit like putting on airs, but it's really just a guesthouse. There's a ready supply of coal and firewood down there in the basement. The Farmer's Union still sells coal and, for a few extra bucks, they'll even deliver it to you. It comes in plastic bags - thick plastic and I've got a half-dozen tons worth of it, or about that much, stocked away in the basement.
When I have friends stop by and stay for a while, we often get the coal fire going and it's a nice, thorough heat. When I had the house rehabbed, I had them restore it but much of the restoration is cosmetic. The walls are now full of real insulation and the windows only appear to be old. They're actually triple pane and the house is rather tight. A coal fire, with surprisingly little coal now, will keep you roasty toasty for a long time - on the order of feeding it just twice a day.
There are enough people buying coal to heat their homes that the Farmer's Union not only carries it but they run out of it during the winter months - on a regular basis. Coal is not dead and gone, it's still actively being used by more people than you might think - and in the residential areas as well as the commercial areas. I don't go through a lot of it - I put 10 tons in there to begin with. I imagine there's about a half-dozen ton left. It's not like it goes bad or anything.
It might be something along those lines... They provision greater speeds and that forces the incumbent/traditional ISPs to up their speeds (and maybe lower costs) which enables Google to deliver "rich" (read necessitating big pipes) content as a regular thing. Basically, if they offer it then others in that market are, as you indicate, forced to compete.
Google, in the ad business, wants people to have fat pipes - I'm guessing. The fatter the pipes, the richer and greater in number the ads that can be displayed without reducing the end-user's experience. If they can push 4k video ads without degrading the end-user's service and clogging the pipes, imagine how much they can charge the advertisers for such placement? Rich, deep, ads - without slowing down the consumer and without angering them because of service degradation?
That's kind of far fetched and rather long-term (very long-term considering the strategies displayed by many of the larger publicly traded corporations today) but it is feasible. I really have no idea - which is why I asked. I was kind of hoping you knew.;-) But, it's feasible and it just might have some impact.
As you say, and as others have noted and articles have mentioned, the traditional providers seem to shape up when Google comes to town and starts digging trenches for fiber - or threatens to. They also seem to do the same (usually?) when a municipality threatens to do so *and* when they're unable to get some jackass-law on the books that prohibits local municipalities from doing so.
Meh... It's an interesting thing to ponder, so there's that. I doubt that I'd get a straight answer if I were to contact their press department personally. I'm starting to put together a site that's more or less a blog but more meant to be a community. Doing things like actually taking the time to contact companies directly is on the list of things to actually do. I've a bit of internet infamy so I might as well use it for something constructive. In this case, it's building a bit of a community for intellectual conversation and/or discourse with an aim of civility.
It has had some issues starting up and it's actually a bit of a wager with a friend of mine. I can't be too specific but we're going against "traditional" social media sites AND it has to be self-funding. So, part of the goal is seeing what you can accomplish for nothing more than effort, learning, and asking politely. So far, I've managed to accumulate domain names, some help, and a whole bunch of bandwidth and server space - including a good sized chunk of a server in France. I'm not even French.;-)
But, alas, that's a topic for another day and I'm not really into spamming so if you want the URL you can either email me or just add.gq to the end of my username and put it into the address bar. A move at the start of the month was impetus to rebuild it and not import the older database. It really wasn't worth trying to salvage the database. No, I'd crammed about every plug-in into it that looked interesting. It was a horrid mess and I'd smoked a bit of weed so I'd really installed more plugins than anyone ever should. I'd say I don't know what I was thinking but I know exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking, "Oh, that looks fun."
That seems a rather round-about way to go about it and I'm not sure how effective it'd really be - on a grander scale. It seems like a rather large capital risk for what's probably a fairly minimal gain. There's gotta be something I'm not seeing. I've figured their goal with ISP activities would be to gather information and present adverts inserted into the stream directly at some point. I've expected them to do something like offer free service that's "paid for" by accepting ads being inserted and your browsing habits being monitored - but that doesn't seem to be happening yet.
There's got to be an end game. They're sure as hell not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. There's absolutely a profit motive - even if that profit is goodwill-related. Damned if I can figure out what the end-game is. I've thought through all the various processes (that I can think of) and none of them really make a whole lot of sense. They're a juggernaut, I don't think they're all that worried about the ISPs. I really don't know.
I'm a qausi-practicing Secular Buddhist (but sure as shit am not a monk) so, when it comes to drug use - or most anything that doesn't harm others, I say do what you feel is the right thing for you. However, I was just describing their particular beliefs and how they justify saying that drug use is a sin. I do not hold those same values. In fact, I must say, I'm quite fond of a whole host of varied mind-altering substances. Up to, and including, the weed I'm gonna smoke in just a second - after hitting submit on this post.
It's legal in my home State but not legal in the State I am in right now. Well, legal for medical use. Otherwise it's a civil offense but mostly just a slap on the wrist, even if you've got pounds and pounds of the stuff. One of my friends had about 1000 plants stolen by the cops. He got a $1000 fine. He also had pounds and pounds of the stuff - all processed and weighed out, obviously for sale. Another one (and this is my favorite) had the cops steal all of his plants and his grow equipment. He was a few plants over the amount he was entitled to grow. He sued and got all of his equipment back - he even got back the weed they stole. By the time the case was settled the weed was no longer very good. I've got some of the evidence tape decorating my game room back home.
Oh! Ha, one of my other "friends" (not really a friend but no better way to describe it) is now doing time in prison for weed, sort of... The cops stole all his weed - pounds of it. Well, he went down to the evidence locker, which was just a building at the town garage back then, and broke in and stole it all back. They didn't even have cameras or the likes. They do now. So, he's still in prison and will be for a little while longer. He's not *really* in there for weed, per se, but it's related to weed and one of my favorite stories.
Yes, yes I might have smoked some of the re-purloined weed. I might even have some evidence tape from that particular heist too. That evidence tape isn't red, it's white and has the date written on it in black magic marker and has "EVIDENCE" written on it. The first one, the one from the lawsuit, is red and doesn't have any other markings on it other than the normal one. The white tape has sections on it that aren't shiny but are kind of matte - where one's meant to write down date, time, and other information.
Some interpret the bit about, "Render that unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" to be more than just concerning taxation. It means, to them, adhering to the law. In my experience, the sentiment is near universal among the devout. Islam has many prohibitions. Jehovah's Witnesses have some prohibitions but they can drink - just no to "excess." Catholics believe the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, drugs are verboten. Etc...
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It should also be noted that most people that are homeless aren't homeless for very long. It's the chronic homeless that are the ones with mental illness and/or addiction issues. For better or worse, we can not force them into treatment and into receiving medical care (which is actually available - though there's often a bit of a wait as beds are limited) unless they're a danger to themselves or to other people - and provably so, to a judge.
People like to blame it on Reagan but (and I support this) it was actually really started with a few suits and some publicity in the early 1970s, maybe the late 1960s. The ACLU brought a number of suits, notably in New York State being one of the first, which basically resulted in a couple of different things happening. One, they had to start treating the patients like humans and stop abusing them. Two, they had to let them go if they weren't an obvious danger to themselves or others - and that was a pretty low bar (and still is).
It made housing and processing them very expensive. They let 'em loose and some even got bus tickets to new jurisdictions. California's thought to be warm and was a popular destination as was Arizona, Nevada, and Florida.
At any rate, the chronically homeless (a different subject altogether and needs to be addressed differently) is usually due to mental health issues. We, as a country, have decided that we can't lock people up against their will. This is the result of that. We can'tn force them into residential treatment. We can't force them into community housing. We can't force them to do much of anything unless they're judged to be incompetent. Some will view that is inhumane and others will view that as freedom. It's complicated but I'm in the freedom camp and side with the ACLU on this one. Sometimes, you accept the greater of two evils for the sake of principle.
You wouldn't happen to know anyone affiliated with this, would you? I'd be willing to send 'em a couple of bucks to help pay for the utility bills seeing as the non-profit will be the one that's covering those expenses. I should think that Amazon would be happy with the goodwill and trivial expense (unless power is outlandishly expensive there) but it would appear not. If you happen to know someone whom I can contact then I'd be interested in sending a few dollars there way to help cover the utility bills for the duration of their stay.
I'm not sure what would make you think that. I realize you're new here so you probably don't know a whole lot but, rest assured, that is not true. On top of that, this article really doesn't have a whole lot to do with Windows. In fact, it specifically mentions that it's applications running on computers that use the Linux kernel (though I suppose there might be a few Windows servers with JBoss installed but I'm not sure if they'd have Destiny - I don't really keep up with Windows much anymore).
But no... You're new. Stick around and you might see that your opinion is unsubstantiated. Windows has been called out for security issues many, many times. It has even been called out when it was not to blame but rather the fault was the application(s) that were running on it. The various distros are, by no means, completely secure - nor is the kernel itself. There are security issues on a regular basis. Such is life and only a fool relies on an application for their security needs. Security is a process, not an application.
Stick around, learn a little. We were all new once.
Yes but they got to enjoy it just as much, if not more, the second or third time around.
To put this into another light, there are whole documentary series (some of great length) that I've watched multiple times and each time been able to enjoy it - and learn more things from it. You've a very narrow definition of what's good and what is not good if you insist that you get maximum enjoyment the first time around. I can think of many things that I've enjoyed many times over and I'm grateful for that.
I... I understand. I don't think many realize how introspective, almost profound, your statement was. I test like a genius. I really am not that smart. I don't even have long-term memory, it's like it holds it long enough to be dumped. When it no longer needs it, it cycles out the unimportant (it thinks) stuff and leaves me with vague recollections. On paper, I'm a genius. My thesis was the hardest thing I've done in my life - I'm also not even very creative.
In classes where I could get away with it, I used to read the books in the first week of the semester/year and just leave it and not bother with it for the rest of the year. That was rather effective until I hit college. I have my Ph.D. but it was a pain in the ass. On paper, I look like I'm brilliant. That's not even remotely the case. I just seem to retain things really well - until it gets dumped. Once it's dumped, it quickly fades unless there's a reason for me to keep using it.
It's why I'll reference stuff like, "It was in that documentary, by what's his face - the guy who has the photo technique named after him... Burns, yeah, him... Anyhow, it was in that documentary but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was about but I know they mentioned it and had several references for it. Oh, it was also about the rum-running, so it must have been his prohibition documentary or, wait, wait... It might have actually been about the period before and during prohibition - but it was about it, nonetheless. And that's what it reminds me of."
It's like my brain functions a bit like RAM. I liken it to a hard drive that needs to be defragged or given a full low-level reformat but it's more like RAM in that once it is used and no longer needed then it is freed up for another application with no remnants left behind unless you have special forensic tools. :/ Once the test is over, the paper's handed in, the questions asked, and the data no longer needed - it's fading, fading with an alarming speed. I'm a couple of years younger than you, I swear it feels like I can feel my brain plasticize. So, I keep doing things to ensure my memory is getting a work out. I keep learning new things. I've returned to doing some programming - I've been retired for eight years now. I've even started to put a few things online and I'm working on a few other projects - all to keep the memory from going.
I fear that more than I fear death. I don't think that's vanity speaking, I seriously need what memory I have. I've just never really retained it, not very well, unless it was something that got lots of recollection, work, or emphasis. Even then, it's tough to be motivated when you can just reread it and retain it well enough for the next exam. How very true, it can (and might) foster laziness - and apathy.
Actually, it's not that far off. Though I've never taken a course or anything, I am able to read really quickly. I can eat a Stephen King novel in an afternoon. I retain it for a few hours, maybe a day and that's it. If I read at speedy rates, I retain very little of it. I'll remember the gist of it but I won't even remember character names, locations, or things like that. I recall some specific events - probably enough to be almost conversational so long as I'm honest about having not actually read it with the goal to retain it.
I do so quite frequently, even here on Slashdot. If it's a thread or a person's name then I slow down and pay more attention but the average comment is just one that I glance over. If it looks interesting (and not too stupid) then I'll slow down and maybe even restart that post and read it again but a bit slower. I find it comes in handy as I'm not always out to learn something. Sometimes, I am just wanting to be entertained. My brain is already full of silly things. I don't need to try to cram more stuff in there all the time. Sometimes, I just want to be entertained.
A certain subset of users still use (expensive, even) CRT displays. My understanding is that the color reproduction is more faithful and that they're more realistically calibrated with the prints. On the other hand, I can't speak to the reality of that - I'm progressively colorblind but not dangerously so. I just can't tell the difference between tones and shades all the time. I might mistake yellow or red for orange, greens for blue, blue for purple, black for blue, etc...
I actually thought everybody was fucking with me. "No, Dave. That's blue." Me, "Like fuck it is, stop screwing with me." Eventually, enough people did it and I got my eyeball doctor to look into it. The thing is, I do pattern recognition really well so I pass all the colorblindness tests - plus, it seems, it gets worse with age. So, if you've ever seen something I've designed and I didn't use a color wheel or someone else's template, now you know why it might just look the way it does.
It doesn't much matter. Albums used to be something that went together, often times. You had an album and you could listen to it - entirely. It often told a story. It meant something. It was a singular body of work. Even singles released from an album were part of that story, they were (perhaps) the introduction or preface to the story.
Today, in the world of digital releases and streaming music, the concept of the album seems to have gone away. The concept of the album being a piece of work, a statement, a period of time, an artistic interpretation of a moment or series of moments, is gone in favor of a single hit and filler material that serves no value other than to pad their work.
I find the loss of the album, as a concept and a work, to be disheartening. But, who am I to judge? The world goes where it wants to go and there's fuck all I can do about it.
I'm over 50 and I hate vinyl. Well, I don't hate it. I prefer digital audio. You can pump digital out over a tubed amp anyhow.
That said, my favorite vinyl was, of course, the White Album. There was a Jame's Taylor's Greatest Hits on vinyl that was pretty good too. Thick as a Brick and Aqualung were pretty good. Man, I got laid with those albums playing in the background so often... Stupid 80s and the AIDS scare. Ah well... I lived through it, I guess. Somehow, I never ended up with AIDS or Hep or any of that interesting stuff. I don't even get cold sores. No herpes, no anything.
I'm the furthest thing from an audiophile but... Umm... Err... I'm also old. I also play a variety of musical instruments. I also have some tubed amps.
You can absolutely tell the difference between a warmed up tube-driven system and one just started. It's not just a little different, it's a lot different.
I really doubt you built it yourself. On the other hand, I do imagine you have the requisite skills to assemble a computer. Most anyone with opposable thumbs can put a computer together. Very few of us, including myself, have the ability to build a computer worth a damn. Well, I can make a pretty mean abacus.
Umm... You know, you can offload compute cycles and just use it as a dumb terminal, right?
*sighs*
Watching two ACs fight is like watching two retarded fat kids fight over the donut hole.
Here is what I'm typing this on:
http://www.titancomputers.com/...
I am not affiliated. I am a *very* happy customer. I bought one for my son and I liked it so much that I bought one for me. You can deck it out nicely. I went way overboard and even ended up buying the most expensive GPU with it too. Yeah, it was a bit pricey but it was worth it. I gotta tell you, it's like a portable supercomputer. It's also just the right size and getting a laptop with dual drives is getting hard these days.
I don't know exactly how much it was but it wasn't that bad. Just about $5500 with the way I had it configured - no OS but i did pay for the extra warranty. I also grabbed a couple of their overpriced externals but you can skip those.
I took a look at the paper. It's funny... They include things like medical expenses while actually not considering the taxes paid by the companies. Here's the best part...
They want to count all the external costs. They don't even begin to consider the externalized benefits. You know, how far would our economy and society work without fossil fuels today? How far would it have come without them?
Yeah, it's bullshit. But, they repeat it often so it must be true.
There is no nice way to say this so I'm going to just come out and say it. You're an idiot.
Have you ever been to Somalia? No? I didn't think so. I have. In fact, I spent almost six weeks there. If there's one thing Somalia has, it's an overabundance of government. Yes, you read that right. No, I'm not wrong. You could even say that they're probably more strictly regulated than most other countries on the planet.
Why idiots keep repeating this, why idiots thing Libertarians are against government, is beyond me - but, they're idiots. There's no way to apply logic and figure out why it is that they do and think the stupid things they do.
About six months ago, I took a look at the "decade until depletion" numbers that were being tossed around. You're most likely quoting someone else and believe them to be authoritative. I encourage you to actually go look for the numbers and do some math yourself.
Where'd you get that idea?
They seem to be one of those people who are inclined to say that people should do as they say and not as they do. They're kvetching about electricity use while wasting electricity to post on Slashdot. Yes, yes they are...
Back home in Maine there's a house that was on the property when I bought it. I had a new house built further up the side of the mountain. I was going to tear that old one down but it kind of grew on me so I had it rehabbed. In the basement, there's a giant (probably about six feet across) round boiler that burns wood or coal. I'm not there to look but I think it's called a Homart.
Lemme Google...
Yeah, the logo looks right but Google Image Search doesn't appear to have one. Maybe I'll take some pictures of it and upload them somewhere for posterity. I doubt there are many left. It's from the late 1800s and can be used to heat water as well as using ducts to pipe heat all over the house. It's really quite remarkable.
At any rate, I don't use the house myself but it does get used at times. I don't like the phrase, it seems a bit like putting on airs, but it's really just a guesthouse. There's a ready supply of coal and firewood down there in the basement. The Farmer's Union still sells coal and, for a few extra bucks, they'll even deliver it to you. It comes in plastic bags - thick plastic and I've got a half-dozen tons worth of it, or about that much, stocked away in the basement.
When I have friends stop by and stay for a while, we often get the coal fire going and it's a nice, thorough heat. When I had the house rehabbed, I had them restore it but much of the restoration is cosmetic. The walls are now full of real insulation and the windows only appear to be old. They're actually triple pane and the house is rather tight. A coal fire, with surprisingly little coal now, will keep you roasty toasty for a long time - on the order of feeding it just twice a day.
There are enough people buying coal to heat their homes that the Farmer's Union not only carries it but they run out of it during the winter months - on a regular basis. Coal is not dead and gone, it's still actively being used by more people than you might think - and in the residential areas as well as the commercial areas. I don't go through a lot of it - I put 10 tons in there to begin with. I imagine there's about a half-dozen ton left. It's not like it goes bad or anything.
It might be something along those lines... They provision greater speeds and that forces the incumbent/traditional ISPs to up their speeds (and maybe lower costs) which enables Google to deliver "rich" (read necessitating big pipes) content as a regular thing. Basically, if they offer it then others in that market are, as you indicate, forced to compete.
Google, in the ad business, wants people to have fat pipes - I'm guessing. The fatter the pipes, the richer and greater in number the ads that can be displayed without reducing the end-user's experience. If they can push 4k video ads without degrading the end-user's service and clogging the pipes, imagine how much they can charge the advertisers for such placement? Rich, deep, ads - without slowing down the consumer and without angering them because of service degradation?
That's kind of far fetched and rather long-term (very long-term considering the strategies displayed by many of the larger publicly traded corporations today) but it is feasible. I really have no idea - which is why I asked. I was kind of hoping you knew. ;-) But, it's feasible and it just might have some impact.
As you say, and as others have noted and articles have mentioned, the traditional providers seem to shape up when Google comes to town and starts digging trenches for fiber - or threatens to. They also seem to do the same (usually?) when a municipality threatens to do so *and* when they're unable to get some jackass-law on the books that prohibits local municipalities from doing so.
Meh... It's an interesting thing to ponder, so there's that. I doubt that I'd get a straight answer if I were to contact their press department personally. I'm starting to put together a site that's more or less a blog but more meant to be a community. Doing things like actually taking the time to contact companies directly is on the list of things to actually do. I've a bit of internet infamy so I might as well use it for something constructive. In this case, it's building a bit of a community for intellectual conversation and/or discourse with an aim of civility.
It has had some issues starting up and it's actually a bit of a wager with a friend of mine. I can't be too specific but we're going against "traditional" social media sites AND it has to be self-funding. So, part of the goal is seeing what you can accomplish for nothing more than effort, learning, and asking politely. So far, I've managed to accumulate domain names, some help, and a whole bunch of bandwidth and server space - including a good sized chunk of a server in France. I'm not even French. ;-)
But, alas, that's a topic for another day and I'm not really into spamming so if you want the URL you can either email me or just add .gq to the end of my username and put it into the address bar. A move at the start of the month was impetus to rebuild it and not import the older database. It really wasn't worth trying to salvage the database. No, I'd crammed about every plug-in into it that looked interesting. It was a horrid mess and I'd smoked a bit of weed so I'd really installed more plugins than anyone ever should. I'd say I don't know what I was thinking but I know exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking, "Oh, that looks fun."
*sighs*
But, I digress.
Well, elinks isn't too bad - and you can use your mouse!
That seems a rather round-about way to go about it and I'm not sure how effective it'd really be - on a grander scale. It seems like a rather large capital risk for what's probably a fairly minimal gain. There's gotta be something I'm not seeing. I've figured their goal with ISP activities would be to gather information and present adverts inserted into the stream directly at some point. I've expected them to do something like offer free service that's "paid for" by accepting ads being inserted and your browsing habits being monitored - but that doesn't seem to be happening yet.
There's got to be an end game. They're sure as hell not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. There's absolutely a profit motive - even if that profit is goodwill-related. Damned if I can figure out what the end-game is. I've thought through all the various processes (that I can think of) and none of them really make a whole lot of sense. They're a juggernaut, I don't think they're all that worried about the ISPs. I really don't know.
I'm a qausi-practicing Secular Buddhist (but sure as shit am not a monk) so, when it comes to drug use - or most anything that doesn't harm others, I say do what you feel is the right thing for you. However, I was just describing their particular beliefs and how they justify saying that drug use is a sin. I do not hold those same values. In fact, I must say, I'm quite fond of a whole host of varied mind-altering substances. Up to, and including, the weed I'm gonna smoke in just a second - after hitting submit on this post.
It's legal in my home State but not legal in the State I am in right now. Well, legal for medical use. Otherwise it's a civil offense but mostly just a slap on the wrist, even if you've got pounds and pounds of the stuff. One of my friends had about 1000 plants stolen by the cops. He got a $1000 fine. He also had pounds and pounds of the stuff - all processed and weighed out, obviously for sale. Another one (and this is my favorite) had the cops steal all of his plants and his grow equipment. He was a few plants over the amount he was entitled to grow. He sued and got all of his equipment back - he even got back the weed they stole. By the time the case was settled the weed was no longer very good. I've got some of the evidence tape decorating my game room back home.
Oh! Ha, one of my other "friends" (not really a friend but no better way to describe it) is now doing time in prison for weed, sort of... The cops stole all his weed - pounds of it. Well, he went down to the evidence locker, which was just a building at the town garage back then, and broke in and stole it all back. They didn't even have cameras or the likes. They do now. So, he's still in prison and will be for a little while longer. He's not *really* in there for weed, per se, but it's related to weed and one of my favorite stories.
Yes, yes I might have smoked some of the re-purloined weed. I might even have some evidence tape from that particular heist too. That evidence tape isn't red, it's white and has the date written on it in black magic marker and has "EVIDENCE" written on it. The first one, the one from the lawsuit, is red and doesn't have any other markings on it other than the normal one. The white tape has sections on it that aren't shiny but are kind of matte - where one's meant to write down date, time, and other information.
Ah well...
Nor has a drone hovered over your property and sent pictures of it to his base station.
Some interpret the bit about, "Render that unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" to be more than just concerning taxation. It means, to them, adhering to the law. In my experience, the sentiment is near universal among the devout. Islam has many prohibitions. Jehovah's Witnesses have some prohibitions but they can drink - just no to "excess." Catholics believe the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, drugs are verboten. Etc...