How much is your time worth? How long would it take you to track down 24 routers for an average price of $2.08 apiece, never mind the logistics of getting them all ordered and shipped? Alternatively, how many would you have to buy from a single supplier to get the unit cost down to that price? Probably more than $50 worth in either case.

Eh? I don't know what you were discussing but I was discussing that the SM cannot explain gravity not whether General Relativity accurately describes gravity. Since the SM cannot explain gravity it cannot explain why an object will fall when dropped. Could you bolt some monstrosity onto the SM to explain that one situation? Possibly but I doubt it and, even if you did, what you added would not be gravity.

The problem in that case is that it's not the government's land. The problem there is the government thinking it is their land, rather than them being employed by the people to enforce their (those peoples') rights to that land.

Someone exercising their rights over their own property is perfectly fine. Someone else attempting to claim rights over someone else's property is a problem. Government censorship is a problem in principle (consequential problems aside) because it claims a right for the government to control what other people can do with their own property.

Unless you're writing that proprietary software for yourself in isolation, it helps a lot to have a thick skin. If you release it to the public, it will receive harsh criticism. If you work with peers, sooner or later somebody is going to criticize something you've worked on.

I will say that at least at work you're paid to put up with bullshit. On the other hand, developing free software can be good resume filler and experience, along with a sense of accomplishment if people like your stuff.

They are using publicly subsidized infrastructure on publicly owned land to seek rent on a network they are not investing in or improving.

That is the heart of the matter. They're so used to huge profits for next to no effort that the notion of giving customers value for their money never enters their mind. And they'd laugh at the suggestion of "invest in your own network".

There really needs to be some anti-trust cases brought against the biggest telecoms. Threaten to do to them what was done to AT&T decades ago. You'd see service improve everywhere in a big hurry.

That is like arguing that special relativity does not preclude faster than light travel. You cannot add FTL travel to SR without inconsistencies (like breaking causality) but you technically can add it. You could also imagine developing a framework which expanded on SR and allowed FTL velocities. In the same way adding gravity to the Standard Model creates inconsistencies (renormalization cut-off) but you can imagine a framework which expands on the SM and somehow incorporates gravity.

The only difference between these two is that gravity is a phenomenon that clearly exists whereas FTL does not (as far as we know). Hence we say the SR forbids FTL because we have no way to incorporate FTL and we do not see it. In the same way the SM forbids gravity: it leads to inconsistencies in the theory just like FTL does in SR. However since gravity clearly exists we conclude that the SM is wrong not that gravity is forbidden!

Her fiction is like that of L Ron Hubbards. It feeds into her stated positions on politics or religion.

This can be especially hilarious in the case of L Ron Hubbard.

Moderating his own comments is just basic engineering fail.

If his comments are going to be moderated then it should not be him doing the moderating. It's like testing your own code. You have to be willing to accept feedback that's out of your control or else you'll never know if your stuff is any good.

> I am a civil rights activist. Your right to be free from government sponsored censorship is, IMHO, a fundamental pillar of Liberty. That is not at ALL the same as a non-government entity choosing what comments it wants to display.

You are a piss poor civil rights activist.

If he's trying to badmouth the MythTV developers, I am inclined to believe that whatever grief he got he really brough on himself. They will go out of their way to try and be helpful. Unless you tread on one of their piracy sacred cows, they are a pretty tolerant lot.

> or to become a free software developer

Are you fucking kidding?

You are putting your work out there for the world to examine and criticize. You damn well better have a thick skin. If you expose yourself to the possibility of some harsh remarks, then you should not be surprised when you get some.

It's not unlike choosing to become some sort of Hollywood celebrity. The scale is smaller but the principle is the same. The entire world can see you stripped bare and their response might be negative.

It might not even be with mean intent. The problem with expecting never to be offended is that everyone has a different standard in that regard.

Free Speech is a principle. Suppressing free expression is just as despicable when it is done by corporations and individuals. The principle is a social idea, not merely a limited guideline for governments.

Things like the Bill of Rights are just a manifestion of the idea that the principle is important, important enough to codify. That doesn't mean that the principle should be limited only to government.

That's far too much like the idea that rights of individuals are limited and are to be rationed out bit by bit when the document in question is based on the idea that governments are the entities who's power should be rationed out bit by bit.

You are taking the ideas that are embodied by the Constitution and Bill of Rights and turning them on their head.

Being a "tin plated overbearing dictator with delusions of godhood" is not cool and shouldn't be tolerated generally. Doesn't just have to be government.

aren't there laws against monopolistic practices?

There are but they were pretty well gutted back in the days of the Reagan Administration. Now, the ones that are left are mainly ignored. The big exceptions, like the Microsoft case, usually come as political punishment or when the infraction is so blatant that it cannot be ignored.

If we had a Justice Department that was more than a bunch of cronies and amateurs, there wouldn't be a single telecom with any interest in content providers, and there certainly would not have been any of the mega-mergers in the airline industry and others.

We haven't had a real Justice Department since before the days of Ed Meese. Meese is really the very model of the modern attorney general, who believes his main job is to make sure no rich people get in any trouble and to find ways to subvert the Constitution.

Software is. This manpage change appears to be implying that the corresponding software is covered by some license other than some variant of the GPL as the given restrictions are incompatible with that license.

The gag order is blatantly illegal under the 4th amendment, and as such carries no force of law.