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Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

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Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#471
post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. Come on, this is totally untrue. I grew up in rural Ireland and it's very common for farmers to own guns. Hunters too. Check here [•] - Finland, for example, is only a couple of percentage points behind the US in number of households that own a gun (42% vs 37%). The difference is in th…

At least Finland's stats are a bit misleading. They are using number of guns per capita, not number of households with guns (and might also be using number of permits instead of number of guns, same gun might have more than 1 permit). There's about 650 000 permit holders in Finland, i.e. about 12%. Of course there are some people who have access to illegal guns but I don't think that's very high number. Estimates I s…

[deleted]

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threatening someone with a firearm is felony assault and definitely will result in you losing your right to own firearms and having it confiscated.

Unless the governor pardons you it would seem https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/06/missouri-cou...

Yes that is how a gubernatorial pardon works.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#473

I was a "broadband technician" around then and AT&T Broadband did not give AF if you were stealing cable or not. I only handled cable modem installs and quit after a year to go major in philosophy and because: - Getting quietly threatened once (with AR-15 up against the customer's front door) on a troubleshooting call that I wasn't able to leave until "the internet started working". - Having to increasingly go do cab…

When I worked at an ISP in the 90s the amount of threats and verbal abuse from customers was wild. One guy who ran a event ticket operation (selling tickets to events) we installed a T1 for the phone company wouldn't go out unless they could bring a security guard. The same guy once came to our office and waited outside in the parking lot and followed one of my coworkers home demanding that she fix his internet. Her…

> "the man was keeping him down from getting fast internet".

as a non-american... who is supposed do be "the man" ?

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#474
post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at an ISP in the 90s the amount of threats and verbal abuse from customers was wild. One guy who ran a event ticket operation (selling tickets to events) we installed a T1 for the phone company wouldn't go out unless they could bring a security guard. The same guy once came to our office and waited outside in the parking lot and followed one of my coworkers home demanding that she fix his internet. Her…

> "the man was keeping him down from getting fast internet". as a non-american... who is supposed do be "the man" ?

Any person in authority. In the abstract, the government or big business.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the governor pardons you it would seem https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/06/missouri-cou...

Yes that is how a gubernatorial pardon works.

Should it though? Prerequisite of a pardon is that you accept guilt. If people are guilty of being reckless with firearms, should they still have access to firearms?

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#476

I was a "broadband technician" around then and AT&T Broadband did not give AF if you were stealing cable or not. I only handled cable modem installs and quit after a year to go major in philosophy and because: - Getting quietly threatened once (with AR-15 up against the customer's front door) on a troubleshooting call that I wasn't able to leave until "the internet started working". - Having to increasingly go do cab…

The amount of incidents involving firearms is astonishing. I'm glad I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing, threatening or murdering people. I'm really a bit surprised to hear this. I did a similar job…

This comment is incredibly manipulative and dishonest.

> I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing, threatening or murdering people.

Nothing about the parent comment implies otherwise. You're intentionally making up points that nobody made in order to push your agenda.

> I'm really a bit surprised to hear this.

...and you're not really surprised - this is just another use of emotionally manipulative language.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#477
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that the US is very proud of their trigger and muzzle discipline. Or at least half of it. The other half points loaded guns with the safeties off directly at their own crotches to own the libs[0]. Going a layer deeper, Americans really, really love to abuse the shit out of customer service workers. To put it extremely charitably, we're used to being fucked by corpos so we pre-emptively fuck them back in…

That Vice article and the pluralistic blog spam post don't understand what a Fudd is. A Fudd is a curmudgeonly, old fashioned gun owner who is judgmental about people owning modern firearms. They favor hunting and shotgun games over handguns and semiautomatic rifles. If they own handguns at all, think revolvers and 1911s instead of Glocks. Generally, Fudds tend to be very adamant about safe gun handling, often advoca…

> That Vice article and the pluralistic blog spam post don't understand what a Fudd is.

Of course they don't, because they're not journalism, they're activism. They don't report - they incite.

Thank you for taking the time to actually provide useful information.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are over 300 million fire arms in the US. Yet other than criminals shooting rivals, and people commiting suicide, almost no one uses their gun. Even if you include full time criminals and suicides, that still means basically 0.001% of fire arms are used to kill someone every day year. Most gun owners are decent people that want to protect themselves, not use it to cause hard to the innocent.

If anything, that statistic (roughly one per person) doesn't inspire confidence. The correct takeaway isn't "wow, so few of the guns in America are used to kill people." It's "wow, there are so many guns that anybody can have one, regardless of whether they are fit to."

> The correct takeaway

This is objectively false. You're attempting to portray a personal opinion as fact. Bad form, and definitely not appropriate for HN. Please don't do that here.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#479

I thought this might be fiction because the amount of time for pirating cable seemed crazy.. However [1] there are indeed up to 6 month penalties for stealing cable. That's just ludicrous. How could copyright theft ever be anything other than a civil action? Jail time for stealing cable, that's just insane. Nobody gets hurt from stolen cable. We really need to look long and hard at what we allow jail time for. Jail t…

Where I grew up north of Philadelphia in the 90's, the cable companies bid for municipalities and were given a monopoly -- I grew up with Lower Bucks Cablevision, for example. Since the local government got a cut, I would imagine that's why the penalties are/were harsh and criminal, as opposed to civil.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of incidents involving firearms is astonishing. I'm glad I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing, threatening or murdering people. I'm really a bit surprised to hear this. I did a similar job…

>Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals Europe? Literally lots of people have guns, where I live, from 01 Sept there's plenty of gunshots ringing out scaring one of my dogs. I know two people in the uk that have shotguns (police checked, locked away in the attic). There are many ww2 firearms in circulation (Serbia, I believe just had an amnesty), so 'literally' is incorrect. The diff…

> Not a single person I've spoken to has more than a few days ammo available.

Anecdotes aren't the strongest, but no worries, many of the small group of people I hang with have the combined capacity of a batallion, along with manufacturing capabilities in the case it's needed. All really great people too. We'd welcome a Euro like yourself in a heartbeat despite any differences we may have. Good luck out there.

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