Game Theory Computer Model Backs Net Neutrality 315
Stu writes "'A world without net neutrality is one devoid of intellectual development' said Sir Tim Berners Lee in a presentation to congress last week. Well, now there's a computer model that uses game theory to back that forecast up. Developed at the University of Florida, the model shows that everyone loses if the IPs get their way — even, eventually, the IPs."
everyone looses (Score:5, Funny)
brought to you by the captcha: fickle
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Everyone looses when the screws that hold the tubes together become lose
I wish there was an "ironically funny" option.
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I'm an idiot. Didn't realize there was a spelling error in the summary...
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Correction: two spelling errors. Congress should always be capitalized. No pun intended. :-)
Reminds Me of Easter Island (Score:2, Offtopic)
What's an IP? (Score:5, Informative)
FTFS:
What is an IP? It can't be an intellectual property, since they don't have will, so they can't get their way. I'm pretty sure it can't be internet protocol.
Did you perhaps mean ISP?
Re:What's an IP? (Score:5, Insightful)
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That joke was old when I was still a sperm and an egg.
I first encountered it, though, when I worked for the county of santa cruz' health and human services dept's MIS dept, referring to the difference between IT and IS.
Anyway the S in ISP refers to internet service, not customer service. Although I suspect you were making some sort of attempt at humor :)
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Seems like a lot of businesses are positively allergic to the word "service" anyway. I remember chuckling years ago when flying and listening to the speech by the chairman of some airline (cough Continental cough) welcoming me onboard and how proud they were of the PRODUCT they were offering me. Yep, transporting someone across the US - a product, not a service. Got to LOVE them marketing people and how they twist things around like weasels. God forbid
Looses? (Score:2)
Well, at least they don't get tight. I mean, I hate it when people get all tight about things, don't you?
And That's Okay (Score:2)
A[cent]/D[cent] (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. It's profit maximization they're after.
If they think they can make Google pay to serve their customers, they'll have a customer revolt over not being able to access Google. Google's packets are more valuable than those originating at a leaf-node ISP. Leaf-node ISPs will find themselves paying Google's ISP, not Google paying them, to get their users access to Google.
And that is exactly why .... (Score:2)
Re:And that is exactly why .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, you are. You take companies that have natural physical monopolies and then try and act like there are some competitive forces working against them when infact the only thing that keeps them from completely raping the customer are the relevant governmental regulatory agencies.
You must be too young to remember Ma Bell...
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Remember Ma Bell? I get my local and long distance service from them right now. I'm just lucky I've got a non-ATT cellular provider. Oh wait... Edge Wireless [edgewireless.com] is an affiliate of Cingular Wireless, which means it is part of the largest digital voice and data network in the U.S.*... shit!
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I agree with the other guy. Breaking up "Ma Bell" was dumb, all it did was create lots of little regional monopolies. Didn't like the service? Well, you could always move across the country. Far more good was done by forcing the phone companies to allow people to buy their own phones from anyone who made a compliant phone.
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Agreed, mostly, but the decision to deregulate phones would probably not have made a big difference were it not for the breakup of Ma Bell. If new phone manufacturers had to compete against a single monopoly, the competitive barrier to entry would have been too high. This is, of course, an untestable theory, but I think the principle is sound.
Re:And that is exactly why .... (Score:5, Informative)
It 1968, the FCC's Carterfone decision allowed non-Bell equipment to be attached to their phone lines. This led to the adoption of things like answering machines, cordless phones, and modems, all of which were banned by Ma Bell before then (so they could rent 300 bps modems for $25/month to those who really needed them).
In 1969, the FCC's MCI Decision allowed leased lines to be provided by competitive carriers. This made long-haul backbone lines cheaper. Dial-up long distance was supposed to remain a monopoly. But around 1975, MCI figured out a trick, started its Execunet service, and while the FCC opposed it once it figured out what was going on, by 1978 a court held that it was okay. That led to the rules for LD carriers that are still in effect, wherein they pay local phone companies "access" minute of use rates at both ends of a call.
In 1980, the FCC's Computer II Decision held that terminal equipment (what Carterfone permitted to become competitive) should no longer be tariffed at all, so it would become fully competitive and deregulated in 1983. It also held that "enhanced" services could only be provided by phone companies via a "fully separate subsidiary" that purchased "basic" services on the same terms as an unaffiliated party. This is the specific rule that was revoked in 2005, effective 2006, causing the Network Neutrality problem. Under Computer II, any ISP could use the Bells' DSL for a tariffed price. That is no longer the case; ISPs have no right to use Bell wire at all.
In 1982, AT&T and the Department of Justice agreed to the Modified Final Judgement, the Divestiture, which broke AT&T into pieces effective 1/1/84. At the time, long distance was seen as competitive but local phone service was not. So the "Baby Bells" were allowed to remain monopolies, providing "access" to LD companies, and local dialtone, at regulated rates.
In 1996, the Telecom Act opened up local competition in all states. It recognized that the Bells had an advantage of incumbency, a network already in place, so it required them to provide components on an "unbundled" basis, priced based on loaded long run incremental cost, to competitors. The FCC enforced this from 1996 to 2001.
In 2001, a Republican FCC majority began to roll back pro-competition rules, finding or imagining loopholes in the Telecom Act. So now it is very hard or impossible for competitive telcos (who serve ISPs, often affiliates) to get access to Bell wire at all. Again, the idea is to allow the Bells to have total control of the content of their wire -- the opposite of neutrality. FCC chairman Kevin Martin is an unabashed Bell (and rural incumbent telco -- they're even worse) lover and does practically anything to please them. But the new Congress is less impressed with him than the old one.
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Re:And that is exactly why .... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll tell you what good it did. That non-acoutistic-coupler modem that brought networking to end-user consumers in the first place would not have happened or would have been substantially delayed if Ma Bell had not been broken up. The breakup forced (among other things) them to allow other companies' products to be connected to the telephone network. I remember going down to the GTE store to rent a handset just a handful of years after the breakup because nobody else made telephones yet. I remember watching the landscape change, as I'm sure does anyone who remembers the late 70s and early 80s. The breakup of AT&T was a very good decision.
Unfortunately, we're seeing them come back together, like a bad sci-fi movie (was that Terminator 3?) or something. Fortunately, at least we are moving towards a duopoly with the cable companies serving as a little bit of competition. Unfortunately, we were already seeing stagnation in the markets because a duopoly is not sufficient competition to do much good, and I'm sure the stagnation will just get worse with time. Maybe municipal WI-Fi and other disruptive technologies will improve things, but I'm not holding my breath. Short of ubiquitous municipal fiber, it's downhill from here... at least until people get so sick of the new AT&T that they force it to break up again.
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Of course it won't, because the now-even-bigger Ma Bell now has competitors that wouldn't have had a chance to come into existence if it hadn't been for the breakup.
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The problems revolve around all the barriors to getting in and performing business that your sensible regulation imposed and were ever taken down. I mean would you really settle for one highspeed ISP for the phone or cable conection when someone else could leae the lines at cost and sell the service to you at a discount? Sure anyone could go through all the channels, get the rightaway, lay cables on top of cables, push it the last mile (t
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The idea is to get the companies to comete between each other and providing service better or cheaper is the most popular tools to use in competition.
If as you say "Why bother to mark it up if they can sell it to you for a discount?" would be the way all companies work, then there would be just monopolie or oligopolies. And they could charge as much as they want. Competition between companies and business is usualy seen as a good thin
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I can say just as many things about Democrates and the such like how all this sloppiness was because they had to cater to the democrats who insisted on the sloppyness because they feared giving up control.
But I wasn't trying to argue Repulican or democrat. I was just saying that deregulation is better. And if it is done right, you can't lose unless your the monopoly.
Everyone loses or some lose? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Speed control and competition (Score:4, Insightful)
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Networks & ISP's (Score:5, Insightful)
What that means to you lay people is that whole freakin' globe is being carved up by 10 companies. Everyone else ultimately pays one of these 10 guys for bandwidth. How hard do you think it would be to get 10 CEO's to agree to charge Google for example, at the rate of 1 cent per click?
I'm not the kind of person to start screaming for the government to step in an start regulating things, but I would like to see the internet adjusted so that there are peering points that match the physical borders. I'd like to see the US goverment say that if you start charging content providers the peering points for the USA will be unavailable to you. If you're stateside, we'll charge with Anti Trust and RICO violations. Since American's buy more stuff on line than most anyone else, I think that this would prove an effective deterrent to this sort of stupidity out of the ISP's. They're already fat from the profits that they make off selling the rest of us bandwidth that must be used to send worms, viruses, and spam to each of us every day.
If they want to be more profitable, stop the worms, viruses, and spammers. That will leave plenty of bandwidth for the rest of us to do some thing amazing.
2 cents,
QueenB.
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I have a choice between Comcast, or Verizon.
Neither is likely to play nice. Both have a good reason to tamper with, say, Vonage, since both offer VOIP as a part of their package deals. Both offer digital TV, and on-demand entertainment - both would want to hinder the growth of things like Vongo, and will make sure that IPTV dies in the womb.
There's very little competition, and every reason to expect collusion among the biggies.
And theres no reason at all to tamper with the current state o
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The content providers are not buying the service. As the buyer of the service, why should I choose one over the other? If I buy the first one and fancysite.com doesn't work, and I call up my ISP, are they going to accept responsibility or claim that it's not their fault?
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Well in a way, they did. 800 numbers are free for you because the business picks up the tab. Conversely 900 numbers charged you an arm and a leg...
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In many regions there are a very small number of ISPs (particularly if you count only those that own the fiber rather than those that just provide service on the phone companies lines
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When I signed up for high-speed internet access, I had two choices: AT&T DSL or Comcast cable service. For one, that's only two choices. (Which is actually one more choice than I had at my last home, where it was either cable or dialup.)
Secondly, a decision like that isn't as simple as choosing an internet provider - what if you don't have a phone, are you willing to sign up for a phone line just to get your DSL? What if you
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Unless wireless takes off in a big way, itself another crazy expensive infrastructure problem, for any real cove
Yea, sure, I'll just... (Score:2)
Lets see, the pressure to keep comcast honest in the net neutrality thin is my threat to switch to dialup.
That doesn't seem that threatening.
Whatever, Mister "Book Learner" (Score:2, Funny)
Why compare Japan & S. Korea? (Score:2)
The top 4 largest cities in S. Korea make up a bit less than 50% (48 million)
In terms of size, to paraphrase from someone in another thread: In Texas we call that a county.
Re:Why compare Japan & S. Korea? (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me crazy, but I would think it's the "greater competition among broadband providers" that is spurring the higher broadband speed.
You could replace 'net neutrality' with 'rice paddies' in that quote and it would still be accurate.
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The countries in question are small and high tech, with population densities that make it a lot cheaper to provide services. I also suspect that lot sizes are smaller, so the costs of physically connecting to broadband are cheaper.
In the US, with certain exceptions like NYC and San Francisco, we have lower densities so it requires longer runs for physical wiring. This can be a major problem if you are looking at various forms of DSL, which have distance restrictions. Even if the cost differences in the w
Hyperbole and hysteria (Score:2)
A world without net neutrality is one devoid of intellectual development
Look.. I don't support Net Neutrality. Or specifically, I don't support a net neutrality law because I don't think it's required. It'll just get politicians involved in something they really don't understand, and getting politicians involved is almost always a bad idea.
I think a neutral network is a great idea, but it doesn't have to be enforced by the government exactly because those who abuse the market willlose out quite naturally. Neutrality is the natural state of the network.
Oh, and on the quote... "
Re:Hyperbole and hysteria (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, no. Everyone may lose, but those who most abuse the market will be the ones who lose least, in precisely the sense of the classical tragedy of the commons. Indeed, that's precisely why everyone is likely to lose, because the absence of neutrality rules promotes ever greater abuse. Which is precisely why a regulatory and enforcement regime is needed.
"The network" is not natural and has no natural state. The network has previously been largely neutral because of government policies enforcing certain aspects of neutrality on important parts of the network, though those policies are currently only in the form of shifting FCC practices, not law.
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Why?
If an ISP charges Google extra for their users to use their search site (or get redirected to someone who will pay, or just not have their site come up at all), what is Google going to do, cancel their cable subscription? Or maybe when people call up and ask about this, only to be told that Google must be down, but you can go to www.isppartnersearch.com to search the web, the percentage of people smart enough to realize that this is bullshit will
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Assume the same amount of money is received by the ISP in both cases and allows them to deliver their service.
Which is better? That is the question that is coming. All this talk of blocking, monopoly and censorship is so much rubbish. It's all about the money.
And raising customer prices isn't going to happen. Not with anyone that wants to stay in b
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Look.. I don't support cute little puppies. Or specifically, I don't support a cute little puppy law because I don't think it's required. It'll just get politicians involved in something they really don't understand, and getting politicians involved is almost always a bad idea.
I realize the two are not even remotely related
You got THAT right - what's your fucking point?
Please, no more comments (Score:3, Informative)
My take: the real fear is monopoly control of the Internet. Since monopolies are a problem independent of the Internet, we need to strengthen anti-monopoly laws rather than pretend we're living like it's 1969 on the ARPANET.
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Then let me ask you a question: can you explain why in the U.S., where there is most definietly not a monopoly air carrier, that travel between two given cities at a certain time of day costs roughly the same for a given class of service across all of the major airlines (Southwest being the obvious exception)?
You'll notice that when one airline raises ticket prices, they pretty much all do. Coincidence?
Let's suppose that one airline got the bright idea to charge its passengers
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But as for the cost side of the equation -- your observation of airline prices is correct, but only half the story. While the airline industry is in fact an oligopoly that incrementally raises prices in tandem over time, it also suddenly slashes prices in tandem periodically. This is the behavior of an oligopoly, which while not ideal, is preferable to a monopo
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Competition doesn't just include competition among like businesses. Airlines aren't just competing with each other, they're competing with all of the other options you have when you spend your dollar (not spending it being an option too). At some point, you'll decide that buying an airline ticket just isn't worth the price, and you'll either go on vacation within driving distance or do s
Re:Please, no more comments (Score:4, Informative)
It's called an oligopoly, and it's almost as bad.
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Monopolies are certainly a problem independent of the internet, but they are problems that, experience has shown, require, in addition to general solutions (like the various anti-trust laws), more focussed controls in certain domains (like the common carrier provisions that apply to "tel
Back when I used to do Game Theory simulations (Score:2)
Simplistic model (Score:3, Insightful)
Do they foresee Google raising WiMax masts? Do they foresee P2P based webservices?
The article says:
"More important, the researchers found that the incentive for broadband service providers to expand and upgrade their service actually declines if net neutrality ends. Improving the infrastructure reduces the need for online content providers to pay for preferential treatment, Bandyopadhyay said."
Of course it does, but then your competitor has an incentive to expand and upgrade their service so that they can charge lower prices. How can the model not take *that* into account?
If this kind of simulation had any validity, planned economy and sovietism would work. We know it doesn't.
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Umm, could you please list all those competitors Verizon, SBC and Qwest have in their respective rural areas ? I rest my case.
Not interesting (Score:2)
Any computer program that predicts that folks will act against their best interest needs to be looked at very sceptically.
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Two simple cases:
Americans tend to finance a tremendous level of their "lifestyles" using high interest rate credit cards. Once those cards maxed out, they're stuck with less lifetyle than their income would normally allow because they have to service the debt.
Few Americans save for retirement - most neglect to contribute to a company provided retirement plan, even if t
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What, did you just now arrive here on Earth? Have you ever observed the levels of bureaucracy that grow (unbidden!) at all levels of medium- and large-sized companies?
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So, these may appear to be stereotypes, but they are serious problems in my country. As for being negative toward America, I was specifically citing examples of people acting against their self interest. By definition, those are going to be negative examples. And being an American, I'm not in a position to make similar claims about populations in other countries.
Compa
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Any computer program that predicts that folks will act in their own best interest... indeed, that they will even know what their best interest really IS... would be completely out of touch with reality and incapable of making any useful predictions about the real world we all live in.
Predicti
Money is the point (Score:3, Interesting)
That was great when the connections were not being used much.
The issue today is who is going to pay. And nobody wants to just raise end-user prices. While that might be the fairest way to do it, it would shrink market share and be a shakeup for the entire ISP industry.
We could have government subsidies pay for it all, as is mostly done in other countries to keep prices low. That means taxes pay for cheap Internet service. So the people that don't have it have to pay - not so fair.
Someone came up with the bright idea of charging the other end. Google is paying almost nothing for their connection (check prices on OC-192 connections) and is making billions off the people looking there. Maybe they could pay more?
Of course, making Google, CBS Sports and CNN pay more for their connections just comes back around to the consumers anyway. There is no escaping that prices are going up. The consumer is going to end up paying, one way or another. The only question is how many middlemen are involved.
We could have government subsidies pay for it all (Score:3, Insightful)
Government does subsidize the network. Governments have given telcommunications companies money and or tax breaks to buildout the networks therefore they are being subsidized.
Someone came up with the bright idea of charging the other end. Google is paying almost nothing for their connection (check prices on OC-192 connections) and is making billions off the people looking there. Maybe they could pay more?
Google does pay for their connection, they pay thier provider. What the telcoms want is to double
Competition among ISPs? (Score:2)
The fact that the article didn't say anything about it makes me suspe
What will happen? (Score:2)
Just the opposite (Score:2)
However, the idea of an ISP billing a content provider is parasitic.
In the hey day of the dot.com's, huge amounts of content were created using investor cash which was "burned". Now that the cash has been burned, for the most part this content is drying up.
Without an ability to make money, most
Re:Looses... dear lord (Score:5, Funny)
RIP 127.0.0.1
We hardly knew you.
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This is an intentional joke, yes?
C//
Re:Looses... dear lord (Score:5, Funny)
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Apostate! Heretic! (Score:5, Informative)
Many geeks grew up as outsiders. We were smarter, but lacked social skills. Dumber but more popular people felt threatened by our brains and put us down, picked on us, and so forth. One characteristic that groups of those dumber people adopted as their group marker was a disdain for all things intellectual. One thing many geeks have adopted is just the opposite, a respect for all things intellectual, to distinguish ourselves from them.
Do you see where this is going?
You come on a geek message board spouting anti-intellectualism, "Oh, you dorks, proper spelling and grammar don't matter. Get over yourselves." You have just identified yourself as "one of them," an outsider, probably anti-intellectual, most likely of the same sort that picked on many of us as kids.
Proper spelling and grammar are one of our shibboleths, along with Natalie Portman, hot grits, and Beowulf clusters. It isn't primarily about communication, although that is a factor. It is about identity. We are geeks. Geeks are smart. Smart people spell words correctly and use proper grammar. That is who we are.
When people here correct your spelling or grammar, they are really just trying to carry on our culture, and help you fit in. You don't have to, but if you don't, you will be seen as an outsider by many here. That's just how it is with people. You know the old saying, "When in Rome..."
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Those only work against a background of correct spelling and grammar. It's not clever to break the rules if you don't know what the rules are.
Improper spelling and grammar (Score:2)
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coding, grammer, ansd spelling (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know about others, but I hack code and I don't give two shits about spelling and grammar.
So, your code rarely works correctly?
FalconRe:Apostate! Heretic! (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to be the one to bear bad news though, but some "geek identity" characteristics.. like HAVING to display intellectual superiority, even when it's meaningless to do so... is simply neurotic behaviour rooted in fundamentally low self-esteem.
Smart people understand that proper spelling and grammar are important in some cases... probably not so much in offhand, informal forum posts. Grammar nazism is much like judging a person by how they dress... I thought the hallmark of smart, rational people was supposed to be a tendency to judge based on merit, not appearance? If the substance of an idea is sound, does it matter if it's wearing shabby grammar?
I would respectfully submit that if proper spelling and grammar are really that important to you or anyone else, that you take a look at how and why you judge people. Certainly if you hold rationality to be an important trait, as most geeks do. And I would also submit than you as a person have more worth than simply acting as a grammar policeman on a forum, correcting people who don't give a shit about what you think about their spelling. Really, you all do. I'm serious. Please believe me, we'll all be better off if you do.
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There's another geek characteristic that I forgot to mention, one that complicates the whole issue and one I think you demonstrate here.
We tend to be noncomformists. Compare how many times you see a criticism of "groupthink" or a post calling someone a "slashbot" to the number of posts criticizing spelling or grammar.
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Deer spun,
Its bean a long thyme since Ive bean reading your posts in the Slashdot sight, and I have too admit that their quite funny. Id hate two think that if Im away for a day or to that I might
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How much does it cost each person who reads your post and trips on your grammar/spelling error? Typos are one thing. Lose and loose is a not-thinking-clearly problem. If you can't take the time to express yourself clearly, how can you expect anybody else take the time to figure out whether you know what you're talking about or not?
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Furthermore, it isn't lost seconds that we're talking about. It's a case of learning it once and getting it right thereafter. No revision required.
I hereby loose you on the Slashdot hordes to critique their depth and development.
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I had to read that sentence three times before it made any sense to me at all. I'm not making fun of you. I'm not even criticizing your apparent lack of proofreading. Comments are closer to casual conversation than essays: nobody expects perfection. But if I submit a story that I want to be shown on the fro
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Focusing more on ideas than the clear conveyance of ideas would indicate that maybe you should have been a philosophy professor. Accuracy and precision are our best tools to make ourselves understood.
Re:Apostate! Heretic! (Score:5, Insightful)
People who respect excellence don't deride others as elitist. Conceited or self-righteous maybe, but you didn't say that, did you. Whenever I hear someone use the term "elitist" negatively, I hear them shouting: "I am terrified of excellence."
You then further prove my point by engaging in ad-hominem attacks, rather than providing any kind of useful analysis. Who cares if he got beat up a lot as a kid? How does that make his description of the slashdot community any less accurate?
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Why argue that when you can just look at this a
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And it is needed. If it isn't done, eventually one ISP will rise to the top, and be the ones to decide what you see and what you don't. When that one ISP finally takes over and claims its monopoly, we need to have some checks and balances in place.
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Not true. Ma Bell was lazy and complacent, yet no alternatives entered the market. You would be correct if you were talking about commodities. For services with large distributed infrastructure requirements over areas with generally low population density such as telephone and internet service, free markets have repeatedly proven inadequate at providing competition. Legislation and regulation are absolutely necessary when faced with a system that cannot realistically promote competition.
That's why eve
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Eventually, phone service will become monopolized. We're already seeing it happening. I think the major national long distance phone carriers are down to three or four, and the number of regional landline carriers to the door are also down into the single digits.
Likewise, the number of airlines merging has greatly exceeded the number of new airlines, and the number requiring huge government bailouts to keep from closing their doors is staggering. Were the government not propping it up, they, too, would
Re:While you all get pedantic about lose vs loose. (Score:2)