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Comment nuisance fee (Score 4, Interesting) 376

The trouble is, that this is just a nuisance fee. I can pay $20 out-of-pocket to make a bogus "piracy claim" go away. I'm sure, though, that they'll include contractual language asserting my guilt, even though I've never downloaded from The Pirate Bay or its ilk. Once they've confirmed that I'm willing to pay, how many times will they come back? The article mentioned settling accounts exceeding $300 for multiple "infringements."

Also, how are they going to convince my ISP, with whom I have both an ongoing relationship and competitive alternatives, to do this?

Comment Re:Seems strange. (Score 2) 151

. . .except maybe inuit, since there isn't much to 'gather' on the ice. . .

They didn't really live on the ice. It was just a temporary place to use while hunting. While the Inupiat and Yupik (as well as other Inuit people) obtained (and many still do) most of their calories from hunting, they still gathered and preserved tubers, lichen, seaweed and berries. I don't think any Inuit cultivated crops, but some did practice animal husbandry.

Comment Re:Is God falsifiable? (Score 1) 649

Interestingly, my father-in-law, an orthodox sephardic rabbi, insists that there is no contradiction. (I love this guy. I've never met anybody, except my wife, more capable of mental flexibility while maintaining his dogma.) He asserts (very briefly) that the timeline before the seventh "day" is God's, while the timeline thereafter is ours. He also asserts that our understanding of the universe is incomplete, and we *need* science to improve our understanding, and that accepting scientific knowledge about our world and universe will lead to a better understanding of God. (Or, our scientific tools are another of His ways to help us understand the Universe more completely.)

Please note that this is a two-sentence distillation of 20 years' intermittent discussion between him and me; much is lost in my delivery.

Comment Re:Kentucky Fried Dodo (Score 1) 168

I had a hard time finding a translation "walgvogel" other than as dodo, so I'll put it here for others. From An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language I discovered that:

Walgvogel in Dutch means "nauseous bird;" it seems that the sailors killed them so easily that they were surfeited of them.

I also discovered that both dodo and booby (the bird) are probably portuguese words.

Comment Re:Turn off iMessages ? (Score 1) 179

They certainly can't say you're not allowed to have a data-capable phone which doesn't have a data plan.

Is that right? I thought that their networks are sufficiently under their control to allow them to exclude whomever (and whatever) they want. Am I wrong?

Perhaps a carrier like T-Mobile ignores out-of-defined-use of smartphones, but do other carriers?

Comment Re:Turn off iMessages ? (Score 1) 179

I don't have a contract, and will never have another one again. When I was on a contract, I hated being locked in when I discovered that AT&T sucks in interior Alaska and couldn't switch without incurring a penalty. (While in Cantwell, I had a signal, but couldn't make a call: They couldn't tell me why. There were at least two more reasons I wanted to switch away.)

I have a vague memory, though, of reading that carriers can get the model of your phone, and will happily add data if they find you're using a smart phone without a data plan. Perhaps I should be more bold.

Right now, I'm paying $30/mo for a local plan, with an older phone. It includes unlimited calling ad unlimited texting with 1 GB of data and fantastic coverage. I don't have a strong incentive anymore for trying to dump the data fees, though I did give it serious thought and eliminated the possibility because of the limitations I perceived.

Do you mind sharing which carrier you use?

Comment Re:Turn off iMessages ? (Score 0) 179

My daughter has an iPhone without a data plan. . .

How did you (or she) manage that? Every carrier I've seen requires data with any smartphone connected to the network, and I thought I read that they can detect the phone. I've thought about doing exactly this, but haven't been bold enough to give it a go.

Comment Re:Philosophical question: (Score 1) 131

Sorry, I should have expounded a little more. I read the article and the discussion here intending to ask the same question that ericlowe did. I answered much too concisely after I looked up the definition, so I skipped some of the thought process.
I didn't mean to imply that it was successful, only that the machine deployed from its lander. I suppose that I would have been more complete had I said that it had deployed properly up to "x" point, then failed at "y." (In the example that dictionary.com provided, even if the landing gear of a plane deploys properly, it doesn't necessarily follow that it will "accomplish its mission" and land safely.)

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