DISQUS

In less than 30 years it will be illegal for a human to be in control of a car on public roads. (there will still be private tracks, and there will be an exception for malfunctions - but it only applies for long enough to get to the side of the road) Once autonomous cars have been out for 5 years, statistics will make is obvious that humans crash far more often than the computers. At that point the law will require all cars to be autonomous, and 15 years latter (when the last of the manual cars are off the road) you won't be able to drive your own car. That gives 10 years for the autonomous driving car technology to be perfected.

Of course lawyers will get involved when there are crashes, but in most cases the autonomous car will have saved enough evidence to prove that it wasn't at fault.

The experiment you propose isn't controlled, and I don't think you can suggest one that is. The problem is the groups are self selecting - I suspect those who use peer to peer are more likely to buy CDs anyway. Those who are not into peer to peer downloading are most likely not interested in new music anyway. They are happy with their Elvis CDs (or even vinyl), and only buy new ones if/when the old ones wear out.

If you can get some who currently use peer to peer to stop for a few months you could have a controlled study. However I suspect most of your control group would drop out - those that remain would be a self selected group and no longer a valid control.

You overestimate how much congress knows about banking, or foreign policy. Come to think of it, you seem to over estimate congress entirely.

The question is this: do you want 500 channels in your living room, even though you are reading my post here, or do you want just the 1 channel you will watch latter on?

500 channels is a lot of choices. If you want that many choices, a la carte is not what you want - you want the everything bundle. If you just want the 3 channels you watch, a la carte is for you.

Most people I know with a TV flip channels a lot. They want 500 choices, and every once in a while they stop at a channel they have never looked at before - and the next week they do the same, but going to a different channel. They would not subscribe to those channels a la carte, (it isn't worth it), but they do want them there just in case they happen to want to watch it some night.

If people were not happy with the price of cable they would find something else. I don't have cable - my TV is used only for video games (and I only have it because it was free), I know other people with just broadcast TV, and a few more with just basic cable. I think the majority of my friends are paying for everything though.

I'd take the money but then vote anyway. This is one of the few cases where I'd feel good about breaking a contract.

Foreign governments aren’t stupid. They know perfectly well how their country’s traffic gets routed, and they wouldn’t be dumb enough to transmit sensitive information via unencrypted links that pass through another country.

I think they would be that dumb. Note the people who are involved in spy/anti-spy of course. About half of those in IT are likely to not be that dumb. However that leaves a lot of people who handle sensitive information who don't think that there email is spyable.

Note that top secret information is likely to be protected better. However sensitive information is often harmless if you expose any one part - the sum of the parts can often enough to know what the top secret plans are - if you can get enough parts.

I have to take issue with your claim that use of illegal drugs only effects the customer and close friends. It affects me as well because in our current welfare state I have to pick up the bill for those who were once capable of holding a good job, but are no longer able to live on their own. If we didn't have welfare, and there was no thought of socialized medicine I wouldn't mind, but when your addiction can potentially cost me money I mind.

Just for the record, my access point at my house is left open for anyone to use. It isn't that I can't secure it, it is that I have decided to give away some of the bandwidth that I have purchased.

Now I am taking a risk - someone might abuse it (download too much, child porn, planning a crime, etc). However I consider the risk low.

All I ask is that if you use my access point, you open up your access point at your house just in case I happen to need internet access in your town.

You are missing something very important: congress itself has changed. I don't mean which party is in power, I mean the letters.

I first started following copyright law just after the DMCA (Like most people this blindsided me), and writing letters to my congressman. At first all I got was a generic form letter thanking me for writing. Now when I write the letter is very specific, "Like you I'm concerned that copyright has gone too far".

In short, congress has heard our letters. They know that letter writers are very likely to vote, and also get their friends to vote - based on the context of the letters. This is far more important than money. Right now those who want longer/stricter copyrights are just praying that congress doesn't take the issue up, because they know congress is no longer in their favor - the people have spoken.

Now we need to hit the grassroots hard to keep pressure on congress to change the laws.

I don't get it, why is state level regulation worse than federal? At least with state level regulation I can move if I don't like the system. (This isn't a good option, but it exists) In addition each state can look at the real effects of both sides just be examining what happens in other states.

Now I agree it is a problem for those involved with the net itself, but that is not my problem.

Prioritization is fine, so long as you only use it for minority cases when you don't have the bandwidth required. I won't notice if my bittorrent download rate is slightly below optimum, but if it is substantially below optimum I will notice. If it gets bad enough I will change providers. I currently use a wireless ISP at my house, but I have cable and DSL options. The ISP I use currently fits my needs best, but they are not optimal for everyone.

If my ISP uses QOS to make sure VOIP works for me, 100% with no noticeable loss to other activities I'm happy. However if the loss to other activities becomes noticeable I will get mad.

Thus anyone using QOS still needs to pay attention to network useage. They still need proactive network speed upgrades.

In the future cable TV (in highest quality high definition) will be delivered over IP. (There may be other uses for such bandwidth that we cannot imagine yet because we don't have it) Not today, but not too many years in the future. Anyone in the network business needs to plan all upgrades with the question of how it will get them closer to that world. (Of course you will need upgrades that are dead ends just to compete along the way, but remember the end will demand a lot more than we get now)