Agreed. I'm definitely not saying that there are no genuine brilliant "rock-stars" in these fields. Even in my field, boring old network/desktop support, every once in a while you find someone who just seems to be really good at diagnosing problems quickly, making intuitive leaps to conclusions that frequently turn out to be correct, or quickly assessing which risks to take. There are also people who are kind of amazing at dealing with users/customers, where someone will call in completely and justifiably pissed off, and the tech will listen and talk to them, and in the end the caller is satisfied.

Those people may have, to some extent, earned the right to "be a cowboy". However, the people who have earned that right are much more rare than the people who think that they have. And what's more, those people would often do better to color within the lines most of the time, and save "being a cowboy" for the relatively rare situations where it'll pay off. Sorry if I'm mixing metaphors.

So my point here is, even with those young, smart, motivated programmers who are working like coke-addicts, they might be making some big strides and getting a lot of things done. Still, at some point you want to take that flashy application and make it stable and reliable, and then a bunch of coke-addicted cowboys aren't going to succeed.

Take as evidence iOS jailbreakers who do it so they can download $0.99 apps for free. There are plenty of people who are never going to pay anything if they can get away with it.

Well sure. On the other hand, look at iTunes. Before iTunes Napster et all were wildly popular. Then Apple starts offering downloads at $0.99 a track and suddenly they're making a ton of money and the music filesharing sites seemed to lose all traction. Lowering the price may not have solved the problem, but it greatly reduced it while creating a revenue stream that wasn't there previously.

There will always be those who won't pay, granted. With that in mind, the question becomes one of how much do you want to penalise the honest Internet users in the vain pursuit of an unobtainable absolute?

If you think for example that a computer game is too expensive and you pirate it, surely you should put the amount that you think is correct in an envelope and send it to the producer of the game? How many people are doing that? Everyone else is just lying.

Well, if someone was to illegally download a game, they'd be foolish to provide paper evidence of the crime, so to that extent I suppose it's understandable. On the other hand, if the game creators established a channel for this to happen safely, they might be surprised. I mean that's the basis on which Humble Bundles operate and I gather they've frequently been quite successful.

Granted, it's the publisher's decision whether or not to offer work on those terms, but you can't really claim it never happens or that it never works.

I don't think it's about "going to extremes" per se, but people have the expectation and demand for a single solution and a single "right answer". They're looking for a "correct belief system" that can't be challenged and will never require revision. They're looking for "the correct thing to study in school" to the exclusion of all other topics, which should guarantee you a good, easy job that makes you rich. They're expecting there to be a "correct place to invest your money" which will return large profits every year with no risk whatsoever. They want a "correct diet" where they can eat some specific combination of foods that will make them always healthy and in-shape.

And those things don't really exist. They can't exist. But a bunch of people get convinced that they've the "correct" belief system, they run around trying to get rid of all of the other ones. Someone tells us the "correct" field to study is law, and then we end up with a glut of lawyers. We hear on the news that the "correct" place to invest your money is home ownership, and we get a housing boom followed by economic collapse.

"Going to extremes" is the result. "Wanting easy answers" is the problem.

I'm not a programmer, but more in IT support, and but it seems like there's always someone doing the same thing: trying to be clever. Everyone wants to be a cowboy. Everyone wants to do something badass that serves their ego.

more often than not, doing a good job is more about paying attention, being thorough, and doing the obvious thing. Listen to the user, read the error messages, look in the relevant log file. Tell the user what to expect, and then keep them informed until the problem is resolved.

I wonder if that's that it's about in all professions. Maybe most jobs don't require special genius, but most of the secret is just being thorough and conscientious, and using some common sense.

Oh I didn't realize wages were cut. Absolutely employers would much rather cut wages and have a shorter workweek.

That's even better. That means employees get an extra day for their family and hobbies with no impact on productivity.

Net neutrality wasn't the entirety of GPs claim. GP's claim was about "laws that essentially make private investments subject to public control"

Net neutrality originally was a local claim, about the last mile regarding non discrimination. It was part of the regulatory framework for last mile. Some aspects of that regulatory framework, have decreased profits and thus decreased infrastructure investment. On first and middle mile it is harder to see the negative impact of net neutrality but it is also much harder to see any impact.

OK if that's what you meant then bad choice of verbs. To break something is to, "separate or cause to separate into pieces as a result of a blow, shock, or strain". You want to use break then something like "break the power of the cable companies... either through ___ or through ___".

That's not technically a T1 it is bonded DSL at 1536kbs. What makes DSL cheap is that it isn't going direct back to the CO but is shared. If it isn't shared, then why not bond it and deliver it as an actual T1. I'd assume they don't intend to meet the SLAs. Certainly though bonding up lots of inexpensive connections can make for a so-so to good but not great internet at terrific price point.

Rules not allowing differences in rates between residential customers prevent cable companies from recouping their investment effectively on more remote connections. They also don't allow apartment owners to do things like offer cable as an amenity for 1/2 of what it would cost to buy.

Interesting idea! A relay and a short rural cable run. I like it.

No on what you said, yes on what you meant. It is either or. T1 is a specific standard of how you use analog copper. VDSL is another way to use copper. So it is either / or for the telco. However... those high frequency DSL signals won't make it to the LEC, he's likely too far for VSDL2 to work.

The business license is no big deal. And the $600 / mo / 1.5m is probably reducible with an agent. So something like $250 / mo or 5mbs for $600 if he prices out different options.

That isn't highway robbery though. While there is lots of old copper at 24 lines per 1.5mbs offering people good modern bandwidth chews up a ton. Say 88mbs is 56*24 lines. It is a limited resource.

Did you ask the data center what providers were in there or check a fiber map? It probably wasn't Comcast.

You are contradicting yourself. If it is a utility it can be a monopoly no problem it just has substantial regulation and oversight. If you want competition then there is much less regulation and oversight.