I currently live on a farm 3.5 miles from the nearest town. The copper pair running to my property is so noisy that the phone company asks me if it always sounds so bad. It is actually provisioned out of a different town a bit further away. Of course it is not possible to get a DSL connection where I am. In fact, it is impossible to get any kind of wired broadband service where I am.

I have been making due with a Verizon LTE puck for the last year, and it is truly terrible. The key problem is that it is a metered connection; I pay for every byte that "allegedly" goes in or out of the box. I say allegedly because I know enough about tcpdump to suspect that Verizon is being a bit optimistic about my usage (and therefore, my bill). In addition to the high cost of a metered connection, the reliability is not very good.

So, I have taken it upon myself to build my own wireless link from the nearby town, where DSL service is available. I tested the p2p wireless link this weekend and it provided 25MBit of aggregate bandwidth -- more than the DSL service feeding it is actually providing.

In your world of government monopoly, do you think it would be easier or harder for me to have working and affordable un-metered broadband at my property?

Because while I had to build it my damn self, at least I was able/allowed to build it my damn self.

I buy my electricity and water from county-level rural cooperatives. It is clear that local, small scale operations can do an effective job of providing good services. I am amenable to the idea that perhaps last-mile infrastructure could be common carrier and community owned/operated.

I am a bit more hesitant to say that I want my choices dictated entirely by the machinery of government. I am currently in that situation and it is unpleasant.

You should read this paper very carefully:

http://www.peterleeson.com/Bet...

Also, Somalia currently has the cheapest and best cell phone service in Africa.

The "move to Somalia" argument is a pretty standard trope when having conversations about the proper size and scope of government. Of course, there are lots of reasons why overweight white software engineers from America wouldn't necessarily thrive in Somalia irrespective of what kind of government it did or didn't have, but that doesn't really seem to diminish how often the trope is pulled out, so let's try something else -- you know, actual data.

Rather than repeating an unsubstantiated bias, I encourage you to read the paper I linked.

I'll spoil it a little bit: The conclusion, of course, isn't that all governments are bad (that's a philosophical conjecture, not a testable hypothesis). It is, however, quite apparent that some governments are so bad that no government is actually preferable.

This is actually the case in Somalia.

Somalia may at some point transition to a government that is objectively better than their current situation, but their current arrangement is, as the paper argues, objectively better than their previously governed condition.

You must be new here . . .

hawk

it does not prevent someone from doing it again in the future so stop thinking you're safe because you run a Mac.

How about if I just feel safer? Is that OK?

>People quickly grasped how to make a picture or
>button show up on every card or just one. Now, if
>you google "livecode background layers," you're
>likely to get instructions to add a background to a
>single card.

You open the group inspector, and click the "backgroundBehavior" box.

That's it. Done.

hawk

Uhm, how is this different since any other microsoft product since MBASIC 5???

hawk

One of the definitions I found was:

One who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause, or principle.

I am sure that fits. While SpaceShip II is mainly intended for a non-exploration purpose, the program has resulted in some significant advances in rocketry and White Knight II has significant non-tourism use. These pilots have been involved in other space efforts, I remember the one who was injured from the Rotary Rocket test flights. There are lots of safer ways for these folks to make as much money as a test pilot is paid. They do what they do to advance our progress in aeronautics and space.

Martyrs? Who killed them for their beliefs?

Go away, troll. They certainly died while pursuing something intensely important that they were willing to risk their lives for. The fact that you weren't around to pull the trigger makes them no less martyrs.

WTF = the Chinese plan 200 years ahead where the USA thinks only to the next "November"

So you think the Chinese started their hacking plans while the US was involved in the war of 1812?

1. I'm too busy to sit around thinking up additional words to throw in so I can score "mod" points

2. The people I like on Slashdot are too busy to read a bunch of additional words I only threw in so I can score "mod" points

3. It's not in my nature to waste words, or to waste time

Actually this particular councilman represents an extremely high-rent district--Manhattan's upper east side. I doubt there are many wealthier neighborhoods in the world. He's not doing this to 'score points', he's doing it to do the right thing.