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While I basically agree with you -- Microsoft couldn't innovate their way out of the proverbial paper bag -- I'm not so sure that innovation is such a big deal anyway. I just read a Newsweek article on Dunkin Donuts that had this interesting observation:

LESSON TWO: Innovation Is Overrated

By the mid-'90s, after years of airing those "Time to Make the Donuts" commercials, Dunkin' had become too focused on the high-calorie pastries. But as managers searched for products to broaden the menu and appeal to health-conscious families, they didn't look only at ideas cooked up in their own R&D labs. Instead of trying to reinvent breakfast, they began pushing basic products--like bagels, low-fat muffins and breakfast sandwiches--that customers already ate elsewhere. Taking a cue from Starbucks, which had morphed coffee into a cold, creamy drink called the Frappuccino, Dunkin' fired back with the Coolatta, and added flavored coffees to its lineup. These days, beverages account for more than half of revenues in some markets.

So maybe Dunkin's managers didn't score points for originality. But today, bagels, breakfast sandwiches and Coolattas each sell more than $200 million annually, and some observers see Dunkin's better-developed menu as an advantage over rivals. "There's no confusion in customers' minds when they walk into Dunkin' Donuts what food products will be available," says Ted Lingle, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. "I don't think Starbucks has that same clarity."

Dunkin's successful appropriation of competitors' products shows how exaggerated the concept of being the pioneer--or in Internet parlance, the first mover--can be. From Atari's videogames (which created a market now dominated by others) to Apple's failed Newton (which paved the way for Palm), business is filled with examples in which profits accrue to companies that copy, rather than invent, products. Indeed, Dunkin' loyalists are quick to point out that despite the perception that Starbucks invented the concept of selling high-quality coffee for a premium, the idea was pioneered by Dunkin' Donuts' founder, Bill Rosenberg, when he started the chain in --1950. "He charged more for coffee than anybody in his day, and people thought he was crazy," says Jessica Brilliant Keener, co-author of Rosenberg's memoir, "Time to Make the Donuts." That illustrates the point nicely: after a few decades of many players profiting, nobody much remembers who invented a good idea anyway.

(The emphasis in the last paragraph is mine.)

This is an interesting point. Starbucks has a bad rap for charging three bucks for a simple cup of coffee, but according to this article, Dunkin Donuts did the same thing decades earlier -- all Starbucks has done is rachet it up a notch.

And the examples given are well taken -- the history of the desktop "WIMP" GUI would be an even stronger point here: Xerox invented it, Apple copied what Xerox did, Microsoft copied what Apple did. More recently, Microsoft put fast user switching into XP, and Apple put it into Panther the next year, while Apple put a slick vector graphics mechanism as Aqua in OSX a couple of years ago, and Microsoft is allegedly trying to get something like it into the mythical next version of Windows a few years from now. And on it goes.

More broadly, originality is seen as a big deal in art & entertainment, but in reality it's a very rare thing. The Beatles were great, but they were just brushing up black American music that they loved when they were young, and that pre-Beatles rock & roll was in turn just an evolution from earlier blues & hymnals. Jazz can be really wonderful & unique, but it too derives largely from the blues, and from Jewish folk music like klezmer. Pixar's movies feature ground-breaking animation, but it's just building on techniques that have been evolving for decades, and the

This is just another example of how dissent in this country is somehow viewed as "undemocratic" or "unpatriotic" (which is quite the oxymoron given that dissent is what DEFINES democracy). More and more often we see cases where the powers that be attempt to marginalize those who don't quite swallow the spoonfed BS. For example:

Diebold Issues Cease and Desist to Indymedia
US Takes Hardline Against Greenpeace
Labeling anti-war protestors as 'unAmerican'

I have no problem with people disagreeing with someone's opinion, but the instant labeling of someone as 'undemocratic' or a 'terrorist' because they are exercising free speech makes me sick.

Except that at no time has Iraq ever used weapons against the United States of America.

Are you seriously suggesting that we should have waited for that to happen? Do you think it is acceptable for a Commander in Chief to ignore such a serious threat? I sure am glad you are not in charge of defending us.

On the other hand, America has invaded Iraq not once, but twice, and even now holds it as a 21st century colony.

The United Nations (not the United States) invaded Iraq in 1991. The United States acted with unanimous support of the United Nations. The "second" invasion was really a continuation of the first- Iraq was (and had been for 12 years) in violation of the ceasefire from the first Gulf War.

And if we are holding Iraq as a colony, why would we be pushing them so hard to write their own constitution and hold their own elections? This is part of our vision of democracy in the middle east.

From the actual evidence available, it would appear that the United States is far more dangerous than any Arab state

I see no evidence that would suggest that.

Weapons that actually exist in the real world, compared to the Iraqi weapons - which exist only in the fevered imaginations of certain deranged individuals.

There is no doubt that the Iraqi weapons existed. Why else would the United Nations have passed so many resolutions requiring Iraq to disarm? The world has seen him use the weapons 10 times in the past 20 years! Do they still exist? The fact that we don't know for sure is enough proof that Saddam violated the UN resolutions.

No, he insisted that they were developing them. This was based on the same sort of intelligence that others, including France, had, and they had the same belief.

No, he actually did claim that Saddam had WMDs and could use them against the US and our allies at any time. It's absolutely surreal to me that you would even claim otherwise. Here's a good collection of quotes on the issue.

And the "sort of intelligence" to which you refer turned out to be one British report of which everyone else was, rightly, skeptical. The rest of the world wanted to wait until we had, you know, actual evidence, but Bush and Blair blazed ahead.

He never insisted any such connection other than that Saddam and Al Quaeda were both terrorists.

No, this had been one of the administration's official arguments for war up until recently. Look at news from two years ago, and earlier this year. Contrast with the story a few weeks ago.

Please, support the president all you want, but do not allow the administration and media to erase the past.

They put the Harry Potter 3 trailer online before the intended release date - can they arrest themselves now?

I've seen the NYT change the title of an article or rework a paragraph or two a few days later... usually it significantly
alters the spin of the article.

The most egregious case I've seen to date is msnbc changing the entire article completely. This article, entitled "U.N. urges inspectors return to Iraq" is dated Oct. 13, and completely replaced this article, entitled "Rumsfeld acknowledges intelligence may have been bad", dated Oct. 2. Now it could be something to do with how they number their articles, but given it's Nov. 11 now (a month after oct. 13) and the article has not been changed and that the replacement article was 11 days after the article it was replacing, I don't think so. Unfortunately since the time I took note of this (about a week or so ago), google has recached the page, thus destroying its record of the old article. Also, wayback machine didn't get it either... the only record I can find now that google has been recached is a reprint on this blog . Which of course probably violates msnbc's copyright to boot.

I dunno...perhaps someone needs to set up something to archive major news sources more frequently than wayback and check for *changes* ... this way we can watchdog news angencies which are making up spin on the fly.

It's crazy... print doesn't have this problem.... once it's out, it's out, but on the 'net we seem to be able to have revisionist history, soviet style.

Yeah, blame it on the "mindless drones" instead of all the corporate lackeys working hard to deceive said mindless drones.

In this case, what if one of these drones hears a rumor that Bush Sr. really didn't think we should invade Iraq? Maybe he sees one of those old pictures of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam? Someone tells him Time Magazine published a piece that confirms this evil rumor. He goes to Time's website, sees that the article doesn't exist, and realizes that once again, the liberal media are fomenting vicious propaganda against Our Beloved Leader.

Maybe there's some perfectly innocent reason why Time pulled the article from the website. If so, I'd like to hear that reason.

This link does not seem to be bogged down with slashdot traffic yet! Trailer!

Mars is where we need to go. I agree that NASA does need some goal if they are ever going to do anything useful again but if they're going to set a goal, it should at least set a potentially habitable planet as a goal with the Moon as a sub goal or a proof of concept.

Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics and founder of the Mars Society has called for the mobilization of Mars exploration proponents to write their representatives on the future of post-Columbia NASA. From his announcement: 'This debate will play out over the next six months, and the result could determine the future of the American space program in our generation. Now is the time when anyone who cherishes hopes for a spacefaring future for humanity must step forward and speak up.'

This is happening alongside the recent testimony Zubrin gave to the full Senate Commerce Committee on Oct 29th (audio files here and the .pdf) and the proposed Bill from Congressman Nick Lampson TX to restore Mars as a goal and put NASA on a schedule. Here are a few sample letters if you want to write your congressman.

According to this article the fine is not for violating the recently enacted DNC list, but rather for violating separate FCC rules. Specifically if someone asks you to remove their name from your list you are required to do so.

What is also interesting is AT&T's reaction in the above article, as I have had telemarketers call me offerring me things like identity theft protection on my AT&T Universal card, yet they aren't at all affiliated with AT&T.

Both the print and online editions of Newsweek have an article about the systems as well.

What about the questions surrounding the U.S. Government's knowledge of 9/11 prior to the event itself?

What about the fact that the U.S. Government trained and armed what would become Al Queda in the first place?

What about the fact that the U.N. Weapons Inspectors couldn't find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Saddam had no involvment in 9/11, despite the general cloud of confusion that the President has spread over that particular issue. Quite a few experts maintain that Saddam was no threat to the U.S. as long as he was left alone. I won't say the world isn't better off without Saddam but it's the motivation and execution that bother me.

Does none of this inconsistency bother you in any way?

• Nope

Microsoft announced their plans to introduce their own device in the coming year. More devices = more competition = lower prices.

So they get to break all the existing applications - yet again.

I still daily run code that I first wrote on Unix 18 years ago, it has evolved at bit but is largely unchanged in 10 years.

It's funny you mention that, because they ran VisiCalc (search the article for VisiCalc) at the PDC. That's 20 years old, and it's a completely unmodified binary. Compare that to your 18 year old code, that's evolved, and is only "largely unchanged".

I'm sure you could find some software that could do that for Unix, but the hard part would probably be finding the Unix that has been on the same hardware for 20 years. It's not Linux, it's not Solaris; SGI maybe? They've been MIPS all the way I believe.

Anyway, the point being that WinFX, like every other major Microsoft upgrade, is backwards compatible. You like OLE? DDE? Win16? DOS? You can still do it all & run it all on Windows today and apparently tommorow too.

add to that this species of fish which was just discovered in the Good ole USA.

Well, there is a GM fish being sold called Night Pearl. See here, or here, or here.

This story was also covered on CNN International and covered on Space.com.

Yeah, but we all know you actually saw it here.

the washington post (via msnbc) says dont bother with Office 2003 at all
http://www.msnbc.com/news/982713.asp?0dm=T15NT

fp?

link

What's happening in the lawsuit filed by the Beatles' record label Apple against your company, charging that your music activities violate a truce between the two firms?

It's basically a trademark issue. There was an agreement written; they read it one way, we read it another way, and a judge will tell us who's right. It's not a big deal. It's unfortunate because we love the Beatles. I'd do anything for those guys.

What happens when human-computer interfaces are refined to the point where hand-eye coordination and manual reflexes no longer have an effect on how well a person plays a game?

Will winning have any meaning then? This is rather like the illicit drugs issue in athletic sports, only taken to the nth degree since the limits imposed by muscle and bone would not apply.

What is the core of this competition, is the real question. That has to be determined if it's going to be an Olympic sport.

If the Olympics were going to implement a cyberathlete sport, but use original code instead of commercial games, what sort of game would be best for them to invent? What would its key features be? What skills would it measure?

Is it hand-eye coordination? Quickness of thought?

With improved H-C interface, would the highest IQs always win? Would an IQ test then suffice in place of the game for competition?

Americans who are being asked to exchange privacy for the promise of security might want to look at Britain. In democratic nations, the balance between liberty and security is a delicate one. American officials would be wise to take note of the wave of indignation sweeping across Britain -- or they could soon face a backlash of their own.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. Finally, complain to the media. If they get enough letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

Remember, VeriSign is busy telling them its side of the story. We need to tell them ours!

And Aaron Boone is the new Bucky Dent.

Rule would control digital TV copies


Rule would control digital TV copies

FCC looks to require devices to block Internet piracy

By Jonathan Krim
THE WASHINGTON POST

Oct. 16 -- The federal government is preparing for the first time to require that personal computers and other consumer electronics devices contain technology to help block Internet piracy of digital entertainment.

A RULE being considered by the Federal Communications Commission is one of a series of proposals pushed by the entertainment industry to help thwart copying and online trading of movies and television shows that increasingly are being broadcast in digital form with high-quality picture and sound.

'BROADCAST FLAG'

But the new rule also would force consumers to purchase new equipment if they wanted to record enhanced digital-quality television programs and replay them on other machines.

Opponents of the proposed rule, including many technology companies and consumer groups, say it won't work. They are especially concerned that the plan might lead to government regulation of how personal computers and other devices are built, particularly if hackers crack the system and further changes are deemed necessary.

Officials at the FCC, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they expect the agency to settle on details of the "broadcast flag" rule by the end of the month. The broadcast flag takes its name from the bit of computer code that would be embedded in digital television signals and would be read by "compliant" devices such as a television set or a digital video recorder.

The rule would not affect consumers who record shows the old-fashioned way, with VCRs. Nor would it affect programming received on a cable or satellite system, in part because consumers pay for that content.

But the entertainment industry does not want digitally enhanced "high-value" entertainment sent free over the air to be easily copied and distributed on the Internet.

FCC officials said they expect the final rule to enable competition among different means of deploying the flag system to protect broadcasts, rather than the government anointing one in particular.

Unlike with recent FCC decisions on high-speed Internet access and media consolidation that have deeply split the five-member commission, none of the three Republicans and two Democrats has led a public campaign against the broadcast flag.

"I'm optimistic we'll have a clean majority," said one senior agency official. "The commission has acted in the area of digital television in a very bipartisan fashion."

Promoting digital programming, especially high-definition television, on regular broadcast channels has been a goal of the FCC since the Clinton administration.

Regulators have long worried that if enhanced digital programming is primarily offered on for-pay cable and satellite systems -- which scramble their signals -- free "over-the-air" television could wither and die.

So the FCC granted broadcasters additional spectrum to provide enhanced digital signals, and set quotas for how much programming they must offer, although those quotas have mostly gone unfilled.

Now the agency is addressing how programming can be protected so that it cannot be easily copied and sent around the Internet, undermining the lucrative aftermarket for videos and television syndication.

That puts the FCC in the middle of one of the most contentious issues of the computer age: how to protect against unauthorized use of digital entertainment when part of its appeal is the increased ability to manipulate it, customize it and transfer it to different locations.

WAYS TO CIRCUMVENT
In theory, the broadcast flag system would thwart Internet distribution by preventing computers from copying the files in a way that would allow them to be sent to others.

Critics point out that the system could be easily cir

This story suggests this isn't just a short-term propaganda project. The author's analysis of the systems involved, that they included a lot of equipment that you wouldn't bother with on a one-off design, suggest that they put a lot of thought behind the system and they're in this for the long haul.

I wonder if Apple's failure to bring iTMS to market in non-US nations is due to the patent out there described here. If that is the case, given the slim profit margin in selling music online, I'd have to think any non-US ventures would be doomed to failure until either all the companies buy (eat) one another or go bankrupt, or somehow the patent is challeneged.

There's an article by James Oberg, space expert, on the spacecraft hardware design decisions the Chinese have made. To sum it up -- they are indeed very serious about being in this game for the long haul (or Long March, whatever).

They took their sweet time for a very good reason, and have every intention of leapfrogging past the mistakes of the US and Russians. Slow and steady wins the race.

MSNBC (Yes I know, I'm too lazy to change my default home page...score one for MS) has this article with a little interesting tidbit at the end:

The phrase "under God" was not part of the original pledge adopted by Congress as a patriotic tribute in 1942, at the height of World War II. Congress inserted the phrase more than a decade later, in 1954, when the world had moved from hot war to cold.

Interesting that these contraversial two words where just an addition to seperate us from those "godless commies", no? Sounds on the whole rather silly now :-/

-Chris

OK, I'll bite:
Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

Combine this with the above, and we will soon be paying homage to ninja monkey overlords....

it's not like i'm a republican out for blood money. it is a great little piece of history and i have preserved it lovingly. all i want is enough to get some other toy, like a shuttle PC to run my freevo, or something else nifty that i will get more use out of these days. . . . . its just a science project waiting to happen . . .. .

This or this.

no one noticed, since it was so far down the page...

From an MSNBC article [msnbc.com]:

Future versions of the SunnComm software would include ways that the copy-protecting files would change their name on different computers, making them harder to find, Jacobs said. Moreover, the company will distribute the technology along with third-party software, so that it doesn't always come off a protected CD, he added.

So, they intend to get their DLL onto your system by having it installed by other unrelated programs... Sneaky.

From an MSNBC article:

Future versions of the SunnComm software would include ways that the copy-protecting files would change their name on different computers, making them harder to find, Jacobs said. Moreover, the company will distribute the technology along with third-party software, so that it doesn't always come off a protected CD, he added.

So, they intend to get their DLL onto your system by having it installed by other unrelated programs... Sneaky.

It looks as if the Domestic and Non-Domestic $100 bills provided for in Senator Leahy's S-307 will soon be with us. Last year, Leahy introduced S-2158, which called for tightly controlled "domestic" and "non-domestic" versions of the dollar, and new banknotes for both. S-2158 failed to pass the 103rd Congress because of public objections to the "dual currency" idea, but the Counterfeiting and Money Laundering Deterrence Act, reintroduced just a few months later as S-307, is a very close replacement.

When will people realize... the more people that listen to your music the more popular you are. thus having more people listen is a good thing not a bad thing. the only people copyright protects are the people that are in the music business to make money and those people are in the business for the wrong reasons.

if you are tallented and make alot of music (im thinking dylan, floyd, zeplin) then the fans and money will come to you. moreso if you dont have cartels taking most of your money.

the problem is that people who make music (and i know quite a few) mostly want to make money. the really tallented ones are in it for the fame and the glory of being ARTISTS NOT TOOLS.

like my man chuck d public enemy reprezent!! says "I trust the consumer more than I trust the people at the helm of these (recording) companies," and the o so great one liner: "P2P to me means power to the people," link

As well, you can be sure that Taiwan supplied China with many of the key technologies that accelerated its space program. Numerous Taiwanese living in the USA have been arrested over the years on charges of spying on behalf of mainland China. Some of those arrests involved the theft of American aerospace technology.

To understand why the Chinese space effort is ominous, you need to read no further than the article, "China Detains Health Official for Publicizing AIDS Coverup". Within the same month that the Chinese express fascist pride at their ability to challenge democracies like the USA in space technology, the Chinese arrested and imprisoned a person who revealed an AIDS coverup. This person revealed information that the Chinese were trying to sell AIDS-tained blood products to Americans in 1993-1994.

... from the desk of the reporter

Microsoft bios

Motorola Phone deal with M$

I'd be much happier to hear that we could expect spaceflight based on rocket technology in 2004.

We can expect private parties to reach space in 9-12 months.: "In a race to achieve the first privately funded manned spaceflight, rocket engineers are poised to compete for the $10 million X Prize by launching people to the edge of space and bringing them back safely twice within a two-week period. Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, said he expects that a teams will launch within the next few months, using rockets and spacecraft that are already being tested and prepared for the daring venture."

Rumour has it that Paul Allen is backing Rutan and SpaceShipOne...

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

Was Dean just as "geek friendly" when the campaign spammed users back in August?

Dean is going after low-hanging fruit. Go up to your average voter and mention that Dean released software under the GPL. Go ahead. After you get the brook-trout stare, consider the much-ballyhooed blogs of these candidates. High-tech tools to preach to the choir.

Great for shoring up the base, maybe a little grass-roots organization. Then throw in Clark or someone who actually affects the campaign on more than window-dressing geek issues and see how irrelevant it all becomes.

You do not invade and steal from your business partners. You can, however, invade and steal from their enemies.

And multi-hundred billion dollar subsidy? Please back that argument up. Considering the state of Iraqi oil development, it would take vast investments by American oil companies to even begin to project multi-hundred billion dollar paybacks.

It is ovious that my use of the word "subsidy" refers to the cost of conquering Iraq, not necessarily that of developing its oilfields. Nevertheless, it appears that even some of that is being done on our dime.

The oil argument for why US went to Iraq (invaded, in your terms) is bunk.

Your opinion is shared by many people, I am sad to say. Also, supposedly 70% of Americans believe Iraq had something to do with the 9/11 attacks. And yet you claim that I am uneducated and deluded. Oh well...

However, these will only address the issue of a website or online store passing your email address around when they shouldn't (or idiots like Lycos and Yahoo who think sending emails to registered users is cool even when they have not opted in for any). It will not cope with the hardcore spammer who uses spiders to pull addresses from webpages/usenet postings or those that use random-garbage@yourdomain.com (I have been seeing a couple of these). It also does not address the waste of bandwidth/mailserver storage space imposed by delivering unwanted spam (which means higher access fees for everyone). For these, blacklisting is the only palliative - and the fact that spammers are now resorting to DDoSing the blacklist servers should be the best testament to how effective they have been (not to mention some of the pro-spammer AC postings here).

Ultimately, the only long-term solution is to make spam unprofitable - and given that most of it is generated by US businesses (as covered in this MSN article), this would be best done by imposing heavy fines on companies using, or profiting from, spam.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

Its an obvious Microsoft tactic. Cripple the user so they'll be forced to upgrade.