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This smells like a bug, rather than some great conspiracy theory. Some guy in engineering finds out that Alcatel-Cisco tower dodad XtraMux9000 has a bug.
This bug requires a patch. The patch has to be applied to all towers, its on the docket to be pushed into XtraMux9000 release 10.0.E7.alphaC, but that isn't slated for another 3 months.
So engineering told support that the nexus 7 isn't supported.
His online "buddies" are in a different city, an acquired territory, that uses the Calitran 7340. This does not have the bug, but since Verizon cannot support the nexus 7 nation wide, it is easier to tell your level 1 techs - it isn't compatible.
You can use a SIM already authorized on another device as user work around.
I'm sure that Alcatel-Cisco & Google are both working on patches, but if the FCC gets called, both companies point the finger at each other, and since both parties are not at fault / at fault, and the issue will be fixed before lawyers get involved, and both companies are making an effort to fix the issue. The FCC doesn't do anything. |
Yes Cingular did buy out the original AT&T company. However the current company known as AT&T did buy Cingular. So you are half right. This is all completely complicated and needs to be traced back to the original company of [Bell Telephone Company (1877)](
Bell Telephone Company and [New England Telephone and Telegraph Company (1878-89)]( merged to make National Bell Telephone Company of Bostin and [International Bell Telephone Company]( In 1880 American Bell Telephone Company was formed when National Bell Telephone Company merged with other companies and formed the American Bell Telephone Company remained based in Boston. American Bell Telephone Company renamed itself to American Telephone & Telegraph Company also known as AT&T.
[AT&T (2005-Present)]( is the result of a 1982 court rulling that created the [ROBCs]( also knowen as Baby Bells. These are the companies that later became Verizon, AT&T, Cingular, SBC, and others though some complex mergers.
So in essence Cingular was made up of two ROBCs. Cingular then bought the original parent ROBC known as SBC or the original parent company of AT&T. So far you are right about Cingular buying AT&T. Now that company has been bought by what we now know as The New AT&T. While not the original AT&T Corp. The New AT&T does own the company formerly known as Cingular. |
Tor masks you through nodes. The whole idea is they don't know who is connected o the node, so it masks what you're doing. So you could be anyone. It was a great idea at first. Except now the FBI just overwhelms Tor with their own nodes, so they can locate you through the process of elimination when you connect to ther nodes. |
While OS X (and Linux, and BSD, ect) is more generally "more secure", all that security is nothing if a stupid user with admin privleges decides to let a virus have whatever it wants. I doubt this virus was labeled "evil_ransomware_virus.exe". It was more likely bundled with some screensavers or fake antivirus or something. All you have to do is have some thin excuse as to why you need root/admin, and poof, you've got all the power you could ever want. Also, asking a user for conformation 20 times won't help if they have to do it for every operation beyond opening a folder. They just get used to it, and assume it's fine for whatever asks. That's why UAC is so darn useless. People just keep clicking OK all the time, without actually thinking about it. If anything, OS X's constant need for an admin to do everything hurts the overall security, because it trains the user to allow everything. |
It would also not only impact parking but roads too, if all cars were self driving then motorways would run like a well oiled machine, no middle lane sitters, no Sunday drivers, every vehicle would essentially be 100% efficient in terms of space they take up on the roads. Large 5-6 lane highways would be unnecessary as cars would only use the overtaking lane when it was explicitly required. |
This isn't true. Even if you pay it does not mean that positive reviews that have been filtered show up. Those reviews are filtered with a automated system that runs in the background on the website. Yes, it is an extremely shitty system, but being a paying customer does not mean that they are unfiltered. No one at yelp, or on the staff has control over what is, or isn't filtered. I am surprised by how many people on Reddit just spout their mouths off with lies and false accusations just because it's the band wagon. I worked for a local medium sized construction company and managed a advertising budget of over $200,000. We dealt directly with Yelp, Angie's list, Google Adwords etc...etc... All paying for yelp does is allow you to have adspace at the top of a page when certain keywords are searched for and you get a certain number of clicks each month with what you are paying. Our advertising cost about $250 a month. We were also able to promote yelp deals that we were running and yelp actually ended up being a powerful tool despite the mostly poor reviews that existed when I started with the company. I was able to get them from 2 starts to 3 and 1/2 which isn't very easy to do with everything that gets filtered. |
I do not block Google Analytics on Ghostery, and pages load almost instantly without delay after loading. And yes, I can verify the connection & stats work properly. |
You have to take into consideration our infantile attention spans as a society. We are swamped with information ; the only stories most people will remember are those that are repeatedly 'drilled' into our psyche through the media.
By spacing out these press releases on NSA wiretapping, he is forcing the main-stream media to not only cover the reality of government surveillance but to achieve a greater degree of 'media dominance'. The other approach would be to release it all at once. A large initial impact that would be achieve a great degree of uproar but would likely not reach Mister and Misses America. |
Short answer: It's the only available option in that person's area. Source: I'm one of those people. Actually, last week a FiOS salesman came to my door and said "so there's a new neighborhood across the street and they're all getting FiOS, you want us to wire your house too?" and I practically threw myself at his feet right there. Got it installed today and am going to cancel the Comcast subscription in the morning (it's late, I just don't want the hassle - I'd prefer to sleep tight tonight).
So, |
I had a recent dealing with Comcast, and I'm just frustrated enough to type this out.
I received a late notice on my cable bill due to a new credit care issuance registered to auto-pay. Fine, my fault, no big deal. I called in and paid the bill to restore my service. I owed approximately $130 for internet (15ish Mb down) and cable (basic digital w/ DVR in one room). I thought that was a little high, so I went to Comcast's site and browsed through the bundle section. I waded through the offers and found a perfect option for me: 50Mb down for 29.99 per month. I couldn't have been happier.
I placed the bundle in my cart and proceeded to check out. I entered all of my pertinent info to be greeted with the message "Please contact our service department to complete this order". Ugh. Alright, fine. Maybe they just need me to confirm cancellation or verify my ID. So I call in. Big mistake.
After wading through several menus and being thrust back to start on multiple occasions, I zeroed my way to a representative (hit 0 a lot = people instead of machines). She wouldn't let me disconnect my services. I don't mean that she was unable. I mean that she flat out told me "I can't let you do that" after going back and forth with her for about ten minutes. This would be a good time to mention that I designed call center software and automated reporting for a telecom company, so I'm a nice guy when dealing with these folks because I know the shit they're going through on a day to day basis.
Anywho... bullshit, I say. I asked to speak to a manager.
"All managers are busy. I'll have to put you on a callback list."
I agreed, and she told me it'd be about two hours. Fast forward to the next evening, the manager finally calls me. After her suggesting that I keep my cable, I finally convinced her that I have literally no use for it. She agrees to let me cancel and apply the internet package only to my account. Victory! She also told me there would be a box coming in the mail for my DVR and that she would void the automatic service technician visit for the next day. I was exceptionally happy as I hung up the phone and enjoyed my new cordless freedom from the media juggernauts.
7:00 a.m.: Knock knock knock. "What th... mother. Fucker."
I walked down the stairs in some shorts that were luckily near the bed to greet the service technician at my door. He seemed just as confused as I to the ordeal, so I apologized and got him up to speed. He just laughed and said "The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing". He went about his day, and I went back to bed.
The cable box coffin came in the mail and I sealed it up, much to the chagrin of my cat (it was warm), and dropped it off at UPS. All of this happened from June 5-8. Life is good. I have no cable. I have a download speed that I'm happy with at a price I can't beat. Things couldn't be better.
Then I get a call earlier today from a Comcast rep. They hung up on me, so I wound up calling them back to figure out the deal. I waded through the automated service again and sat on hold for about half an hour with no answer. I hung up and decided to try the online chat support. 42nd in queue, on lunch, no biggie. I watched the numbers tick down and spoke to one of their chat reps. He alerted me that my bill was past due again, and that I'd owe $250+. No indeed.
I explained the situation to him, how I had paid my account in full and changed my services. He caught on pretty quick and told me that since the service tech that came to my door cancelled his appointment, it put the changes in my account into a pending state. He fixed that issue and told me to call the cancellation department and go through the automated line to cancel the specific services I wanted to cancel. So, I called in... again.
...hold. Wonderful. I can hear Verizon salivating at the slow bleed of my minutes.
After about twenty minutes someone picks up. I relay the info for them to confirm my account and explain the situation. Cool. They made the changes, ensured that my bill was correct, and transferred me to the billing department so I could pay for the last month of service. On hold. Again.
Billing finally picks up, I have to recap the story for her as well before she'll actually do anything, and then go to pay my bill.
"There will be a 5.99 processing charge for us to process that payment." No, there won't. I'll pay it online tomorrow once your system updates. "Okay. Is there anything else I can help you with?" Nope. Bye.
Honest to the motherfucking baby Jesus... what in the hell kind of customer experience is that? It's not even piss poor... there just isn't a scale that goes that low. I have to feel for those reps for working with such a disparate system because they absolutely have to catch hell for it. I've got a pretty long fuse and I was about to explode like a cartoon ACME bomb at times. Listening to the hold messages assuring me that "we care about your call" definitely wasn't helping.
Their whole system needs a restructure from the ground up, and until that happens they're going to be absolutely miserable to deal with. |
Sadly in practice firsts comes your metrics, then comes the customer. Your main priority when working in a call center is to meet metrics, as long as you do it while maintaining a professional appearance on the phone.
Generally what that leads to is having to rush a customer along after a certain period of time, or passing the ball to the next guy down the line who has not learned that metrics come first.
I used to be that guy who actually took the time to fix your problem, who WANTED to get the issue resolved. I cam from helpdesk/desktop support for a large hospital and research corp. They did some cutting of the service teams since the IT budget got slashed and I ended up in a call center. So actually fixing a problem or a set of problems was my job, I did not have to fix xxx problems/hour, I just needed to make sure I fixed whatever came my way.
After ~6-7 months in a callcenter, my job was on the line. My metrics sucked, my AHT (average handle time) was high, my calls/hour where low, my QA scores where low...etc I was in the bottom 10% of the company. I needed this job, it was flexable and allowed me to study and work (trying to get out of IT), so I decided to cave and do it their way. You are brainwashed into thinking "customer first" while acting "metrics first".
The environment is fucked up, you toss away your technical knowledge and customer service skills to become some script reading sub-par human being. It sucks, for both the employee and the customer, metric-driven call centers are just bad for everyone. While some upper-level management circle-jerks over these new policies and scripts that are SURE to make customers happier and improve the customer experience. The shear disconnect from reality is what astounds me, who comes up with these absurd phrases that I am required to say in a call that accomplish nothing other than extending the time it takes to fix your problem, and making me sound like a on-hold voice recording.
As a call center employee for a certain well-known ISP... I am sorry, both for you as the customer and my co-workers for what they have to deal with. |
They could try lying to customers about this, but employees know that this is what Comcast DEMANDS it's employees to do. If you ask to disconnect, they can't just disconnect you. They can't even just give you a save offer and call it good either. Comcast employees as a whole, not just retention agents, have to jump thru SOOOO many hoops that even if the customer accepts the offer, at the very least the customer will be left with a bad taste in their (proverbial) mouths.
Even though we all know that Comcast is the devil incarnate, their level of customer service, they actually had really good customer service in comparison to today even just a few years back. They outsourced tons of customer service jobs and kept sales/retention in-house for the most part. Notice how the ad campaign "we are local for you!"
I found it despicable when the CEO Brian Roberts blamed customer service for that terrible call the other week when in reality this whole dilemma is due to bullshit, unobtainable metrics that Corporate placed on their employees. They allow certain agents to cheat because their stats are above the 'target' goal. Thus leaving the agents doing their job the right and ethical way to pay the price. Same goes for the sales department.
The only reason they are saying this and going back on their prior statement that the issue was customer service is that the employees wouldn't stand for it. You can't ask your employees to do unreasonable shit and then in turn blame the employee when the customer gets understandably upset over the employee acting unreasonable!
Not to mention how video subscribers are on a downward spiral that they'll never be able to recuperate from, they are trying to pinch every last cent. At least until they do away with net-neutrality and opened up tiered internet on top of tiered speeds to help alleviate the revenue loss from television inevitably going the way of the dinosaur. Not to mention Comcast looking to get into the Utilities game soon.. |
I hope this sort of thing works. If I were a US citizen, I would be calling and writing like mad but, as I am not and do not live in the US, they probably don't give a shit what I think. I nevertheless donate to organisations fighting on this issue because I think what happens in the US will affect the rest of us.
Unfortunately, I worry that popular pressure is going to be beaten by corporate lobbying power. I think that if there were some sort of referendum and, there were fair rules regarding campaign spending, it is obvious that Comcast et al would lose. I can see reasons for not having referendums on every issue (everything being voted through that is good and costs money but, no taxes to pay for it being voted through for example or, emotional issues being handled in silly ways) but, I don't think arguments like that apply in this case. It seems to me to be a serious failure of US democracy if this issue is decided in Comcast et al's favour.
It's not my place to try to change the US system since I am not a subject of the US (though their stupid legal policies do mean that they think their laws apply to things that happen entirely within the borders of my own country just because they involve (portions of) the internet located in my country or, allow US citizens to voluntarily access information their government's corporate masters doesn't want them to (like how to circumvent DRM) and my own stupid government allows it) but, it seems like this is something that could be fixed and would be worth US citizens who (theoretically) do have a say over how the US is run to think about.
Personally, I like the Swiss style system where a significant number of signatures on a petition can force a referendum on an issue (either introducing a law or amending them) that the government is bound by. The major flaw of it seems to be that people are really quite racist in the privacy of the polling booth (and probably act unfairly in other ways) and, I'm not sure precisely how to rectify that (making the way you vote on certain issues public would obviously help but, introduces other issues and questions about how to properly apply it/prevent abuse etc.). It also doesn't offer enough protection to the rights of individuals from the state/the majority in my opinion. I think it is worth remembering that Hitler was Chancellor in Germany through democratic elections but, that obviously doesn't make the terrible things he did OK. There do need to be limits to the power of the state and the rights of the majority over individuals/minorities and, I don't think the Swiss system has enough of these or, that anyone has devised a sufficient constitution to do so.
Personally, I have very little faith in the democracy in my own country (the UK) allowing people significant say in things. I do think it helps prevent ludicrously * even more ludicrously oppressive governments but, that is all. It doesn't actually mean the country is run in a way that is in any way fair or, how the majority would like it to be or anything like that. In the US, the system seems even more flawed to me personally (but, then again, people in the US seem to be happier with their system than people here and, it's their opinion that matters I guess, except when their government is killing people abroad or infringing on people's human rights).
*I'm mainly talking about terrorism laws, the law restricting protest in Parliament Square/Whitehall, extradition laws, and GCHQ's spying here. The Iraq war is probably another example of something serious happening against popular opinion (I think popular opinion was against it but, I'm not sure) but, that was oppressive to others, rather than British citizens directly. |
You're absolutely right.
Google does all the difficult stuff, like actually crunching numbers. All Comcast has to do is run a few cables from here to there. The actual cost is trivial. For an ISP, the real cost is laying those cables, but the government already paid Comcast to do that…
This whole debate only exists because the big US ISPs have zero competitors in most markets, and being incapable of the kind of innovation that Google does—which makes people actually want your product—they've decided a simpler strategy is to try to charge twice (they've always charged you, now they want to charge the sites you're connecting to, as well) for their mundane services in order to increase profits.
So now, even though you have already paid them for the data transfer, they want to charge the services that move a lot of data (e.g. Netflix) again for the same data because they know neither you nor Netflix has any choice but to go through them. And they were most likely ripping you off to start with.
They point out how it's perfectly normal, when one network transfers much more data into another network than goes in the other direction, that the former has to pay the latter, but that's a complete red herring. Comcast isn't part of the Internet backbone (where the above rule applies). It's an ISP. Almost all data is incoming from other networks, because their customers requested it and have already paid for it. |
While I don't think the world would be worse off, I do think that you would be prosecuted.
All in all, at least here in America, everyone should be treated equally before the law, regardless of who you victim is.
Maybe they start with the big ones and no one investigates hard, but you don't really want law enforcement who ignores people doing illegal things just because they (and in this case rightfully so) disagree with the victims ideals.
If you allow that, then it becomes a situation of where to draw the line. Who among us should do that. Should it only be people who spread propaganda? Is it ok because they celebrate 9 11? How about those who think that Islam by force is ok, but would never do it themselves? Some guys blog about halal living? A random mosques website? Someone who is spreading the word of Islam in a peaceful manner? An online store owner who has a terrorist cousin? Someone who happens to be brown and immigrated from Afghanistan?
Thing is, I think we proved with the whole Boston bombing incident that reddit isn't capable of making these judgement calls.
I also don't see why a "group" who's whole shtick is "anyone can be us!" Should be allowed to decide who is worthy of persecution.
There is no question there is terrible shit on the net, and I highly recommend you don't put an ethernet port on your head.
With that said, I don't ever want to live in a world where people think it's ok for policing entities to ignore crimes based upon who the victim is. Because the situation from us all agreeing terrorism is bad and doing online vigilantism isn't really that far removed from real world action.
Vigilantes on TV are cool because they have stellar morals and direction like batman. In the real world people murder each other because "he was a damned terrorist/infidel/guilty/different" all the time. Mistakes happen, people do the wrong thing for the right reasons, and the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.
Don't support this.
And do you really feel like "these people" will respond rationally to this attack? That they will pack it up, go home, become kind spirited aithiests, and preach peace for the rest of their days because someone took down a website?
Violence begets more violence. Action begets more action. We are encouraging them, and strengthening their resolve while allowing them to feel persecuted and justified. Yes their logic is twisted, but that's what will happen. Vindication and more violence.
Ninja edit: Sorry I started out just responding to you then ranted on the whole thing... |
I knew a guy who proudly said "I've never used facebook and I don't even use internet unless I have to". He was studying political sciences, 4th year or something like that... And he was completely serious. 23 years old or sth like that.
He was also a radical conservative, loved to talk politics. Interesting how most of the people he mentioned as good politicians, in one of his many political rants, now serve jail time here... |
So I was listening to this using my headphones, took them out as someone shouted me then put them back in, so I heard pretty much a |
I hate the messenger app, so I just use my iPhone's Safari (any web browser will work). You'll still get notifications from the Facebook App when somebody messages you, but you can just open your browser to respond. |
on our cable network (vodafone nz, ex telstraclear) you can only use their modem, from there you're permitted to use your own router.
with our DSL network, its all government regulated and the company that owns it has to provide equal access to any ISP that wants to buy capacity on it, no matter how big or small they are its the same price.
so DSL here is the same service no matter what ISP you go with, the only difference is the modem they give you, which like me im forced to use cause its how the VOIP is delivered so i have no choice but its a good modem and part of the reason im with them. |
I had Comcast internet cable, and that fucking thing got slow as fuck after the first 3 months of living there. It was completely stable, consistent and fast during the first three months, I guess they determined this household was using way more bandwith then comcast deemed to be acceptable, and they slowed us down all the fuck down to 56 K speed for 16 hours of the day. While we were still paying for high speed. Everytime we complained they swear up and down it was a error, and not intentional. It would take them 1 or 2 weeks to send out some one to fix this ever so reoccruing problem, then not just 4 or 5 days after the repair guy supposedly fixed it would it go back to 56K speed for just 16 hours a day, and we'd have to repeat the damn repair thing again with Comcast. |
Upvote for the Equity on the label. My first PC was an Epson Equity II.
To control the volume of the PC speaker you had to adjust a rheostat that was behind a panel with a tiny screwdriver. One day I missed the knob and struck metal behind it. Suddenly a Cardinals baseball game was blaring over my PC speaker. Somehow the PC was perfectly tuned to 1120AM in St. Louis. I was enthralled. That was the day I decided I wouldn't go outside to play (I was about 10), but would instead listen to the game over the computer speaker while I played Spy Hunter.
Fast forward 20 years, and I'm still listening to the radio over my computer, and also considerably fatter. |
It's unlikely a judge has even seen this yet.
In cases where it's complete bullshit, the defendants can file a 12(b)(6) motion alleging that the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. That might not work here, as the complaint at least appears to state a claim for patent infringement, even though it's ludicrous. Alternatively, the defendant can ask for judgment on the pleadings (i.e., the Judge looks at the complaint and the answer and disposes of the case just on that). Furthermore, if they want to provide some evidence, the defendant can move for summary judgment. E.g., let the judge watch the movie, see that it does not infringe the patent, and rule on that. |
Edit 04:28 PST: Daniel Kennedy has posted a blog with all the details [here](
Edit 00:23 PST: Official twitter [blog post](
Edit 00:21 PST: [mowjcamp.com]( was also defaced at the same time with an identical defacement. This is a political rally site for [Mir-Hossein Mousavi]( and his supporters.
Edit - 23:56 PST: Twitter [confirms]( that is was a DNS redirect.
Edit - 23:55 PST: Twitter defacement page is up & easy to reach now that the deluge of redirected traffic isn't hitting it -
Edit - 23:12 PST: Service has been restored.
Edit: Now on [TechCrunch](
At approximately 22:08 PST Twitter stopped resolving across multiple service providers. I checked using two different local service providers (Comcast & Verizon), a VPN (that exits in the Netherlands), and my 3G service through Verizon, failed connections on all of them.
A short time later my Verizon connected machines started returning the IP 66.147.242.88, which (albeit being very slow) loads up a page hosting on bluehost.com, that contained the defacement message. Some people are not experiencing the defacement message but are experiencing the downtime. Accessing via HTTPS will return invalid cert - wrong domain (domain is set to *.bluehost.com). |
I agree, but I don't like the fact that you put Gandhi in there.
Mostly because I feel bad about attributing certain ideas to certain people, but also because I've seen some documentary that said something bad about him (can't remember exactly what, nor do I really care. I think it was pedophilia).
note that most of these things that people attribute to certain people like have been advocated by many more people often long before the guy who got the credit for it. |
I think that Facebook being used as a login all over the internet really turned many people off of it...too big brother-ish. They also never listen to their fanbase and insist they know what is right, so deal...one such example is the "like" button, it's too bad they didn't implement something similar to a upvote, downvote system. They could use it as part of the "Top News" display algorithm so I don't have to see inane posts from people simply because I sent them a message three months ago.
I am look forward to the next "social network" as long as it respects privacy, isn't a massive front for data mining, and has an aesthetically pleasing minimalist UI. |
the non-tech version. Big guy, big ego, thinks he knows all about the bad hackers, targets Anonymous as an example to prove himself to clients for his security company. Anonymous responds, messes with him for awhile, hacks his company, drags them through hell. Now company is having hard times, talks about loosing deals in the millions. |
This was one of the better blogs that acutally looked like a readable blog on the front page. No stupid Gawker sidescrolling crap. It didn't have stupid Huffpo BLARING UGLY 90'S HTML HEADLINES. The articles were professional and the finds were fun and helpful. It wasn't all about stupid hardware that has not and probably wont be released (engadget). It didn't have writers that look down on their readers (Gizmodo). It didn't suffer from |
First responses in Germany point to the fact that the masts/pylons that transport electric energy alongside german railtracks are to weak and to "low" to carry more or "stronger" cables than those the railway energy consumption needs for itself.
These mast/pylons simply had not been built to more or "stronger" needs than intended... due to obvious efficiency matters so this "train grid" is able to transport somehow high energies - but not for more than trains need. (And there are more technical problems like different currencies and frequencies - public energy in Germany and most of Europe is 230V/50Hz, trains and their net in Germany work with 110 V/16,3 V.)
Please keep in mind: Most of Germany is very densly inhabited - we don't have any "open plains". Almost all of the tracks run through agricultural or inhabited areas where there is not one more meter sideways to be used for setting up any other masts/pylons, at least those that can carry high capacity cables. |
In case anyone is interested, the Ghostery dev team is pretty transparent about their privacy policy and motives. [You can read all about it in their FAQ.]( |
As far as I know (and I just read the Facebook developer documentation on this stuff yesterday for interview purposes), this only relates to tracking users who are currently logged into Facebook and viewing a non-FB domain that uses Facebook widgets to display "targeted" content. This includes things like which of your friends have shared their activity on that domain, which have liked the content you're viewing, etc. |
I've gotten to see the FTC interact with the internet world first hand. It is not a pretty process. They have no idea what they're doing and rely almost entirely on friends "within the industry" to explain how things work.
...I've actually seen the FTC ask a company to print out every page they use to redirect to another page. The company had to turn off redirects on firefox print out 300+ white, empty pages (except for the url at the top of the page that shows up when you print) to comply.
Abd that's the kind of shit that happens after they get help. It took months and months for them to even 'get' the idea of a redirect to that extent. |
I have mentioned many times in the past (typically in response to articles like this) that I have a little bit of insight into the breadth and scope of what marketers do, how the technology works and what it all really means. It is laughable to think that the old dudes who are worried about clogged internet tubes could even begin to comprehend what this all means and the pros and cons to it all.
Super Cookies – We know about internet cookies and we even know about these “super” cookies that utilize flash to regenerate after a user clears cache and cookies. That tech is 5 years old. The industry has moved on folks.
Now, the cutting edge technologies out their generate “UUID” (user unique identifier) based on a combination of factors – IP, bookmark list, operating system, time zone, internet provider, version of flash, version of java, unique browser settings, typical time spent browsing etc etc etc. This doesn’t need to be stored locally. Let me repeat that…it is not stored on your machine so there are no more cookies. Your computer has its own unique profile and that profile is given an ID in a database. When you visit a website, as the page loads, your profile is loaded into one of these systems, they check and see if you fit into the already stored profile from a previous visit and if you are, they can remarket or do whatever they have in their campaign plan for you.
Now, to sidetrack a little bit, there is no one company that does everything in the digital marketing space perfectly. Companies that do amazing analytics have shit serving capabilities. Companies that have mastered multivariate optimization can’t do remarketing to save their life. What this means is that you have lots of companies that do one thing very good but no one company is really good at both gathering, analyzing and taking action on all this data.
This all has to be done in a way that does not impact the latency of page load times so we are processing requests and making decisions at ever increasing and impressive speeds.
So, in a perfect world, we have these amazing pools of knowledge on folks and we begin to build buckets to segment the data in order to make sense of it all. I am Best Buy and I am planning for the next three years on what to do and how to do it.
I begin to build up a repository of data based on people who go into my store and make purchases and buy/browse online. I look at the past years worth of data to try and find trends in what users really are searching for (keywords that bring them to the site) products they actually click on to review and any all all actions in-between that. I see that 3d TV sales are down, onsite research is down and I work with my purchasing teams to let Samsung and Panasonic know that we are going to begin to lower our orders of 3d TVs. I also don’t allot as much spend to promote these products.
I see trends about people in certain regions increasing or decreasing their purchases when I look at other trends (new car purchases, new home starts). I have to take a million different pieces to the puzzles and really analyze it to figure out should we start selling more refrigerators or stop selling irons.
Smart marketing firms, agencies and retailers build advanced behavioral remarketing networks out of the data they compile.
All these things currently have to be done using dozens of different technologies that don’t really play well with one another and then humans have to analyze and put into practice. Then they have to prove what the data shows to some bullshit VP or Director with a MBA who ignores facts and just makes shit up. It just doesn’t happen that often because it is soooooo time consuming to actually achieve even one of these goals, let alone the entire picture I painted.
In my perfect world, I would actually pay people to opt-into marketing like this. Nothing makes me more angry than the fact that companies are making BILLIONS off our information and we, the consumer, don’t get a single cut of the pie (well, you know war, banks scamming the world, hunger, disease make me more angry but you get the cut of my jib).
Sorry for the long winded post, no |
IMO If people who copyright things don't want people pirating their "property" then that's fine and they should have the power to take any infringements off the internet. HOWEVER they shouldn't be allowed to then use the Internet as a tool(or in anyway) to sell/profit off what they've copyrighted.
If they want to make money then they should offer the best service and often the best service is near free. The market has changed so very much but it has also grown massively. If you're offering the best product and the best service then you will still make plenty of money. Everything else is just greed. And this is coming from a musician, I strongly believe in this so I welcome reason as to why this would not work or be a good idea as I currently don't see many. |
or in chemical names (e.g. caffeine), proper nouns, loanwords, adding prefixes or suffixes or otherwise modifying words (e.g. it's reincarnate, not riencarnate, fancied, not fanceid, and being, not bieng), words derived from certain latin or greek works (e.g. ficio, scio, or oneiro), or just random exceptions like protein, height, and obeisance. |
Because we as academic workers disagree with copyright for the purpose of knowledge, and we see this as fair use.
Most of these books were not copyrighted ebooks (which implies stripped DRM), but rather scanned print copies of books that have had a small chance of ever being digitized, or proof PDFs leaked by the book authors themselves who wanted to share them with the academic community.
Some of these scans were of books of which there are only one or two copies in existence - several books scanned on the site cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for the print copy.
If you are interested why people pirate academic journals and books, [here's]
( a great report from my university that discusses the rising cost of knowledge. This is a state school - if you live in Illinois, your tax dollars and tuition hikes are paying for this increase, funelling money to publishers.
Average cost of journal per title in sciences? $1400. (In chemistry it can be up to $3500) In social sciences? $500 In arts and humanities? $150. Three/four volumes a year, thousands of journals. User-submitted content, peer-reviewed. Labor ours, profit publisher's.
Here's a few things from the report:
> Between 1986 and 2004, journal expenditures of North American research libraries increased by a staggering 273% , with the average journal unit cost increasing by 188%. During this same period, the U.S. Consumer Price Index rose by 73%, meaning that journal costs have outstripped inflation by a factor of almost 4 .
>While many university libraries face severe budget cuts, large commercial publishers in the academic journal market have enjoyed increasing profits. In 2002 , for instance, revenue rose 26% and operating profit increased to 25% for Elsevier, the largest journal publisher in the science, technology, and medical field |
Yes, the iPad screen is made by Samsung, but to Apple's specification. Apple put out specs to various manufacturers, laying out their requirements, and quite likely a long list of licensed patents that can be used in the manufacture of this screen for them, and then said, essentially, “Give us your best shot; if you do well, we'll buy a shit-ton of them.”
Sharp was in the running and apparently had some technical advantages, but their screens were too fragile and didn't meet Apple's drop-test standard.
Samsung is the main supplier right now. But Apple is perfectly happy to buy from anyone else who can meet their spec. |
But therein lies the fallacy; there is no safety without some liberty being taken. You aren't free to drive 100 miles per hour down a residential street, but that rule is in place to protect the safety of pedestrians and drivers.
On the other hand, I think it's safe to say it's wrong to have to go through a strip and cavity search every time you are pulled over for a minor traffic violation just because you might be carrying illegal drugs. |
It surprises me that Panetta seems to know as much about infrastructure as the late Ted Stevens knew about the internet. Even more surprising coming from the former Director of the CIA, but then they do specialize in worst-case scenarios and scare tactics.
Remember all the power outages in the '90s? In 1997, they caused then Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre to warn a congressional hearing of ['an electronic Pearl Harbor,']( basically describing the plot of future blockbuster Die Hard 4 as a cautionary warning.
And now, 15 years later, we receive the same prophecy almost verbatim from Panetta. But this shouldn't come as a big shock, since Hamre is the [chairman of the Defense Policy Board]( which directly advises the Defense Secretary.
Basically a cyber attack won't/can't do a whole lot. Any critical part of the system is designed to have manual overrides in case of computer corruption/failure. If I remember right, water and gas use valves to control flow and pressure, and water can't be contaminated by a computer virus. It's also generally kept in large resevoirs(read: unfeasible for poison) around major cities, who took a page out of the Roman's book and built them uphill. Electricity uses switches. Trains also use switches, and as far as I know cannot legally carry 'lethal' chemicals on passenger trains. I doubt someone would notice a car full of suspicious barrels on the subway and not report it.
Plans have been in place since Clinton's second term to deal with cyber attacks targeting key infrastructure assets. If and when these attacks do happen, there won't be much reason to panic. Mildest case, it causes a minor inconvenience for a few people, worst case it will be treated as a minor disaster. Electricity will be rerouted. Without a leak, pressure in gas lines will keep it flowing for a couple hours/days. And yes, gravity will still affect water. State/National Guard may be called to keep peace, and FEMA has gotten a little better at not being a clusterfuck. |
Evaluated and considered each example in a REALLY stupid way... like, REALLLY REALLLY fucking stupid.
They said that because the prior art is not "interchangeable" that it was not valid. Which is totally wrong. The hilarious part though, is that if you actually apply that logic consistently, then how could samsung possibly be infringing? Android "features" or apps cannot be interchanged with iOS... so how could they possibly infringe? The "internal methodology" is entirely different. For them to say that prior art does not apply because of that, and then go on to say that Samsung infringed, just shows that they don't have an ounce of rational thought in their heads.
That being said, I think something that SHOULD happen with software patents, is that "internal methodology" should be looked at. I would say the method in which samsung gets say... their "slide to unlock" work, is much more important than the simple fact that they have "slide to unlock". Meaning, if two companies have "slide to unlock" but they are coded in totally different methods... then there is no infringement.
This is how "real world" patents work. You cannot simply patent "a device which when turned, opens a door" (a door knob)... like apple can patent "a method of unlocking a phone by sliding your finger" (in more words, but the point is that it doesn't describe the actual method in code). A door knob patent would actually have to include a lot of specifics about the method and mechanics that the door knob uses to actually function how it does... apply this to software would actually introduce that whole "internal methodology" thing.
As I said though, this is probably how software patents SHOULD be... but is not how they currently are. And as I also said, even if software patents were currently like this, to disregard prior art with this but then go on to say their is infringement between samsung and apple is a completely contradictory statement. |
No need to apologize, I appreciate discussion.
I do believe that ownership should trump the free market (at least in this scenario; the two principles aren't necessarily mutually exclusive generally). It's the entire purpose of awarding patents (I think whether they've been abused or not is a separate discussion). It rewards research & development by offering an effective monopoly for a given period of time.
It seems that the article's position that "Apple seems to believe that it's impossible to make a touch-screen smartphone without infringing..." is really only an assumption on the writer's end. I can't say for sure whether his assessment is accurate or not (without researching further). My initial impression is that his position is either exaggerated or disingenuous, premised on the sheer number of touchscreen devices available on the market and the fact that Apple hasn't pursued claims against all (or even just more ) of them.
If these patents are valid and not found to be anti-competitive, arbitrary or whatever really, the value of these patents shouldn't be forcibly reduced at the government's whim.
FRAND exists so that a company can create a standard (effectively ensuring widespread adoption) and then can't turn around and raise the prices once everyone adopts that standard.
Regular patents are developed independently and the developer (sinking time and resources into the R&D) should be allowed to profit from it. Those that want to compete need to find their own method around it or license it.
There's a checks and balances system already in play wherein the government steps in if one company's control gets out of hand (anti-trust, anti-competitive). I don't agree that we should take a perceived effect on the market and enforce diminished returns on legitimate patents.
Regarding your postscript: I didn't look too closely at that, so you're probably right here. My issue was focused on this "de facto standard" idea. I also don't know if Apple's being fair or not, but it seems that it's within their legal rights to charge as they will for licensing schemes.
I don't know if Apple's patents are indeed "necessary" like the writer of that article suggests to make touchscreen devices. If they are though, and they were developed for their own use (and licensing) rather than adoption as a standard, I do think Apple should be able to profit from them. Without further research I can't really say whether they're valid arguments or not on Apple's end. I also don't mean to argue that one side's right and the other's wrong. My issue is focused more on this "de facto standards" principle. |
I don't hate them I just rather see them try to compete fairly instead of suing everyone. I think it would be a cool idea if they made 2 types of phones, one being the standard iPhone, while the other is one that they get to fuck around with and try new things. I want to see a phone from them that their R&D got to fuck around with to see what people like and don't like. Instead of just sticking with their current format why not branch out.
Think about it if apple tried something new with a new product and it did well, they might go further down that path and see where it leads. Instead of changing little by little with one product why not experiment with another. I want to see what they can actually do instead of them sticking with what they have. If it fails it fails but if it succeeds its money in the bank, but as it they are spending too much on legal battles and not enough in R&D.
The problem right now is that many patents are stopping innovation. The more bickering the less progress gets done. |
stop bitching and start innovating.
>AKA /r/technology canned response.
So innovation is a bad thing?
I know a legal battle that happened to a company I used to work for because the competitor didn't want to compete. This kind of shit needs to stop . if you dont want one up them and chose to sue instead you should drop out if the race. If Apple doesn't want to try to beat their opponents by innovating then they shouldn't be there. Apple's lawsuits only serve to harm innovation by blocking everyone else. |
I love this type of comments.
"I've reviewed all of Apple's patents (some 5000 to 6000; using my Phd in Law, specifically patent law), compared them to every single line of code and hardware that Samsung ships or shipped and have concluded that they are all worthless."
"I will also engage in hyperbole because who makes a reasoned argument this days based on facts or at least reasonable assumptions. And lets not forget to sprinkle some falsehoods just to support my version of events." |
I'm sorry but the reaction to this is a bit over the top.
The fact is that these systems are already in place but built on proprietary architectures etc.
Over the years, the ITU has been tasked with defining many of the telecoms standards that allow equipment and networks from multiple suppliers and countries to play nice together - this allows things to go smoothly, encourages competition, boosts economies and speeds up development overall.
In this case they are treading on a pretty sensitive area, one which leads to lots of very justifiable concerns and questions. These concerns should all be addressed but the ITU is simply doing it's job and standardizing stuff which will happen anyway.
You can bet that there are lots or arguments inside the ITU around this, indeed it seems that Germany in particular is uneasy. I wasn't able to get access to a copy of the standard (I don't have an ITU login), but the following link has a lot of information
Specifically:
Germany stated its objection to the approval of this draft Recommendation with the rationale that the standardisation of technical means enabling the inspection of packet content is not in the purview of the ITU-T’s mandate and must be discouraged in this regard. In order to substantiate this position, Germany suggested bearing in mind one of the fundamental provisions laid down in the Constitution of the ITU, Article 37, declaring that “Member States agree to take all possible measures, compatible with the system of telecommunication used, with a view to ensuring the secrecy of international correspondence.“
At the end of the day, the ITU probably takes a view that any abhorant application of these standards is for the network operator to justify. You can be sure that many countries have lawful interception in place which the networks are compelled to provide, in spite of the serious extra cost and effort this takes. In many cases these interception is legitimate (child porn/crime/terrorism etc), and in others it's a serious infringement on privacy. It doesn't make sense for the ITU to pre-defend the applications of it's standards - that's for the perpetrators of any abuse. |
Calm down, everyone, this is really not a big deal. To explain why, here's a few rhetorical questions about network admin rights and capabilities:
Do you believe that you have the right to view all data coming and going from your personal computer over the network, and that a (preferably free) tool to help you do so should exist?
If so, you're in luck. There is such a tool, called Wireshark. It allows you to view packets coming and going from network interfaces. It allows you to view not just the lowest level routing information, but the actual structure and content of the packet data (aka, it does Deep Packet Inspection). Note, however, that it does not magically punch through encryption and reveal the data within. If you watch a TLS session in wireshark, you will only see the TLS handshake, followed by a bunch of encrypted garbage.
Do you believe that you have the right to view all traffic on a wireless network that you own and administer, even if that network is protected by WPA2? Do you believe that a tool for this should exist and be freely available?
Again, you are in luck, as Wireshark can do this. If you want to view all data that passes by your computer on your own wifi network, even data that is not destined to or originating from your computer, you can put wireshark into monitor mode, give it the password to the network, and see traffic to and from other systems on the network.
To recap, assuming you answered yes to both questions, you have just agreed that:
Deep Packet Inspection should be allowed to exist
A packet sniffer should be able to use encryption keys that its user knows in order to perform its job.
Now, reading the article in this post, all I see is that the ITU has standardized the technology used to do these two things. There is no mention of additional government control or privileges, no mention of /how/ the user of the packet sniffer might end up in possession of any encryption keys that they choose to use.
This technology already exists, and there is no reason that it shouldn't. It has many legitimate and important uses in addition to the more nefarious uses that everyone is so concerned about.
Now, one could argue that standardizing the technology is still not preferable since it would make any government eavesdropping attempts easier, and that it should be intentionally not standardized in order to create a minor roadblock. I think this is a pretty weak argument, since it is just a stopgap that any determined, well funded development group could easily overcome. The only difference would be that they wasted a little more time and money.
Also, I should note that according to one of my professors, there are laws in place in many countries, even 1st world countries, that limit citizen's rights to encryption keys. IIRC, in the UK, refusing to hand over encryption keys to the police upon request (I would guess with a warrant) will land you in jail until you change your mind. To my knowledge, this is actually not the case in the USA. |
Demand for Homomorphic Encryption just went through the roof.
Fully homomorphic encryption enables you to encrypt something, then pass it on to, say, a cloud service like google drive. You can then do work on that file - updating spreadsheets, documents, pictures, data etc - without ever decrypting the data. this is important because Google (or the government, or whoever is snooping) will never know what the data is, nor the changes you committed.
Essentially relieves the company providing the cloud service or internet access any liability of "policing" the data that transverses their systems, or allowing governments or organizations to employ such bullshit like this to any effect. |
I didn't say a thing about convenience. He stated an issue, I offered a workaround. The nature of workarounds are that they are less convenient than true solutions. |
Black Ops II [PC]( is cheaper than [xbox]( Note the physical copy is actually cheaper than the download. [Mass Effect 3]( is the same price on all platforms except WiiU. [Assassin's Creed III]( is $5 cheaper on PC. [Far Cry 3]( is $7 cheaper on PC. [Dishonored]( is almost $20 cheaper, [Hitman]( is actually more expensive on PC. [Borderlands 2]( is about $5 cheaper. [The Witcher 2]( is about $20 cheaper on PC. [Battlefield 3]( is about $5 cheaper on PC. [Darksiders II]( is only slightly cheaper on PC. and [XCOM]( is cheaper on console. |
I think only a few people today realize that our legal system only exists to benefit the rich. If she hired a lawyer, there would be good odds that what you suggest would have happened or at the very least a small fine. Without a lawyer you are at the mercy of the court - and the DA is NOT your friend. Upon my research I actually found that if the DA wants to drop a charge (due to lack of evidence ect ect) - the judge can still keep the charges stand. Which, for a rich individual it doesn't matter, but lets say you are a single parent working 3 jobs to just stay afloat - there is no way you will have the time or energy to fight the legal system. This is what I want to get across - our legal system is extremely unjust for the average person.
So you must be asking - "certainly there exists organizations that would represent you if you really can't afford a lawyer?" There are. However in my research it was basically a "first come first serve". That. Is. Utter. And. Complete. Bullshit. Now, I don't think that the court should have to pay the legal fees of a person who stole $4 of shampoo - but I'm sure something can be arranged for new lawyers to take on a certain number of cases for free in return for credit hours for school or something.
There are several redditors who don't understand this whole idea. I mean why on earth would you possibly hire a lawyer to get you off a charge for stealing $3 of shampoo? There are several good reasons - one of them is obviously to keep you out of jail. Keeping your record clean is another. And of course getting the charges reduced as much as possible.
Which then brings me to your post - in court (at least pretrial) if you attempt to slow down the process you will only make things worse for you. For example if you tell the judge and DA "I know what I did was wrong - can I do community service and pay a small fine and I won't do it again" - most likely they will tell you no and be upset that you are slowing down the cases.
I guess my point is that - so much tax payer money is wasted on cases like the mentioned ones. For example, many states have a seat belt law that require you to wear your seat belt. In some states it's not a real citation so it doesn't affect you negatively in anyway (pay $40 and nothing actually goes on your record) in some it's a real ticket/traffic offense. Any traffic offense you can request a court trial. Yes, you have the legal right to have a whole court trial to argue on if you were actually wearing your seat belt. You won't make a lot of people happy in the legal system - but it is your right. |
From the loaded title, the article made it sound like FBI employees were actually committing serious computer crimes like Lulzsec, Anon, etc and not minor issues like using databases for personal use, sexting and browsing porn. |
The worst part is that a majority of people either don't have a clue what a cookie actually is, they think they know and are terrified of them, or both. They will half-way read an article like this, go in to work, and tell Jim Bob about how the cookies are tracking them when they watch porn. Then they both will go and disable cookies all together. There is nothing worse than a person who is informed just enough to think they know about a topic. It is shameful that we, as a society, don't do more to teach the population about the one thing that every field will absolutely use for the rest of their lives. /rant |
Well, and don't get me wrong: EVERYONE thinks this. I mean, everyone I talk to -- 'ads don't work', 'i don't click on paid search links', etc. To me the circlejerk is claiming that these things don't work when the existence of advertising and marketing budgets would imply that the people who spend the most time looking at the economics of it believe that they do. |
Advertiser here. Here's why you, the average joe, should not approve of this:
We like money. Lots of it. We like being able to speak to the right people at the right time at the right place, makes things very efficient and cheap for everyone involved. So, by blocking a huge chunk of data content from desktop browser, we run into an issue: Where do we get the data?
The answer: Everywhere else. For every ad you block or browser you disable cookies for, we'll find another way into your life, track it, and serve you ads. Don't like it? Sorry - Comes with the price of living in a 1st world country.
So, your smartphones, connected TVs, tablets, Google Glasses, or anything else digital will be built henceforth to track a greater array of information. Why? Because its money. That thing we like. And if it ends up being a big enough of a deal, we'll just start swinging that $26b dick around congress to see if we can't get a few laws changed; current politicians have already shown they're a sucker for the benjamins, so it shouldn't be an issue. |
At this point, the whining is useless. Safari already blocks 3rd party cookies. If Mozilla does nothing, copying Apple is a big enough trend that all browsers will do this in the next few years. And even if Apple and Mozilla weren't going to block cookies, the metaphorical cat is out of the bag. People have heard that this is a thing now (granted plenty of people already knew, but now tech-impaired people are hearing about it), and it's hard to imagine the consumer who is opposed to better privacy online. |
I mentioned in the previous posts I am talking from a Ghanaian context
What I was trying to get across is that cell towers work in other countries with similar diverse land structure with reasonable cost for subscription data.
If the current method works in similar conditions, it can be made to work elsewhere. |
Owner of a 3d set here. Toshiba (not a mainstream brand anymore) 42 inch etc etc.. 1080 p... 240 3d refresh, 120 regular refresh. Have to say the 3d on that looks 10x better than the theaters. I watched a 3d movie (avengers) for the first time since i moved and mounted it above the fireplace and i was impressed for a 42 incher. It came with 4 pairs of standard real D 3d glasses
That being said, to set up a proper 3d system takes a little bit of research. For ideal viewing you need: a tv with 240hz 3d refresh rate (sometimes this is called True Vision), 1080p, proper size to distance ratio, 3d blu ray, and an hdmi cable capable of withstanding data rates for 3d movies and games. The part most people miss are the refresh rate and the hdmi cable.
Point here being is it takes work and money to set up proper 3d and people naturally dont like to work or spend money haha. That and if u dont have the best eyes 3d doesnt work very well.
Edit: |
The original comment stated "Primarily."
Well, in my lexicon, primarily means first, or most prominent. What do you know, the [dictionary]( backs me up. And statistics do not back up the fact that it is PRIMARILY parents.
So please fuck off with your PC bullshit. Just because what is literally written offends your feels, doesn't mean it's wrong. Stats are stats. At no point did I generalize entire populations, I just alluded to statistics. |
By "break the salt" - I assume you mean hash.
I'm not sure I follow the logic - you're saying the attacker should take that list of email accounts and try to authenticate (say, using the top-500 list) against a live system? Bad idea. You'll get maybe three guesses per account before you hit a human-verification wall (CAPTCHA), and if you just hop to multiple accounts you're going to get tagged further as a botnet node and blackholed completely for a time period.
The attacker already has hashed passwords that he can attempt to crack at a much, much faster rate. The first step is to sweep those for the low-hanging fruit (top-500) - then take those results and go for the matching email address/accounts using them, using the password obtained from cracking.
The same logic applies - if the password works for LoL, try it for Gmail/FB/Twitter/etc - but the first step is absolutely to try it against the hash dump @ 10K pwds/second rather than against a live system at 1 pwd/every couple seconds.
Upvotes for actually reading beyond the |
DRM
Does anyone here know what this acronym even means?
To those wondering, DRM stand for D igital R ights M anagement.
This isn't digital, it is a physical battery you are leasing.
This isn't intellectual property rights, it is a monthly fee that you pay to use a battery.
Nobody would call it DRM that your landlord might kick you out if you don't pay rent. Nobody calls it DRM if the cable company is able to shut off your cable if you don't pay the bills. Renault decided to go with a battery rental scheme for a variety of reasons. (foremost being that batteries are very expensive and scare people away from buying an electric car, second being that this makes any maintainance of the battery included in the price and not the consumers worry) If you sign a contract that says Renault can disable your battery (from charging) if you stop paying then that is exactly what might happen to you. If you don't sign a contract saying that then Renault will not come into your house at night to disable your car.
The ZOE has a 22 kW·h lithium ion battery. [Wikipedia says]( that the cheapest a battery can be is $400/ kWh, making the battery cost of the ZOE at least $8800. That is almost half the cost of the actual car that you would have to add to the price. Now take into account that this is based on a $400 kWh cost of batteries that comes from a blog which writes "Lithium-ion battery costs will fall to about $400 per kilowatt hour by the end of the decade", so that $8800 price is extremely optimistic.
So whine all you want about Renault not being as awesome as Tesla, which sells cars that cost 100k, but at least Renault is trying to bring cheap all electric cars to the masses, and leasing batteries is the only way the electric cars can be even close to the price of a normal car. You guys are complaining about Renault screwing over the electric car, yet you all would prefer it if all the electric cars Renault sells cost at least 10K more.
Take the Twizy How are they supposed to market that? You could almost scrap that car and get more than you paid for it.
In another thread on /r/technology the top voted comment about Tesla is:
>[That's great, but I'd rather they focus on making a model that's available for under $20,000 USD.
](
The reason that comment is so upvoted is because Tesla canned production of their [62k 'low cost' car which had a battery that was too 'small']( Batteries are expensive, and so are electric cars. Tesla hasn't figured out how to make electric cars affordable yet, and at least Renault is trying. |
Mises never saw idiotic consumerism at it's finest. You can make smart decisions all you want but because of the 5 guys that fell for the marketing your "vote" doesn't fucking matter. This is why boycots don't work, voting with your wallet is a unrealistic concept from a personal standpoint. |
This isn't the same at all. With a lease, you're leasing the whole package, the whole car. There isn't a twenty thousand dollar purchase involved. You're just leasing. You pay a monthly fee to use it as long as you want to use it, and when you're done, you've only spent as much as the monthly fee.
This involves making a purchase of many thousands of dollars. And then being required to lease one part that makes the entire thing work. Without paying your lease for that one part , you've got a stylish brick you paid someone $20,000 for. |
Actually, I think Apple deserves the credit, they figured out how to package and market existing technologies in a novel way that appealed to the average consumer; without the Apples initial approach I doubt the smart phone market would be as large. Before the iPhone, the only people with smartphones were business types. In general I think Reddit likes to demonize parties that don't actually invent new technologies, when in actuality most of the innovation we see today is adaptive, that is taking existing products, ideas, and technologies, and then developing them further for a specific application. |
My S4 battery also died. Luckily it didn't burn/explode but it was already bloated, making my phone unusable.
So I went to the Samsung customer service and they offered to replace it - with an expected delay of half a month at least. While the store was full with the right batteries...for sale. I was so pissed. |
The argument is backwards:
A company become a corporation to protect the individual people within it from being sued. The corporation accepts the responsibilities of the individual people as a whole.
A corporation pays taxes for the right to do business in the United States. This also pays for various government programs that help to grow the economy, creating a better environment for the corporation.
A corporation has the right to spend money in order to influence government (so that it can cut its own taxes, remove regulations, cut wages), which allows it to make more money, which gives it more influence on government, which gives it more money...
Which one of these is not like the other? |
Sounds like an issue with the point of sale. OEMs can't be held accountable for scetchy salesmen misleading customers. They didn't benefit in any way from the sale anyways as the retailer you bought the TV from had already purchased the TV from Samsung at the correct price. They didn't screw you, the retailer did. |
Totally get where the kid is coming from, a little unprofessional about it but shit, I would be pissed too. Fuck I am pissed for him haha |
I went to a real college and got a real electrical engineering degree. Others might believe the bullshit you posted but anyone with any real experience with reverse reactive current and the capacitive reluctance of LiPo batteries knows that heat=death and cold=speed and performance. I don't know what you're smoking(besides the smoke from your overheated batteries) |
If you don't want to be pushed out of your house, then buy it - that's what ownership is
And those most adversely effected by the topic are unable to do so. Class is at the core of the conflict, with the less affluent taking the consequences of gentrification. |
The irony is that Samsung actually help Apple in terms of sales and marketing.
If Samsung are producing phones with similar functions, for a lower price, it forces Apple to be inventive both with their new functions, and witn their marketing campaigns. Competetion helps drive business. Fact.
By trying to ban Samsung, they'll be shooting themselves in the foot. While Samsung can just tip-toe around the patents, and create a brand new, innovative product, Apple will be too busy hissing at them, and covering their ridiculous patents. Eveyone will go "Oh, look at this really cool, new and original idea from Samsung", and then "Apple are doing the same shit as before. Nothing original. Just a new fancier type of screen that's actually been available, and affordable for the past 5 years".
And while there are a few of you that'll notice that the ban doesn't apply worldwide, that point is negilible. The U.S. is the biggest market for these companies. How well a product does there, helps them gauge how well it'll likely perform elsewhere. A few exceptions, of course, but the point stands. |
Just a thought, but maybe the issue is with our economic system that has been permitted to grow in to the epic monster it is today. Because Apple and Samsung and everyone else are just doing what they need to be successful in the world today. The people who lead to the actions of these companies are just doing their job. There's no evil inherent anywhere.
The system is the issue. Bloated. Convoluted. Distorted. Over-regulated. Under-regulated. We have arbitrary law upon arbitrary regulation (and country doesn't matter, it's true for all and all have to have laws to account for the other country's laws and around and around and around and...). It's all madness, and the every day citizen, you know, humans, are the ones who suffer.
You could say first world problems, but the way this plays out in the third world is horrific. Our little problems can sometimes be a sign of others' major problems. We have to read annoying articles every day. There are people in other countries who have to work at factories to make things for these companies for barely enough to survive on.
But they can't be blamed for that either. If you're going to make profits you have to cut costs and what better way than to find cheap maybe almost slave labor.
I find it kind of funny too, how the system is balanced in such a way that everyone is simply reacting to their circumstances. No one is wrong. No one is to blame. So we get to debate over who started it instead of just asking what we might be able to do about it. |
People hate on Apple because it's overpriced. They put more effort into looks than performance more often than they should. Their products perform well, but certainly no where near the edge, and Apple rarely does anything "cutting edge" without immediately getting outperformed by a competitor for a cheaper price.
They blatantly try to squeeze profits out of everything. Their Apple charging cable is nothing but a glorified USB cable with a heavier price tag that only works with their products so you have to buy it. They initially wouldn't allow 3rd party apps to be made without their approval (paying for it). Their desktops and laptops have terrible hardware options and their OS can only be used on their hardware.
There's plenty of reasons to hate on Apple. At the same time, if you're not an Apple fan then you aren't effected by Apple aside from the occasional app that is IOS-only, then there's no reason to go around spewing the reasons you hate Apple to people who didn't ask for your opinion, like I just did. |
If I said I loved Samsung, I would be downvoted. I work with phones, and personally believe samsung to have the best phones on the market, but all I hear is how great the g2 is. I've played with it, and TBH it isn't what it is hyped to be. 32gb storage with only ~16gb of actual storage on top of no expandable memory. The camera is just as good as the s4's, but relies to heavily on the os. And the layout is IDENTICAL to the s4's almost to the t. But hey, that's my opinion NOT FACT. |
Why is everybody taking sides? They're both big innovative corporations who, at the end of the day, don't really care what you think. Both Apple and Samsung are as bad as each other in different ways. Surely we should be more pissed off at the millions wasted by all these companies over petty arguments. |
All these companies are stupid. Absolutely ridiculously stupid. Innovation has stagnated when it comes to the smartphone market...and the iPhone from the start was never really a loss-leader...it was high-priced from the get-go, so it's not like they need to really recoup costs on the back-end.
If you want to increase your sales, don't release the same fucking product 5 times over. Innovate something new, that's what Apple used to be. That's what Steve Jobs vision was.
The iCar to me isn't safe. I have a touchscreen, I have navigation on my Acura, and I rarely feel comfortable using it while driving. I think it's just as bad as texting as it diverts your eyes from the road. I'm a good driver, never been in a single accident my entire life, but I just don't feel all these integrated touchscreens are the way to go in vehicles. This iCar is putting a damn iPad on your dashboard. I don't care how you drum it up, or twist the pitch, unless it can't be interacted with while driving, it will just cause more accidents. |
This is the best |
Well it's just two wires to solder on. I wouldn't want to retrofit indoor lighting like he did because it's tacky IMO, but there are fixtures that would hide everything well. As it stands right now, a lot of people want to "trick" you into thinking that it's just a normal light, and I don't think that's the proper way to go about it, but rather embrace what it is, and use mounts and optics to get the most out of the little diodes.
I haven't put LEDs all through my house, because it will look terrible (not the lighting, but the fixtures), and I'm sure it will evolve within the next decade or go as you noted. McGizmo actually machined all of those fixtures, because that's what he does (for his flashlights), and that was all done about three or four years ago, so obviously he could put out a lot more light with less if he were to use current day emitters. LEDs are very mature, but I agree that indoor fixtures and installation procedures are easily a decade away from maturity.
Also, Edison style bulbs with LEDs in them are terrible, because again they're trying to be something that they aren't, and without the right optics or reflectors it's a waste of time. |
Not to defend Verizon but they're doing this to stay competitive in the market. The Good Guy Google and Bad Luck Bing do this on a regular basis. In fact, their whole business model is built on selling your data to advertisers. While that's not Verizon's business model, it's just a reflection of the current landscape of our privacy laws. On it's current path, privacy is dead in the US online. Between lobbying influence, NSA interests, and the formed oligarchy (recent study showed this), we're going to be on this path for sometime. We sold our privacy after 9/11 and will continue to pay for it until there's a big economic impact. The government wants to control the internet and data around it so passing laws to prevent private companies from doing so will only hurt their own intentions. It's a failed system that Verizon is cashing in on. |
do you, by chance mean t-mobile when talking a company headed by a "mad man" ?
if so, you need to look at the bigger picture:
t-mobile is a global company and is currently investing all they have solely into their american business to get the foot in the door there against the huge concerns operating there.
while they are doing this, they are happily participating in fucking over their customers in another country (germany) where they are already established and even making a majority of their profits. they don't modernize their network here at all and they don't give a shit about even pretending that theres competition since everything here is a huge cartel-like clusterfuck anyways. |
What the fuck did you just fucking call a crow, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Corvidae Academy, and I’ve been involved in numerous research trips on crows, and I have counted over 300 birds on them. I am trained in avian warfare and I’m the top biologist in all of reddit. You are nothing to me but just another redditor. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this website, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with calling a jackdaw a crow on the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of crows across the USA and your profile is being traced right now so you better prepare for the downvotes, maggot. The brigade that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your karma. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can downvote you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my 5 alternate accounts. Not only am I extensively trained in biology, but I have access to the entire gold reserves of reddit and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the internet, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo. |
I've lived in 6 cities across 4 states over the last 5 years and I've never had a serious internet outage between Comcast, Time Warner, Grande, and Charter. |
No, what I was saying is your comment sounds like a pretentious rant coming from a teen trying to impress his friends with his vocabulary. The few people that gave a response by rewriting what you said makes your point not only more clear, but quite a bit more pleasant to read. |
There are squirrels in your attic. Because after 9 tech visits to my house (literally 9, probably 4 or 5 different people), one of them decided that maybe just replacing my modem and looking at the immediately visible wires just MIGHT not be enough.
In their defense, you would think that replacing the modem twice instead of just once would fix the problem. Or maybe just replacing the brand new wires that were immediately visible would fix the problem. But go figure, it was the old wires in the attic getting eating by squirrels every day that caused me to keep dropping my connection.
The best part is that compared to the phone reps, the on-site techs were actually pretty awesome. EVERY time I spoke to a phone rep, they tested my connection remotely, and told me it was perfectly fine. Which it was for that particular minute of the day, but that's expected when your connection only dies once or twice every morning. So obviously the first thing to do is restart the modem. Which I do. And I make sure all of my wires are fully plugged in, and all the lights are blinking the correct colors in Morse code that probably spells out, "Comcast Hates You." Then I repeat my issue to them (the connection drops once or twice every morning), then they ask me how long this has been happening, and I tell them that in their logs they should see that I've now called 4 times about this issue, starting 3 weeks ago, and 3 techs have come out. And I mention that their log should say that the tech agreed to come back out if it happened again. And like clockwork, the phone rep tells me there's no mention of it, and tells me how much they want to charge me.
So now we're on call number 6, and I've learned to ask for a manager, and quickly respond that I need a manager because whoever they are, they can't help me, because my modem's not broken and I've already tried everything possible that a phone rep could possibly tell me, and I think the manager is less likely to lie to me about whether or not they scheduled a tech to come visit me.
Then I tell them to schedule the tech visit and give me bill credit for the month. Then I tell them why I need the tech visit, as if the logs of the previous 5 calls with the same exact issue weren't enough information. Then I wait for 20 minutes while their system tries to give up on life. But unfortunately, their system somehow works, and 10 minutes after that I have a tech scheduled.
Then the manager asks why I want bill credit since my service mostly works fine. And I tell them that if they rented a car that was pretty much fine, but broke down on the side of the road once or twice a day, that they would also expect a refund, and I expect the same. Except at least with a car, they would fix it right away, and instead I have Comcast, where something breaks every day and nobody has any idea how to fix it, so they expect me, the customer, to try restarting my modem again.
Jokes on them though, one of the techs left a bag of tools in my apartment. I returned the bag, but kept a screwdriver. Suck it, Comcast. |
I had U-verse for about three years. (When it came to our area we jumped on signing up because the ISP we were on before had lots of issues) The initial install was pretty good. Dale, the main technician for our install even left his business card with his number on it for us to call if there was any issue which was nice.
It was great for the first year; we got better internet speeds than we were paying for, tv was great with a large dvr, whole home dvr was awesome, and we almost never had to reboot their gateway.
Year two came and service started to degrade with YouTube being pretty much limited to 720p unless it was 3-8 Am and internet service dropouts happening at least once every two weeks. The funny thing is that uverse tv is over IP and phone is VoIP yet most of the time when Internet dropped out (well technically it wasn't fully dropped out but for any actual use it was dead) to .2 Mbps down with pings around 2500m, TV with its 4 concurrent incoming streams still worked.. We had dozens of techs come out but every time they were at our house it was fine so they couldn't do anything since the problem was intermittent and they never actually saw the issue.
So we kept on with U-Verse because our previous ISP just left us without any service including phone for weeks and even with the intermittent disruptions uverse was still better and the customer support and technicians were miles friendlier and (seemingly) more competent.
Year three rolls around and it gets even worse. Now even uverse tv has issues with intermittent artifacting, YouTube barely worked at 480p and Netflix refused to go above one Mbps with most of the time having to buffer for 3 minutes first. Pings were regularly in the 200's and with a constant 5-10% packet loss online multiplayer was incredibly frustrating. We normally got roughly 70% of the speeds we payed for with speedtest.net but with other tests ( testmy.net, speedof.me, etc) it was much, much worse. It got to the point where the gateway was loosing all signal at least once every two hours and often going days without any service.
Suddenly when tv and phone service was lost AT&T finally believed us and started sending out higher level techs than the standard In-home tech. They replaced the drop three times with no effect. Finally they sent out a actual line technician after we had no service for about two weeks and he worked from 8 am to 7 pm trying to improve the quality. He was amazing and rewired the entire connection at the pole, rewired at the VRAD (where the fiber service breaks out to copper for the final leg of uverse service), and replaced out entire gateway system among other stuff. After his hard work we finally got service back and he stayed in his truck for a while to make sure it was not going to drop out again. He said we were almost too far away from the VRAD for service which was causing poor signal (2800' when the service limit is 3000').
His fix worked for about a month before internet started degrading again. When it went out for 4 days straight we just gave up, ordered Cox and canceled uverse. The whole time Att supprt just flat out didn't believe that we has a legitimate issue an was a massive pain to deal with. Every time we called them we had proof that the problem was on their side (Sr/noise, etc) but they demanded that the problem was that we needed to update internet explorer etc.
So far I have never lost Cox internet for more than an hour and a half every 3 weeks or so. |
Too Didn't;Long Read |
Business-class internet was literally invented for people who require better support due to business needs.
When I used to work from home that shit was the best. I had an outage on Christmas and the dude was there in an hour. One hour. On Christmas.
Guess how much money I saved by being able to work (for double time, no less) the entire day? More than the difference between business and regular, that's for goddamn sure.
Business class also typically has guaranteed uptime, which means OP would be compensated in some (modest) way for outages. |
Hoo! Happy you! I bought a cheap house from the 1800's out in the country (20 minutes from a 150k pop city in Sweden) - $320,000.
A house in the city would start at $450k for a real dump.
That is with a GDP per capita of $42k for swedes vs $51k for Americans. |
Well sure, but you're still with Comcast, and they still suck. I use Comcast for the businesses I contract with which is great when it works. But their SLA might as well be written on toilette paper.
Your contract states that Comcast is under no obligation to pay for any damages related to your internet not being up. In the last 2 years their business support has migrated from very good local support to a generic call center filled with drones. Getting a tech out in 4 hours these days isn't as simple as everyone seems to believe it is. You have to demand management and usually they will only send someone out if they are positive it's an issue on their end. If there is any doubt in their minds that it's not their issue they schedule it just like regular service calls and can take a week before you see a tech. Then they charge you $100 for that visit, even when they tell you they won't.
I had a modem issue where the modem would drop out. It took 2 weeks to get it replaced. Simple things like "be sure the tech calls me before he gets there or else nobody will be there to see him" were too complicated for their system to handle.
Once the tech came out he somehow disconnected the phone line to our alarm system (this was at 5pm) and left without even saying anything (didn't ask for me to sign a word order, nada). When I called to complain they said there was nothing they could do but they'd be happy to send another tech out in the morning and charge us another $100 for that. |
I posted this below but I'll post it here as well:
Well sure, but you're still with Comcast, and they still suck. I use Comcast for the businesses I contract with which is great when it works. But their SLA might as well be written on toilette paper.
Your contract states that Comcast is under no obligation to pay for any damages related to your internet not being up. In the last 2 years their business support has migrated from very good local support to a generic call center filled with drones. Getting a tech out in 4 hours these days isn't as simple as everyone seems to believe it is. You have to demand management and usually they will only send someone out if they are positive it's an issue on their end. If there is any doubt in their minds that it's not their issue they schedule it just like regular service calls and can take a week before you see a tech. Then they charge you $100 for that visit, even when they tell you they won't.
I had a modem issue where the modem would drop out. It took 2 weeks to get it replaced. Simple things like "be sure the tech calls me before he gets there or else nobody will be there to see him" were too complicated for their system to handle.
Once the tech came out he somehow disconnected the phone line to our alarm system (this was at 5pm) and left without even saying anything (didn't ask for me to sign a word order, nada). When I called to complain they said there was nothing they could do but they'd be happy to send another tech out in the morning and charge us another $100 for that. |
I'm all for blaming the big corporations for our problems, but I can't help but feel that little effort was put into finding other solutions.
To be perfectly honest, I'm annoyed by the slew of anti-Comcast posts as anybody's complaint seems to result in a Karma goldmine. I'm sorry that you lost your job -- that sucks.
I'm irked by the fact that you slanted the story saying that you worked for a Fortune 100 company, as if to give the work you do some sort higher level of importance. Whoop-dee-do. Many Fortune 100 companies are retail options-- you're not exactly saving the planet. (My point: Wal-mart is #1 on that list this year for 2014).
I have a problem with people who blame other things for the loss of their jobs, rather than looking at themselves and thinking, "Maybe I could have made a better effort."
Just because your home Internet sucked, and there were no other options for service in your area, doesn't mean that you couldn't have gone to a coffee shop or a local public library and tried to use their Internet when it was unreliable at home.
Sorry that I came across as cynical, but as an IT person, I work with a few extremely lazy people who like to blame technology ("My computer crashed on me 5 times yesterday, and after the last time I said, 'I'm done working for the day!') when the system log tells a completely different story.
Also, I don't believe that you posted this with the intent NOT to get pity. The topic was flamebait. |
I used to have this same issue with both Comcrap and Twc (both in different states) and while I never lost my job I did feel very pressured by my bosses to do better, although there wasn't much I could do. To be fair, eventually the Twc issue did get fixed, even though I still had an unreliable connection for about a month, but the Comcast one NEVER got fixed. "Noise on the line" and "old wiring" were there claims. Luckily I lived in an area where I could upload my work elsewhere on some free (slow) wifi on the days where the Internet was just not working, which was far from ideal but it kept my boss off my back. |
Re: The assholes comment. Some of Reddit will -always- be assholes. Go over to /r/aww and look for a post with double digit comments. Inevitably you will see someone saying something horrible about the animal, usually on the theme OP is about to kill it. |
No. Just no. As a neck-bearded IT wizard, we are already shelling out 90% of our operating cost just by being available regardless of the amount of traffic. Do you think they get to turn off parts of their fiber network to save power/money just because its kinda slow at the time?
Much like SMS pricing back in the day. SMS piggybacks the keep alive packets you send/resc to the towers anyway. You are getting "empty" text messages every second even if no one is texting. The cost to the provider then is obviously static in terms of data usage*
*data usage in this case is an aggregate of the power cost, processing time, and time on the wire/in the air. Networks use discreet units of data. The size of these unit's is largely irrelevant in figuring out the capacity of the wire as well as processing capacity. The measurement that matters is the number of units. Processing 15 40byte keep-alive packets on a router is actually (marginally) more expensive than 10 full 1500 byte HTTP packets for example. |
There's definitely a separation between delivering reasonable broadband speeds to all of the US population and delivering fiber to the entire US population.
The best approach is to work on both. In the short term, we need to get "everyone" access to 5-25mbps broadband internet. This can be delivered over cable, DSL, whatever. Use whatever lines we can, just make it happen within 5 years.
The second thing is to get fiber rolled out to everyone. This can be spread over a longer time such as 20-25 years. Start in the densely populated areas where it's cheaper and then keep going until it's done.
You can argue about what it would take and whether it should be a private or public utility, but imo that's the only reasonable solution.
If you look at things, DSL and non-fiber technologies can deliver a decent service. These techs make sense for a quick rollout to get everyone. The problem is technology like DSL is inherently limited because upstream and downstream bandwidth come are shared, and because you are limited in the bandwidth you can deliver to a group of people.
Fiber is great because it's the best medium we currently have. You have dedicated download and upload channels. To upgrade fiber you usually only have to replace the hardware at the endpoints rather than re-running the cable. With a fiber rollout you can combine fiber to the home in denser areas and fiber to the node in more sparsely populated areas until you finish the rollout. |
Yup the school district I work for recently paid to upgrade our network so that all of the schools have a fiber connection to our central office. We had fiber capable of 10Gbps laid down but since Comcast still owns it we only get 1Gbps to each school. We theoretically could install a SFP capable of 10Gbps for about 200 dollars at each site (14 in total) so we can have an inter-district speed of 10Gbps but Comcast would then charge us for a 10Gbps speed even though it only routes through one node that WE paid for. Oh and we pay for all of the electricity to connect these sites meaning minimal cost on Comcast side. Our incoming connection is also capable of 10Gbps but we only pay for 2Gbps because the amount they charge is ridiculous. Which means that we in fact have a 10Gbps connection but its throttled to 2Gbps because we don't want to pay their fee. |
Here's the funny thing about data caps though....
Technically , data caps don't exist in infrastructure - cables don't give a damn if you used up 100 TB or 100 MB the past month, as long as you're only doing it a rate of 10 Mbps (or w/e your speed is). However, like any service providing company, ISPs do not have the ability to provide their maximum posted speed to all their customers, all at once . They only budget around being able to barely keep up with average, peak numbers.
That right there is the real issue: peak hours . At 3 AM, there's more than enough bandwidth for anyone awake at that hour to down/up load with impunity, but during peak hours the cables are clogged as fuck. ISPs don't want to upgrade because "muh profits", and much of the current infrastructure was only designed to stream video at 720x480 @ 24fps, interlaced. Canada has it vaguely better for infrastructure upgrades because there's actual competition for ISPs in major cities (GG small towns), but even then it's going at a snail's pace...
And that's where data caps come in. Simply put, they're trying to discourage people from using their service . A cynical view is that they just don't want to upgrade, so they're instead trying to reduce the amount of service they need to provide. In situations with decent competition, though, (like Canada...in major cities) the other problem is that there's a crapton of work involved just to get the OK for upgrades, on top of the costs to implement those upgrades.
The fact that video streaming devours bandwidth like a motherfucker compared to everything else is mostly coincidental. Anti-streaming measures would include stuff like fast lanes or expensive standalone internet vs. cable bundles, but data caps themselves are born from supply issues.
Having said all that, there's also a difference between "ethical" caps and "predatory" ones.
"Ethical" would feature things like discounts if you're considerably below the cap, or off-peak usage not contributing as heavily to your cap.
"Predatory" would be ridiculously low caps on top of ridiculously overpriced overcharges, for a price only a couple bucks cheaper than the next tier of service (coughCOMCASTcough). |
The US taxpayer paid for putting most of those cables in the ground. There were strings attached. The corps haven't honored their obligations and now want even more power.
That's the |
It really does. When I moved and had to close my account with Time Warner (Same evil shit as Comcast), I turned everything in and the lady tells me everything is closed. I received a receipt for $0 balance and the return of all my equipment. Fast forward 2 years down the road, I get a credit report. To my surprise, my high 700 is now a 500.... Turns out at some point, Time Warner decided to charge me a $1.18 service fee for closing my account. Over 2 years that ballooned into a ~$20 charge that was going to collections for over a year. Nobody ever contacted me about that one.
Fast forward another 6 months from that. I finally got this bullshit fee removed from my credit report, and got them to drop the fee. It literally took me months of calling damn near every day, fighting nonstop over the phone and in TW offices. All that to settle a $20 fee, that evolved from a $1.18 fee, that magically appeared from a closed account. I had my receipt all along and it still took months to get the charge dropped. I thought I was going to have to hire a lawyer to help me take care of this.
The funny/sad thing depending on how you look at it, was that through all of this, I was still getting call and pamphlets weekly to sign up for their great new bundle. Since then, I have completely removed cable TV from my life and I only use their shitty internet because there is absolutely no other option where I live. |
Well I think paranoia kicks in when someone thinks they are singled out, and that the forces of darkness are after them specifically , which is kind of the opposite of what I'm talking about.
Like you, I'm not at all worried about what I read on the kindle, or online, or saying "NSA NSA" in an email. And I agree, just reading X, Y, or Z won't result in a visit from the thought police for anyone.
But it seems a little old fashioned to talk about being "on a list" or not in this era of big data analysis and mindbogglingly vast digital surveillance. Data storage is cheap, and data mining/statistical analysis is cheap if you are a big government. All of us have data about us in the government's database, and our profiles grow more detailed and nuanced with each data sweep. Is this cause for concern? As a society, yes, it's definitely something we should be talking about! As individual, reading some book and worrying about a knock on the door, almost certainly not.
> It is dangerous to overestimate your opponent, just as it is to underestimate them.
Agree with this 100%. If you are afraid to exercise a right, you put that right in jeopardy.
My |
My point was not "the government is unconcerned with reading materials," but instead "the government is unconcerned with those who would read sensitive materials on their personal Amazon.com accounts." At the end of the day the library records are not something that the government often goes after, and just because the PATRIOT act allows it doesn't mean it's done on the regular either. The "HAHA YOURE ON A LIST" shit gets old, whether it be every time someone says the word "NSA" online or when people honestly believe checking out The Anarchist's Cookbook on Kindle is getting you "on a list."
Blind paranoia is not better than blind naivete, even if it will save your bacon while the other won't. I'm having the same discussion in a completely different topic, where someone is adamant that the government can break all encryption and nothing on your phone is safe. There are still limits to the government's abilities and powers. They are not notified every time someone reads a controversial book. They aren't even looking after the fact at everyone who has read a controversial book. It is dangerous to overestimate your opponent, just as it is to underestimate them. |
As an employee there isn't much going on in the grand scheme of things that really would interest the public. We focus on bringing customers the products they want, faster and cheaper then anyone else. This isn't limited to the United States either. Since it's launch in October we've sold over a million items in China and we're working on toppling Alibaba's reign as the top online store. Our number one concern is customer service. I feel comfortable in saying that your data is safe with us because we value YOUR happiness more then we value money. Look at our earning reports and you'll see we take millions of dollars in loses to ensure we have unparalleled return and replacement policies. |
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