I guess you could quibble with Dropbox as an example (except when syncing with a new device, or uploading a massive file to immediately transfer to another device or share with others), but I don't think it changes my point at all.
In fact, it probably helps prove it by demonstrating the lengths U.S. startups have to go to to work around the bandwidth congestion created by the cable monopolies.
It also shows that the end of Net Neutrality will hurt innovation. Online file storage didn't really take off until Dropbox came up with a way to work around shitty bandwidth (as well as device interoperability). You claim that only a handful of video startups would be affected, but I bet the real number is probably in the hundreds or thousands, and many of those haven't yet had the opportunity to build a userbase big enough to pay a bandwidth tax. There could be countless other applications in VR, gaming, video, and who knows what other sectors, that are held back because of the bandwidth situation in the U.S, and an end to Net Neutrality would almost certainly make it worse.
As you mentioned, a lot of people already have a problem with cable companies' VOD getting preferential treatment, but I think it's an order of magnitude worse for cable companies to then lease out the VOD bandwidth they've carved out for themselves to the highest bidder.
With this precedent set, Youtube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime could all end up paying a Comcast Tax to remain competitive with Apple. If that happens, all of a sudden there will be way fewer video or other high bandwidth startups, unless they're lucky enough to get sufficient VC to pay off the cable companies. No new Dropboxes or Vimeos.
Also, I think this situation is fairly different than, say, Motorola manufacturing set-top boxes for cable companies.
The Apple boxes will be sold in retail stores directly to the consumer, and are an attempt by Apple to create a Netflix/Roku killer. Apple paying a Comcast tax to gain competitive advantage seems to be a pretty clear violation of what Net Neutrality was all about.
"Apple Inc. is in talks with Comcast Corp. about teaming up for a streaming-television service that would use an Apple set-top box and get special treatment on Comcast's cables to ensure it bypasses congestion on the Web, people familiar with the matter say."
Wow, I can't believe how quickly and with such little fuss Net Neutrality was killed. Shouldn't it be highly controversial for Apple to be exploiting this situation?
PG needs to automatically add a little "Paywall?" tooltip to Times submissions, because this comes up every time.
Just zap your cache, use Incognito, an alternate browser, search for the article in Google News, or, Gasp!, buy a subscription, and you'll be able to view it. They limit you to 10 a month.
This doesn't explain the zigzagging trajectory of the plane after its disappearance:
Indeed, soon after MH370 disappeared, reports emerged that recordings of Malaysian military radar returns showed an unidentified track that could correspond to the flight turning left onto a westward course and descending. At the time it was difficult to assess the validity of that claim. It’s been bolstered, however, by a Reuters report earlier Friday stating that Malaysian military radar showed the flight following a course westward over the Malay peninsula and then heading out over the Indian Ocean, passing specific navigational waypoints as it went.
According to the report, this latter portion of the flight followed an unusual zigzag trajectory as it worked its way toward the north and west. This is a very inefficient way to get from one place to another, but it had some consequences that may have been useful for whoever was in control of the airplane. For one thing, by navigating between well-traveled waypoints, the plane would have seemed to military radar operators to look just like all the other well-behaved commercial traffic traveling over that stretch of ocean. “That’s going to seem like unsuspicious traffic,” says Maarten Uijt de Haag, a professor of electrical engineering at Ohio University. Had the plane left the well-traveled routes and struck out on its own, it would have been far more conspicuous.
Another consequence of the zigzagging trajectory is that, like a fox crossing back and forth over a stream to eluding a pack of hounds, it obscured where exactly it might be heading.
Slightly related, but does anyone know where to get the equivalent of news.google.com or news.yahoo.com, but with more than 30 days of history? Ideally several years worth.
Lexis/Nexis appears to only cover print news, and their articles aren't timestamped.
The following was a really interesting discussion, that I'd love to hear more opinions on:
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pedalpete 8 days ago | link
This is really interesting. I wonder if the lines have to be so solid, or if a similar effect could be accomplished without breaking the image so much.
Would a bunch of almost imperceptible lines work? What about a smallish change in colour saturation or similar?
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gojomo 8 days ago | link
I was wondering the same thing. Might a finer mesh/grid work? Or bars with some dimensional shading themselves? Or slight transparency?
Could the bars/layer even be animated, along some consistent plane, so that there's no static background part of the scene that's always obscured. (That might allow even thicker bars, if that's otherwise helpful for the plane-of-reference establishing effect, but which aren't as distracting, since the mind's persistence will 'see around' them.)
Combining these, maybe there could be more than one synthetic depth plane active at once, distinguished by color, translucence, or direction-of-motion? There'd be some perceptual dimming with all that layered-in non-native 'depth chrome', a little like looking through lenses or filters... but hey, other stereo 3D tech has similar tradeoffs.
> The first many years after WW2 Europe spent rebuilding itself.
The U.S chipped in quite a bit too. $15 billion, or $148 billion in today's dollars, which was almost 6% (!) of the U.S. GDP at the time. This was in addition to a previous $15 billion in aid before the Marshall Plan was enacted.
Somewhat unrelated, but does anyone know of a good javascript/HTML5 framework for creating multiplayer games? I posted a similar question on the Godot Engine thread the other day, but there weren't any obvious candidates.
I would also set him up on Skype so that you and your sister can interact with him in a personable way more often.