Basically, the problem is that beekeeping has a monoculture problem - watch the video at the end of this link which explains that basically the bees are not treated well and there's not really a diversity of managed bees.

Well, if Europe doesn't want Scotland. We could use a 51st state. Especially one with such great scotch.

Oh, I understand what you're saying. Its just not at all relevant. We were discussing how to persuade someone who has a different frame of reference than yourself.

I suggested establishing a common frame of reference as a necessary starting point.

You suggested that language was so malleable that it was impossible to do so.

Which, sounds like you are trying to prove that gravity doesn't work. There is obviously something holding us to this spinning globe. Its obvious that people of different cultural references can break through their own filters, if they are willing.

I think you took offense at that point. My fault I guess. Pointing out arguments as not germane to the topic can be insulting to the one making the argument.

According to the OpenBSD link, OpenBSD uses the Intel and Via random-number generators, but not as the sole source of randomness. The nice thing about mixing random number generators is that if you do it right (like OpenBSD does), the result is at least as random as the most random source: a bad RNG does not reduce the overall quality of randomness.

Yes, but the point is you can still have something that is random until it is not.

Yes, I understand. That doesn't contradict my message: I have to grant an easement to utility companies to set poles in my backyard. As a whole, this is a good thing since it prevents private entities (like a cranky neighbor) from blocking deployment of those utilities to everyone else.

In the exact same vein, I think it's unreal that AT&T - who owns that pole in the easement in my backyard - can block deployment of a utility that everyone wants to use. If I had to grant an easement to AT&T, I think it's completely fair that they should be forced to grant an easement to Google to use the pole for its intended purpose.

You and AC seem to think that I'm against utility easements when I said nothing of the sort.

The output can be completely random, but it doesn't matter if someone else has a mechanism to reproduce exactly the same random stream. Or the ability to toggle on the semi-random mode...

Everybody hates existing internet providers for all the usual reasons, inflated prices, crappy services and restrictive and sometimes secretive rules designed to limit actual use of the service along with degradation of connections delivering services that compete with the services provided by the internet provider. I'll agree to that.

But why do I have a suspicion that while Google's fiber product is currently presented as some kind of benevolent, monopoly disrupting service, is it really going to stay that way long term, or is it eventually going to be another flavor of cable internet with restrictions that serve to promote Google's service and inhibit competitors?

While I think that AT&T is just foot dragging to avoid losing business here, I think there's something to the idea that Google wants to look like a telecom but not play by the same rules.

But those physical poles are in my physical backyard. If I have to grant utilities an easement, then I am perfectly fine with them having to grant an easement to other utilities.

Are the poles on public ride of way. If so then to bad for AT&T.

Until very recently, though, booking photos were funcitonally private. It took digital photography combined with modern record keeping systems for them to be widely available, and even now you can't simply browse the police department's web site (at least here in Minneapolis) and grab the photos. You have to go down to the department to get a copy, and it wouldn't surprise me if the copy you get is a printout.

So even though booking photos have a legal status as public informaiton, the idea of running a web site where you "publish" them and then offer to remove them for a fee seems to be not much different than "revenge porn" at least in terms of the extortion component.

Both kinds of sites are making private photos which could be damaging to the people in question. I'd even wager that booking photo sites do more real harm in some ways than revenge porn does.

The legal bar for being arrested is pretty low and lots of people are arrested and quickly released without ever having been charged with a crime, let alone tried and found guilty of one. Yet the mere fact that you were arrested can be used against you to prevent you from getting a job or housing by people who don't know or care to differentiate between arrest and conviction, or simply believe that anyone who was arrested must be guilty of something. It's trivial to think of situations where you could be arrested just because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time or because of mistaken identity with someone who is a criminal.

Some revenge porn may be pictures of people indulging in sexual behavior which could negatively influence their reputatons, but I would bet a lot of it are merely nude photos many of which could have been taken surrepitiously. Even the most petty HR department isn't going to deny a job to a woman just because a photo exists that documents the fact that she does indeed have breasts and a vagina. The harm that results in these photos being public is purely psychological, except where the photos reveal unusual sexual taste or the site further crosses the line by trying to link the photo to pesonal information like addresses and phone numbers.

All of the conventional politicians are stuck trying to push a phony image in lockstep with Ameircan puritansim -- churchgoing, once-a-month missionary position and nothing more than a weak cup of coffee on a Saturday morning.

Since the lifestyles they actually lead involve mistresses, hookers, cocaine, whisky by the barrel, and all manner of shady business deals and votes-for-cash schemes, they are of course vulnerable to all kinds of blackmail by those who can collect the dossiers.

Rob Ford doesn't care. He's willing to admit he gets really fucked up and will try pretty much anything, including hittin' dat pipe 'till da rock is all gone.

We need more Rob Fords who just don't give a shit and aren't slaves to the petty morality of American culture.

Your point is irrelevant to this conversation. Obviously, it is possible for people to change their belief set. Obviously, it is possible to learn from cultures other than your own despite all existing cultural filters and language barriers.

Nothing is wrong with the language. You just need to listen with an ear toward understanding. Ironically, what you are trying to do is exactly what Christian Evangelists do. You have to understand their world view in order to effectively communicate your own. Of course, if you happen to meet a well trained Christian Evangelist, he'd be more than willing to help set up the common understanding. But don't go in expecting to convert a person based on your unassailable logic, and convincing prose over the course of a five minute conversation. People have free will, you can expose them to the truth any number of times but they have to decide for themselves what they believe.

Ok, what browser do *you* use over a 2400bps modem in 2013?