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Comment Re:Congressional fix? (Score 1) 217

by mc6809e (#46849431) Attached to: How the FCC Plans To Save the Internet By Destroying It

It seems to me the lobbying forces on the part of the content providers, Netflix et al., would be pretty formidableâ"unless they think the price is worth it to suppress upstart competition. Which is it?
I think they're getting to the point where they're willing to pay for prioritization just to guarantee quality.

A big problem is that we have a transmission protocol (TCP) that is a well deployed but incredibly stupid protocol that that intentionally floods the network with packets until it breaks, then backs off for a little while, then tries to break the network again, always trying to consume every little extra bit of buffer space and bandwidth that might be available in competition with every other server that's doing the same thing. It's constant war with attacks and retreats.

There are a least two approaches used to cope with this. One is to add bandwidth. The trouble is that TCP will greedily consume any additional bandwidth that's available and you're back to the original problem.

The second is to buy your own little slice of bandwidth and isolate your stream from all the battles going on between the other streams. This solves the problem for you but creates a kind of bandwidth aparthied. Your traffic is finally safe, but there's less bandwidth available for everyone else.

The media streamers would prefer guarantees so that their customers get the quality they pay for. Adding bandwidth doesn't provide any guarantee. Packet prioritization at the router (almost) does. We're getting to the point where Netflix, etc are willing to pay for prioritization that gives a guarantee.

Submission + - Supreme Court Upholds Michigan's Ban On Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: CNN reports that the Supreme Court by a vote of 6 — 2 has upheld a Michigan law banning the use of racial criteria in college admissions, finding that a lower court did not have the authority to set aside the measure approved in a 2006 referendum supported by 58% of voters. "This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy. "Michigan voters used the initiative system to bypass public officials who were deemed not responsive to the concerns of a majority of the voters with respect to a policy of granting race-based preferences that raises difficult and delicate issues." Kennedy’s core opinion in the Michigan case seems to exalt referenda as a kind of direct democracy that the courts should be particularly reluctant to disturb. This might be a problem for same-sex marriage opponents if a future Supreme Court challenge involves a state law or constitutional amendment enacted by voters. Justice Sonia Sotomayor reacted sharply in disagreeing with the decision in a 58 page dissent. "For members of historically marginalized groups, which rely on the federal courts to protect their constitutional rights, the decision can hardly bolster hope for a vision of democracy (PDF) that preserves for all the right to participate meaningfully and equally in self-government."

The decision was the latest step in a legal and political battle over whether state colleges can use race and gender as a factor in choosing what students to admit. Michigan has said minority enrollment at its flagship university, the University of Michigan, has not gone down since the measure was passed. Civil rights groups dispute those figures and say other states have seen fewer African-American and Hispanic students attending highly competitive schools, especially in graduate level fields like law, medicine, and science. “Today’s decision turns back our nation’s commitment to racial equality and equal treatment under the law by sanctioning separate and unequal political processes that put undue burdens on students,” National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said in a statement. “The Supreme Court has made it harder to advocate and, ultimately, achieve equal educational opportunity."

Submission + - The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World's Richest (nytimes.com)

Submitted by gollum123
gollum123 writes: The American middle class, long the most affluent in the world, has lost that distinction. While the wealthiest Americans are outpacing many of their global peers, a New York Times analysis shows that across the lower- and middle-income tiers, citizens of other advanced countries have received considerably larger raises over the last three decades. After-tax middle-class incomes in Canada — substantially behind in 2000 — now appear to be higher than in the United States. The poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans. The struggles of the poor in the United States are even starker than those of the middle class. A family at the 20th percentile of the income distribution in this country makes significantly less money than a similar family in Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland or the Netherlands. Thirty-five years ago, the reverse was true.

Comment Re:Well considering that.. (Score 1) 390

by mc6809e (#46800331) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Hungry Students, How Common?

There is not a SINGLE European country with a worse ratio than the US. Granted, the aforementioned Georgia along with Portugal and the UK are coming close to it, but none of them is actually WORSE. Most central European (and let's also lump in the Scandinavian) countries revolve around a disparity factor of about 5-8.

That means that we're looking at about three times more equality in Europe than the US.

I'm not saying you don't have a point. Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. But if you're going to compare inequality in Europe to inequality in the USA, you can't compare the USA with individual European countries.

Smaller inequality in all individual European countries doesn't imply smaller inequality in Europe as a whole.

Inequality inside Albania, for example, might be small, but there's a great deal of inequality between Albania and the Netherlands.

Submission + - Anti-tech protests in San Francisco turn out to be underhanded ploy by union

Submitted by execthis
execthis writes: In the news over past weeks and months have been stories about protests in San Francisco in which buses for Google have been blocked by protesters. Today it is revealed that a union is behind these protests, which amount to a dirty tactic on their part to attempt to humiliate the City and County of San Francisco government into giving raises to their employees. In other words, they have been faux protests staged by the Service Employees International Union as an underhanded attempt to gain leverage and force the city to give them wage increases. Its interesting to note that there recently were other seemingly faux protests in front of Staples stores, this time by the postal workers (I say seemingly because they did not appear to openly reveal that they were in fact postal workers).
Crime

Anti-Game-Violence Legislator Arrested, Faces Gun Trafficking Charges 234

Posted by Soulskill from the should-have-stayed-home-and-played-GTA dept.
Several readers sent word that California State Senator Leland Yee was arrested today. He's accused of conspiring to traffic guns and commit wire fraud, to defraud citizens of honest services, and bribery. The complant (PDF) also names 25 other defendants. Yee is known for pushing legislation that would ban the sale of violent video games to minors. "Federal prosecutors also allege Yee agreed to perform official acts in exchange for the money, including one instance in which he introduced a businessman to state legislators who had significant influence over pending medical marijuana legislation. In exchange, the businessman -- who was actually an undercover FBI agent -- agreed to donate thousands to Yee's campaign fund, according to the indictment. The indictment also describes an August 2013 exchange in which [former school board president Keith Jackson] told an undercover officer that Yee had an arms trafficking contact. Jackson allegedly said Yee could facilitate a meeting for a donation."

Comment Re:Existing programs (Score 2) 529

by mc6809e (#46504695) Attached to: The Poor Neglected Gifted Child

"Just" put more money into those programs?

How many more votes will that give the party in power in the next election? Probably none, so it won't happen.

Democracy works hard to please the 51% -- not the 5% of parents that have a gifted child.

Of course those parents pay taxes just like other parents, but that doesn't mean the state has to give a damn.

Democracy doesn't require that the state please everyone -- it only must please 51%. And the system is constantly adjusting to figure out how to screw the 49% to please the 51%. Public education gets caught up in the process like everything else touched by the democratic process.

Comment Jerks (Score 1) 127

by mc6809e (#46423317) Attached to: Microsoft Confirms DirectX 12 Is Alive and Well, Demo Coming At GDC

These sorts of announcements have the effect of freezing developers and keeping them from moving to superior technology.

They would have done nothing if not for AMD and now they're going to steal AMD's thunder.

This sort of thing makes my blood boil.

If you're a developer out there, please, don't let Microsoft get away with this.

Comment Re:The only thing I care about. (Score 2) 479

And later went on to liberate almost all of Europe. Do your point is ?

You exaggerate (probably because you're some sort of Soviet apologist).

The Soviets were doomed without the help of the rest of the Allies. The entire world would have been better off if the Soviets and Nazis had just been allowed to kill each other off. They were made for each other.

Communists, Nazis -- how anyone could pick one as better than the other is beyond reason.

Submission + - Income Inequality Through Assortative Mating: Marry Up (pewresearch.org)

Submitted by retroworks
retroworks writes: While tax laws, minimum wages, and patent extension are frequently blamed for the rising gap between "haves and have nots", an international economics study finds another simple factor behind income inequality. Marriage. As gender equality has improved in the professional workplace, paired incomes don't occur randomly. "Better educated people are increasingly more likely to marry other better-educated people while those with less formal schooling are more likely to choose a less well-educated partner." Using Census data, the (UPenn directed) researchers found that "across the board, the income gap between couples with relatively high and those with relatively low levels of education had widened substantially since 1960 relative to the average household income... the relative earnings of couples with high school degrees had fallen by 20 percentage points relative to the average while the household incomes of highly educated husbands and wives had increased by 43 points."

The Economist http://www.economist.com/news/... notes, " The economic incentive to marry your peers has increased. A woman with a graduate degree whose husband dropped out of high school in 1960 could still enjoy household income 40% above the national average; by 2005, such a couple would earn 8% below it." And in Slate, http://www.slate.com/articles/... Matthew Iglesias puts it in terms a nerd can related to. "She likes Doctor Who; I like Star Trek...But one thing about us is pretty similar: We both went to fancy colleges full of people with high SAT scores. And in that regard, we’re pretty typical." Perhaps "Natural Selection" is the best explanation for rising college tuition, and increasing student debt.

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