Slashdot Mirror

Ah, you're right. In Australia, it's the rate of rise in house prices that's dramatically dropped, not prices themselves. In Q4'04, 2.4% rise on one year before, compared to 18.9% same in Q4'03; meanwhile, the boom continues unabated elsewhere. My mistake.

There's a nice summary here. Sorry you had to leave Australia. :)

continuing the Bush administration policy of promoting incompetence.

Absolutely agree. I read about this in the Economist earlier this week; it should be available for another view days. I stopped being surprised at things like this a long time ago.

Note that HP stock surged 7% on the day of the announcement. Divide that into HP's market cap and it's apparent shareholders put Carly's value to the enterprise at about -$4.1 billion.

A weak US dollar makes exports inexpensive and imports expensive. This is generally good news for the US tourism and manufacturing industries, both of which have been in a flux since fall of 2001.

That is indeed true. The question is, if the US Dollar declines, how far and how fast will it decline? Some rather well informed individuals, like the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the former head of research at the IMF predict a possible 20%-40% decline in value over a short time period - a currency crisis. Should that happen swiftly you can expect inflation to be utterly rampant, and no matter how you cut it, that's going to be very bad for the US economy.

Jedidiah

There's a really obvious possibility that you folks are missing. What if the DOJ had instead used that $13.2mil over 5 years to contract with Sun/OpenOffice.org to hire a bunch of top programmers and perfect OpenOffice. Same budget, but much better outcome for themselves and for society.

Precisely! Instead of spending gobs of money to basically tread water (by buying one static software package), a government could spend the same amount of money to contract for improvements to existing, functional, useful FOSS software (ongoing improvements), thus benefiting both themselves (better software, same budgets) and their citizenry at large (better software). Any silliness about "but that would be using MY tax dollars to support something that's free, that's communist!" etc. is simply that -- silliness -- for how is spending public funds on FOSS any worse than spending those same funds on (potentially) overpriced proprietary software? At least with FOSS, you know the code inside and out, and short of a compromised compiler, you know you've got no back doors. If I remember rightly, that's part of the Chinese government's argument against using proprietary software; this prompted MS to let them see (some of) its code.

Do you realize how tragic it is every time a deal like this goes down? Going with WP instead of MS is better than nothing, but it's a major lost opportunity to move the entire Open Source movement forward.

Thank goodness Munich has some balls. It seems some other governments are also wising up to FOSS benefits. Here's to more public initiatives to use FOSS!

Seriously, between the BBC news site and Makezine there's nearly everything slashdot story contributors deep link to.

For a start, you missed off The Economist and The Register.

Well, you and I seem to be of the same conviction. I am sure there are many more people around like that on Slashdot

What you seem to be suggesting is that evolutionary pressure works against this kind of prohibition, and hence it is dangerous. You did not elaborate on why it is dangerous, and I would be interested in hearing your take on it.

I would argue that the reason restrictions are dangerous is because they fight against things that would otherwise naturally evolve. If you fight against evolution, you fall behind. If creative thought is restricted, then it will flourish elsewhere and your own culture will fall behind. If you restrict an economy, your economy falls behind. It is no coincidence that the countries with the best quality of life are also mostly the freest. (Actually, that link is a bit of a can of worms. it is a lagging index, where past achievements and good governance count. And Singapore is a remarkable and illustrative special case - free-market under a benevolent dictatorship. Let's not get into that tangent.)

Anyway, so the danger of restrictions is that they cripple progress in the long run. So, because of this danger, I believe restrictions as government policy should only come about in the rarest of rare cases, AND then only with a safeguard of constantly monitored good governance, AND only in cases where progress may otherwise be impeded. Patents and copyright of derivative works are bad restrictions because progress in the long term is impeded by having them.

The Economist has a nice article on this in last week's issue. Apparently the courts have allowed cities to declare property as "decrepit" just because it's not pulling in enough tax revenue. Here's the article

No.

That's the short reply. Long version: the UN, as evidenced by the oil-for-food scandal and their attempts to impose a tax on the U.S., is a corrupt organization of politicos bent on controlling everything - not unlike the American government, really.

The trouble is, the UN wants to make everything a bureaucratic struggle, such as in Darfur, and that bureaucracy would strangle the organization of the Internet.

More often than not, decentralization works better than centralization -- smaller businesses tend not to abuse their customers as much as big businesses do, smaller governments tend not to abuse their people as much as bigger governments do, and so on. It's a matter of accountability - like with the problem of increasing numbers of managers over one's head back at the office, increasing the number of "official" overseers only bogs down efficiency. Let the customers of an organization or individual be the real overseers (as is the case currently w/ ICANN) - this is a decentralizing move.

Hence, in the name of decentralization, in the name of not being tied up in corruption (at least as much of it as the UN clearly is), in the name of efficiency -- I would argue that leaving ICANN in its current position is better than putting it under the wing of the UN.

(Note to knee-jerk UN defenders: the UN has its place as a means of mediating conflicts between nations and smoothing things over; as a forum for foreign relations. But we should all be worried when it starts interfering with the sovereignty of any nation, whether that nation is ours or not.)

First off, let's be realistic: the current US Congress wouldn't let the UN run the internet. After all, our own Al Gore invented it... But seriously, there's a lot of mistrust of the UN, much of it for good reasons.

The lack of accountability and responsibility that led to the Oil-for-Food scandal is hardly encouraging. Can we really expect the UN to be more responsive to internet users' needs than ICANN, as bad as ICANN is?

There are also some really twisted jokes to be made about how effective the UN would be in fighting child porn, considering the actions of some of its employees and peacekeepers in the Congo.

In essence, we're talking about replacing a large, corrupt bureaucracy with an even larger corrupt bureaucracy. Doesn't sound good, does it? I'd much rather see ICANN's functions assumed by a diverse group of private companies, with oversight from democratically-elected governments. In particular, the Chinese government and other repressive regimes can stay the hell away from internet regulation. Even good companies can be pressured into making bad decisions when China gets involved.

I *KNOW* I've just opened the flood gates of Bush jokes, DMCA rants, and PATRIOT Act tirades, but please, before you post, think about whether you're (1) on-topic (this is about the UN replacing ICANN), and (2) saying something new that hasn't been said in the numerous slashdot stories on the DMCA, etc. I'm all for a good joke, but please let it be something more original than "Bush is really stupid, and Americans are fat and stupid for voting for him". I live in one of the bluest areas of a very blue state, and I've heard them all.

The UN has got to be the most currupt buerocracy on the planet. They just had the biggest corruption scandal ever. Bigger than ENRON and WorldCom combined.

Oh, and their peacekeepers are busy abusing children.

With the tsunami aid effort, they were mostly concerned with holding meetings in 5 star hotels while other people did the real work.

They also constantly bash israel without ever mentioning that the palestinean side is not exactly peaceful either.

And they have recently decided that what is happening in sudan is not genocide. I guess they will decide it was genocide after all when everybody is dead. Like they did in ruanda.

The UN should be dismantled or at least seriously reformed. They should not get any more responsibilities, since they are obviously unable to cope with the responsibilities they have in an ethical manner.

Didn't Microsoft apply for a patent in this area not so long ago? I'd search the slashdot repository if I thought it would turn up a link.
Hang on...
Maybe this...
Cheers,
Stokey

Also, you avoided commenting about Koreans rejecting adoption. 3/4 of all adopted orphans in Korea go to Westerners, usually Americans. The Koreans hate to care about people who are outside for their families' bloodline.

That data from the CIA book is out of date.

You should warm the cup, or keep the cups warm.

Measure, pour, measure a minute later (time from serving station to customer)

Er, if it takes you a minute to hand the cup to the customer you must be very very arthritic, or have a quarter mile long restaurant.

Ted Lingle's "Basics of Brewing Coffee", pp. 27-28, recommends[...]

Well, since I can't check the context, I'll just have to point out that the SCA tasting competition rules specify a higher temperature, and they are presumably aiming for maximum flavour, so he is at odds with his organisation, unless there is a reason for the different ideas.

nd I would argue that serving at 160F instead of 190F doesn't make life noticably worse for non-stupid people.

Well, IIRC you said you liked your coffee cold and drank it fast, so perhaps your arguments shouldn't hold much weight. You can always let yours cool down a bit.

Yes, but water is free and therefore totally uninteresting to economics types.

Economics is not just about money.

"The euro area's GDP was only 60% the size of America's in 2001. If current exchange rates are sustained [circa December 2003], it swells to around 80%. If the economies of Britain, Sweden and Denmark are added to the euro area, the European Union now has a slightly larger economy than that of the United States."
Source

"On November 6th of 2000 Iraq became the first country to receive all of its oil export payments in euros instead of American dollars. This switch was estimated to cost Iraq $270 million dollars, but Iraq had since actually come out on top due to the rise in the value of the euro, which was actually probably influenced by Iraq's decision to use the euro as its foreign exchange currency."
Source

"the US ... installed its own authority to rule the country and as soon as Iraqi oil became available to sell on the world market, it was announced that payment would be in dollars only."
Source

Overall, the sex ratio is 1.08 males to females. For children (which factors in sex ratio at birth) in several districts like Rohtak, the ratio skyrockets to 1.25 boys to girls.

When you see Vinod Khosla, the male Indian students in your classes at MIT, and their ilk, you are looking at animals. They fight with tooth and nail to stay in the USA but reject Western values. They talk about how "great" Indian society is.

Don't worry. . .there is new legislation on the president's desk right now that will make it "virtually impossible now to get a nationwide class-action suit off the ground." -- The Economist

(requires subscription or pay per view)

Interesting. But your link has (at least) a factual error of its own -- Edison's electric chair didn't use DC. His own systems used DC, and he wanted to show that Tesla's AC was horribly dangerous -- so, basically, he made the thing run on AC as a marketting ploy.

Well, you'll definitely find this Economist article a good read. The pull? "Americans seem to believe that they and their politics have got more conservative; but perhaps they haven't."

Robert Scoble, Microsoft's chief humanising officer has posted a response to Hakon's letter.

Apparently, they are working hard to fix it in IIS 7.0 and the next version of ASP.NET.
Apparently.

Re: customization:

"There has been a huge swing to custom programmes," says Fiona van Haeringen of IESE, who attended a recent annual conference of business-education providers in America. "The market is very aggressive, very competitive and the power is with the buyer." Don Kuhn, executive director of Unicon, a group of about 75 business schools around the world that offer executive education, says that a survey of about 40 members found that three-quarters of them said overall revenues had grown between 2002 and 2003, but the remaining quarter said they had declined. Looking to this year, most saw growth coming mainly from customised education tailored for one company. "It's just knocking the cover off the ball," rejoices Richard Vietor, who was until recently in charge of executive education for Harvard Business School.

The Economist
May 20, 2004

Um, the United States is growing -- see GDP figures here -- just not as fast as it was from 1994 - 2001. Even in those years, the American economy wasn't growing as fast as China, whose torrential growth will eventually have to slow down. That country only sees its growth explode as a percentage change because of the long term inefficiency and market hostility it showed.

I agree with parts of your post -- and am surprised you missed criticizing the education system, which is often up next -- but to write like the US is going to shrivel up and blow away is hyperbolic and doesn't help focus on deeper questions.

Yes but your $2.90 for a Big Mac could pay for enough beans, rice and veggies to feed a family for at least a few days (more if stretched). So, on that note, I have to tell you that your McDonald's purchase was the height of waste and rich indulgence. Your money and the money that McDonald's spends to mass-produce food product could have been better spent.

Mr. Seebach points out that "computers are, in fact, doing more than they used to. A lot of the things computers do are fairly subtle, happening beneath the radar of a user's perception. Many functions are automatic and, as discussed in last month's column, you could probably do without some of them."

This recalls an analogy drawn by a recent Economist article. Unlike most automobile analogies popular among Slashbots, this one is actually rather appropriate: "By the 1930s, ... the car had become more user-friendly and ready for the mass market. ... [T]he makers' increasing skill at hiding the technology from drivers ... meant that cars got hugely more complex on the inside, because most of the tasks that had previously been carried out by drivers now had to be done automatically. This presented drivers with a radically simplified surface, or 'interface' in today's jargon."

Given this lesson drawn from history, I disagree with Seebach's conclusion that "the worst is probably over" in terms of code bloat and complexity. Computers still have a long way to go before they can approach the ease of use and stability we demand of every other consumer appliance in our lives.

The aforementioned article requires a paid subscription to view, so in the interests of convenience, I'll reproduce it here.

--

SURVEY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Now you see it, now you don't

Oct 28th 2004
From The Economist print edition

[Image]

To be truly successful, a complex technology needs to "disappear"

THERE has never been anything quite like information technology before, but there have certainly been other complex technologies that needed simplifying. Joe Corn, a history professor at Stanford University, believes that the first example of a complex consumer technology was clocks, which arrived in the 1820s. Clocks were sold with user manuals, which featured entries such as "How to erect and regulate your device". When sewing machines appeared in the 1840s, they came with 40-page manuals full of detailed instructions. Discouragingly, it took two generations until a trade publication was able to declare in the 1880s that "every woman now knows how to use one."

At about the same time, the increase in technological complexity gathered pace. With electricity came new appliances, such as the phonograph, invented in 1877 by Thomas Alva Edison. According to Mr Norman, the computer-design guru, despite Mr Edison's genius for engineering he was a marketing moron, and his first phonograph was all but unusable (in fact, initially he had no particular uses in mind for it). For decades, Mr Edison fiddled with his technology, always going for the most impressive engineering solution. For instance, he chose cylinders over discs as the recording medium. It took a generation and the entry of a new rival, Emile Berliner, to prepare the phonograph for the mass market by making it easier to use (introducing discs instead of cylinders) and giving it a purpose (playing music). Mr Edison's companies foundered whereas Mr Berliner's thrived, and phonographs became ubiquitous, first as "gramophones" or "Victrolas", the name of Mr Berliner's model, and ultimately as "record players".

Another complex technology, with an even bigger impact, was the car. The first cars, in the early 1900s, were "mostly a burden and a challenge", says Mr Corn. Driving one required skill in lubricating various moving parts, sending oil manually to the transmission, adjusting the spark plug, setting the choke, opening the throttle, wielding the crank and knowing what to do when the car broke down, which it invariably did. People at the time hired chauffeurs, says Mr Corn, mostly because they needed to have a mechanic at hand to fix the car, just as firms today need IT staff and

Mr. Seebach points out that "computers are, in fact, doing more than they used to. A lot of the things computers do are fairly subtle, happening beneath the radar of a user's perception. Many functions are automatic and, as discussed in last month's column, you could probably do without some of them."

This recalls an analogy drawn by a recent Economist article. Unlike most automobile analogies popular among Slashbots, this one is actually rather appropriate: "By the 1930s, ... the car had become more user-friendly and ready for the mass market. ... [T]he makers' increasing skill at hiding the technology from drivers ... meant that cars got hugely more complex on the inside, because most of the tasks that had previously been carried out by drivers now had to be done automatically. This presented drivers with a radically simplified surface, or 'interface' in today's jargon."

Given this lesson drawn from history, I disagree with Seebach's conclusion that "the worst is probably over" in terms of code bloat and complexity. Computers still have a long way to go before they can approach the ease of use and stability we demand of every other consumer appliance in our lives.

The aforementioned article requires a paid subscription to view, so in the interests of convenience, I'll reproduce it here.

--

SURVEY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Now you see it, now you don't

Oct 28th 2004
From The Economist print edition

[Image]

To be truly successful, a complex technology needs to "disappear"

THERE has never been anything quite like information technology before, but there have certainly been other complex technologies that needed simplifying. Joe Corn, a history professor at Stanford University, believes that the first example of a complex consumer technology was clocks, which arrived in the 1820s. Clocks were sold with user manuals, which featured entries such as "How to erect and regulate your device". When sewing machines appeared in the 1840s, they came with 40-page manuals full of detailed instructions. Discouragingly, it took two generations until a trade publication was able to declare in the 1880s that "every woman now knows how to use one."

At about the same time, the increase in technological complexity gathered pace. With electricity came new appliances, such as the phonograph, invented in 1877 by Thomas Alva Edison. According to Mr Norman, the computer-design guru, despite Mr Edison's genius for engineering he was a marketing moron, and his first phonograph was all but unusable (in fact, initially he had no particular uses in mind for it). For decades, Mr Edison fiddled with his technology, always going for the most impressive engineering solution. For instance, he chose cylinders over discs as the recording medium. It took a generation and the entry of a new rival, Emile Berliner, to prepare the phonograph for the mass market by making it easier to use (introducing discs instead of cylinders) and giving it a purpose (playing music). Mr Edison's companies foundered whereas Mr Berliner's thrived, and phonographs became ubiquitous, first as "gramophones" or "Victrolas", the name of Mr Berliner's model, and ultimately as "record players".

Another complex technology, with an even bigger impact, was the car. The first cars, in the early 1900s, were "mostly a burden and a challenge", says Mr Corn. Driving one required skill in lubricating various moving parts, sending oil manually to the transmission, adjusting the spark plug, setting the choke, opening the throttle, wielding the crank and knowing what to do when the car broke down, which it invariably did. People at the time hired chauffeurs, says Mr Corn, mostly because they needed to have a mechanic at hand to fix the car, just as firms today need IT staff and

The reaction to the sniper reveals a lot about Americans' perception of risk

THE suburbs of the nation's capital are locked down. The Washington Area Girls Soccer League went on with its 2001 tournament despite the September 11th attacks. This year's event was cancelled because of the sniper who has killed nine people in the Washington area. Hundreds of schools have been operating under a "code blue", which prohibits all outdoor activity. Autumnal trips to pumpkin patches have been cancelled. And for those who dare to venture out of their homes, traffic dragnets designed to trap the killer's white van cause hours of delay.

Further on we get "experts" who incidentally are never identified in the story (unless it happens to be Kip Viscusi who isn't quoted as saying such a thing):

So it is fair to say both that people are understandably alarmed, and that they are still exaggerating the risk. Why? Experts seem to agree that Americans find it harder than most people to evaluate risks accurately. Lawsuits, labels on coffee cups ("Warning: the beverage you are about to enjoy is extremely hot"), even political pronouncements all often suggest it is possible to avoid danger altogether.

My point here is how did a claim like this, without supporting evidence of any kind, slip through the editing process? Especially, given how perfect the Economist is claimed to be by some of the extravagant sibling replies? And this isn't the first time nor the last where I saw serious bias (usually pro-business, pro-globalism, or pro-EU) or unwarranted claims made in Economist stories, it's just a story for which I have a ready link.

The Economist is an excellent journal, but I don't consider it superior (as a business/economics news source) to say the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times both which exhibit some of the same flaws as the Economist. And as far as online news sources go, I prefer the Dismal Scientist instead (though they have this weird fixation on central banks and a US focus that gets embarrassing sometimes).

Why would you want to be able to reboot your car "as easily as my PC"? If it rebooted automatically, behind the scenes so that you never even had to think about it, that would be one thing. But to hope for such a capability exposed on the user level is perverse.

Salient quote from the Economist article (subscription required) reproduced below: "By the 1930s, however, the car had become more user-friendly and ready for the mass market. ... [T]he makers' increasing skill at hiding the technology from drivers ... meant that cars got hugely more complex on the inside, because most of the tasks that had previously been carried out by drivers now had to be done automatically. This presented drivers with a radically simplified surface, or 'interface' in today's jargon... [E]ven gear-shifting became optional."

--

SURVEY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Now you see it, now you don't

Oct 28th 2004
From The Economist print edition

[Image]

To be truly successful, a complex technology needs to "disappear"

THERE has never been anything quite like information technology before, but there have certainly been other complex technologies that needed simplifying. Joe Corn, a history professor at Stanford University, believes that the first example of a complex consumer technology was clocks, which arrived in the 1820s. Clocks were sold with user manuals, which featured entries such as "How to erect and regulate your device". When sewing machines appeared in the 1840s, they came with 40-page manuals full of detailed instructions. Discouragingly, it took two generations until a trade publication was able to declare in the 1880s that "every woman now knows how to use one."

At about the same time, the increase in technological complexity gathered pace. With electricity came new appliances, such as the phonograph, invented in 1877 by Thomas Alva Edison. According to Mr Norman, the computer-design guru, despite Mr Edison's genius for engineering he was a marketing moron, and his first phonograph was all but unusable (in fact, initially he had no particular uses in mind for it). For decades, Mr Edison fiddled with his technology, always going for the most impressive engineering solution. For instance, he chose cylinders over discs as the recording medium. It took a generation and the entry of a new rival, Emile Berliner, to prepare the phonograph for the mass market by making it easier to use (introducing discs instead of cylinders) and giving it a purpose (playing music). Mr Edison's companies foundered whereas Mr Berliner's thrived, and phonographs became ubiquitous, first as "gramophones" or "Victrolas", the name of Mr Berliner's model, and ultimately as "record players".

Another complex technology, with an even bigger impact, was the car. The first cars, in the early 1900s, were "mostly a burden and a challenge", says Mr Corn. Driving one required skill in lubricating various moving parts, sending oil manually to the transmission, adjusting the spark plug, setting the choke, opening the throttle, wielding the crank and knowing what to do when the car broke down, which it invariably did. People at the time hired chauffeurs, says Mr Corn, mostly because they needed to have a mechanic at hand to fix the car, just as firms today need IT staff and households need teenagers to sort out their computers.

By the 1930s, however, the car had become more user-friendly and ready for the mass market. Two things in particular had made this possible. The first was the rise, spread and eventual ubiquity of a support infrastructure for cars. This included a network of decent roads and motorways, and of petrol stations and garages for repair. The second was the makers' increasing skill at hiding the technology from drivers. Ford proved particularly good at this. Ironicall

Why would you want to be able to reboot your car "as easily as my PC"? If it rebooted automatically, behind the scenes so that you never even had to think about it, that would be one thing. But to hope for such a capability exposed on the user level is perverse.

Salient quote from the Economist article (subscription required) reproduced below: "By the 1930s, however, the car had become more user-friendly and ready for the mass market. ... [T]he makers' increasing skill at hiding the technology from drivers ... meant that cars got hugely more complex on the inside, because most of the tasks that had previously been carried out by drivers now had to be done automatically. This presented drivers with a radically simplified surface, or 'interface' in today's jargon... [E]ven gear-shifting became optional."

--

SURVEY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Now you see it, now you don't

Oct 28th 2004
From The Economist print edition

[Image]

To be truly successful, a complex technology needs to "disappear"

THERE has never been anything quite like information technology before, but there have certainly been other complex technologies that needed simplifying. Joe Corn, a history professor at Stanford University, believes that the first example of a complex consumer technology was clocks, which arrived in the 1820s. Clocks were sold with user manuals, which featured entries such as "How to erect and regulate your device". When sewing machines appeared in the 1840s, they came with 40-page manuals full of detailed instructions. Discouragingly, it took two generations until a trade publication was able to declare in the 1880s that "every woman now knows how to use one."

At about the same time, the increase in technological complexity gathered pace. With electricity came new appliances, such as the phonograph, invented in 1877 by Thomas Alva Edison. According to Mr Norman, the computer-design guru, despite Mr Edison's genius for engineering he was a marketing moron, and his first phonograph was all but unusable (in fact, initially he had no particular uses in mind for it). For decades, Mr Edison fiddled with his technology, always going for the most impressive engineering solution. For instance, he chose cylinders over discs as the recording medium. It took a generation and the entry of a new rival, Emile Berliner, to prepare the phonograph for the mass market by making it easier to use (introducing discs instead of cylinders) and giving it a purpose (playing music). Mr Edison's companies foundered whereas Mr Berliner's thrived, and phonographs became ubiquitous, first as "gramophones" or "Victrolas", the name of Mr Berliner's model, and ultimately as "record players".

Another complex technology, with an even bigger impact, was the car. The first cars, in the early 1900s, were "mostly a burden and a challenge", says Mr Corn. Driving one required skill in lubricating various moving parts, sending oil manually to the transmission, adjusting the spark plug, setting the choke, opening the throttle, wielding the crank and knowing what to do when the car broke down, which it invariably did. People at the time hired chauffeurs, says Mr Corn, mostly because they needed to have a mechanic at hand to fix the car, just as firms today need IT staff and households need teenagers to sort out their computers.

By the 1930s, however, the car had become more user-friendly and ready for the mass market. Two things in particular had made this possible. The first was the rise, spread and eventual ubiquity of a support infrastructure for cars. This included a network of decent roads and motorways, and of petrol stations and garages for repair. The second was the makers' increasing skill at hiding the technology from drivers. Ford proved particularly good at this. Ironicall

Salient quote: "By the 1930s, however, the car had become more user-friendly and ready for the mass market. ... [T]he makers' increasing skill at hiding the technology from drivers ... meant that cars got hugely more complex on the inside, because most of the tasks that had previously been carried out by drivers now had to be done automatically. This presented drivers with a radically simplified surface, or 'interface' in today's jargon... [E]ven gear-shifting became optional."

Full article (subscription required) reproduced below.

--

SURVEY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Now you see it, now you don't

Oct 28th 2004
From The Economist print edition

[Image]

To be truly successful, a complex technology needs to "disappear"

THERE has never been anything quite like information technology before, but there have certainly been other complex technologies that needed simplifying. Joe Corn, a history professor at Stanford University, believes that the first example of a complex consumer technology was clocks, which arrived in the 1820s. Clocks were sold with user manuals, which featured entries such as "How to erect and regulate your device". When sewing machines appeared in the 1840s, they came with 40-page manuals full of detailed instructions. Discouragingly, it took two generations until a trade publication was able to declare in the 1880s that "every woman now knows how to use one."

At about the same time, the increase in technological complexity gathered pace. With electricity came new appliances, such as the phonograph, invented in 1877 by Thomas Alva Edison. According to Mr Norman, the computer-design guru, despite Mr Edison's genius for engineering he was a marketing moron, and his first phonograph was all but unusable (in fact, initially he had no particular uses in mind for it). For decades, Mr Edison fiddled with his technology, always going for the most impressive engineering solution. For instance, he chose cylinders over discs as the recording medium. It took a generation and the entry of a new rival, Emile Berliner, to prepare the phonograph for the mass market by making it easier to use (introducing discs instead of cylinders) and giving it a purpose (playing music). Mr Edison's companies foundered whereas Mr Berliner's thrived, and phonographs became ubiquitous, first as "gramophones" or "Victrolas", the name of Mr Berliner's model, and ultimately as "record players".

Another complex technology, with an even bigger impact, was the car. The first cars, in the early 1900s, were "mostly a burden and a challenge", says Mr Corn. Driving one required skill in lubricating various moving parts, sending oil manually to the transmission, adjusting the spark plug, setting the choke, opening the throttle, wielding the crank and knowing what to do when the car broke down, which it invariably did. People at the time hired chauffeurs, says Mr Corn, mostly because they needed to have a mechanic at hand to fix the car, just as firms today need IT staff and households need teenagers to sort out their computers.

By the 1930s, however, the car had become more user-friendly and ready for the mass market. Two things in particular had made this possible. The first was the rise, spread and eventual ubiquity of a support infrastructure for cars. This included a network of decent roads and motorways, and of petrol stations and garages for repair. The second was the makers' increasing skill at hiding the technology from drivers. Ford proved particularly good at this. Ironically, it meant that cars got hugely more complex on the inside, because most of the tasks that had previously been carried out by drivers now had to be done automatically. This presented drivers with a radically simplified surface, or "interface" in today's jargon, so that all they had

Salient quote: "By the 1930s, however, the car had become more user-friendly and ready for the mass market. ... [T]he makers' increasing skill at hiding the technology from drivers ... meant that cars got hugely more complex on the inside, because most of the tasks that had previously been carried out by drivers now had to be done automatically. This presented drivers with a radically simplified surface, or 'interface' in today's jargon... [E]ven gear-shifting became optional."

Full article (subscription required) reproduced below.

--

SURVEY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Now you see it, now you don't

Oct 28th 2004
From The Economist print edition

[Image]

To be truly successful, a complex technology needs to "disappear"

THERE has never been anything quite like information technology before, but there have certainly been other complex technologies that needed simplifying. Joe Corn, a history professor at Stanford University, believes that the first example of a complex consumer technology was clocks, which arrived in the 1820s. Clocks were sold with user manuals, which featured entries such as "How to erect and regulate your device". When sewing machines appeared in the 1840s, they came with 40-page manuals full of detailed instructions. Discouragingly, it took two generations until a trade publication was able to declare in the 1880s that "every woman now knows how to use one."

At about the same time, the increase in technological complexity gathered pace. With electricity came new appliances, such as the phonograph, invented in 1877 by Thomas Alva Edison. According to Mr Norman, the computer-design guru, despite Mr Edison's genius for engineering he was a marketing moron, and his first phonograph was all but unusable (in fact, initially he had no particular uses in mind for it). For decades, Mr Edison fiddled with his technology, always going for the most impressive engineering solution. For instance, he chose cylinders over discs as the recording medium. It took a generation and the entry of a new rival, Emile Berliner, to prepare the phonograph for the mass market by making it easier to use (introducing discs instead of cylinders) and giving it a purpose (playing music). Mr Edison's companies foundered whereas Mr Berliner's thrived, and phonographs became ubiquitous, first as "gramophones" or "Victrolas", the name of Mr Berliner's model, and ultimately as "record players".

Another complex technology, with an even bigger impact, was the car. The first cars, in the early 1900s, were "mostly a burden and a challenge", says Mr Corn. Driving one required skill in lubricating various moving parts, sending oil manually to the transmission, adjusting the spark plug, setting the choke, opening the throttle, wielding the crank and knowing what to do when the car broke down, which it invariably did. People at the time hired chauffeurs, says Mr Corn, mostly because they needed to have a mechanic at hand to fix the car, just as firms today need IT staff and households need teenagers to sort out their computers.

By the 1930s, however, the car had become more user-friendly and ready for the mass market. Two things in particular had made this possible. The first was the rise, spread and eventual ubiquity of a support infrastructure for cars. This included a network of decent roads and motorways, and of petrol stations and garages for repair. The second was the makers' increasing skill at hiding the technology from drivers. Ford proved particularly good at this. Ironically, it meant that cars got hugely more complex on the inside, because most of the tasks that had previously been carried out by drivers now had to be done automatically. This presented drivers with a radically simplified surface, or "interface" in today's jargon, so that all they had

Actually, since you singled out the USPTO, probably not as other patent offices look down upon the USPTO as something of a joke. The biggest problem with the USPTO is that its staff get paid a bonus for approving a patent application instead of finding prior art which would render it invalid. Yup, you read that right. Is it any wonder that they seem to approve just about every patent they see, and then leave it to the IP lawyers to resolve any disputes in court?

I don't think that there is anything wrong with the idea of patents in general, provided that they are only granted when there is due cause. The current situation is absurd, as is clearly illusatrated by this report at The Economist in which they conclude that over 30% of patents are duplicates of other works, and thus invalid. They don't see it getting any better as the Chinese, Indians and others become more active in western markets either.

One big difference is that in America anyone can become rich
You really buy that? Social mobility is not what it's made out to be!

And how do you help them develop a strong economy? Step one is to help them develop and maintain human capital. This is why the most brilliant social scientists on the planet agree that controlling disease and malnutrition are pretty much the best ways to help the developing world. I'd be surprised to see adoption of open-source software ranked quite that highly.

You might find these links interesting: one, two.

No, people haven't stopped having children entirely. But for the past 30 years or so, the U.S. birthrate has been below replacement level.

Replacement rate is somewhere slightly above two births per woman, and the US has been pretty close to that lately. Moreover, US population is expected to increase from 290m to circa 420m by 2050. Why? Because births are not the only way we get new taxpayers; immigration is the major source of US population growth.

So although Europe is facing major demographic problems that demand serious pension system reforms, that's not the case here.

Our socety may pay a cost, but our taxpayers shouldn't.

You're missing my point entirely. I'm saying that, as a practical matter, giving them access to certain government services will save money over the long haul.

Take cops. If millions of people are afraid to go to the law, then this aids criminals by providing them with easy pickings. Giving criminals a niche in which they can grow strong incurs huge long-term costs.

And like it or not, most illegal immigrants will end up staying here, especially the ones who grow up here. Rounding all of them up and deporting them is, aside from being morally questionable and practically difficult, a political impossibility. So our choice isn't to have them or not have them; the choice is whether we aid them in becoming productive citizens or not.

As illegal immigrants, they are already not law-abiding.

Ever driven over the speed limit? Well, you're not law abiding either. Clearly, we should make sure your kids can't go to school.

Honestly, have you ever met an illegal immigrant? Coming here, even from Mexico, is hardly a cakewalk. The ones I've met have all been serious, honest, and hardworking. Their willingness to dodge the INS implies nothing about their willingness to commit other, more serious crimes.

As unfunded drains on our economy (often paying no taxes on property or income, and because of their situation, usually not carrying health, life, or auto insurance), they make this a harder place for me to live.

The notion that they are one-way drains on the economy or make this place harder for you to live is unsupported by the data. Unless your life's dream was to become a dishwasher, that is.

The reason they don't pay income taxes is because we don't let them. Some of them would still probably work under the table if they could, but that's true of citizens as well. Ditto for auto insurance. They probably do pay property taxes; as most are renters, that's taken care of through their rent. And I can pretty much guarantee you that most people working at the wages that illegal immigrants get are not paying for health insurance, so that's hardly something you can pin on illegals either.

And immigrants, legal and otherwise, provide the economy with substantial benefits. one study mentions that once you count an immigrant's children, taxpayers make an $80,000 profit on each immigrant. That's not evenly distributed; costs of schooling come now, and the taxes come later. But given our demographics, that's a great thing: if it weren't for immigration, we'd be facing a demographic time bomb just like Europe.

So I agree we should help Mexico. (And free trade is the best way to do that; with more work in Mexico, there's less need for them to come here.) And I agree that we should try to control illegal immigration as much as possible. But for those who are here to stay, we should make sure that they become productive members of society.

Perhaps that also applies to the people in charge of WiFi specs. ;-)

One of the writers at the Economist is certainly interested in mesh networking - they've been talking it up for a while - but without knowing who it is, how can I tell whether their interest is technical or, er, economic?

Human failings, in other words, can undermine even the cleverest security measures. In one survey, carried out by PentaSafe Security, two-thirds of commuters at London's Victoria Station were happy to reveal their computer password in return for a ballpoint pen. Another survey found that nearly half of British office workers used their own name, the name of a family member or that of a pet as their password.

I made the comparison not for the purposes of an exact analogy, but in order to evoke the image of an unbalanced financial house of cards. Which is what Social Security is.

Compared with what exactly? I agree that unfunded liabilities aren't so great, and I personally favor funding those liabilities explicitly, but something that has gone 70 years and will go decades more without any adjustment and at least decades further with moderate adjustment is hardly a "financial house of cards".

The only way that Social Security could be even vaguely analogous with a pyramid scheme or a ponzi scheme is if we expected that at some point people would stop having children entirely so there would be old people without any children to pay their pensions. Somehow I'm not expecting that. But if that happens, pensions are the least of our worries.

If you want to see a financial house of cards, take a look at the current US private pension scheme. The PBGC, the government agency that guarantees the solvency of private pensions, is in deep trouble and has been headed that way for years.

It would be nice to see the Bush administration fix immediate and pressing problems with retirement before embarking on ideology-driven, fuzzy-math solutions to problems that are, worst case, decades away.

I made the comparison not for the purposes of an exact analogy, but in order to evoke the image of an unbalanced financial house of cards. Which is what Social Security is.

Compared with what exactly? I agree that unfunded liabilities aren't so great, and I personally favor funding those liabilities explicitly, but something that has gone 70 years and will go decades more without any adjustment and at least decades further with moderate adjustment is hardly a "financial house of cards".

The only way that Social Security could be even vaguely analogous with a pyramid scheme or a ponzi scheme is if we expected that at some point people would stop having children entirely so there would be old people without any children to pay their pensions. Somehow I'm not expecting that. But if that happens, pensions are the least of our worries.

If you want to see a financial house of cards, take a look at the current US private pension scheme. The PBGC, the government agency that guarantees the solvency of private pensions, is in deep trouble and has been headed that way for years.

It would be nice to see the Bush administration fix immediate and pressing problems with retirement before embarking on ideology-driven, fuzzy-math solutions to problems that are, worst case, decades away.

I find the article at Airbus v. Boing (pun intendet) a lot better. Cheers

InnerWeb

>Its an economic fact that patents are good for economy, as they push companies to invent.

Actually not everybody agrees on that. The Economist and Price WaterHouse Coopers have both spoken out that there are serious issues with the idea of software patenting, and also business method patents in the US. Neither of these are particularly left wing organisations :) Patenting encourages people to invent things, but it also provides a barier to people who want to invent things based on previously patented ideas.

At any rate, the parent was talking about value in terms of usefulness to the population, not simply financial growth. Non-profit companies are capable of doing somethings more efficiently than companies that much make profit for shareholders/executives (hence wasting money that could be used to lower prices/produce more) in some situations. They may not always be better, they don't have the same incentives (or financial means) to try new things sometimes.

Did you happen to read this Economist article mourning the same loss?

I'll bite.

Value compared to what?

The Euro? 21.5%
13 Jan 2000: Euro 22.3 bn*
13 Jan 2005: Euro 27.1 bn

The Yen? 62.5%
13 Jan 2000: Yen 2.4 trn
13 Jan 2005: Yen 3.9 trn

British Pound? 36.7%
13 Jan 2000: GBP 13.9 bn
13 Jan 2005: GBP 19 bn

Australian Dollar? 34.4%
13 Jan 2000: AUD 34.9 bn
13 Jan 2005: AUD 46.9 bn

The Chinese Yuan? 56.7%
13 Jan 2000: CNY 190.4 bn
13 Jan 2005: CNY 298.3 bn

That's an average overall 49.8% increase between these currencies (which is about the same as the dollar rise). The lowest was the Euro at 21.5%, but the increase in Yen is 62.5%. If you were somehow to believe that all these currencies (including the dollar) were put into a pool with equal shares, you still come out at a pretty good 8.1% clip in growth those years.

To think that Microsoft somehow did not hedge against any unfavorable movements in currency is absolutely ludicrous, so effects to them are pretty much nil. They are not affected by the change in the Euro, or at least not as much as you think. (Note how prices of BMWs have not risen 33%).

Then again, cash reserves don't really mean that much. Microsoft was holding most of it in fear of large lawsuits coming. Now that that has passed, they need to figure out what to do with it.

What was the point of your remark?

* Source: Markets & Data | Calculator

"Everyone is fooled, prepare for phase 2..."

Just in case you hadn't known, the Economist once mentioned Wikipedia, in passing, in a favorable light. However, I suspect if the magazine reviewed Wikipedia more thoroughly, it would come down much more critically.

Second highest, after Russia (not including countries like North Korea for which reliable statistics are impossible to obtain).

If one looks at the situation with a little bit of distance, and reason, arguments such as those put forth here that "well, he's against the US, so he must be ok" don't really hold much water.

Chavez can probably best be described as a 'populist' rather than a socialist.

Read about him at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%E1vez

Note that he attempted a coup against the then president himself at one point.

The Economist talks about him some - they don't like him, but the coverage is reasonable:

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id =3084355

I think their points are reasonable, just as I thought their reasons for not voting for Bush were well thought out.

Great to hear :-)
Concerning Venezuela's ability make their own choices, The Economist has an interesting article today about Venezuela having forged new major oil contracts with China (I admit it has no immediate relation with open source, but hey, it -is- two great news for their ability to be free :-).

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id =3521240