The language seems to suggest that they're trying to outlaw things like DOS attacks and "hacking"/revealing information on US persons, government activities and the like (so all the Snowden type stuff despite the whistleblower act, as well as identity theft or release of credit card numbers and stuff), especially on private/corporate/government networks (so target/tj maxx security breaches etc) -- rather than things like Netflix on residential connections.

I'd have thought the computer fraud and abuse act 1986 already had stuff about doing malicious things to systems (including but not limited to DOS attacks and all of the rest), meaning this bill appears... redundant, despite some of the new terminology introduced in there.

But, maybe I'm skim-reading too much and not delving in to the references cited in the bill; or maybe the language really is too broad to be safe for our "Internet rights" and I just haven't picked up on it, but can anybody point me at the passage(s) which could be interpreted to mean that high-bandwidth services such as Netflix on the public Internet would be a problem?

Of course, then there are some "illegals" who - believe it or not - stay at the request of the US government.

http://travel.state.gov/conten...

You need to learn more about your visa system. H-1B is *not* an immigrant visa, nor a path to citizenship or even permanent residency.

You couldn't legally hire a person on an H-1B or J visa (J is for foreign exchange students and such) even if you wanted to - unless you are prepared to sponsor them, in which case, you're supposed to try hard to find a local first anyway.

It's some of those big companies, usually in software consultancy and other such BS, who seem to be taking advantage of the situation, gaming the system and giving immigrants a bad name.

http://travel.state.gov/conten...

Pity the H1-B visa is not an immigrant visa. Once it expires (for any reason, whether it be job loss or the maximum time period has been spent), they have to GTFO. The path to citizenship is through an entirely different set of available visa classes which are, in many cases, are more difficult to obtain. If they get citizenship after working here for 5 or 10 years, they probably were not an H1-B to begin with.

Most of the H1-Bs I know want to make as much money as possible and go home and be entrepreneurs (and with the rupee being so bad at the moment, it's not that hard even if their earnings by US standards aren't that great). Others want a leg up on their non-H1-B counterparts when applying for the higher/better paying positions back home.

For the record, I do not hire any H1-Bs in my US operations and I'm neither a US citizen (nor do I want to be) or resident, even if I do spend swaths of time in the US.

Perhaps, but in terms of a "Netflix leased line", the point in the network where bandwidth is being choked is usually the same point in the network where bandwidth is really rather cheap.

An HD stream is what, 5 or 6mbit/s, right? Multiply that by about 30 cents per megabit per month and you've got a cost of $1.80 to handle the peak traffic (we're talking multi-gig levels here, so if a supplier can offer a gigabit at $4,600 a month, 10ge or more at $30,000 a month seems attainable).

Would customers be willing to fork out an extra $4 a month for guaranteed HD Netflix? Probably not. Should they have to? Hell no. Would providers find a way of raising their tariffs to cover the cost even though their margins are fairly obscene already? You bet your ass. Should it be illegal for them to do that sort of traffic discrimination? Definitely. Will it be? Not likely.

Is it me or is Germany's deciding to abandon nuclear a bit of a knee-jerk reaction?

Few of the things that actually caused the problems at Fukushima are present in Germany. Like Japan, German engineering is generally considered high quality, but unlike Japan, they don't really have earthquakes (certainly not like any country on the ring of fire) and not much of a coastline.

Considering all the alternatives and costs thereof, nuclear does give pretty good bang for the buck and is (relatively speaking) safe - apart from the number of actual disasters which we can all count on one-hand, there just haven't been that many problems over the past 50-or-so years.

Especially when compared to the alternatives, but we can calculate the risk, and if we calculate said risk to any factor, Nuclear doesn't fare badly, it's just the specter where **IF** something goes wrong at a nuclear facility it can be a **BIG** problem -- but that's a pretty big IF, and a modern reactor design such as what would be used to build a plant likely mitigates the hell out of all that.

Why? Tigerdirect and the like has plenty of decent refurbs which come with Win7 Pro. If your mother is anything like mine, even the specs on a lower-end refurb should be more than sufficient.

We'd be up for it. Strictly speaking we're for profit but as a non-American I may also have some socialistic or altruistic tendencies which might be advantageous for such a project.

The question is finding *enough* people & money to make it work. Geek-heavy sites like ./ and the like make it seem easy because for the most part we do care about our technology and our Internets, but talk to your neighbours 10-houses on either side and find out how many of them care as much about their Internet services as you or I do.

The main incentive for most people would be financial but the financial relief as compared to their existing service would have to be significant otherwise it gets chucked in the "too hard" basket.

Are you sure? I've been reading a lot of franchise agreements lately from a few towns in and around the mid-west, and they all seem to say "non-exclusive".

Of course, that's not going to stop a cableco making up reasons to sue and/or preventing us from having access to poles or making it prohibitively expensive to do so, and it's not going to stop a town that already has 7 providers with fiber in the ground (none of which is open for lease by competitors) saying "no more fiber in the ground because what if we need to repair city utilities".

Of course, exclusivity may apply where you are but even in a town that is co-operative on the surface, franchise agreements are only a very small part of the puzzle.

I care about my employees. I want them to be happy AND healthy. I don't want them to keel over and die of a heart attack at 36. Or 46. Or even 56. But I do have prejudice against people who do things to themselves (over-eat) and moreso against people who won't help themselves - instead opting to bitch and moan about being discriminated against.

On the other hand, if you have an *actual* disease (something that you can't do anything about) then I won't discriminate -- unless it's one of those things that you can control with medication or something but you refuse it.

Long story short, if you are 1 employee and you are rocking the boat (or look like you're going to rock the boat) for all the other employees by asking for a jumbo-sized chair, extra-strong toilet, walmart sized doors or whatever, you're either going to be fired or not hired at all, in much the same way that any other person who looks like they would be disruptive to the work environment would be fired or not hired.

All else being equal, I do and will continue to "discriminate" against obese people for most roles in my companies, even in the US - unless the candidate can demonstrate skills which far "outweigh" their thinner counterparts.

Many of the reasons have already been discussed (health and people "prone" to taking more days off, causing financial "loss" to me and unfair increase in workload on others; perceived lack of discipline, higher insurance costs et cetera), but one to be considered is that of safety.

Some of what we do involves being at 20ft or more above the ground, so I'm not going to hire a 300+lb/150+kg person because they won't be able to climb a ladder or because I don't trust the weight distribution on a cherry-picker.

Or if you're in the office, the last thing you need is a job that has you sitting on your arse all day unless you in a wheelchair for reasons other than being obese. And there is no way in hell I'm buying extra-large chairs or widening the doors because you call yourself "husky".

Or if you're out in the field, I don't want to give a bad impression to prospects & clients by having a sweating, wheezing mass wearing a now damp shirt with our logo on it (most of the areas in which we operate are fairly warm and humid).

In fact, I can't even really think of any jobs in my companies where obesity would be an advantage, save maybe being an anchor for someone on the side of a building.

While I accept that there is *some* truth in obesity being a medical condition (people don't know when to stop eating because the mechanism is broken, they quit smoking etc), it's still by and large a choice for the vast majority of excuse-makers. You're not big-boned, you're big-arsed. Either get used to it or change your habits - you can eat tasty food without resorting to the drive-through and you don't have to stick to a carrot a day to lose weight, either.

If you're obese and you really want to work for me, get to a healthier weight and then come back to me so that I can pick (or reject) you based on your merits.

Actually, I'd quite like to see something like the Japanese law that fines the obese implemented in the west.

I'm streaming NFLX right now on Mediacom (So-IL) but have not seen that message. It refuses to stream in HD though, even on a 50mb connection. Traceroutes suggest NFLX traffic is coming from Chicago via Level3 then AT&T rather than directly by Level3 for no apparent reason.

Are you sure? Last I read, Netflix and Verizon had signed a direct interconnection deal too. The difference here seems to be that, unlike when the Comcast interconnects took effect, the experience has not been improved for Verizon subscribers.

Netflix sh/could send out little testing boxes like truenet.co.nz does to measure speed several times during the day.