Letters to the Editor
ncarey
Published Letters: 132 Editor's Choice: 27
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re: Avoiding the US
[Read the article: Ask the Pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People like myself have been avoiding the US for years. Why? Same reason the US is hell to fly through: fear. The US government has in recent years taken to arresting people for no reason, and occasionally sends them off to be tortured. I travel a lot, so my passport is full of Arabic and such, including stamps from a country or two on the Bush's shit list.
Do I know something bad will happen to me if I fly through the states? No...I'm a white, atheist, somewhat geeky sort of person, so probably wouldn't draw that kind of attention. But it's the possibility. The current US government has made it quite clear that no one has any inviolable rights, and non-Americans are barely considered human.
Now, some might say that I travel to other countries that engage in torture and arrest people for political reasons, and they'd be right. The difference is that in those countries, I don't need to fear for myself. I know damn well that my Canadian passport and a western-sized wallet offer protection from the excesses of local government. Not so in the US.
Really, airlines are just adapting to consumer demand. Australia and New Zealand had been off my list of possible destinations for a while, since until recently, the only safe options to get there were the much longer and more expensive routes through Asia. Nonstop flights from Vancouver make the world more accessible again.
So, this is what things have come to. People outside your country fear to enter it, because of the actions of your government.
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Not for free
[Read the article: Is network neutrality a fake issue? Not if you want to watch the BBC]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't think anyone's saying that we should get everything for free. Just that providers either need to change their promises, or deliver on them. If you advertise unlimited internet, then you can't turn around and tell the people providing software that takes advantage of such a connection that they need to foot the bill. It's the ISP's responsibility to price packages so that they are profitable, not the BBC's.
The real, fair, solution, and what we'll see if network neutrality is finally forced by law, is pay for use, same as cell phones now provide. Have a cheap package for people who only check their email, some more expensive packages for people who want a flat fee that covers a reasonable ammount of throughput, and then have pay-as-you go plan. This keeps everyone happy, keeps costs low for people who need an internet connection, but nothing fancy, and passes the costs of building the network onto the people who use it the most.
The current system where the cost of internet is affected only by its speed is stupid.
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Once again, someone who apparently has forgotten that they live in a democracy
[Read the article: At FISA hearing, little new, but some interesting moments]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"When you hold a hearing, you tell our enemies how our system works," Turner said.
Mr. Turner has clearly missed the point. Democracies are supposed to have systems that work out in the open. Yes, this means your enemies know how the system works, but it also, if universally applied, can be expected to reduce the number of enemies. (This is because it's not that they hate you for your freedom...they hate you for the things you're doing in the back alley and hoping no one notices).
This kind of reminds me of a discussion that comes up frequently in the free software community. It's the "security though obscurity" where there's lots of weaknesses, but by keeping as many secrets as possible, hopefully no one will find them vs. "security through robustness" where you have many people looking for security holes and then finding ways to plug them.
In the computer world, the latter is generally thought to be a better approach...at a minimum it makes finding weaknesses a much more difficult and expensive endeavour for malicious types. Applied to the real world, I think it's fair to say the results would be similar.
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Stopped just short
[Read the article: A wireless touch-screen iPod. A video Nano. And a much cheaper iPhone]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Apple product development seems to be on the verge of releasing the next big thing...and then comes up just short. This ipod is essentially a handheld computer. I'm sure many people who only use their computers for email, web browsing, music and video will actually start giving up their home computers - or more likely, not replace them when they become obsolete. But instead of a truly revolutionary product, that would be able to seriously erode the market for personal computers, they handicapped it by putting in a puny hard drive and locking it against third party applications. Fix that, and all of a sudden, you have a fully functioning computer that fits in the palm of your hand.
This is one of two things that has long frustrated me about Apple. They have brilliant engineering and industrial design departments, and their marketing people are very creative...and this coming from someone who's part of what is probably the hardest demographic to market to. But they always move in baby steps. The cynic in me says it's so they can release the next little upgrade in 3-6 months and sell it to you all over again.
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Huh?
[Read the article: A wireless touch-screen iPod. A video Nano. And a much cheaper iPhone]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People are NOT going to sit on a WiFi connection downloading a GB's of content. It's too slow
Unless you've got a commercial grade internet connection, modern WiFi (802.11g and newer) is not what's restricting the speed of your download. My internet connection, at 5 Mbps is significantly faster than most of what qualifies as broadband in the US, and both my wired and wireless computers download at roughly the same speed. What's more, I regular transfer video between my desktop computer (big hardrive) and wireless laptop (hooks up to the TV), and have no complaints about the speed. Takes about a minute for every 100 MB.