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Besides the main argument ITT, I'd be interested in seeing what would happen if we had a really professional looking guy or gal in a tailored navy suit stand up and start mouthing off about the internet. Instead of an overweight guy throwing around terms like "militant democracy" (really?), etc. Credibility is so important, and when you just become a laughable character from just first impressions (assuming we embrace that stereotypes and cognitive bias exist in real life)... I can see why people would naturally follow the arguments of a suave CEO representing his or her shareholders rather than that guy.

We the people have grown complacent, we sit in our homes and email/call our senators thinking that it will cause action. We are wrong, we need to take action physically. How many people do you think it would take? How many people do you think it would take to show up at Congress's doorstep for them to notice us? A thousand? No that's to small. A hundred thousand? Warmer. How about a few million? We need to unite in DC and demand what we want. We need to knock the socks off of their feet. We will not roll over and say, oh well we did what we could we called our senators and our congressmen. Yes we have done some amazing things through the internet but that time has passed they don't care what we have to say so we need to make them care.

Naw. Given the "fast lane" data comes in through peering points and peering is where the congestion is, there isn't any competition really. I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The peering points are where the congestion is, and selling access to "fast lanes" does very little to ease the congestion on the existing peering points. >I hate to hear such nonsense. It's unsupportable. The US internet is well maintained, growing and carrying massive amounts of traffic. Netflix alone generates more traffic than the entire US internet could carry a few years back. As time passes, the number of connected devices, and the amount of data communicated, has been rising dramatically. Yes, we have had some improvements to infrastructure, but we are lagging (pun intended) behind our international competitors. Granted, we shoulder a much greater burden in terms of traffic, but American ISP's also earn more than their international counterparts. Further, several ISP's have been accused of intentionally allowing their peering points to become congested, refusing to upgrade their systems to account for increased traffic. While these "slow lanes" aren't technically a reduction in service (which is prohibited by the FCC's proposal), the inevitable increases in traffic will only make the situation worse with time. >The US internet is expensive though. Indeed. And slower. [29th in connection speeds. 19th in cost per mbps.]( >You're mixing metaphors. Fast lanes and toll roads aren't the same thing, not even what they represent here. You're right that the metaphor isn't perfect, but when the ISP charges for access to the fast lanes, that's a toll. Call it whatever you like, it's bad for consumers and it's bad for the internet.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The peering points are where the congestion is, and selling access to "fast lanes" does very little to ease the congestion on the existing peering points. I'm saying the peering points are where the congestion is and the "fast lane" traffic doesn't go through the same peering points as the other traffic. The congested peering points which go onto and off of transit. "Fast lane" traffic will come from dedicated links and through separate peering points. What would be the point of buying a "fast lane" to reduce packet drops and then putting your packets on transit, which might drop them? > Yes, we have had some improvements to infrastructure, but we are lagging (pun intended) behind our international competitors. We've had enormous improvements to infrastructure. And no, we aren't lagging behind our international competitors on infrastructure. > Further, several ISP's have been accused of intentionally allowing their peering points to become congested, refusing to upgrade their systems to account for increased traffic. Yes, including overseas. You did read the Level 5 article, right? In additional, any ISP issue like this does not mean the US internet infrastructure isn't working well or non-competitive. It just means those ISPs are. > Indeed. And slower. 29th in connection speeds. Ookla speedtest is a piece of garbage. It doesn't control for connection problems within your house (WiFi), for slowness because others in the house are using the bandwidth. And on top of all that it is a measure of what you are paying for more than what the infrastructure offers. The Chattanooga fiber install shows the situation well. In situations in the US where 100mbps+ is available to homes, 0.12% of customers opt for 100mbps or higher. This means that the biggest part of the US speed problem is your neighbors don't care to compete on speed with other countries or perhaps find the higher speed service (as I said) to be expensive. I also find it hilarious that anyone talks about peering congestion and then tries to use a single figure of peak speed which any ISP would rig to ensure isn't congested so as to look better as proof of how fast different areas are. > You're right that the metaphor isn't perfect, but when the ISP charges for access to the fast lanes, that's a toll. Call it whatever you like, it's bad for consumers and it's bad for the internet. Nope. Fast lanes and toll roads are not the same thing. Toll roads means you can't go unless you pay. Fast lanes is priority access. One would lead to not being able to access sites who don't pay, the other won't. >

I longed for a yak back with more than one save, just so I could re-quote my buddy's bullshit to him years after the transgressions. Like the time he insisted, insisted the soldiers in Starship Troopers had killed the guy in boot with one of the laser rifles, and why didn't they use them against the bugs? (this was BY: before youtube), so over the course of a year we'd argue this with him that wasn't what happened. When we finally sat him down to watch the damn rental when it came out, he turned it on us and said "see guys? They didn't use the laser, they used normal rifles. I don't know why you argued so hard about this."

Man. That just reminded me of this other horror story I have... where the bank claimed they gave me too much money when I cashed a check... showed up to my door to try to ask for it? Then just automatically debited the amount they claimed they gave me too much from the account of the person that wrote the check. This caused a lot people to get pissed off. Bank took no accountability. The end. that's the short version ofc. a lot more bullshit happened. but that's the

This happened to me through TWC this past week. I was sent a digital box to place in my bedroom (because they swapped to digital) and when I installed it, it said there was an error. When I called TWC to report this, they said it was because of where I lived and they would send someone out to take care of it. This past week I received my bill and there was a service charge for the guy to come out. I immediately called TWC and they said they would remove the fee because I said no one ever mentioned this to me. I bet there are A LOT of people that do not check their auto-pay or accounts and are charged fees like this often.

The problem is that he made a call, there was never anything in writing, and Comcast's various packages are so hard to puzzle out that they don't even know how to do it sometimes. How are you going to prove anything? All he has is his recording of "no charge for an outside visit." Once the tech lies, it's a "he said, that other he said" situation.

It's illegal to record without consent. You have to tell the Comcast agent that you are recording or your audio will not hold up in court because it was obtained illegally. A lot of call centers will hang up on you if you tell them that you're recording. Comcast won't. We have a line that we read off that basically says the same thing the robot does and then we go right into the call.

A few years ago I bought a video card from what turned out to be a shady e-commerce site. The "new" card arrived in an open box, missing a heatsink, and DOA. I called the company, and their service rep basically blamed me for opening the box and breaking the card. They said I could return it if I wanted, but they'd charge a 15% restocking fee. I called American Express to complain about the transaction, and I'll never forget what the Amex rep said. "Don't worry sir, I'll take care of it." 24 hours later, the owner of the e-commerce site called me and apologized profusely, and sent me a brand new card overnight.

Piggybacking off this: let me say the big catalyst for this guys problem is the tech that came out. He is the one who put these charges on there either on the work order or after the fact. Every time I have had a tech come out I got a statement of work completed. If he didn't get one at all, that's one thing, but if he got one it will either show the false charges or not. If not he's legally exonerated from the charges. Next pitfall is dealing with their foreign based call centers. You think the Philippine call center is bad? Try the one in Mexico. They don't speak enough English to understand customer problems and apply appropriate solutions. The biggest two problems facing Comcast? Too much outsourcing and their incentivization structure. A good company sources it's weaknesses to a third party logistics and holds onto it's core competency activities. Comcast sources it's installation and customer service activities and internalizes it's billing and accounting practices. An incentive is a good thing as long as you set limits. Sales jobs have a huge turnover because the incentive to sell is tied to continued employment. The excellent sales people thrive and continue but sometimes it means competing directly with peers. Apply this principle in a customer service environment and we get the current Comcast beast. The goal is not customer satisfaction it is sales resulting in abysmal customer service.

Pros of using theirs: If it doesn't work, its their problem. If it fails, its their problem Everyone who does it is another person running a second xfinitywifi hotspot I can use (and, don't let BS on here convince you that doing so impacts your connection at all -- its entirely separate and doesn't touch your bandwidth, other than having another WiFi channel used!) Simple to set up Cons: If you're a tinfoil type, having a second IP address and second wifi network that isn't "yours" might make you a little tweaky If you have a less common wifi configuration (I have to run my cable modem quite a long distance from where my WAP is) You pay the cost of buying a modem every year in rental fees WAP isn't as sophisticated as a lot of new ones IMO, the price thing is the biggest one, they seriously rape you on it. It should be free if you're contributing to their xfinitywifi network. But if you're not technical enough to troubleshoot a collection of hardware, just use theirs.

Windows is great for sparse casual use, writing an occasional letter, paying the bills etc, and it works ok for business. But Linux comes into it's own for automation of your work. it provides tools and a consistent environment for setting up repeating tasks, and calling them in bulk. So while casual users might criticise Gimp for it's GUI (a matter of resistance to change rather than the tools not being available) gimps advantage is it's scripting language script-fu, that allows batch processing of thousands of images, if you are a professional and need to adjust 10,000 images, manually doing this with photoshop is going to be a boring task, there are expensive tools and extensions you can buy, but they might not have the native functionality you require. Linux does this not only for photoshop, but for every application of computing imaginable. a UNIX script written 30 years ago will likely run on the latest version of any linux distribution with little or no modification. That is why it's preferred by scientists, engineers and financial sectors.

They're calling it a worm, but it's not really a worm. Breakdown: An exposed dangerous method vulnerability exists in the OLE package manager in Microsoft Windows and Server (Vista SP2 to Windows 8.1, Windows Server versions 2008 and 2012) When exploited, the vulnerability allows an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code The vulnerability exists because Windows allows the OLE packager (packager .dll) to download and execute INF files. In the case of the observed exploit, specifically when handling Microsoft PowerPoint files, the packagers allows a Package OLE object to reference arbitrary external files, such as INF files, from untrusted sources. This will cause the referenced files to be downloaded in the case of INF files, to be executed with specific commands An attacker can exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code but will need a specifically crafted file and use social engineering methods (observed in this campaign) to convince a user to open it

I can't stand MBA's. I work with two of them and it's like working with something not human wearing a humans face. They get giddy when they hear stories about companies fucking over their entire consumer base and their employees for quick cash. Their morals ... well they don't really have any, and are proud of it. And the attitude of entitlement..... holy fuck. One was hired years after everyone else in the office and they walk around giving orders to programmers even though they have 0 authority or knowledge of the subject. Thankfully us programmers are more than happy to wind them up with techno-babble for our own amusement.

And now we wait for this to spiral into a flurry of misquoting and misinformation. It looks like they aren't going to be using an approval system for all articles. They will be providing a system where articles can be "flagged," probably in situations where vandalism is occurring on a regular basis. This way, it doesn't become a free-for-all of asshats vandalising articles, and good users trying to remove such edits. A "trusted user" can halt edits, and only allow edits that add information to the article.

No shit. All I saw was "Wonder Material creates electricity when struck by light." What the hell century was that written in, the 19th century? That's what we really need, science headlines written as Shakesperean sonnets. Forsooth!

According to very long standing supreme court precedent, the guarantees in the first amendment are not absolute and the government may make reasonable regulations on the time, place, and manner of speech. The reasonableness of the FCCs regulation depends on the type of technology used. For example, they can regulate over the air broadcast TV in the afternoon much more closely than Pay Per View cable.

I recently got a ASUS EEE Transformer tablet and I can attest to this headline. I use it on a daily basis to watch movies. It is more convenient than watching on a laptop. For one, the keyboard is not in the way. I ahve a case for it that props it up, of can easily position it on my lap when laying down for watching in bed. It's very useful to me, and I don't attribute it to 'buyer's remorse.' I have lg bluetooth wireless headphones that keep me untethered to the tablet and IMHO, this setup is pretty sweet. I'm happy with it. I read a little bit of kindle on it (but mostly on my orig. amazon kindle) and surf the net a bit - like last night I watched the debate streaming with headphones, but for the most part, I use it to watch movies/tv shows/stream netflix.

As pro internet freedom as I am, I will always stand against net neutrality. We are told horror stories how an ISP could charge 5 dollars for web access, 5 dollars for bit torrent and 5 dollars for netflix. As a consumer I completely see why heavy users will cry out that this is not fair. But to the majority of people who are not bandwidth hogs, this business model COULD prove cheaper and thus successful in a free open market. Let me be clear, I support the rights of a business to charge usage fees and not only a rate/speed. We should always encourage new and innovative business ideas. That being said what I do not support is MONOPOLISTIC INDUSTRY being granted a government stranglehold over geographic areas and infrastructure. I am leery about two year contracts (there should be conditions where a customer is allowed to leave for free), but to stand consistent with my previous argument, businesses should be allowed to experiment and enter legal contracts with customers. The answer is and always will be competition. Company A sells 30mbps unlimited plans, while Company B sells 100mbps 100GB plans. Company C offers virtually unlimited both as long as you pay for each pipe. All should be allowed to compete in the same geographical landscape. The consumer must vote with their dollar and make wise informed decisions. Truth in advertising and transparency are important. Bad companies must be superseded by those with better ideas. The problem becomes, who owns the infrastructure. In the current system the government gifts money to the ISPS, who use it to serve their own interests, not the public's. IMHO the government should grant money to private transparent nonprofits tasked with maintaining and renting out infrastructure to private and public entities. Their stated goal should be to foster global communication for the people by cooperating with industry. If the nonprofit fails, it can be replaced, where as a government arm would inevitably grow into a tenure style bureaucracy. As an example I suggest the [Scott Trust Limited]( in short/

Changing the Name Servers is NOT what causes Propagation. If you want to be savvy about it you need to go to Godaddy (or wherever your domain is currently held) and change the TTL (Time To Live). The TTL tells all ISP DNS servers how long to cache your DNS info (where you site/email/etc is located) before checking back with the Root Servers to see if anything has changed. You should be able to lower your TTL directly through an interface provided by the host you are using. it will be with your DNS zone file. You should be able to lower it to 5 minutes (300 seconds). You then need to wait a day (or exactly as long as the TTL was set to is you want to be technical) so that all the ISP's DNS servers expire the old held cache and any new cache will now only be held for 5 minutes. This means when you do change the Name Servers to point to your new host ALL YOUR TRAFFIC IN THE WORLD will only take 5 minutes to be pointed to your new host/IP.

GoDaddy won't let you update just the email address), and doing so will cause a domain lockdown of 60 days That is definitely not true. I updated the administrative contact email address on my domains before transfering a few days ago (I changed the email address to something that wasn't in my domain to make sure if there was a problem with the transfer that I would still be able to access email about the transfer) > Yes, updating the contact info will block your transfer! Again, that's not true. It's only if you change the registrant name or organization that you will get locked down for 60 days. They tell you that: " WARNING: You voluntarily agree to a 60-day lock that prevents you from transferring your domain name when you update the Organization field for the registrant contact, or when you update the First name and Last name fields for the registrant contact if an organization is not the legal registrant for your domain name. " Note that you can end up changing the registrant name by accident. Say for example you change the technical contact name (which would not lock your domain for 60 days) but tick the box that says "save these changes to all contact info" (or the equivalent; I can't remember the exact words it uses) then it will put that name in all the name fields, including the registrant name, and you will have ended up changed the registrant name. Just changing that registrant name field at all will automatically lock your name down. You might realise your mistake and then unchange the registrant name back to what it should have been and what it's always been but your domain will still have been automatically locked down for 60 days. If it's a genuine mistake you might be able to persuade godaddy to unlock your domain ( see here for someone that did that then you might not be able to ([see here for someone that tried the same thing but was unsuccessful]( If you are going to try and persuade godaddy to unlock your domain that was locked because of a change to the registrant name I'd suggest politely pointing out that you intended to change another field and accidentally changed the registrant name by mistake. Politely quote David Giza, the Senior Director of ICANN here . edit : changed to the registrant name and organization that causes the lockout, not the administrative contact name

I posted this already, but it is absolutely relevant here. "If you think fucking with big company money will do nothing, you've been ignoring how desperate businesses are for their bottom line. This will affect small workers more than big wigs, at first, but that is just a start of the downfall. Corporations that lay off employees willy-nilly often have trouble finding suitable, skilled replacements, especially when trying to hire them for less than their previous workers. It destroys company morale, and the company begins to collapse from the inside. People working in the industry; I suggest you be on guard, but continue to defend the internet. If you want to promote your work without big corporations, you will need it. If Operation Black March is just a bunch of people holding back on what they want for 4 weeks, it's not going to be any different than people saying they bought less gas today. There will be a loss in profit, but they will recover. However, if people do this, and maybe some of them see they don't need as much entertainment as they thought, they might continue to spend less and less. That's something noticeable and long-term. Maybe more people will find the art of creation more enjoyable than consuming. Hell, maybe someone will discover a way for /them/ to make money in the time saving it. I suggest Black March include not watching a single new TV show online, offline, on the air, downloaded or bought. I understand some programs are still good, just like some movies, but it is a massive media industry that needs to feel the sting just as much as the others. Maybe there's some old stuff you own that can keep you from losing it. I know I need it without TV."

New trend: all news articles must include

I deleted my 5 attemt to tell something. There I go again. I am not native english speaker so sorry for mistakes. Microsoft is great company which has great products. They develop products for professional usage (I am more and more impressed with their servers/databases and virtualization) and home usage(Windows/office which is the easiest and still most used OS in the world). They are pushing technology forward and I support them a lot. I hope W8 will be a sucess and I like it a lot. All the 15yo trolls who thinks Microsoft sucks and W8 will suck are either Apple users (lol apple. -pop culture of todays world) or kids who dont have a clue about IT/OS in general. It hurts me to see how many people are using apple software (overpriced shitty pop software/hardware with no real usage) when we all know that people die to produce it(Foxconn). And it sucks. Iphone < Galaxy. Ios < every os there is... Yea I tried it and am not impressed. Also brainfuck for the end. I an linux guy and have linux for my primary os - and I am saying Microsoft is good? WTF right? Just the years of experiance have learned that Microsoft is not so bad. I use W7 as secondary OS and love it. Visualy and functionaly best and easiest OS there is. This is mine opinion. Go Microsoft!

A customer of Verizon Wireless since the 'AirTouch' days here... Shared family plan with 4 phones, 1400 minutes shared between 4 lines (which is practically unlimited as we have the shared 10 numbers we call for free, in-network calling is free and night and weekends are free), unlimited texting, 3 phones with the $30 unlimited data (one of which is flying at 30MB/s on a LTE connection, unrestricted) and a 4th not-so-smart flip phone with a pay-as-you-go data plan. Total monthly cost for all this Verizoney goodness is around $190/month, or about $50 a phone. I have tried to leave my family's plan (as I no longer live in the same household), but it is cheaper for them to keep me on their plan. The rep at Verizon told us that they would need to re-work the entire plan to release me and my number from it, which would not only make the unlimited texts, the unlimited data and the 10 free numbers go away, but the bill would go up to $130 for the 3 phones that remained on the plan (and I would have to start from scratch on my own plan, another $100)

The free market doesn't really solve this problem. The reason the state grants a monopoly in the first place is because it benefits the consumer to have one in place. Basically, all companies operate with an average cost curve that looks something like this . The goal of any company when managing costs is to reach that quantity where the average cost per unit is as low as possible. For a lot of businesses in a free market they can divide the customer base without falling short of that sweet spot they're aiming for. However, specific industries have something called a natural monopoly ; that is to say, the quantity of units necessary to reach that sweet spot is SO BIG that by not having a monopoly, you actually increase the cost of operating the business. This in turn increases prices for the consumer out on the market as well. The type of business that this applies to tends to have a very high fixed cost but a relatively low variable cost. A cable company for example has to lay down a ton of cables to transfer data with and that costs a lot, but once those cables are down hooking people into the network and sending them data is pretty cheap. Cell phone companies have to put up and manage cell towers but handling calls doesn't cost all that much. Of course, as a monopoly they're going to do what a monopoly does and up their prices a bit, just not as much as they would have to if competition forced their costs up by dividing the customer base. These kinds of monopolies also tend to have a lot of regulations on them to ensure they're playing fair.

Remove regulations (which AT&T and verizon both love) and other barriers to entry that are setup by the government to allow for better competition. I don't think I'm arrogant or insane enough to think I could predict exactly how to solve these problems the best or optimal way and I don't think any central planner can. I believe its impossible and that only freely acting individuals in a market can cooperate and compete to provide products and services to consumers who can also choose freely.

I dropped Verizon like a bad habit two years ago. The service was fine, but the CUSTOMER SERVICE was absolutely horrible. I picked up a Samsung something or other because my good friend/roommate became a Independent Sales Area Manager (or something like that) for the Northern Virginia area. I had it for about 3 months and it started to over heat, the screen turned to static, and the reception was horrible in my house (his 3 were all fine). So I go to get it fixed, replaced, whatever and got nothing but attitude from the staff since I couldn't replicate the problem, but eventually they give me a refurbished phone. 4 month later that phone did the same, so I go back to trade it in, but at a different location because the employees at the closes one pissed me off that much. And again I get major attitude from the staff, but am given a refurbished phone. This time I make it 3 months before it craps out, and this time I take my roommate with me to talk to them because I'm through with this particular phone and want something comparable from another maker. He explains everything to the store manager but we're told it's not Verizons problem if the phones keep breaking, I'd have to call Samsung to get an authorization. So while we're standing in the store I call Samsung customer support and am told that once the phones are activated it's up to the carrier to handle warranty issues, especially since they are now Verizon Refurb phones and not new Samsungs. The store manager doesn't agree and says all he can do is give me another refurb. I'm fed up and take that for the time being since I've been told that I'm eligible for an upgrade in about 8 weeks. This refurb lasted all of 5 weeks before it started to act up, but I waited it out until my upgrade should have been due. I get to the store for my upgrade, talk to the same fucking store manager, tell him about the current refurb crapping out on me and that I'm there for my upgrade he told me I was eligible for. He looks at my account and says I'm not due for another 5 months.....I flipped my shit. I told him he has two options, give me my upgrade or give me a comparable phone from a different manufacturer. He chose neither and told me that since I couldn't replicate the problems on my current phone for him that there was nothing he could do. So I walked over to the closes person at a computer and told them to cut my account right that moment. I canceled my account, walked my happy ass down to AT&T and got a phone. I ended up paying $10 less a month for the same plan and my service hasn't changed a bit. It's been almost two years and I have only needed AT&T's customer service once and they were more than helpful, courteous, and the issue was fixed without questioning my motives or giving me attitude.

What's interesting here is how severely they punish low data users. The 1st GB is 500% more expensive than the 10th. Partially, it's because they are REALLY adding in extra cost for the bundle, and just passing it on to data. Still - the decreased cost for extra data doesn't exactly indicate a suffering data network, contrary to what they are saying to the FCC. In the 3G days, data plans were limited and cheaper than overages. Here, it looks like a GB really only "costs" the $10 overage price, and Verizon is just charging you an additional $40 for...nothing? This is total BS. And when the heck can I get a plan without ANY voice or text? I can run both of those over 4G for cheaper than they cost as defaults. T-Mobile had a $29.99 plan offering 5GB data + 100 minutes of talk, not on contract. I want to see more of THAT kind of option.

solution to keeping a land line and have mobility of a cell phone. magic jack! I personally don't use it but my uncle in India uses it all the time. You set up a number using magic jack for the house and then on the go you can use their iphone/android app to place and receive call from the same number. When he was visiting the states all he had to do was connect to wi-fi and bam hes connected. He resorted to using wi-fi so no sim card, no data fees, no charges for minutes. The best part of it is that magic jack is SO inexpensive. After a low service fee for first year, its only $20 a YEAR!

To those Verizon customers who currently have unlimited data: I had unlimited data and I bought a new phone from a Verizon store about 3 weeks ago. I was told, by Verizon staff, that those of us with unlimited data plans will be able to keep them after your current contract expires. It does not matter if you keep your old phone or buy a new one (from Verizon or elsewhere). And that is exactly how it went down for me, still have my unlimited plan. The Verizon employee said that the current plan is to never take away the unlimited plan from a grandfathered customer. His (Verizon's?) reasoning was that this is a benefit us "early smartphone adopters" get. Though, he did admit he could not predict the future and that the current plans could change. Some people may reference a comment made by the Verizon CFO, indicating the elimination of grandfathered unlimited plans. The above mentioned Verizon employee stated these comments were either out of context, or outright incorrect statements by the CFO, as Verizon employees have not been briefed on any such plan.

I've been on Verizon's family plan w/ my parents, who own a small business that i used to work for. While traveling, I ran into three douche-bag Sprint sales"men" in a bar in Mt. Shasta, CA, who were headed back from some circlejerk conference somewhere. So, of course they have to pitch me on how awesome Sprint's butthole smells. When they realized I wasn't interested in switching plans, they proceeded to act like aggressive, shit-talking punks, making fun of me for being on my "mommy's" plan, etc.. epitome of unprofessional, literally trying to pick a fight with me vs the three of them. Think: stereotypical junior high bully, all growed up. Now, after Verizon has screwed around with my wallet one too many times (changing my plan from unlimited to 10MB/mo without telling me, when i upgraded to iphone from blackberry, resulting in a $1000+ bill for overages.. A deliberate con, and way too shady.) I've been wanting to switch, and most likely will switch from Verizon. Still, I will never, EVER switch to Sprint. To hell with those 3 guys and the company that hired them.

This video is confusing two separate (but related) meanings for the word bandwidth. 1.) First there is the bandwidth that refers to the chunk of frequency used by a device. We will call this FreqBand. 2.) Second there is the bandwidth that refers to the data throughput of a network. We will call this DataBand. By using more freqBand you can increase databand. But this is not the only way and not how mobile companies increase databand . They are locked into a specific freqband, and cannot go out of it. This is OK though! The data connection schemes your phones use (CDMA, GSM) were designed to work around this (via multiplexing techniques). The problem that mobile carriers are having lies in the the DataBand area. Databand problems don't have a fundamental physical limit on their capacity, but rather a monetary one. You fix databand problems with more/better hardware. This hardware is ludicrously expensive, and even more expensive to implement. Mobile companies simply oversold their databand. By a lot. So now they are forced to to choose between A.) Cut databand allowance or B.)Cut databand speed. They chose allowence (if they chose b, then people would be bitching about the incredibly slow speeds of their connection, ala sprint). The good news is that over time (as mobile companies keep investing in their networks) we will be able to get back to unlimited data with super fast connections.

Been with sprint for 2years.... Couldn't be happier. Although I was upset when they added a mandatory 4g premium charge for 4g devices (my 4g antenna is always off cause wimax blows hard) for an additional $10... Still not bad considering my bill is consistently $65/month for 900mins, free calls to any cell phone and unlimited Text/data. Straight talk is also very good... Used it to stream movies on my ipad in the middle of shanenedoa (definitely spelled that wrong) valley Virgina and it worked great! They have unlimited plans with no contract for $45 a month!

This is an interesting video and it does add value to the discussion here. But, it's not true. LTE and other advanced wireless technologies have amazing spatial control, load balancing and other congestion combating mechanics built into them from the ground up. The consortium knew that it would be a necessity. Except for the most extreme cases (110,000 people crowded into one sports stadium with no microcells) there are almost no conceivable situations where LTE becomes bandwidth bound that cannot be resolved with just a simple addition of another tower (or enhancement of an existing one). This is not the 50s where our radio communications use omni directional antennas with time division multiplexing. The technology behind LTE is truly mind boggling, from air interface to handoffs. The real reason why Verizon is charging this much for data is because they can. The next closest provider in terms of speed, reliability and coverage is still miles away from big red. They have the best network, hands down. So anyone who really values a consistent and fast data connection will need to go to Verizon and pay a premium for it - there are no other options (particularly in many suburban regions where Verizon is the exclusive LTE provider in that area). The idea that last mile bandwidth is somehow some scarce commodity that is priced by a free market is absolutely absurd. If you want proof, just look at Verizon themselves. They offer a product called "HomeFusion" that hooks up to LTE in exactly the same way as your phone, places exactly the same load on the infrastructure, is also subsidized hardware and is priced at one tenth the cost per GB compared to these new tiered data plans. The only difference is that this device doesn't fit in your pocket and have a touchscreen, yet Verizon is somehow willing to part with their precious last mile bandwidth for one tenth the price if you use this product. Similarly if you browse XDA or other smartphone enthusiast communities, you'll find lots of people who got onto the Verizon unlimited 4g plan while it was available and easily consume 50-100gb per month on a regular basis. None of them get warning letters or get throttled. They just keep using tons of data, and Verizon doesn't care. If last mile bandwidth was some precious wireless age black gold, Verizon would put a stop to this practice as it would gouge their profitability.

That's definitely interesting and relevant and I understand that this is a looming problem, but I can't help but think much like the floods in Thailand last year with the HDD makers, this is being used to obfuscate the fact that cellphone companies now have a commodity like oil that is very valuable because we all rely on it, albeit not as crucially as we rely on gasoline and now they can argue that like oil, it is a limited resource. Allowing cell phone companies to jack up their rates on top of limiting your data allowance makes absolutely no sense. If you limit people's data usage to 2GB per month, especially when providers argue that is more than enough for most current users, there is a finite amount of data that would ever be used by Americans. No need to price people out of the market by also raising rates unless you just want squeeze extra money out of people or you are expecting a population explosion of new data users in the near future. Speaking of easing the problem, I believe that video or its information is out of date. As someone else posted earlier, the whole point of moving everyone, even crazy old Maybelle out in her shack in B.F.E. moved to digital or cable a couple years ago, so there is no reason that old OTA bandwidth should no be free or become free very soon, unless despite all that these companies are still squatting on it. If that is the case, along with the other alleged squatting going on, there seems to me to be a really simple solution until a more permanent one can be found: eminent domain. If it can work against us, it should be able to work for us. It really shouldn't be hard either to argue that freeing up this bandwidth for more OTA data is a better use of it than money grubbing companies sitting on it until they are ready to auction it off for billions.

Sprint still has unlimited data on its cellular plans. A bit of rooting around and I was able to unlock the tether mode on one of my phones and used up like 10 gig one month no charges. Yet if you get an Air Card they give you 5 GB a month.

As a undergrad physicist, I would just like to say that there is a real limit to how many different bandwidths a mobile phone may utilize. This is quite simply because every signal is not sent as a single frequency, but more a bell curve with the average being the frequency. Modern technology has allowed this curve to be sharper, but there's a very real limit to how sharp it can get while being cost effective. Of course, there is still a way to go before the spectrum is completely "crunched", but in big cities, I imagine there's a lot of trouble with this already. Don't forget, you're not sending a signal to one tower, you're broadcasting it to everywhere around you, but only the closest tower wants your message, to all else, you are static, and that static prevents someone close to that tower from using the same frequency as you. So, more towers doesn't equate more spectrum, but better tuned towers does. Not an expert, but I know my physics. There's probably a ton of signal processing involved in todays technology, which will only get better, but there's a limit, and we're reaching it fast. And don't forget, it's not only the broadcasting towers that need the new tech, it's also the phones.

This will probably get burried... :-/ but: If you do the math out. this actually saves me a bit of money.... right now we are paying $150 a month for 1 smart phone, and 1 basic phone. the basic has 500 messages, and the smart phone has 1500 msgs. They share 700 Minutes. Then I have $30 a month for unlimited data. Switching to these new rates would be $120 for our current plan. but with 1GB per month.... so if we upgraded that to the 4GB plan. that would bring it to $140 plus the other taxes and charges.... In one month, even streaming pandora for like 6 hours a day at work over 4g, I rarely reach 4 gigs of usage.

Serious, serious question: if you feel strongly about this, why don't you, especially if you're a Verizon customer (I'm not) file an FCC complaint? If you don't feel strongly, let me preach to the choir for a bit. Think about an average smartphone wireless plan. Roughly one year ago the max cost of a single line smartphone bill on AT&T was $59.99/month before taxes: AT&T Minimal Smartphone Plan Comparison Date Voice Data Text Total Early 2011 $39.99 (450 min) $15.00 (200 MB) $5.00 (200 msgs) $59.99 June 2012 $39.99 (450 min) $20.00 (300 MB) $20.00 (unlimited) Now, you could nix the text messaging plan, but then you'll be two-dimed to death if you even use a few text messages. They're pure profit. Sprint's also at $79.99/month minimum for smartphones as of January 2011, thanks to a B.S. "Premium Data service add-on". That was $69.99 a while ago before they **[extended this $10.00 surcharge to all smartphones, even those without WiMax or LTE]( When the iPhone 4 launched on Verizon : Verizon Minimal Smartphone Plan Comparison Date Voice Data Text Total Early 2011 $39.99 (450 min) $29.99 (unlimited) $5.00 (250 msgs) $74.98 June 2012 $39.99 (450 min) $30.00 (2 GB) $10.00 (100 msgs) $79.99 Now, [Last year Verizon started offering a $20 300 MB data plan]( for a limited time alongside their $30 unlimited data plan, so at one time you could have gotten away with $64.98/month . You can no longer get that plan as a new customer, though. You may notice that the number $79.99 comes up very often. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but it's very easy to see that the big three carriers have identical minimum smartphone service costs . Carriers competing on price is a giant ruse at this point. This brings us to the Share Everything plans. Let's be crazy for a moment and do the math for one of these plans as an individual line …I mean, these may become the only plans on Verizon anyway. Share Everything Verizon Plan, coming Summer 2012 [(source PDF)]( Date Voice & Text Data Total [Next Sunday, A.D.]( $40 (Unlimited Shared Talk & Msgs) $50 (1 GB) $90.00 Now, why is this happening ? Turns out one of the driving reasons behind carriers increasing service costs are phone hardware subsidies and increased network utilization: [Apple's subsidy makes iPhone a nightmare for carriers - Feb 8, 2012]( > Nomura's McCormack said carriers feel the need to have the iPhone to maintain their market share. But to make money on the devices, he thinks they will have to raise rates or get tough with Apple on reducing the subsidy. > > The latter is practically impossible. So carriers have been gradually hiking prices. [emphasis added] Over the past year, Sprint increased its smartphone rates by $10 a month, Verizon ended its unlimited data offering and New Every Two deal, and AT&T ended its unlimited plan and raised its prices by $5 a month. > > Apple isn't the only factor, of course. Carriers are also raising their rates to offset the cost of expanding their network capacity and upgrading to more efficient 4G technologies. [emphasis added] But that, too, is tied up with the iPhone boom: Smartphones are data hogs, and they're one of the prime reasons carriers need to sink billions into improving their infrastructure. It's a tough situation, but the subversive overselling of voice/text services as the wireless world quickly moves to data-only is the name of the game right now. In my perfect world, we'd all complain to the FCC, the FCC would grow a pair, and require carriers to cut voice costs, cut text messaging costs, and decrease the cost per megabyte of data plans . No way it's that easy, but we've got to start somewhere—**[contacting the FCC]( might not be the worst idea right now.

Not really, sure it helps with the initial handshakes to the towers on a common spectrum but then each mobile is allocated a spectrum and slice (of that spectrum) to conduct its business (voice or data). Each mobile that connects to the mobile tower reduces the number of spectrums and slices left. Do not forget that this data needs to also be shared by surrounding towers within Tx/Rx range. So once the tower has reached a certain number of devices connected, it starts to block any new connections until the currently connected devices either leave or disconnect from the network. Believe me, the backbone between these towers are the least of teleco's issues. Its simply the sheer number of clients these towers have to manage from a limited resource.

Just to play devil's advocate, on this plan you get unlimited minutes and messages with little data. I currently pay $30 a month for just 2gb of data on verizon (I don't know what plan the title of this is referencing, I just got my phone on May 29th). I have to pay additional fees for unlimited messages and 1400 shared minutes (I'm on a family plan with 3 other lines). Honestly, this new plan seems to be more cost effective. Yes, the data is way more expensive, but so what? In the near future, many cities will have expansive free wifi, and most apps don't eat data the way streaming video does. I frequently use my phone to check facebook, skype, gps, and compare prices from in store and amazon, and I never have a problem getting close to 2gb.

POW, hit me right in the F

I'd prefer "spool up the F

warp drive was the catalyst to the elimination of petty conflict. Basically, right after WWIII(and the various Eugenics Wars), humanity was in ruins. The various factions still had pretty epic grudges against each other though, so there was a lot of fear of the war starting up again. Then there was Cochrain and the Pheonix flight that caught the attention of the Vulcans. The Vulcans then came to make first contact and prove that humanity was not alone. This caused the people of Earth to unite together to be one people in what they had just found out was a rather crowded universe. There were still issues for many years following that, but they settled as time went on. So Star Fleet was founded with the NX-01 Enterprise, which had its adventures which lead to the founding of an alliance between five powers of various strengths against a Romulan threat. This eventually became the Federation we know from Star Trek.

I might be partially or completely wrong, but I think it just means any matter with properties significantly different from anything we've ever detected or created. Examples might be something not affected by gravity, or which contains (or can be made to generate) previously-impossible amounts of energy. Something completely exotic , like Star Trek's "dilithium crystals". Perhaps something from the predicted atomic "island of stability" that's currently beyond our grasp of creating.

I've seen this story appear everywhere, presented as if it is actually a real proposal. It's not. It's crazy. This one guy Ouliang Chang is putting forward the concept. No significant engineering work has been done on the idea. Even a cursory thought about the disadvantages of such a plan show why it will not be done. Heat dissipation relies on radiation (way too slow for supercomputer without lots of radiator hardware) or the water at the poles, but there isn't a proposal for collecting that. It isn't like there are free-running streams to tap into on the poles of the moon. This would require immense funding to get up there, and even larger funding to maintain (or some kind of automatic repair system that has never been developed successfully or demonstrated on anything near this scale so far) Why not expand the deep space network here on Earth? Why not put the supercomputer here where it is easy to maintain and power and etc. and just improve our ability to communicate with spacecraft in other ways? ...many other problems.

I have no idea about how it would interface with NAFTA or GATT TRIPS / the Berne Convention, to be honest. My general understanding of the IP sections of those agreements is that they are typically pro-rights holder, meaning that they set a minimum floor for protection , but do not really provide many substantial rights to the public. There's nothing wrong with this per se (it is supposed to protect foreign inventors from being screwed over by discriminatory IP systems, among other things), but I'm not sure how it would apply to the Kirtsaeng case.

Let me make it more clear. You, like Apple, are basing your opinion on a rigid interpretation, and defending it by claiming that "anybody would do the same". The problem, besides the logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum, is the assumption that everyone is as morally broken as you. The assumption that everyone would make morally or legally indefensible choices were they in their best interest is actually an indication of a rather sociopathic thought process, but one that seems to be common with internet libertarian types; the same ones who defend corporations no matter what they do as they apply an intellectually broken version of the theory of evolution to the system in their heads.

The only issue is this post's title "Skype violated its own privacy policy". There is nothing wrong with me violating my own privacy policy. It's my privacy policy. That isn't to say that there may be regional laws that either strengthen, or weaken, my privacy policy. But a privacy policy is not law. My privacy policy may say, "We will not give your information to anyone for any reason." The EU will then require that i turn over your information if presented with a warrant.

If a juror in that case i would certainly present that argument that a policy is a policy; and nobody would ever be guilty of violating their own policy. From this post, I can tell that you are either a teenager or have never stepped out into the world. Lets say we make a deal, I will pay you $100 for 100 roses. And you go an grow 100 roses and come back to me and say here are 100 roses, give me my 100 dollars. And I say I changed my policy I am now going to give you $10. According to you I am not guilty of breaking my own policy. Do you understand that a policy is a binding agreement between two parties? You state that a deal is a deal but when I violate the terms of the my deal with you I am somehow not guilty? I dont understand how do you see the society functioning on terms that you describe. You got to the bank and take out a loan for $1,000,000 at %5.3, and when you get your first mortgage statement you notice that all of a sudden the interest rate is %10.6. Or you send your kid to school and its the schools policy that kids are not permitted to bring snacks. But today the school changes its policy and buys p&bj cookies for all the students. Your son is allergic to peanut butter and eats the cookie, end up in the hospital as a result and yet the school is still not guilty of violating its policy. I can give you a million examples. >nobody would ever be guilty of violating their own policy. Policy exists to prevent EXACTLY that, if no one was guilty of violating their own policy, policy would be pointless. You should consider thinking about this a bit.

even worse dude, you are just being anti MS because you are a linux boy. I've spent many years inside Windows, maintaining it for people. Even most of my family runs it, because Linux is just not (yet) for them. Are there things that I hate about MS and Windows? Sure, mostly their abuse of power (secure boot anyone?) But that does not mean that I am just being unreasonable, I simply prefer the Unix way of doing things. I even like the new Surface hardware, (not the software, but that is mostly because of Metro than anything else.) Stop attacking like a dog and state precisely what you disagree with. However I've the feeling that you're just trolling.

Yes, that's the part that confuses people. The LED needs to be kept very cool, which means you need to move all the heat away from it to the outside of the bulb, usually with a heatsink. This makes the outside of the bulb feel very hot. However, what is also happening is that it makes sure the inside is about the same temperature, which while "hot" from a human point of view, is very cool compared to an incandescent. In an incandescent, if you tried to do the same thing and move all the heat of the filament to the outside of the bulb using a heatsink, not only would that be silly because you don't have to so why bother, but it would even further diminish the bulb's performance. But if you went ahead and did it anyway, it would be FAR, FAR hotter than the LED. Probably somewhere in the range of around 5 times more heat energy being dissipated into that heat sink. Instead, since we don't put heat sinks on our incandescent bulbs because that would be silly, most of that heat energy gets dissipated as infrared light, which distributes it evenly around the room instead of focusing it all into a little package at the bulb. On the plus side, they are pretty effective as space heaters.

So I had to replace three 12V lightbulbs in my kitchen. New bulbs + a small voltage converter would cost a bit, so I decided to go with LEDs. The total price (three 220V LED bulbs vs. three standard 12V bulbs and a converter) was almost the same, however, these LEDs have an expected lifetime of 35 000 hours, which is almost 4 years. The store also gave me a 2-year warranty. The best part is that the old bulbs were 50 watts each, while the new ones are just 5.5W each. The light colour is almost identical, the only difference is the angle at which the light spreads.

OMG I actually have something to contribute! These are RLP (rugged linearized piezo) actuators! The piezo material disc inside expands and then contracts when current is applied with PWM (pulse width modulation) signal. The material expansion is proportional and very consistent. Although the displacement of the piezo material is very small, but it can be amplified, while under load, using a specially designed geometric system. The RLP actuator, in particular, has a very high resonant frequency and though the force and displacement is still small for most realistic actuation applications, the application GE is using it for is perfect. Moving air is simple as long as you can create a reasonably sized vacuum using two actuators in a sealed volume with inlet and outlet ports. Then all that you need to do it is run alternating signals in each actuator at the same high frequency and BAM! that shit just got cooler!

Ah yes, in the link blyan just posted is pretty much my entire post. >All of that said, the Daily Active User statistic should still give the company pause -- just as an abnormally high blood pressure reading means you should probably check in with your doctor, even if it is an outlier. Yes, it's an incomplete picture of Instagram users. But it does cover 44 million out of 100 million total users, which is a pretty massive sample size in any statistician's book, especially when the sample contains no inherent bias. If pollsters had canvassed a random 44% of likely voters prior to the Presidential election, not even Mitt Romney would have been able to argue with their numbers. Yes, it was Christmas. But shouldn't that mean more people want to take more pictures of more shiny things -- presents, trees, relatives, food -- with their phones, especially the new phones they found in their stockings? Instagram's Daily User figure actually rose over Thanksgiving, which only offered the relatives and the food. Flickr's photo-sharing app saw a 100% gain in Monthly Active Users over the same Christmas period, according to AppData. To be sure, Flickr is starting from a lower base, and has the novelty factor on its side for now. (It's also offering a gift to users: 3 months of Flickr Pro for free.) But Instagram should be concerned that dissatisfied users appear to be clustering around one particular alternative. As most tech industry veterans will tell you, in this business, it pays to be paranoid. I was fully willing to acknowledge the fact that this likely had little to do with the TOS. What I took issue with is that people were saying it was because of Christmas (which one would expect to be a record high).

I often hear this, so upvote to you. But I think you may be missing the point here. Some may use Instagram like this, sure, but many (most?) are part of networks of friends and relatives there. Remember that Instagram is one big social network for photography, not an individualized network where people post their dinner out to nothingness. They post to people who care. Why? Because the people seeing their feeds are likely to be a boyfriend, or perhaps a family member. Or perhaps these people are fans of a celebrity. These do care. They care about trivial matters for the same reason they like to watch a TV show where they star, or because they are about to kiss that person when he gets home from work. I think there is a lot of cynism about Instagram, for some reason usually having to do with disregarding the social factor in this network completely. We humans are often simple like this. We like to talk about the weather. Since Instagram is visual, these people have an interest in visuals, or they would not have joined. Thus -- a photo of the weather is deemed contributory to the visual conversation at hand.

The article does NOT state that they lost any users. Only that active daily users were down 25%.

Touché! :) A gun magazine has no other use. A book about guns primary function is not to kill people, even if a printed book about guns is extreme and in this fairy tail scenario, suggested that killing people is a good thing, it still doesn't actually cause death directly, a reader had to do other things.

I was reading up about anti-missile laser weapon systems last night. It is completely fascinating how complex these systems are. The amount of thought that has gone into overcoming potential roadblocks is mind-boggling. One problem! >the motion of the HEL platform, motion of the target and movement of the air mass force the need for the pre-distortion of the beam to change continuously. So here's what they developed to even begin to make this headline possible. Adaptive mirrors >adaptive or deformable mirror which has up to hundreds or thousands of miniature actuators, each of which can locally raise or depress the surface of the mirror, to distort the beam in a controlled fashion. and Laser radar >The second technology is a form of Lidar (laser radar) which is used to continuously measure the distortion along the beam path to the target. To create a final piece of technology so advanced it makes me a little sick. >The deformable mirror has 341 actuators which update the shape of the mirror at 1,000 Hz frequency – this means 1/1000 sec is required not only to measure the distortion but also to calculate and control the mirror actuator. and thus, our happy result, >In a HEL weapon system, the Lidar and wavefront sensor are used to continuously measure the distortion along the beam path, and produce correponding commands to the actuator array used in the deformable main mirror, which reflects the high power HEL beam to the target. Mirrors, as mentioned by others, must be absolutely perfect. In a war scenario that will be impractical at best. The slightest imperfection causes the mirror to absorb energy. The additional energy causes the imperfection to spread and shortly the mirrored missile explodes. The scenario is, I believe, approximately the same for armored missiles. If either mirrors or armor are installed on a missile they will necessitate a major redesign. This isn't something you can simply slap an armor coat on. Missiles have important maneuverability characteristics based off of their weight and shape. It might be, that by armoring your missile, you slow it down to such a degree that it's destruction by laser is more likely. Mirrors and ablative armor, are imperfect defenses. Their primary effect will be an increase in the amount of time that a laser must remain trained upon them. Summarized from source

Three problems here. Loss of economies of scale. Deadweight loss due to loss of efficiency. Loss of competitive advantage with foreign competitors. Also, if we taxes on global sales the WTO would impose severe fines.

Information" and "culture" are just buzzwords designed to come off as high-minded and noble when [in reality]( what you're really talking about is the latest Hollywood movies, big label music, big publisher novels, and AAA games, all of which are more accurately described as "entertainment". So no, it's not "important" in any grand societal sense that commercial piracy sites like TPB allow you take all the entertainment you want without paying anything to the people who actually made it. That, in fact, isn't a noble cause but a parasitical one, which is why TPB having the unmitigated gall to invoke Gandhi (obliquely comparing themselves to him on the process) is fucking ridiculous.

I have only one upvote for you sir :( Also, anything I have ever pirated I never intended on paying for in the first place. For example, years before the walking dead became popular (hipsterfag) I downloaded and read the first 25 issues. I never would have went out and bout the comic because at the time I didnt read comics. I downloaded and not Kirkman has over a hundred dollars from me that he would never have gotten if I hadn't pirated the first 25 issues. I now own issues 1-107 ( hard covers for the first 48 issues and singles after that).

XBLA games are written using XNA, which also has windows and windows phone support. Though the actual binaries that are on your console are not compatible, if Microsoft by some miracle decides to include XNA support (They have discontinued development for windows, and wp8 is the last WP is to support it) then only a recompile is needed. But I think that is a long shot. They will probably use Visual C++ + native DirectX which will require a rewrite or using something like monogame to translate the XNA to VC++, but even that is a non-trivial amount of work.

All the "leaks" point towards a system that is VERY similar to the PS4. 8 Core AMD jaguar CPU, significantly more ram, and a DX 11 class GPU. Emulating powerPC is pretty much impossible. The wii has a single core PPC CPU @ 700 Mhz and you already need a high end CPU to emulate that at reasonable speeds. There is no chance that any hardware right now has the capability to emulate a tripple core PPC CPU @ 3.2 GHz. Absolutely no way. The only two ways that there could be backwards compatibility would be either include all the xbox 360 hardware + the new hardware in the same box (very expensive), or go the sony route and stream old games through an onlive type service (not true backwards compatibility).

There are so many things wrong with this post, it hurts. One, things change when it's domestic. Our standing army will have some problems with fighting against fellow countrymen. It's easy when you're shooting at some brown dude with an AK wearing rags. It'll get harder when you're looking at someone you KNOW is a fellow American. If some armed revolution started in the USA there would be a LOT of turncoats, and a lot of people who would refuse to fight. Two, of all the nuclear countries that have had rebellions or revolutions, how many have deployed nukes in those internal conflicts? Fucking none. Chemical weapons, yes. Biological weapons, yes. Nukes? No. The UN would start treating the US like the Norks if the it tossed around nukes like that. Plus nukes wouldn't be useful in a second-american-revolution situation because... Three, it will be a guerrilla war. The same kind of war that just pushed out the US from Iraq. Just because we pulled out of Iraq doesn't mean the insurgency isn't still alive and well. Same in Afghanistan. The Taliban are still getting at it, and all the fun democracy the US dropped on Afghanistan is going to go away when we pull out. I won't bother to list them here, but all the reasons that the Taliban and Iraqi insurgency are successful (because let's face it, they're still alive and well) are the reasons that a guerrilla force of revolutionaries in the US have a chance to at the very least continue fighting.

Shouldn't be. I can bet you won't get the full 1gb, but probably always above 800mb. It should be near symmetrical though due to the way they are deploying it to the homes. The reason for the horrible uploads on their other tiers is because of a DSL limitation. With fiber you have one fiber laid to the house and your downstream and upstream share two different wave lengths. With DSL you are using ancient technology developed by the Mayans (slight sarcasm).

So it's ok to shoot the messenger? (if he's not a nice person of upstanding character I suppose). I reiterate. He disclosed the vulnerability. He was trying to help them (and add to his already overinflated ego). Sure he's an idiot and a troll but the facts speak for themselves. He disclosed the info to ATaT before going public. He didn't disclose any private information. >Wrong. In chat logs from weev himself he recognised that he wasn't supposed to have access to this data and that it was a security flaw, not public information. This is going to rapidly devolve into a semantic argument so rather than argue the merits of "supposed to" or "public", I'll get to the point of the matter. The mere fact that it was a "security vulnerability" implies that the information was supposed to be secure. We can all agree on that much. However when you find an exploit generally you need a proof of concept. Weev's proof of concept was the information obtained. Had he been a malicious actor as he is portrayed, he would have hid behind a proxy, juiced all of the info and used it to whatever nefarious end he could. This is not what happened. Sure he has a shitty reputation from his trolling and hacking days with the GNAA, but that doesn't mean that his actions were bad. The reality is that this was an embarrassment for ATaT and he was selectively prosecuted because of this embarrassment. Tons of security researchers find vulnerabilities every day and often stumble upon info that should otherwise be protected. Generally the code of the land is "responsible disclosure" where the company is notified and the data is destroyed, confidentiality agreements are exchanged often in lieu of a cash reward. It is also common practice to push companies to fix their systems by giving a publishing date. A researcher has every right to publish their findings with their peers regardless of whether or not the company in question likes it. (this is usually why companies are willing to exchange cash for confidentiality).

Fuck this shit. Lived in Dallas for 5 years and I've taken a taxi 3 times. The first one I took home from a bar in Uptown, literally 2 miles from my place. The guy had a film over the meter that made all the numbers blurry, but I wasn't that hammered and could see the total of 7.20 when we got to our destination. Motherfucker multiplied it by 3 AFTER he had already added additional cost for each passenger, which was expected. The second time, I made sure that when my 4 friends got in that we set the fare up front and it wasn't going to be multiplied. After our 2 mile drive, the guy tries to multiply by 5 this time. I flip shit, tell him to fuck off, and he starts screaming in another language and tries to drive off while I'm still in the car. The 3rd and final time, we had 6 friends coming from my new place and going 6 miles. It took us 30 minutes and we almost got in 3 accidents because he was going 32 mph on the highway, and pulled over on the shoulder twice to check his phone. Then I found Uber. Always picked up within 3 minutes, clean car, nice driver, and they use the air conditioning and drive the speed limit.

Terrible customer service, charging as much as FioS for a third of the (advertised, not actual) speed, and data caps/bandwidth throttling. The last one really irks me because they said they didn't do it, but the last few days of every month I have crippled internet connectivity for no apparent reason. Secondly, though this isn't their fault, I HAVE to have them, as my neighborhood charges expensive HOA fee's but we have the Cox bundle provided. If I want satellite TV or another ISP, I can, but I still have to pay for the subsidized Cox package.

Here's the most recent benchmarks I could find at the moment.

Hot damn, Canadian_Infidel, you asked the right question at the right time. Despite my belief that the best place for an audio player is out of my sight, my curiosity was piqued by your question. Turns out that it is possible to get MilkDrop working in foobar2000, but it's a bit of a task and not for the faint of heart. If you need a visualization that's not MilkDrop, you are probably one of those limp-wristed nancy boys. Feel free to PM me wit dem digits. >:D Seriously, though, [Shpeck claims to be a wrapper for all Winamp visualizations]( I have only tested MilkDrop, though. On the other hand, I figured out how to do it in < 90 minutes, so it's not impossible . Here's me holding your hand through the process. Download [Milkdrop]( Go [here]( and download foo_vis_shpeck 0.3.7 Go [here]( and get the hacked MilkDrop files. If you don't have foobar2000 1.29 (the newest stable version) installed, that's also a necessity. [Get it here.]( I would like to take this chance to say, yes, this is a lot of work, but that's because the Shpeck plugin was written for Winamp or an old version of foobar2000... It's rather magical it works at all. Anyway, let's begin grafting MilkDrop on to foobar2000. Install MilkDrop. (If you don't have Winamp installed (I didn't), the installer will be a total bitch and refuse to install. It is necessary to create a folder with a file named "winamp.exe" and a folder named "plugins" inside it. MilkDrop will install to this folder. Extract the hacked MilkDrop files to the folder where MilkDrop installed, overwriting the originals. Extract foo_vis_shpeck.dll to the components folder of your foobar2000 install. Now, start foobar2000, and open File>Preferences. Choose Visualizations>Shpeck in the left pane. You should see [something like this.]( Choose MilkDrop in the available plugins list, then choose Configure. [Check "Use Fake Fullscreen mode" and "Start Fullscreen".]( Helpful screenshot provided. Click okay until you're back at the main foobar2000 window. I recommend closing foobar2000 and restarting it here, since I crashed foobar a few times figuring out how to do this and had to reconfigure settings. Restarting foobar now ensures settings are saved in the event of a crash. Now, start playing some music, then go back into Shpeck settings and click "Start/Stop". Should work.

Hey there Tom. Good to see you and Justin are both around still. I'm a long time user of Winamp, former lurker in #mpeg3, and helped keep #gnutella alive and manually sharing peer IPs after AOL killed the peer server, and before the first clients were written. Winamp was the first mp3 app that could play without buffering on my old PC. I stuck with Winamp until fairly recently when Google Music finally became available here. I also remember back when physical MP3 players will still rare magical things, Amazon had a 32MB Rio(?) one as an award for looking at some number of banner ads. Only afterwards did I find out Amazon wouldn't ship to Australia, but you offered to re-ship it here. Not sure what ended up happening to that - I think it got lost in the mail.

Tons of them; I honestly don't know where to begin. Youtube-style instant preview of the video as you hover on the progress bar ? I'm not joking when I say that I'm still discovering new shit everywhere. What has impressed me the most, though, is PotPlayer's UI; I consider it a master-level class on how to pack an insane amount of features without overwhelming or confusing the user. First, the default view is [deceptively basic]( and has all the main buttons in clear, plain view. But you hover on any of those mysterious other buttons and you [get a handy tooltip on what it does for left/right click]( ([left click effect]( [right click effect]( Then, you right-click anywhere for the options and find out that [it can do just about damn anything in a few clicks]( and you will learn the keyboard shortcuts as necessary if you want to do the stuff in one click. (One that I use regularly: slow down/speed up subtitles by 0.5s at a time by pressing "," and ".". But if you prefer the mouse, [there's a control panel for it]( Finally, you can actually open the various menus and you'll find an [insane degree of customisability](

For what it's worth, this was expected for a year. Ars did a story on what went wrong for Winamp.

I would say it is similar, but not the same. One of the biggest differences is that the Government issuing a fiat currency also has the executive power and mission to enforce its acceptance "for all debts public and private." Because of that, you're guaranteed to be able to use it. Even in circumstances where said enforcement is ineffectual, you could still use it to pay what you owe to the gov't in the way of taxes, which is some guaranteed lower bound on its value. Nothing guarantees you will be able to use bitcoins, on the otherhand. Its utility is completely controlled and dictated by the whims of the market. If no one wants your bitcoins, you will be unable to offload them.

I assumed you meant downsides to purchasing that were not cost. Most people consider the legal issue a downside when it comes to piracy. Bluray quality is NOT 5 gigs for a movie. That is laughably low for 1080p and i can almost guarantee that there are very noticeable artifacts and only has simple stereo audio. Example, The Amazing Spiderman rip i have is 36GB and that is around what you should expect of any bluray. Yes, that is just the .mkv video file, no special features or disk menus. Now onto Hulu. Hulu is absolute shit. Adds for the free version are fine, limited quality options for free is fine. The player breaking? The massively delayed release schedules? NO, not fine. However, their paid version is where they start to really go wrong. If you expect someone to pay for your service, you DO NOT serve them adds. It's part of the reason people are cutting cable, and the #1 reason i will never give them my money (at least neflix got that right, that's why i'm willing to pay them). Hulu is also limited to only 720p. Not only is that completely unreasonable in 2014, but it's highly compressed to boot.

I would argue that the newly formed interpretation of the nick name 'app' is best described as any piece of software that is distributed through a controlled, centralized marketplace. While I do understand your point of view, I think that categorizing the word as a design methodology is limiting - The classic idea of an 'application' (or rather a classic piece of software) is dying. This is because classic software is difficult to use for the layman and puts them at risk to untrusted sources. It creates an inconsistent experience and was ultimately the short-term failure of Windows OS. The days of downloading software from the internet will (not soon) be over. Just like everything else that has gone mainstream (trying not to sound too hipster-ish), the wide-spread success of the free-market internet is its own demise. Look at Windows 8, for example. The OS is already moving away from the Desktop by including a robust market place (app store) for downloading controlled apps in a single location. You may be thinking, 'exactly, and all of those apps are minimalistic and lightweight'. And, you wouldn't be wrong. What I would argue, however, is that once 'Apps' become the only option, apps will be forced to become more complex and robust, while maintaining their short name definition via the word 'app'. This is to account for the individuals who still require the functionality of the classic software that they can no longer install.

Well you didn't understand it then. Nevada is giving Tesla tax breaks, not a sum of cash. There is no deficit to make up. Only a loss in future revenues on very cheap land. This is going to be a massive boon for Reno in the long run. 6,500 jobs is only the tip of the iceberg. ["In exchange, the company must invest a minimum of $3.5 billion in manufacturing equipment and real property in the state—a threshold that is much lower than the $10 billion state officials say they expect the company to invest in Nevada over the next two decades."]( Property values are most definitely going to go up which equals higher property tax revenue for the state government. This also doesn't account for the extra services and support growth that will spring up around the new population growth of both temporary construction workers and the long-term factory workers. Nevada also agreed to let Tesla sell their cars direct so it's likely that quite a few new showrooms will open. Nevada is primarily a sales tax state so the higher EV sales equals even more revenue for the state. According to Brian Bonnenfant, project manager for the University of Nevada, Reno's Center for Regional Studies: the types of businesses that would come here or be affected are extensive. "The proposed Tesla facility would attract interest from the plastic manufacturing, electrical engineering, mining, transportation, logistics (shipping), management, licensing, renewable energy, employment placement, real estate and construction industries," "Secondary industry attraction would result from spending of household wages; therefore expect expansion of industries that cater to households including retail, professional and other services, education and health services, and new residential construction." There is also an Apple data center in the area and it helps your city brand name and credibility to have these two companies in the area if you are trying to attract other technology companies. Also: "Nevada does not currently have a storage battery manufacturing industry so we turn to Arizona for a comparable (jobs) multiplier, which is 2.384," said Brian Bonnenfant, project manager for the University of Nevada, Reno's Center for Regional Studies. This means for every 1 Tesla job, 2.384 jobs are really created. For 6,500 Tesla jobs, that's 15,500 overall jobs. Who knows, you could even get bullish and hope for an advanced manufacturing tech boom to grow up around this area. There is a reason why Dave Archer, president and CEO of Nevada's Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, [said closing this deal] ["...would be the Triple Crown, the World Series and the Super Bowl wrapped into one."]( That's also why ["Nevada economic development officials anticipate the gigafactory—a three-story behemoth with more than 5 million square feet of manufacturing space—will generate a $100 billion economic impact over 20 years."]( Even if all that doesn't happen the investments from Tesla alone make this a good bet, there is a reason why states were falling over each other to close this deal.

Its true potential such as getting everyone taken advantage of once one person or a small group of persons hold any 1 whole/majority of a commodity that people need? Shipping/Railroads/Electricity/Water/Sewer/Telephone/Colleges would be on the perfect line of affordability for the amount of people needed to reach the most profit. Basically saying "go fuck yourself" to those that cannot afford it, and only lowering their prices when X (the optimum number of people needed to make a profit) isn't reached. The people who make the most money first have the ability to buy out or kill their competition whether it is on the local level or a higher scale.

99.99% reliability isn't good enough. It is for me. That's one day every three years or so (?) I can't listen to Spotify. Oh well. It would also require both my cell service and my home internet going down at the same time. That would be frustrating for so many other reasons than that I couldn't access Spotify. >Poor internet infrastructure. Not an issue. I live in a major metropolitan area and have no issue pulling 50mbps from my 60mbps line. And there are very few places in the city I don't have full 4G cell service. >Battery usage My LG G2 will often get 6+ hours of SOT with nothing disabled and no battery saving options enabled. >Cost I only started paying for Spotify Premium when I got a 3 month deal for $0.99. Otherwise I'm fine listening to the ads. Music isn't such an important part of my life that I'm really that picky about how I consume it.

So, it's a stereo recording that changes panoramic settings based on where your head is positioned. That really isn't anything new - I notice it when my roommate plays COD and turns his character's head. Sound effects will be played at different delays and amplitudes between the left and right speakers on the TV. Only difference is it will be played through headphones, in my opinion. Also, shoving a small transducer inside a foam head to simulate hearing within the ears would most likely only muffle the sounds unless corrected by drastic equalization. The only benefit from my point of view is slightly more percise delay between each ear. As far as 'hacking your brain', we do this all the time in audio. We will make you think that a sound is mostly coming from a person on stage while in reality most of it is from the speakers above them or far out into the audience. This imaging is created by having the speakers delayed so that they are not the first thing that is heard, but rather the actor or speaker is heard first. Even if it is quieter, you will still believe it's all coming from them. And beside the point isn't any digital audio played back through a speaker/headphones really just one huge brain hack? What you think is a violin playing is actually a contact microphone creating an electric current that is then sent through a digitizer which takes instantaneous snapshots of amplitude and turns information is assigned a quantization level which is an (X)-bit long binary code that is stored on a computer/CD, then (basically) the reverse is done to turn it back into an electrical signal that causes a magnet connected to a diaphram that moves it in a way almost identical to that violin's string. I think that's quite the brain hack - not a stereo recording that basically has a second panoramic potentiometer attached to a gyroscope.

The lobbyists get paid for trying to bribe the legislation they want into existence. If that fails (rarely), then the lobbyists get paid to wave their hands threateningly like some impotent mob boss (like this corporate whore is currently doing). If the target doesn't back down, then the lobbyists get paid to work with lawyers to take whatever legal remedies they can get away with, including lawsuits and buying new congressmen to enact new legislation to weaken or overturn the thing they don't like.

To all the people bitching about how bad SLC (and Utah in general) is, lets set the record straight with an honest pro's/con's list. Pro's: 9 (yep count them) ski resorts within one hour of SLC. Several of these are low key mom and pop places (Powder Mountain, Brighton), some are tourist mega-resorts (Deer Valley, Canyons, PCMR), and some have world class terrain and snow levels/quality (Alta, Snowbird). We have an abundance of other outdoor activities here that are either world class or at least really high level. These include mountain biking (Moab is just 4 hours away, but the high alpine riding here is excellent), climbing, fly fishing (the Provo is good, the Green is incredible), boating, and just about anything else you can think of. The Wasatch Front is a full blown, busy metro with an abundance of career opportunities. This is seriously the best place for young outdoor enthusiasts to participate in the hobbies they love and have a real job, own a house, start a family, etc. Not like trying to find a job in a ski town at all. The mormons actually are pretty useful here. One of their key beliefs is in preparedness and staying out of debt. This has translated into a stable economy that saw very little of the impact of the 2008 recession that slammed the rest of the country. I was living in NY at the time and could not find a job anywhere for 8 months. I moved back to SLC and had a job within the week. During the recession, Utah had the fourth lowest unemployment rate being beat by the Dakota's and Wyoming. While a lot of it lacks charm and character due to strip malls and big box stores (SLC proper is pretty cool though), it makes up for this in sheer convenience. Where I live there are two Lowes, two Home Depots, three Walmarts, 6 different grocery stores, and everything else you can think of within 5 minutes. Errand running is quick and super efficient here. The liquor laws suck but do have a silver lining. We have quite possibly the greatest selection and quality of session beer anywhere. The local breweries (Squatters/Wasatch, Uinta, several others) do a great job of creating tasty brews within the constraints of 4% ABV. Say you are going out for dinner and you are the one driving, you don't have to drink water/soda. Want a beer with lunch? Sure why not? You can have a beer or two and not get buzzed. This is super handy. Like the thread topic says, we're getting Google Fiber. Fuck yeah. SLC itself (despite being Church HQ) is really quite secular and liberal. The last five mayors here have been Democrats, despite the rest of the state (except Park City) being die hard christian conservative Republicans. There is a vibrant LGBT scene here and the the town hall itself hosts the pride festival. Pretty progressive for being surrounded by mormons. Utah's population is the youngest in the country. Not just because mormons have a lot of babies either. The culture in SLC reflects this and it is a great place to be young and single. Con's The smog in the winter. The whole metro is in a geographically closed valley (mountains on all sides) and during winter we get really bad inversions during high pressure cycles. With over a million people living here and a large oil industry, a few days of high pressure in the winter make the place look like Mordor. It sucks and would be my biggest motivation for moving away from here. The LDS Church's influence in culture, and more importantly, politics. They don't actively speak out on a lot of topics, but when they do, they never have been denied. Ever. Most of the state legislature are mormon, all of our congressional reps and senators are mormon, the governor is mormon, etc. The Church has them in their pocket and when they say jump, they say "how high?" We're supposed to be getting a very large earthquake here (statistically it is way overdue) on one of the segments of the Wasatch Fault any time now. We're talking greater than 7 on the Richter scale big. They don't know where (which segment) or when, but it will happen eventually. Statistically Brigham City and SLC are the most likely spots with Provo and Ogden being the least likely. The liquor laws. Yes they do suck despite my reason for them being on the Pro's list. The worst part about them is not being able to get beer above 4% on draft anywhere, the shitty liquor store hours (most close at 7, a few at 10), and the 1.5 shot rule. A lot of bars get creative with cocktails and use other alcohols designated as "flavors" to up the booze, the max of any kind of alcohol is 2.5 ounces in a cocktail but flavors are free pour aren't tracked like the shots of the main booze. So depending on the bar this one can be a wash if you like cocktails. Us straight liquor drinkers are better off pre-gaming. The mormons. Yes, while the economy is super stable due to their belief in being prepared and being debt free (most have at least a year of food storage or are working on it), they can kind of suck to be around. In general, they are a very vanilla people who are easy to offend. They have a culture of being "in the world but not of the world" which leads them to ignore social norms/conventions and not try to fit in (like cruising in the passing lane on the freeway, not tipping properly in restaurants, general socially clueless behavior). For lack of a better word, there is a lot of crybaby pussy culture here and it's really aggravating. This isn't true for all, I have a lot of mormon friends who you wouldn't know were mormon until you offered them a beer (to which they would politely decline and not make an issue). But there are enough of the vanilla ones out there to justify the stereotype.

Unless you want to date someone who isn't a complete utter loon, that is... The claims and lifestyle mandates of Mormons are hardly materially different from what Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus make and practice if they accept their religion. Are Jews complete utter loons? Should people not live in New York City? Are Catholics just raging morons? I guess Boston is out!

Funny, I knew comcast/xfinity would come up. I know that they are not the most popular company (quite the opposite) but my last experience with a comcast install was stellar. The guy said his team has been so good at doing it that they were now self managed and handled all installs like mine. We went through every detail before he left. We tested both wifi bands (not sure if that is proper term hopefully understood). We tested the speeds not just on their website but multiple sites and from multiple devices so that I would know what to expect and at which point to know that something was wrong. He gave me his business card with his cell phone and his closest work partners cell phone and told me if I had any questions to call one of those numbers before calling tech support.

The internet was created by 60-somethings after all: Tim Berners-Lee, Van Jacobson, et al. I myself, a 50-something computer programmer, understand the basics of TCP/IP, DNS, various mail protocols, SSL, etc. The vast majority of lawmakers, however, are lawyers and the legal profession is notoriously old fashioned. Computer scientists have difficulty being understood in Congress because there are so few STEM professionals around.

As a former DSL/Broadband worker , I'd like to know more about this situation. I used to work in a department that most companies don't have:install coordination . A common occurrence is that the connection to the CO is good, or to a junction, even up to where the house is but then things break down from there. Where I lived, even in the home I rented, the wiring in many houses was old and haphazard. When a Field Tech went out for an install he would measure the signal strength/stability and speed from the Junction box on the premises to verify quality of service to the building. Then they would attempt a connection to the unit/home and try from whatever jack the customer wanted. If the technician couldn't get a good connection within the home, on it's own lines, then the customer was given the option to pass , have the tech run a line (when possible), or to work on their wiring on their own. I did my job with the utmost of transparency, as the sales people, well, they were sales people. They'd just check a mape or run a simple test and tell the customer the best news of what they've found, it was my department's job to manage and fulfill that expectation whenever possible. There are many situations in which the connection up to the premise is good but horrible after that. In my own home we had to run a line directly from the junction box because the lines in the house were old and very noisy.

No. It's like selling a sports car that's advertised as going up to 200mph. The problem here is the FCC. There are no regulations on using phrases that modify a claim. Ideally, the law would state that if an ad uses the phrase "up to," it also has to use the phrase "with a guaranteed minimum of."

Every side of this issue pisses me off. The telcos blather on about "sharing the costs," which is nothing short of insane when you realize they're just accusing popular websites of using the service they purchased from the telcos. The companies thusly accused are all against everyone else getting preferential treatment, but given half a chance, wouldn't mind if it was just their internet that was special. End users are SOL for options, since certain areas have one shitty, overpriced broadband provider and only dialup besides. Internet access isn't something you can build at home or buy at a mom & pop store, at least not at anything approaching reasonable speed, and upgrading infrastructure has to be done from the top down given who owns the wires. The final insult is that unless net neutrality legislation is handled very carefully - something our congress has proven itself completely incapable of recently, fuck you 600-page bailout bill - we're left with the choice between telcos divvying up the 'net like cable TV under a useless FCC on one side and the Federal Government effectively owning the American internet on the other... potentially under a worse-than-useless FCC.

Honest naive question here. I promise I'm not trolling by any means. I know about the warrantless, illegal wiretapping. It angers me, but what I can I do? What am I supposed to do besides write to my local government and merely hope they make a case in Washington? Been there. Done that. Got a nice form letter response and was promptly ignored. And even if they decided to listen to me and took it to Washington, its not like the president would give a shit about what I had to say and could veto whatever he wanted if he thought it was a question of national security. So...

I will say this, I've been robbed online so many times it makes me want to puke. While I was making good money from my work I know for a fact that the people that stole from me (dozens and dozens) cleared well over $1,000,000 on my work. Now, they did steal it and use it for profit but it fucking sucks to make something and have someone take it from you. I'm curious as to what kind of work you do that people stole your work and then made over a million on it. > Now, I know all of the arguments for downloads but I don't agree with any of them. How about the ad populum one? The problem is that you can't stop it. Regarldess of if it's immoral, inethical, wrong, or just plain mean, people will continue doing it. It's a lot like speeding on the freeway. Most people do it at least a little bit. Some people don't. Some people do a lot. A few people do it way too much. There comes a practical point where to properly enforce a law, you will have to literally fine or imprison a very significant portion of your constituency. That point, I would argue, has long since passed. > Personally, I know it can't be stopped. I should've finished reading your comment. I won't erase the previous bits, since I wrote it, but I suspect you'll understand that fairly clearly. The way I look at piracy is that it's inevitable. Yes, the quality of media may very well plummet. People will lose money. Livelihoods will be trashed. Unfortunately, those are all things that will happen. Moreover, those are all things that have happened before. And the events that led to those issues were demonized as being horrible, wrong things. Look at industrialization. How many people did that put out of work? How many people lost a huge swath of their existence simply because the world started operating differently than they were used to? Does that make it "wrong"? I don't know. It's kind of like accusing the moon having another eclipse as being "wrong". It's going to happen barring some bizarre celestial anomaly that would probably prevent us from experiencing much of anything. Is it wrong for an individual to do it? Why make the crash happen faster? Why not? If I can get something for free with very little risk, why shouldn't I? Isn't that the core spirit of modern capitalism? Try to get the best deals possible. Try to save the last dime. This is pretty rambly. I'm tired.

I used to handle purchase orders for computer labs in public schools, and I also built computers for people privately (and definitely have enough experience to know how often things like power supplies inexplicably die). There is no doubt in my mind that defective product lines were (are?) sent off in bulk to schools, where the government will just write another check when it comes time to replace them. SEVERAL times, they would get 10 or more computers at a time, only to have 6-7 die within the first month due to faulty power supplies or motherboards. In one particular case (with Gateway), there were tons of complaints posted online about the specific motherboard model dying, and this was even back in the 90's before millions of tech forums were indexed in every search engine. EDIT: more details

Ya this is misleading, here's why (IAMA law student/anti law enforcement): So say your car is impounded because you are arrested for DUI. When your car is impounded the police are completely allowed to do an 'inventory search' and have always been allowed to do such a car search without a warrant or anything like that. This case applies that thinking to your cell phone. You get arrested...your stuff gets searched. Obviously a search of the 'contents' of a cell phone such as tm isn't the same thing as the 'contents' of your car done as inventory search to ensure your stuff gets returned...but this is a point that i'm not surprised the courts got wrong. I didn't read the cases just the article...total first impression opinion, but I do pay attention in class and am usually right about law stuff.

I cannot think of any judge who would have a problem with it. A person is already under arrest for a crime, and in that circumstance search is allowed... it's typical the police will remove all items from your pockets when placing you under arrest, which is considered a search. There is no implication of privacy when placed under arrest, so the implied right of privacy cannot prevail either.

Plain sight isn't the relevant exception here. It's SILA ( Moreover, the issue here isn't who is " defining " what constitutes new evidence (the interplay of new litigation and FRE 401 ( provide a steady stream of new pieces/types of evidence). The issue is whether a particular item of evidence is admissible pursuant to 4th Amendment/exclusionary principle jurisprudence, which is decidedly within the domain of the judiciary, not the legislature.

I priced it out: My $60, no contract plan which includes 500 voice, unlimited data, unlimited text, and free tethering would turn into $105 for 450 voice, 4 GB data, and unlimited text messaging with a 2 year contract. Sure I can save $20 if I want only 2 GB of data, but I use more than that. Oh and if want to keep tethering that will run me an extra $20 a month.

We've been popping up to earth orbit for a while, a far cry from manned exploration of other planets, asteroids, and eventual colonization... Having a human presence in space, foraging pioneers isolated and alone, can inspire a sense of achievement and purpose amongst us all. Look at the effect of Apollo 11 and Apollo 16 had on the world... The genuine sense of wonder and adventure and unity of all mankind. Professor Prescott Webb wrote about this in his book "The Great Frontier" where he ties together the raise in capitalism, individualism, and democracy to European frontier activity in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. > "We find that in general each nation's Golden Age coincides more or less with that nation's supremacy in frontier activity ... It seems that as the frontier boom got underway in any country, the literary genius of that country was unleashed." Or as Arnold Toynbee wrote in his Study of History : > " Affiliated civilizations... produce their most striking early manifestations in places outside the area occupied by the 'parent' civilization. The superiority of the response evoked by new ground is most striking illustrated when the new ground has to be reached by sea-passage..." See it's not about 'what we find', and all about what we do . The perspective we gain from having fellow souls out there on the edge, a reminder that we're all together on this 'pale blue dot', and the new societies, economies, and even religions that we will create. A change in perspective gives us a chance to re-evaluate our current conditions. Looking back across history cultural growth, new economic and social systems, improvements in human rights and justice, and social development all go hand in hand with exploring new frontiers, and space is an inexhaustible one :)

I would agree with this article. Programming being procedural and relying on user input can't be multi-threaded. (or at least very little). Apps and Games are examples of this. Programs that shine with multiple processors would be encoders and rendering. People aren't using their mobile devices for CAD, Animation, Photoshop, Encoding Movies, etc. (Aka work machines) Sure, its great that more cores are there for that rare app that may function better by having multiple threads. But those apps will be rare. So the 'benefit' of the extra cores isn't all that helpful.