Actually, since he was an engineer and now he's management, it seems he DID make that effort and was successful at it (since he's not an ex-manager).

Yes I can. The patriot act is a bad law. It is also an irrelevant law regardless of what you say. There are over a hundred thousand federal laws alone. We are drowning in laws. There are entire libraries, entire buildings, filled with nothing but laws. Just the ones made by Congress, nevermind the rulings created by our courts, or administrative bodies, bylaws, guidelines. In all of that enormous complexity, there exists a 'backup copy' if you will of the Patriot Act.

The fact is the law is just a convenience for law enforcement. Its absence won't hinder them in any way -- there are a hundred other justifications already lined up and ready for use to continue their behavior.

The changing of a law means nothing if it isn't accompanied by a change of attitude, a change of focus, of perspective -- We have a culture of fear. Fear of the unknown; the terrorists, the boogiemen under our bed, whatever. We have let this fear part us from our liberty and freedom. No law, or the abolition of one, can make us whole.

For this to be meaningful, we need a paradigm shift from being oppressed by our fear to being sustained by it. We must move beyond our fear; We must conquer it. We must prove to the world that every terrorist that blows himself up on our lands, will only strengthen our resolve. It will only drive us to anger, and in our anger we will redouble every quality they hate in us. We will shine with the light of a hundred thousand suns and burn the little fuckers into dust. Our victory against them will be so complete, so absolute, that nobody will ever again test our resolve.

That is what we must project. That is the attitude; One where we will not sacrifice even the tiniest part of our culture, our freedom. We will tell them: Come. We're ready. Come and try and stop us. This is fucking America, and here, here we are free.

Attitude. That's what we need. Not laws.

It is fortunate then that the Wozzes of the world are not so easily discouraged. Jobs' legacy is that he became rich at the expense of so many others, lived a life of vanity and turtleneck sweaters, and then bargained with the devil to gain a few more years of that life when sickness came for him, arranging secret operations that skirted the law. He was hated by all who worked for him, and his empire is already starting to crumble, and he hasn't been in the ground pushing daisies for all that long either.

But Woz... He helped to kick off the start of the information age. That's something he can tell his children, and his children's children. It is something that those who care about history will remember. But even if they don't, even if history forgets the name Steve Wozniac, he contributed something that genuinely was for the betterment of all mankind.

And that's why the Wozzes of the world get up every day, brush their teeth, comb their hair back, put on their work shoes, and drive the long road into work; They don't care about recognition, they care about contribution. So it has been with all the truly great people down through history. And that is why what Jobs built is already crumbling -- it was just a effigy to his own greatness -- while what Woz built, the personal computer, has lifted over a billion people into the information age already and dramatically altered the course of human history. Apple will eventually die; but the personal computer -- I think that will live on for a very, very long time.

The roads in my neighborhood haven't had a sufficiently major overhaul since the neighborhood was built in '74. There is no conduit. The storm drains have never been replaced (and they're fine). They're also not interconnected. Just how many lifetimes do you expect people to wait?

The cable and power are on poles. It is a fairly complex arrangement where the power company owns the poles and the cable company gets to use them (subject to a minimum safety clearance).

There was that minor matter of the UK citizens who turned out not to be terrorists. Also a few kids who just lived in (what was left of) the neighborhood. Apparently the contrast is neither stark nor evident. How can you claim to fight for the American way of life while presuming guilt until proven innocent. I get that it has to be that way in combat, but not once a prisoner is taken.

Meanwhile, you have no idea of what sort of person I might or might not have seen.

The Yahoo/Google approach is a version of the impenetrable wall. There is no way to call them to get a person who can/will transfer you to a tech (unless you have upgraded). If a small operation tries it, a customer will (right or wrong) call the business number and attempt a combination of sweet talk, harassment, and legal threats to the receptionist to get connected to a tech.

Power lines are a slightly larger gauge than telephone wires for one. Right now, there are 3 cables coming to my neighborhood to carry power. I don't think we want to put 250 of them on the pole instead of 3. A few miles down the road, those 3 connect to a substation. I'm rather sure we don't want a dozen substations where one serves now.

Part of the problem is that many of the free market zealots misunderstand Smith's fundamentals. When he spoke of competition,he didn't mean a bunch of resellers all buying from the same wholesaler. He didn't mean 2 or 3 competitors, he meant dozens or hundreds. He was fairly specific that they had to be small. He warned that when the sellers were incorporated and became large that they would distort the market.

In the early '90s with many small and often local ISPs, the model more or less worked for a while, but then the (not so) great consolidation happened and with broadband, for all the technical improvements it represents made it impractical for small ISPs to build out their own infrastructure.

For a while, the CLECs held on by renting dry pairs from the Bells and colocating their own DSLAMs, but once theBells decided to jump in themselves, in spite of regulations for equal access, suddenly and 'mysteriously' orders from the CLECs ended up at the back of the queue every time. Bell could light up DSL next week but a Covad might take a month or two due to telco foot dragging (the same telco that hooked their own customers up in a week or 2).

Cable or DSL is nowhere near a broad enough choice to meke a market work. A market solution will require that the last mile be community owned at the very least. That's why the ISPs fight so hard against that in court. So far the evidence suggests that a municipal ISP can provide much better connectivity at a fraction of the price.

I love how this asshole is saying code has no practical value, and yet the only reason said asshole has a job is because someone coded the OS, web server, browser, the routers and switches, and the website itself that he's posting from to claim this.

The thing about society is that every job is important. We need janitors as much as we need CEOs. We need specialist labor as much as general. I mean, we entered a new age in human history -- the Information Age, because most of us are now specialists of one kind or another. This dinosaur is still living in the Industrial Age where you only needed a few schmoot people, and the rest you could (sometimes literally) just feed into the machines.

Sigh. Firstly, you need to read section 215. It grants the Director of the FBI (not NSA) the ability to get ex parte authorizations for a search warrant, and the recipient is then gagged. That's it. The NSA isn't even referenced or involved, except perhaps to process the evidence gathered by the FBI. This is how they go to a bank, library, ISP, etc., and say "We want all your records on this person." and they have to turn them over and then not inform their client this happened. And they don't have to produce any evidence or give a reason to the recipient. It's just "wham, bam, thank you ma'am." ... and you better keep this between us.

The authority and power to do this is available in literally hundreds of other laws; Striking section 215 would simply mean they have to use a different administrative process to continue doing the exact same thing. This is political grandstanding -- not only is this "anti-NSA" bill not about the NSA, but regardless of whether it passes or fails, it will not change how business is being done.

Which, big surprise -- Our congress-critters are introducing a bill that accomplishes nothing, but has a nice, patriotic, sounding name. The "freedom act". Yeah. We can all get behind that! What does the freedom act do?

Nothing.

Typical.

Pretty much the entire Act as it currently stands. There's a lot of vaguely-worded clauses that grant nearly limitless authority and do not require disclosure of the reasons for many police actions. It would be relatively easy to stitch together what is being given up by these politicians from other parts of the Act and have yourself a new Franken-agency.

No country's national anthem is "We're Number Two". I am not sure how you could take such esoteric concept as "greatest" when referring to something as large as a country. We would need to establish a set of criterion for objectively measuring greatness.

There are a number of things that are unique to America which are positive. Somewhere over half of our Fortune 500 companies were created by immigrants, despite being only about 1/8th of the population. That certainly speaks to economic opportunity. And we have a temperate climate, and abundant food; We are the bread basket of the world. If America stopped exporting food, billions would starve. We also possess the largest military on the planet and tons of natural resources. People love to bash America, but I think when you look at it as a complete entity, it is certainly one of the best places to live. That isn't to say we are number one at anything, but that also isn't to say we need to be either.

I don't mind a little flag waving and "America, Fuck Yeah!" from time to time. We should be proud of our accomplishments. But that is not license to ignore our failures, or to sit on our laurels. And the same can be said wherever you live as well.

... In other news, senators stopped short of repealing the Patriot Act, likely aware that without deleting the entire act, all they're accomplishing is switching the data collection activities to another agency, which will then perform the role the NSA currently has.

It's the Al Gore pokemon, which hit the graveyard a number of years back, but apparently Mozilla just played the Monster Reborn! card. Remember how he said "We must also promote global access to the Internet. We need to bridge the digital divide not just within our country, but among countries. Only by giving people around the world access to this technology can they tap into the potential of the Information Age." Yup. That. It's baaaaaaack.

Up next, throwing down a wall of magikarp while they desperately try to evade the massive amounts of snark that is about to descend upon them.

Infrastructure that depends on right of way to land creates a natural monopoly. I don't feel going laisse faire would accomplish anything. If you remove government control and hand over access to private citizens, you will amplify the problem a thousand-fold; Everyone between point A and point B will want a cut, and not everyone will be willing to offer access at a reasonable rate. This is why you have easements and eminent domain. Our current system places right of way in the hands of municipalities, which often offer exclusive contracts and can also be bullied or bought off in ways that the state or federal authorities cannot.

You cannot have a 'free' economy when you're dealing with a natural monopoly. Even Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations said as much about land ownership. It must be owned or controlled by the government, or you get situations exactly like this; Profits increase because the fixed costs remain constant but demand is ever-increasing. Telecommunications is the classic case of a natural monopoly. You would be hard pressed to find a better example!