Specifically regarding getting you to purchase something you wouldn't have, well, I don't see that as bad. You buy stuff because that stuff is worth more to you than the money is sitting in your wallet. That is what every honest transaction is...an exchange that favors both parties.

Shady practices like making it difficult to redeem a coupon are a different story, and frankly should be illegal.

Like many medical advances, this will likely take years before it is approved for use in the USA. Apart from the FDA being very slow, this would cut into revenues from colonoscopies.

Even things like better and safe sunscreen are available in other developed countries but not in the USA. Improved treatments for tooth decay took years before approval in the USA.

Academic experiments have external results, publishing findings as scientific research. Business experiments have internal results, data mining with the goal of increasing profits (via providing better value to the consumer, at least in capitalist theory).

Well, at least, I can hope the results stay internal to the business. As with data mining in general, that's not always the case. But perhaps this becoming a mainstream topic will end with a framework on which to judge companies that release "experiment" data about their customers.

As long as your Karma is "Excellent", you're ok.

I wonder if in some future code, those with >50 karma will have rollover errors. :)

<tt>&lt;quote&gt;&lt;p&gt; &lt;i class="fa-caret-down"&gt;His manner is coarse&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's not "coarse", it's abusive. Namecalling, mocking, ridicule, hyperbole. That's abuse.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; &lt;i class="fa-caret-down"&gt;you must admit that he's gotten the job done.&nbsp; Linux advances on schedule, patches get incorporated, code gets tested, and all proceeds smoothly.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I sacrificed a chicken yesterday and successfully committed code. You must admit that the ritualistic sacrifice got the job done.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;("Getting the job done" does not, and has never required being abusive to others. Getting the job done while being abusive is not proof that being abusive is required or even was part of, "getting the job done.")&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/quote&gt;Heh M$ bytchboi troll<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...&nbsp; such a sensitive&nbsp; ridiculed faggboi who NEEDS the iron abusive bootheel to get work done&nbsp;<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... take a pointed slapdown-shaft up the *zzwhole and shutup. </tt>

You have that pretty much backwards. Without Linux, GCC wouldn't matter to anyone.

What you probably mean is that without Linux, gcc wouldn't have mattered to anyone that matters to *YOU*.

If he hadn't pinpointed the problem, how would he know that gcc was to blame in the first place?

It's absolutely a waste of space. The * character uses considerably more real-estate than the letter i, which if drawn without serifs, is possibly the tiniest letter in the alphabet.

My implication is that "unlimited" means it is ultimately limited only by available technology, which has no set limit in how good it can get, and so is still really unlimited.

I'm not sure if you meant to reply to me or to somebody else, because what you are saying is pretty much what I had said... that any so-called limits that might exist arise as a consequence of a limitation of the technology, and since there is no pre-defined notion of just how fast that technology can become, it can still be considered unlimited in that sense.

It seems the easiest way to get to the bottom of this is for Netflix to allow a third party to send packets from Netflix IP addresses on its backbone connections through the last-mile service providers to endpoints owned by the third party. If the packets transmit at the same or expected rates, the problem is with Netflix. If not, it's with the ISP or backbone provider.

Assuming Netflix had nothing to hide, they should be fine with allowing this. Same with Verizon.

Unlimited bandwidth is not possible. You can make it illegal all you want. It doesn't trump physics.

Limited bandwidth does not justify throttling some customers more than others, depending on the nature of their "unlimited" contract.

If the idea of "unlimited" bothers you, then think of an unlimited plan as being capped at whatever the technology currently being used would allow you to download 24/7 at whatever speed the network can support, for the entire billing cycle. As technology improves, that limit goes up... without any predefined limit.

Which is, of course, what "unlimited" means. So in reality, the term is quite accurate. The fact that a person can't physically download an infinite amount of content in a finite period because network speeds are finite is entirely irrelevant.