On the Western Values issue. I don't think the problem is that we are imposing our values on others. I think the problem is that we aren't even adequately promoting those values here at home. We end up calling for Democracy and Freedom in the rest of the world and then sending arms to whichever dictator and despot is the most willing to brutally suppress any groups that might threaten our foreign policy. Even when those groups are moderate groups simply looking for a more equitable system of government in their own country. And our foreign policy is based not on the spread of freedom and democracy around the world, but based on securing foreign trade and foreign resources for very short term and short sighted economic purposes. If we truly believe that more representative systems of government and more freedom and liberty should be the goal for a more prosperous, equitable and free world, then we should act accordingly. I believe the ideas of liberty and democracy are ideas worth spreading and supporting.

I didn't say I had any trouble with the Internet, just with Netflix. Did you try Netflix on Tuesday evening? Also, from your name it appears you are in Oregon and I am in Massachusetts.

Exactly, "Linux on the Desktop" is called Chrome or Android and the "desktop" is wherever we are instead of a jumble of wires connected to a monitor. Desktops are a shrinking niche market. Otherwise Ubuntu or the like are great for desktops and laptops. Better than Windows in many respects. I haven't had problems like in the past for half a decade or more.

You forgot the most important reason. They are trying to degrade a competitor's service in order to promote their own. Both Comcast and Verizon compete directly with Netflix. Last night I was able to watch Verizon channels on my tablet just fine, but Netflix wasn't working at all.

Funny.... My Netflix was actually throttled pretty badly last night by Verizon and I was wondering what Netflix did to piss off Verizon. Now I guess I have the answer.

The "Here I am" message is insufficient for coordinating between vehicles. And as I mentioned localization using GPS, even differential GPS, is not reliable enough or fail safe enough for collision avoidance. ... Because some percentage of the time cars will be giving you bogus location messages. At some point message protocols for coordinating actions between vehicles does make sense. In addition to highway drafting, vehicles could use some protocol to more efficiently merge or change lanes. I just don't see transmitting absolute position and velocity being something good to base a system around. Autonomous vehicles need to be allowed to get established without V2V. As they are doing now. Don't hobble them by making them rely on a poorly conceived notion. Getting to a fail safe V2V for Here I Am messages is a very steep and expensive curve compared to a camera and proximity sensor based system which would be more closely following Moore's law.

I think the V2V proposal should be scrapped altogether. It would take decades to implement, be very expensive (at hundreds of dollars per car) and it won't actually make cars safer compared with relatively simpler collision avoidance using cameras and other relatively cheap proximity sensors that don't rely on everyone else having functioning V2V systems in their car.

Autonomous cars have cameras and other fail safe sensors they can rely on. GPS is for navigational way points and route planning. Just getting a signal from another car that it is at a certain position is not a sufficient replacement for actually seeing that car with a camera. In all cases I would program that car to trust the camera and distrust the V2V and if it didn't have a camera then the car should stop as safely as it can and not continue to try and drive automatically. GPS is better for navigational way points where precision on the scale of feet and inches is not as important. For collision avoidance in close proximity you want to rely on sensors.

Dell seems to think so.

Not a technical decision, but greed driven decision.

Also how is it that L3 can deliver the data to Verizon, but Verizon is just somehow incapable of passing it along to their customers? The answer is that it is not a techn

Again I am not sure why I am feeding a troll, but you seem to be in a gang of trolls. So sure... if we were talking about L3 sending data to Verizon that Verizon then had to ship across its own backbone then you would have a point. But in this case L3 is acting as the long haul backbone provider and all Verizon has to do is deliver the packets to the local customers that requested the data. Verizon is already charging its customers for the bandwidth, the only issue here is that they are choosing to not to deliver on that promise in order to try and shake down Netflix and by extension Verizons own customers for more money. This is a fraudulent business practice pure and simple. Enron would be proud.

Yes, okay. That is a funny thought experiment, but Verizon isn't actually confused about the fact that as a local ISP Verizon customers are the ones actually requesting netflix video so the concept of peering traffic "parity" does not apply to local ISPs connecting to backbone providers.

And naturally Verizon customers are all in a huff about Verizon trying to charge them twice for bandwidth they aren't receiving.

Traffic "parity" is only relevant when you are talking about backbone Internet providers providing alternative routes in order to help make the Internet routing more robust. Basically an I'll scratch your back and you scratch my back mutually beneficial scenario where having two equal backbone Internet partners is more robust than having just one route over a long haul network. So for instance having a peering agreement with a company that has a wire from LA to Boston so that if your LA to Boston wire goes down, then your traffic can still get through.

But when you are talking about last-mile customers who are the ones initiating the requests for content, then peering is not about traffic parity, it is about providing your customers with the bandwidth to the content they want. As long as L3 is willing to provide adequate bandwidth connections to Verizon's networks in the local metropolitan areas, then they are fulfilling their end of the bargain as a backbone provider peering with a local ISP.

Sure, if L3 was just saying they were going to dump all the Internet Traffic destined for the East Coast in LA and Verizon could deal with getting it across the country, then that wouldn't fly. But as far as I know L3 is ready willing and able to send all the traffic across the country and put it as geographically close to the Verizon customers who are requesting the content as Verizon will allow. But it is Verizon simply saying they won't allow L3 to increase the bandwidth to Verizon Customers until Verizon gets a bigger cut of the action.

Transit capacity is irrelevant. L3 is a backbone Internet provider. They have plenty of bandwidth to get all the packets to Verizon's networks in the areas Verizon serves. Verizon is just unwilling to provide their own Verizon customers with the bandwidth they require to access the content they want.