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Stories and comments across the archive that link to economist.com.

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Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by babbage · 2001-07-05 06:49 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
Actually, the whole series of articles seems to be available. The issue with this supplement came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still just starting to look though it. Interesting stuff.
The series. Some articles are short -- a couple paragraphs -- but most are pretty in depth, like "Computing Power On Tap" as linked to above:
Sorry if I was being a wiseass with the not-first-post. I'm interested in the subject, and was disappointed that no one had commented yet. I browse via the search page now just so that all the articles that never make it to the front page don't slip through; often they're more interesting & the discussion is at a more interesting level. Or not, this is Slashdot after all. Anyway...
Re:electronic version + my thoughts by NaturePhotog · 2001-07-05 06:32 · Score: 1 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?

Globus has a free link to the article at The Enconomist here. I guess the $2.95 is to pay for the privilege of using the search box at the Enconomist ;-)
electronic version + my thoughts by NaturePhotog · 2001-07-05 06:23 · Score: 2 · on The Globus Project and Computational Grids?
The electronic version can be found here. However, it requires a subscription or $2.95 to read the article. I have the latter, but no desire to part with it for this :-) Babbage: I think there are so few responses because this article isn't visible on the front page. It takes a search or clicking on "older stuff" to find it. At least that's how I did. I think using spare CPU cycles for such projects is great, as long as:
- the results from the public's participation are made public, not kept for private gain as was reported with some drug and genome distributed research projects. If they want to make money from it, then they should pay for the CPU time, and state what they're doing up front
- computers aren't left on simply to run such programs
When the power crisis hit here in California, SETI@Home specifically requested that SETI users turn off their computers during stage 2 and 3 power alerts, and has since added a page on "running green", which also suggests that you turn off your monitor when not in use, and requests that you not keep your computer on just to run SETI@Home. And it has some handy links to sources about conserving energy, too.
Scary graph (Vostok ice cores) by JPMH · 2001-07-04 19:35 · Score: 3 · on Supercomputing and Climate Research
This graph is one of the scariest things I have seen in a long time. It's a plot of the temperature variations and CO2 levels over the last 500,000 years measured from ice cores drilled out from Lake Vostok in the Antarctic. The two series track each other incredibly closely.
As we now have good models for why CO2 should cause temperature change, but not the other way round, it is something to take very seriously.
The figure was taken from The Economist magazine, a paper not usually associated with extreme anti-business views. Two recent articles gave good summaries of our present state of knowledge about global warming, and how both the data and the models have improved over the last ten years:
- The Reality of Global Warming (14 June 2001)
  Article on the report for the Bush administration from the National Academy of Sciences.
- The science and politics of global warming (16 Nov 2000)
  Background piece before the last 'Kyoto' meeting in the Hague
(Titles given are those used in the magazine's index of its environmental stories online.)
One worrying new possibility is that there may be an abrupt change (bifurcation) in the ecosystem response as the temperature rises. At the moment about 50% of the manmade CO2 emissions are being absorbed by the Amazon rain forest. But the latest Hadley Centre models predict that if the temperature continues to rise, this greatly increases the frequency of much drier weather in this region, causing the forest to dry out, ultimately leading to uncontrollable forest fires. This would release vast amounts of more CO2 into the atmosphere if the whole lot went up -- perhaps ten times as much as human activities.
(And that is not the ultimate nightmare positive-feedback scenario, which is the enormous amounts of methane hydrate locked up at the bottom of the ocean in the arctic permafrost. The only thing that keeps it stable is the high pressure and low temperature. There is thought to have been a runaway destabilisation 55 million years ago, which raised the temperature 15 degrees C in less than 20 years).
I suppose somebody might come up with a techno-fix solution. But the complacency of gambling on that is like playing Russian roulette with five of the six chambers loaded.
Scary graph (Vostok ice cores) by JPMH · 2001-07-04 19:35 · Score: 3 · on Supercomputing and Climate Research
This graph is one of the scariest things I have seen in a long time. It's a plot of the temperature variations and CO2 levels over the last 500,000 years measured from ice cores drilled out from Lake Vostok in the Antarctic. The two series track each other incredibly closely.
As we now have good models for why CO2 should cause temperature change, but not the other way round, it is something to take very seriously.
The figure was taken from The Economist magazine, a paper not usually associated with extreme anti-business views. Two recent articles gave good summaries of our present state of knowledge about global warming, and how both the data and the models have improved over the last ten years:
- The Reality of Global Warming (14 June 2001)
  Article on the report for the Bush administration from the National Academy of Sciences.
- The science and politics of global warming (16 Nov 2000)
  Background piece before the last 'Kyoto' meeting in the Hague
(Titles given are those used in the magazine's index of its environmental stories online.)
One worrying new possibility is that there may be an abrupt change (bifurcation) in the ecosystem response as the temperature rises. At the moment about 50% of the manmade CO2 emissions are being absorbed by the Amazon rain forest. But the latest Hadley Centre models predict that if the temperature continues to rise, this greatly increases the frequency of much drier weather in this region, causing the forest to dry out, ultimately leading to uncontrollable forest fires. This would release vast amounts of more CO2 into the atmosphere if the whole lot went up -- perhaps ten times as much as human activities.
(And that is not the ultimate nightmare positive-feedback scenario, which is the enormous amounts of methane hydrate locked up at the bottom of the ocean in the arctic permafrost. The only thing that keeps it stable is the high pressure and low temperature. There is thought to have been a runaway destabilisation 55 million years ago, which raised the temperature 15 degrees C in less than 20 years).
I suppose somebody might come up with a techno-fix solution. But the complacency of gambling on that is like playing Russian roulette with five of the six chambers loaded.
Scary graph (Vostok ice cores) by JPMH · 2001-07-04 19:35 · Score: 3 · on Supercomputing and Climate Research
This graph is one of the scariest things I have seen in a long time. It's a plot of the temperature variations and CO2 levels over the last 500,000 years measured from ice cores drilled out from Lake Vostok in the Antarctic. The two series track each other incredibly closely.
As we now have good models for why CO2 should cause temperature change, but not the other way round, it is something to take very seriously.
The figure was taken from The Economist magazine, a paper not usually associated with extreme anti-business views. Two recent articles gave good summaries of our present state of knowledge about global warming, and how both the data and the models have improved over the last ten years:
- The Reality of Global Warming (14 June 2001)
  Article on the report for the Bush administration from the National Academy of Sciences.
- The science and politics of global warming (16 Nov 2000)
  Background piece before the last 'Kyoto' meeting in the Hague
(Titles given are those used in the magazine's index of its environmental stories online.)
One worrying new possibility is that there may be an abrupt change (bifurcation) in the ecosystem response as the temperature rises. At the moment about 50% of the manmade CO2 emissions are being absorbed by the Amazon rain forest. But the latest Hadley Centre models predict that if the temperature continues to rise, this greatly increases the frequency of much drier weather in this region, causing the forest to dry out, ultimately leading to uncontrollable forest fires. This would release vast amounts of more CO2 into the atmosphere if the whole lot went up -- perhaps ten times as much as human activities.
(And that is not the ultimate nightmare positive-feedback scenario, which is the enormous amounts of methane hydrate locked up at the bottom of the ocean in the arctic permafrost. The only thing that keeps it stable is the high pressure and low temperature. There is thought to have been a runaway destabilisation 55 million years ago, which raised the temperature 15 degrees C in less than 20 years).
I suppose somebody might come up with a techno-fix solution. But the complacency of gambling on that is like playing Russian roulette with five of the six chambers loaded.
Scary graph (Vostok ice cores) by JPMH · 2001-07-04 19:35 · Score: 3 · on Supercomputing and Climate Research
This graph is one of the scariest things I have seen in a long time. It's a plot of the temperature variations and CO2 levels over the last 500,000 years measured from ice cores drilled out from Lake Vostok in the Antarctic. The two series track each other incredibly closely.
As we now have good models for why CO2 should cause temperature change, but not the other way round, it is something to take very seriously.
The figure was taken from The Economist magazine, a paper not usually associated with extreme anti-business views. Two recent articles gave good summaries of our present state of knowledge about global warming, and how both the data and the models have improved over the last ten years:
- The Reality of Global Warming (14 June 2001)
  Article on the report for the Bush administration from the National Academy of Sciences.
- The science and politics of global warming (16 Nov 2000)
  Background piece before the last 'Kyoto' meeting in the Hague
(Titles given are those used in the magazine's index of its environmental stories online.)
One worrying new possibility is that there may be an abrupt change (bifurcation) in the ecosystem response as the temperature rises. At the moment about 50% of the manmade CO2 emissions are being absorbed by the Amazon rain forest. But the latest Hadley Centre models predict that if the temperature continues to rise, this greatly increases the frequency of much drier weather in this region, causing the forest to dry out, ultimately leading to uncontrollable forest fires. This would release vast amounts of more CO2 into the atmosphere if the whole lot went up -- perhaps ten times as much as human activities.
(And that is not the ultimate nightmare positive-feedback scenario, which is the enormous amounts of methane hydrate locked up at the bottom of the ocean in the arctic permafrost. The only thing that keeps it stable is the high pressure and low temperature. There is thought to have been a runaway destabilisation 55 million years ago, which raised the temperature 15 degrees C in less than 20 years).
I suppose somebody might come up with a techno-fix solution. But the complacency of gambling on that is like playing Russian roulette with five of the six chambers loaded.
Scary graph (Vostok ice cores) by JPMH · 2001-07-04 19:35 · Score: 3 · on Supercomputing and Climate Research
This graph is one of the scariest things I have seen in a long time. It's a plot of the temperature variations and CO2 levels over the last 500,000 years measured from ice cores drilled out from Lake Vostok in the Antarctic. The two series track each other incredibly closely.
As we now have good models for why CO2 should cause temperature change, but not the other way round, it is something to take very seriously.
The figure was taken from The Economist magazine, a paper not usually associated with extreme anti-business views. Two recent articles gave good summaries of our present state of knowledge about global warming, and how both the data and the models have improved over the last ten years:
- The Reality of Global Warming (14 June 2001)
  Article on the report for the Bush administration from the National Academy of Sciences.
- The science and politics of global warming (16 Nov 2000)
  Background piece before the last 'Kyoto' meeting in the Hague
(Titles given are those used in the magazine's index of its environmental stories online.)
One worrying new possibility is that there may be an abrupt change (bifurcation) in the ecosystem response as the temperature rises. At the moment about 50% of the manmade CO2 emissions are being absorbed by the Amazon rain forest. But the latest Hadley Centre models predict that if the temperature continues to rise, this greatly increases the frequency of much drier weather in this region, causing the forest to dry out, ultimately leading to uncontrollable forest fires. This would release vast amounts of more CO2 into the atmosphere if the whole lot went up -- perhaps ten times as much as human activities.
(And that is not the ultimate nightmare positive-feedback scenario, which is the enormous amounts of methane hydrate locked up at the bottom of the ocean in the arctic permafrost. The only thing that keeps it stable is the high pressure and low temperature. There is thought to have been a runaway destabilisation 55 million years ago, which raised the temperature 15 degrees C in less than 20 years).
I suppose somebody might come up with a techno-fix solution. But the complacency of gambling on that is like playing Russian roulette with five of the six chambers loaded.
Dark fibre and margins by anticypher · 2001-06-25 02:15 · Score: 4 · on Bandwidth Speculation's Legacy: Dark Fiber

There was a great article a month ago in the Economist about how telecom companies over-investing in fibre was the main cause of the recent economic blues. The general sense of the story was how a few buyouts of a few metropolitan fibre companies in 97-98 sparked a huge boom in investment in laying fibre.

But once the fibre started to be lit up, a dozen large telecom companies (nortel, alcatel, lucent, etc) started to compete with each other for cheap bits. When the price started falling, everyone realised there was too much capacity, and not enough margins reselling the bandwidth.

The equipment manufacturers (cisco, lucent, redback, etc) had sold tons of fibre terminating equipment to start-up and established telcos by financing long-term loans. Those loans were based on the (bad) assumption that prices for bits would stay at the same level. Prices dropped, and now many telcos don't have the income to pay off their loans. Since there is no more investment in new fibre termination equipment, the fibre will stay dark until the next economic boom.

There just isn't enough cheap hardware available to terminate all this dark fibre. There is literally tons of very expensive kit sitting in warehouses that cisco, nortel, and lucent can't sell. When those machines have buyers, then we will see prices continue downwards.

This is an economic problem, not a last mile problem. When the economy turns back up, then that fibre will start to light up as well, and long-haul prices will stay low, but bandwidth demands will increase.

the AC
Also, this from the Economist... by FallLine · 2001-06-14 22:38 · Score: 2 · on Cell Phone Makers Patent "Brain Shields"

"In a survey of 523 elementary schools by the National Association of Elementary School Principals, more than one-third said that lawsuits and problems with insurance had forced them either to modify or drop recess. Some schools have stripped play areas of any equipment, to pre-empt lawsuits from people who fall off swings when they break in after hours."

"No time for play", The Economist

Irrelevant? Hardly.
Re:Limited amount of science... by Your+Login+Here · 2001-06-02 12:13 · Score: 1 · on Space Tourist Discusses His Vacation

Knowledge of both will be required to make any expedition to the moon, or any planet, feasible.
I know that we are all waiting for the day that man can finally travel to the moon. : )
But seriously, ISS is more of a pollitical symbol than an acctuall scientific project. The economist has a story on this subject http://vh1.economist.com/editorial/justforyou/4-10 -97/st4370.html
Space travel in it's current form is a pollitical symbol and a romantic dream, not a well designed scientific program. Nasa knows this, and that's why they are so strongly opossed to Tito's paid visit.
Re:tax and spend liberal by T.Hobbes · 2001-05-19 03:01 · Score: 2 · on Solar Power Satellites by 2020?

Please. The 'energy crisis' has become an issue only since the election; Bush made an 'energy policy' one the primary planks of his election platform. Remember the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve? Who might have brought that into discussion? Why? Since the election, two of the four-or-so major actions of the white house - cancelling Kyoto, and the new energy policy - have concerned energy policy. In fact, one of the primary reasons stated for cancelling Kyoto was because the CO2 limitations contained within it could not be sustained due to the 'energy crisis'.
A quick trip to whitehouse.gov reveals the following from a speech Bush made concerning energy:
But if we fail to act, this great country could face a darker future, a future that is, unfortunately, being previewed in rising prices at the gas pump and rolling blackouts in the great state of California.

My administration has developed a sane national plan to help meet our energy needs this year and every year. If we fail to act on this plan, energy prices will continue to rise. For two decades, the share of the average family budget spent on energy steadily declined. But since 1998, it has skyrocketed by 25 percent.

If we fail to act, Americans will face more and more widespread blackouts. If we fail to act, our country will become more reliant on foreign crude oil, putting our national energy security into the hands of foreign nations, some of whom do not share our interests.
I don't want to quote the entire thing; read it for yourself. Also pass a glance at the National Energy Report. Read this article in The Economist, this article (also in The Economist), CNN has an easy-to-digest overview of the positions of Bush and Clinton, as well as some articles on the matter. Note, in all of these articles, where much of the article's substance comes from: Bush. Bush himself makes clear his long interest in the subject matter.
All that being said, what else has happend in the past year or so which might have precipitated this crisis? California finally felt the brunt of it's flawed deregulation; fuel prices have risin since their historic lows of 97/98, and ... that's it. Oh, and Bush came into office. In short, this 'crisis' - if there even is one - is in the public's mind largely because Bush considers it important.
As for the substance of Bush plan on the environment, read the report yourself, as well as some of the articles I linked to. It is not simply technologies which are 20 years away which have seen funding cut, or been ignored; technologies which currently work, but are not widly used, have had what research funding they have cut. The vast bulk of the energy plan concerns building of new refineries, plants, distribution lines and extraction points, as well as environmental deregulation. (It is important to note, again, that a mere two years ago, energy prices were at historic lows; since then, as prices have risen, the invisible hand of capitalism has moved in and plans for new construction of these very same elements of energy infrastructure have appeared).
Enough long-winded ranting.. I just want to see what technologies we have, twenty years from now, for energy.. so much cool stuff is coming down the line.

Linus has,in fact,grown,and explosively-JonKatz
Re:tax and spend liberal by T.Hobbes · 2001-05-19 03:01 · Score: 2 · on Solar Power Satellites by 2020?

Please. The 'energy crisis' has become an issue only since the election; Bush made an 'energy policy' one the primary planks of his election platform. Remember the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve? Who might have brought that into discussion? Why? Since the election, two of the four-or-so major actions of the white house - cancelling Kyoto, and the new energy policy - have concerned energy policy. In fact, one of the primary reasons stated for cancelling Kyoto was because the CO2 limitations contained within it could not be sustained due to the 'energy crisis'.
A quick trip to whitehouse.gov reveals the following from a speech Bush made concerning energy:
But if we fail to act, this great country could face a darker future, a future that is, unfortunately, being previewed in rising prices at the gas pump and rolling blackouts in the great state of California.

My administration has developed a sane national plan to help meet our energy needs this year and every year. If we fail to act on this plan, energy prices will continue to rise. For two decades, the share of the average family budget spent on energy steadily declined. But since 1998, it has skyrocketed by 25 percent.

If we fail to act, Americans will face more and more widespread blackouts. If we fail to act, our country will become more reliant on foreign crude oil, putting our national energy security into the hands of foreign nations, some of whom do not share our interests.
I don't want to quote the entire thing; read it for yourself. Also pass a glance at the National Energy Report. Read this article in The Economist, this article (also in The Economist), CNN has an easy-to-digest overview of the positions of Bush and Clinton, as well as some articles on the matter. Note, in all of these articles, where much of the article's substance comes from: Bush. Bush himself makes clear his long interest in the subject matter.
All that being said, what else has happend in the past year or so which might have precipitated this crisis? California finally felt the brunt of it's flawed deregulation; fuel prices have risin since their historic lows of 97/98, and ... that's it. Oh, and Bush came into office. In short, this 'crisis' - if there even is one - is in the public's mind largely because Bush considers it important.
As for the substance of Bush plan on the environment, read the report yourself, as well as some of the articles I linked to. It is not simply technologies which are 20 years away which have seen funding cut, or been ignored; technologies which currently work, but are not widly used, have had what research funding they have cut. The vast bulk of the energy plan concerns building of new refineries, plants, distribution lines and extraction points, as well as environmental deregulation. (It is important to note, again, that a mere two years ago, energy prices were at historic lows; since then, as prices have risen, the invisible hand of capitalism has moved in and plans for new construction of these very same elements of energy infrastructure have appeared).
Enough long-winded ranting.. I just want to see what technologies we have, twenty years from now, for energy.. so much cool stuff is coming down the line.

Linus has,in fact,grown,and explosively-JonKatz
Re:Voices amid the Din by Chalst · 2001-05-16 06:39 · Score: 2 · on The Open Source Evangelists Respond

The Economist has been running stories about open source responses to Mundies' claims, see last week's story. Idon't think the NY Times is capable of doing a good story on this.
ESR's predictions come true! by graveyhead · 2001-05-03 05:36 · Score: 2 · on MS VP Speech Online

The following was posted *yesterday* on the FreeDevelopers list. I am not posting it as an Anonymous Coward, because I badly need karma points :-)
From: "Eric S. Raymond"
To: wire-service@thyrsus.com Subject:
Breaking story: Beware the Microsoft shell game
Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 17:40:03 -0400

A few hours ago, a friendly journalist tipped me that Craig Mundie of Microsoft is going to make a major speech in New York tomorrow attacking open-source software -- specifically, attacking the GNU General Public License. This speech is probably intended to define Microsoft's party line on open source, and to shift the terms of the debate over it to one that Microsoft thinks it can win.

I haven't seen the speech; the friendly journalist told me it was embargoed. But I'm expecting it to be a masterpiece of FUD. You watch; it's going to be a studied and ingenious attempt to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the minds of software users and the public -- and to obscure Microsoft's underlying motives by cloaking them in affected concern for the public welfare.

This is a heads-up to journalists, industry observers, and the public -- as you listen to that speech tomorrow, don't get taken in by Mundie's shell game. Keep your eye on the pea. As the perceptive gentlemen of "The Economist" observed earlier this week [1] Microsoft's real agenda will be to preserve its monopoly, whatever the cost to software developers and the public.

So I can predict with fair confidence some of the things you're going to hear -- perhaps not as explicit statements that can be refuted, but as hints and allegations, a studied and careful attempt to disinform without telling explicit lies.

First off, expect Mr. Mundie to try to blur the distinctions between open-source development, use of the GPL, wholesale copyright-law violations like Napster, and outright software piracy. These are four different phenomena; a lot of open-source software doesn't use the GPL, most open-source developers are supportive of intellectual-property rights including copyright, and the open-source community as a whole has historically taken a definite stance against software piracy. We only give away our own work, not other peoples'.

Nevertheless, expect Mr. Mundie to lump all these phenomena togetber and hint darkly that Linux is the spearhead of a conspiracy to destroy trillions of dollars in intellectual-property assets. He probably won't come right out and accuse us of being Communists; that trial balloon popped when Jim Allchin floated it a few weeks ago with his "un-American" crack and got laughed out of town. But he'll let the implication hang there and hope it sticks.

What he'll hope you don't notice is that the "assets" he's mainly interested in protecting are Microsoft's -- and not just the $26 billion it has in the bank, but the far more important asset of over 90% desktop market share and tight control of its customer base through proprietary lock-ins.

It's that lock-in, that control of customers, that is what open source threatens most. With open source, customers can have real choices; they don't need to be locked into a perpetually more expensive upgrade treadmill, they can own and inspect and modify the software they depend on, they can have real security because they can know exactly what's running on their machines.

That choice is the fundamental threat to Microsoft's business model, and it's the reason they're getting clobbered by Linux in the server market (every month, more Linux installations come up on web servers alone than in Microsoft's entire Windows 2000 customer base). So it's not just individual open-source projects like Linux and Apache Microsoft has to defeat -- it's the open-source way of thinking about software.

One way to defeat it is by making people afraid of it -- by conning potential corporate purchasers into believing that using open-source software on their machine somehow means the GPL will force them to publish all their software or business secrets. Craig Mundie will try very hard to make you believe that. It's not true, but a company that blatantly falsified videotape evidence in a Federal antitrust trial is not going to balk at lesser falsehoods.

Another way to defeat open source is to co-opt it. After Craig Mundie gets through trying to make you fear and distrust open source, he will tout Microsoft's new so-called openness. He will doubtless talk about how Microsoft is willing to share source code with large customers and universities. And he'll talk up the "open" services like SOAP that are part of Microsoft's .NET plans (about which more later).

What Mr. Mundie will hope you don't notice is that Microsoft wants all the "sharing" to be in one direction. What they're doing is what we call "source under glass" -- you can see it, but you can't modify or reuse it in other programs. They want to be able to get the huge benefit of having thousands of outside people review their code without allowing any of those people to use what they learn on other projects.

We in the open-source community see this for what it is -- a counterfeit, a trick, a scam. It's aimed at recruiting free labor for Microsoft without giving the outside contributors any stake in or control of the results of their effort. In true open source, all parties are equal. When I give you my software under an open-source license, you have exactly the same rights as I do. That's what I trade you in return for your help in testing and improving the software. That's the voluntary cooperation that built the Internet.

Mr. Mundie also doesn't want you to notice, or remember, Microsoft's long history of perverting supposedly "open" standards into customer lock-in devices, by poisoning them with proprietary extensions that only closed Microsoft software understands. A notorious recent example is the games Microsoft played with the Kerberos security protocol. It would take a really cockeyed optimist to believe that Microsoft doesn't have similar maneuvers planned for once the .NET protocols get established, if they do.

Finally, Mr. Mundie will doubtless wind up his exhortations with a paean to the glories of .NET, Microsoft's attempt to turn itself into the worlds's biggest application software provider. Stripped to its essence, under this plan you mostly would give up buying software and instead rent networked services from Microsoft by the month.

There are two things Mr. Mundie hopes you won't notice about *this*. One is that .NET is born out of fear. Microsoft's strategists aren't stupid. They can see the trend curves, that falling hardware margins are spelling the doom of any business model based on expensive packaged-software licenses. They know the revenues from their own software business have actually been declining for three quarters now, covered only by creative accounting practices for which Microsoft is under a federal fraud investigation separate from the antitrust trial.

More fundamentally, those strategists have read Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma"; they can see that open-source software in general and Linux in particular are an unstoppable technology disruption that will sooner or later reach the heart of Microsoft's business -- and that the only way for Microsoft to survive is to dodge the bullet, to be in a different business before that bullet hits home. Hence the push to become an ASP.

But the more important thing he hopes you won't notice is that in the brave new .NET world, you would lose even the meager rights you have now under Microsoft's End-User License Agreement. You would own nothing. You would instead become ever more dependent on Microsoft to provide the basic services that your computer and your business rely on to function. You would have to absolutely trust Microsoft to neither deliberately violate your privacy for business advantage nor to leave your vital data exposed to crackers like those who break into Microsoft's own servers every few weeks.

Keep your eye on the pea, gentlemen and ladies. Because that is what Microsoft is really after -- a fast exit out of the packaged-software business, a lock on your critical data and network services, and an indefinite extension of the coercive monopoly position described in Judge Jackson's findings of fact. Higher prices, fewer choices, worse lock-in, and Microsoft uber alles for ever and ever, amen.
[1] A Kinder, Gentler Gorilla?"

-- Eric S. Raymond The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." -- Henry St. George Tucker (in Blackstone's Commentaries)

Well, your fingers weave quick minarets; Speak in secret alphabets;
Over-compensating == no respect by undecidable · 2001-04-29 12:17 · Score: 1 · on MSN Buys 500,000 Qwest.Net Customers

Here's a recent article from the Economist on Microsoft which asks the question, "has Microsoft changed its ways?"

I respect the Economist quite a bit because they have built up a solid reputation over a long period of time.

I can't say the same for Microsoft.

I'm not suggesting that I agree with putting down Microsoft at every opportunity, but they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt when trying to figure out their motives behind an action.
Re:what about a poiuyt keyboard? by petej · 2001-04-25 02:25 · Score: 1 · on Left Handed Peripherals - Where are they?

The point of a left-handed mouse, and for reversing the sense of the buttons in a multi-button mouse is to keep the index finger (typically the strongest and most accurate finger) as the most-frequently used. Reversing the keyboard layout wouldn't necessarily help keep the strongest fingers busiest. If that were the goal, the Dvorak keyboard is one purported solution, but it's not clear that it actually works better in practice across a broad population (Economist article here)
Re:The War on Drugs is the only thing that makes s by dubl-u · 2001-04-22 23:26 · Score: 4 · on Internet Drug Game Could Save Lives and Money

The only danger is sending out the wrong message. Drugs kill, and anyone advocating their use is little better than a killer.

Now that you have that off your chest, maybe you can lean back in your chair, look at some facts, and think about things a little.

The truth is that illegal recreational drugs, by and large, don't kill. The respected British newsmagazine The Economist estimates that a commercial airline flight is more likely to kill you than a hit of Ectasy is. The same goes for the most popular illegal recreational drug, marijuana. (Don't believe me? Get an almanac and compare drug usage statistics with drug death statistics.)

Admittedly, some people do die from some street drugs. But many of them don't die from the drugs themselves; they die from poor-quality drugs or accidental overdosing, both mainly effects of the fact that the production is unregulated. The same thing regularly happens with alcohol in countries where it is illegal; some back-room brewer makes a mistake and fifty people are blind or dead. The solution isn't to ban alcohol; it's to regulate its production to make sure it's safe.

And what about all the other drugs out there, the legal ones? It's a bit hypocritical to be telling kids "drugs are bad" when schools make money selling them caffeine and chocolate and the teachers are getting their nicotine fix in the staff lounge, right next to the government-provided coffee.

Think these drugs aren't dangerous or addictive? Think again. Unlike marijuana and ecstacy, caffeine and nicotine both cause physical dependency and withdrawl symptoms when you try to quit. A quick MEDLINE search will show you far more emergency room incidents for caffeine overdoses than marijuana overdoses. And don't get me started on mouth, throat, and lung cancer rates.

This, of course, says nothing about alcohol, which the majority of Americans use on a regular basis,and for which the body count, both direct and indirect, is orders of magnitude more than illegal recreational drugs. (Don't believe me? Again, take a look at your almanac.) Should we outlaw this too? We tried outlawing it before, and gave up because it didn't work. All it did was turn a lot of respectable, productive citizens into nominal criminals and channel vast sums of money into organized crime, who used it to build criminal empires and terrorize innocents. Gosh, doesn't that sound familiar?

So if you wanna save lives, bravo. But spending billions of dollars to save the small number of people killed each year by street drugs? And "saving" them by putting them in prison for twenty-to-life? That's just silly. If saving lives is your goal, the time and money are better spent elsewhere.
Astute Uranium Marketing by Baldrson · 2001-04-22 09:30 · Score: 2 · on Fission in a Box

Uranium is a by product of gold mining in South Africa and the price of gold has been lagging for some time now. The Forbes 500 companies with the highest growth in profits are the oil companies (reported last week) and venture capital for energy grew an average of 115%/year from 1995 thru 2000 it only makes sense for Dutch Boers to team up with the internationally respected black African politicians of South Africa to overcome the barriers, both technical and political, between their mining infrastructure and the already growing world market for uranium.
Another alternative fiber structure by sstammer · 2001-04-19 20:11 · Score: 1 · on New Fiber Optics In The Works

Another alternative fiber structure was described in an article in The Economist in March, referring to work by a Danish company.
And the link is? by dmccarty · 2001-04-11 03:27 · Score: 1 · on The End Of The Paperclip

The Economist had an interview recently with the guy who wrote the original using Bayesian algorithims.
...which is here. I also found an Economist article ("In Praise on Bayes") on Bayesian networks in general.

--
And the link is? by dmccarty · 2001-04-11 03:27 · Score: 1 · on The End Of The Paperclip

The Economist had an interview recently with the guy who wrote the original using Bayesian algorithims.
...which is here. I also found an Economist article ("In Praise on Bayes") on Bayesian networks in general.

--
Re:Didn't come up often enough? by Mr.+Barky · 2001-04-11 03:07 · Score: 2 · on The End Of The Paperclip

No, it's the other way around. The original algorithm made the paper clip come up less often.

The Economist's article is here
Re:Heard it all before..... by Glumdalclitch · 2001-04-10 03:58 · Score: 1 · on Microchips That Evolve

Analog vs. Digital
"In the real world, however, environmental factors such as temperature and humidity can cause the electrical properties of a micro-circuit's resistors and capacitors to vary by as much as 20%. Such discrepancies matter far less in digital circuits, which simply have to detect whether an electrical current is more or less on or off. But such variations in analogue circuits can render them unusable. For instance, a cellular telephone will not work properly if its analogue filter allows the transmission frequency to vary by more than 1%."
from jdcook's link
Maybe we should keep our cell-phones in temperature controlled humidors and "smoke 'em" only when at peak freshness.
Saw a link awhile back on disposable paper cell-phone cards that come with pre-paid talk-miles on them. I guess you'll be able to get them out of machines at truck stops just like similar items like condoms, tampons or lottery tickets.
The irony of digitizing stocks by eliminating point spreads.
"Earthman, the planet you lived on was commissioned, paid for, and run by mice. It was destroyed five minutes before the completion of the purpose for which it was built, and we've got to build another one."
Only one word registered with Arthur.

Hopfield and Brody held a "DIY" contest: The Mus silicium (sonoran desert sand mouse ;) web page.
Sort of like the old "guess what I'm thinking" magic acts or the old "send me your name and address for the Speedo Shammy cloth !"
"Yeah", said Ford, "they buzz them. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor soul whom no one's ever going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennae on their heads and making beep beep noises. Rather childish really." Ford leant back on the mattress with his hands behind his head and looked infuriatingly pleased with himself.
A better story covering some of the same ground... by jdcook · 2001-04-10 01:38 · Score: 1 · on Microchips That Evolve

ran in the Economist.
Negative Refractive Index stuff and Solar Sails by DeepDarkSky · 2001-04-05 22:36 · Score: 3 · on How Solar Sails Work

Instead of aluminum coated mylar, maybe they'd like to investigate the use of 3M's (no, I don't work for 3M or have stock in 3M) Radiant Mirror Film, which was first covered last year in this article which explains 3M's research into the birefringent effect. This film would be able to reflect more light than conventional light reflective material such as metal film coated mirrors.
On a separate though, I wonder if they could use the negative refractive index composite material in making the solar sails, since they are probably still investigating the material to use for the sail?
From yesterday's linked article:
"``negative refraction'' would make possible the construction of a lens capable of focusing light to limits not currently achievable. "
and a related article on the Economist about how negative refractive index material can possibly help make a "perfect lens"
Perhaps they could use the phenomenon of the negative refractive index to make more efficient or more maneuverable sails?
A somewhat related link... by DeepDarkSky · 2001-04-05 06:27 · Score: 2 · on Negative Index of Refraction Created

There was an article on Economist a while back about how a material with negative refractive index may make a perfect lens, one which the diffraction limit is overcome, etc.
Re:good idea bad idea by The+Mayor · 2001-04-04 00:41 · Score: 2 · on Open Courses at MIT

Hmm...I should have added that tuition from students accounted for something like 1.5% of Rice's annual budget. Again, my figures are a little dated, but the endowment accounts for about 80% of the budget. Most of the remainder comes from private grants (from corporations, non-profit, and not-for-profit organizations), while the rest comes from government research programs, such as NIH and NSF.

The NIH and the NSF account for 73% of government research spending (source: The Economist). The US government spends about $28 billion in research. As a nation with the largest economy (about 25% of the world GDP is from the US), it makes sense that the US government is also the largest research spender. Compare spending per capita, or spending per GDP, and you might get a different picture, however.
See "The Economist" by doctorfun · 2001-03-29 01:56 · Score: 2 · on FPGA Supercomputers

There's an article that talks about FPGA computing in this week's Economist.
Scroll down to the "Machines that Invent" heading for the really interesting part. David
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory .cfm?Story_ID=539808
Re:step in 167-year evolution by pogosity · 2001-03-15 01:56 · Score: 1 · on The Net Revolution's Backlash

Amen, Peter. I have a quote along those lines:

"It is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for the exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth."

Talking about the Internet? Ah, no. It is a quote about the 1858 transatlantic telegraph cable. I picked this up 6 months ago from an Economist article titled, "What the Internet cannot do". Had only Katz read it too, we might have been spared his lament.

"Knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence. Without history, a society shares no common memory of where it has been[or] what it core values are."
- 'National Standards for United States History' as reprinted in _Time_, Nov. 7, 1994
Is AOL a community or an ISP? by LL · 2001-03-10 01:46 · Score: 3 · on AOL Germany Found Guilty of Piracy

ISPs serve a specific role, to provide local access to internet via local access points. IANAL but as such they would be considered under the provisions of common carriers and regulated as such. On the other hand, how many people think AOL-Time-Warner congomerate could be considered a "mere" ISP. The larger you are, the more of a social/politcal/business entity you are considered and as such more/different/wierd rules (cough*MPAA*cough vs private DJ mixer) apply. To say that a corporation having market cap greater than the GNP of many small countries should not be held to the social standards of specific jurisdictions frames an interesting debate.
This raises philosophical questions. Should a community be held to the norms or ethos of its members? If you subscribe to a service controlled under a legal jurisdictions are you unknowingly binding yourself to an external cultural norm? This is like asking if I used the US dollar I am following the American dream (corporate capitalism), the Euro's gentleman's agreement (state capitalism) or the Australian FairGo (social capitalism - though at the moment the only direction it is going is south).
If you think you are immune from group-think then I congratulate you on your strength of mind. Psychologists have discovered than people in general try to "fit-in" wherever possible. Recall the famous experiments (link anyone?) where they monitored strangers entering an elevator but all the other occupants were instructed to face the back, then the lone holdout also faced the back irrespective of whether there was a rational reason to. Thus if AOL knowingly (by turning a blind eye), and had the power to control the practice but did not forbid music exchanges which they know is illegal, is it an (not quite accessory??) to a crime? Note that economic crims (as self-defined by being against the interests of the incumbants :-( ) are not the really the same as personal criminal acts or even civil violations. If computer companies start competing in other spheres, should they not be bound by similar product safety or service conduct rules?
The law may be an ass in many countries but at least the process is (relatively) open and (given enough pockets) available (unlike proprietary code) within democratic societies. Fundamentally corporations should not be immune from the provisions that govern individuals. This should be separated from the commercial issue of whether music distribution as property right has been violated through deliberate inaction or oversight.
Unfortunately in the long run I think things may hinder the smaller companies as the risk of negative knowledge becomes so great that only MNCs can survive. Eiterh that or MNCs become so overbearing in their zeal to avoid anti-trust provisions that users voluntarily join an independent outfit even if it is located in the South Pole .... (specualtive thought ... if someone set up an ISP on the moon, ignoring latency issues, would it be governed by any earth based legal commercial code?). Since AOL wants to do business in Germany, it has to obey the law no matter how stupid it is. If the law sucks and companies refuse to operate or provide their goods or services, then it is up to the citizens to change the law. Much like you don't want independent militaries operating in your backyard (OK so the feds want a monopoly on controlled violence), I think people much prefer having corporations under at least some form of restriction even though it may create some anomalies in the short term.
LL