Letters to the Editor
mattwa33186
Published Letters: 432 Editor's Choice: 45
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It's not an internet phone issue
[Read the article: Skype is up again, but not for everyone]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're going to have these kinds of issues with any new or relatively new communications technology. Usually it will be much more localized than the Skype incident, but it happens all the time.
The terrible monolith that was AT&T, which just happened to deliver the best, cheapest, most reliable phone service in the world, spoiled every American born before The Breakup. The vertical integration they had allowed them to invest in levels of redundancy that ensured their services were almost never unavailable, and most of our telecom industry still runs on that infrastructure. Now, after the government has done us the "favor" of opening the industry up to competition - with the resulting increases in rates and reductions in quality - telecoms are faced with razor thin margins and huge marketing expenses which have made investment in quality and redundancy next to impossible.
Cell phone service is pretty much treated as a luxury. I live in an area where the backup batteries for the cell towers can keep service going for 4 - 8 hours but the typical power outage is measured in days or even weeks. The money for backup generators just isn't there, and never will be.
As for Skype, one of 3 things probably happened. Either they made an upgrade to all their servers which had consequences they didn't or couldn't test for, their servers got hacked, or the clients themselves were hacked over time and the time bomb went off. It's not a problem with internet phone service per se, but with any architecture where there is no localization of service, and that's going to become more and more prevalent across all communications technologies as time goes on.
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An excellent study!
[Read the article: Ridiculous "study" says iPhone's keyboard is inefficient]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The researchers proved what they set out to prove. The customer got what they paid for. Anyone with half a brain will ignore it. Those who believe it get what they deserve.
I much prefer obviously, transparently flawed studies to apparently genuine research that makes it difficult to determine exactly how you are being lied to.
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And the winner is...
[Read the article: The next-gen disc format war gets uglier, more ridiculous]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Neither. Something else will be coming, probably pretty soon.
CD's became the media of choice because their storage capacity was just right for full length albums at the highest fidelity. Neither Blu-Ray or HD has a simple, compelling reason why it is better than the other format. Someone will create a format that has that advantage, and this will all end. Standardization is the foundation of the home entertainment industry, and things will become standardized once again most ricky-tick once the manufacturers see their sales suffer.
Remember DivX discs?
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Anon
[Read the article: The next-gen disc format war gets uglier, more ridiculous]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's pretty cool :)
But I still think the format was so wildly successful because 75 minutes was the perfect size for a 10 - 12 song album.
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I demand better On Demand
[Read the article: The next-gen disc format war gets uglier, more ridiculous]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have Comcast, and On Demand pretty much sucks. As is typically the case with cable companies, the infrastructure is simply not robust enough to support the demands of the users. The first 20 minutes or so of any movie will be shown in black and white as the load balancers try to adjust to the terrible strain of one additional feed. Failure to connect at all and getting booted out in the middle of a show are not uncommon occurrences. Someone needs to tell these guys that servers are cheap.
And they are still better than BellSouth. With something like 11 different network topologies in place, the bandwidth and services available in a particular location are a complete crapshoot. And no upgrades are being implemented becase everything will be replaced by 10Gb fiber, which is going to take an extremely long time. So downloading that movie is going to take 6 - 8 hours while someone in the next neighborhood over only takes 20 minutes, but you can be happy with the knowledge that you will have real-time streaming video in only 6 years.
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Personal responsibility
[Read the article: Pit bulls are innocent]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can't read any more of these. The prevailing attitude among those who hate pit bulls is summed up by the oft posted quote "and guns don't kill people, people kill people". But guns don't kill people. Easier to blame an inanimate object or an animal that typically wants nothing more than to please it's owner than to do the politically incorrect thing and place the blame where it belongs, or accept it yourself.
Pitbulls tend to be perceived as aggressive because people often get them to protect their persons and their property. If you are a stranger and behave in an inappropriate manner the dog is going to let you know about it, and maybe punish you for it. This is the same behavior as any dog put in this role would display - try walking into a yard guarded by a German Shepard, or even a Yorkie. But most people don't get a Yorkie for protection. The point is, why are you walking into someone else's yard without an invitation? The dog's owner has every right to keep you out. The dog is just doing it's job. You are the one in the wrong here. A large percentage of the time, the blame for a dog bite or attack lies with the victim. A large part of the time it lies with the owner. It rarely lies with the dog.
Too many people, dog owners and dog haters alike, fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing dogs. They aren't people. Treating them like people or assigning them human motivations is cruel and unfair. People who treat dogs like dogs, and respect them for what they are, almost always have good experiences. People who treat dogs like people almost always have bad experiences. And people who treat dogs the way Vick did are vile pieces of shit who deserve the same treatment in return.
By the way, Petey wasn't just an American Pit Bull Terrier, he was the first registered American Pit Bull Terrier.