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Somebody's been reading Cringely's latest article...

A newsmagazine show on PBS called "Now" last week did a feature story on municipal efforts to provide free wifi and industry efforts to thwart them via state legislatures.

A newsmagazine show on PBS called "Now" last week did a feature story on municipal efforts to provide free wifi and industry efforts to thwart them via state legislatures.

This topic was covered on PBS' NOW program last weekend.

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcriptNOW108 _full.html

Short version: Corporations are trying to pass laws restricting what duly-elected officials can do (viz, starting up wireless public networks), EVEN AFTER they have refused invitations to provide the service. (There's a story in the program about a small town that no company would serve, despite being asked, and how the town council did it themselves... and then the telecoms went to the statehouse to try and make what the council did illegal. Interesting.)

Not if Cringely is correct and telcos start to use COS (Class of Service) to prioritize chosen traffic above all others (like their own voip traffic).

Funny coincidence:

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050303. html

VoIP packet blocking/tagging is the subject of Cringely's latest column .

I've thought, boy, wouldn't it be great if I could just download some Sesame Street for the kids or NOVA episodes for myself? Well, there is an entire industry around selling DVDs and videocassette tapes. Even PBS is in on this racket . They sell Nova episodes for $20 a pop! You can watch some of them online for free, but they try really damned hard to control the content and prevent users from downloading the shows.

It is a racket, and people buy the stuff. Go to a library or a children's hospital. Look at how many videos they buy of shows that could be taped from the television. This stuff obviously sells. Why should these stations go through the effort to make their content available online for $1 an episode, only to have it traded on P2P networks? People are spending the big bucks on the prepacked stuff.

You're saying that Cringely may have been right?

Where I live, voters would receive an invitation by mail, letting them know when an election is held, together with a list of candidates to study in advance. Voters would go to the voting location, present that invitation (and possibly ID themselves), then receive a paper ballot, with all candidates/parties printed on it. Mark a circle next to the desired candidate with a red pencil, drop the ballot in a box, and you're done. How much easier can you make it? But here's the important thing: ANYONE (maybe even non-voters) CAN VERIFY EVERY SINGLE STEP IN THE PROCESS.

Before the election, there's plenty time to correct mistakes like voters not registered (that should have been), arrange to vote at another location, etc. At election day, anyone can verify that the box receiving the ballots, is empty at the start. You can hang around and see for yourself, that every voter drops only 1 ballot in the box, and that voters aren't excluded, harassed, or pressured into voting something other than their own choice. At the end of the day, you can watch the box being emptied, ballots (hand-)counted, re-counted if needed, and see that correct totals are recorded, and reported to city hall. And I'm pretty sure you could verify the totals being calculated at city hall, and verify that national results match the totals recorded for each city/village. In short: convince yourself, that there is not a SINGLE step in the process, where results could be compromised/f**ked up.

AFAIK, using paper ballots and hand-counting, is still:

• The most reliable: paper & ink don't fail, and when folks are watching, you need magic to make paper ballots change/appear/disappear.
• The most accurate: you just may need to re-count a couple of times to be sure.
• Cheap: election officials/count people are either volunteers or civil servants that were paid anyway. Paper & pencils cost nothing.
• Fast. If organised properly, millions of votes can be counted in hours.

Using OSS for voting machines doesn't assure you anything. Can you verify the compiler used to turn the source code into binary? Can you verify it is fed the same source code that is published? Can you verify that the machine it runs in, is built according to (published) schematics? Can you verify that IC's used, are what their markings say? Can you verify yourself, that eg. a Flash ROM contains the verified binary? Can you be sure of all that BEFORE elections begin, and be sure that machines will operate 100% reliable until elections are done? And that totals are added accurately, when results are transmitted over wires, and processed in an all-electronic manner? I don't think so, too many variables. For reliable results, ALL these things would have to work flawless, and verifiable.

I never understood why voting machines were allowed to undermine this voter-verification, and IMHO machines do nothing to improve the process, or the results.

If it were up to me, voting machines would never be used, or retired right now as a failed experiment. In fact, a Robert X. Cringely makes a strong case for just that: "Follow the Money: Why the Best Voting Technology May Be No Technology at All".

Sadly, where I live, voting machines were introduced as well... ;-((

Hydrogen Hopes

Its not quite that simple. Look at what Dvorak says in his latest column--- Intel has been essentially paying OEMs not to use AMD chips.
You can read the rest at http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050224. html
Its about half way down the page.

wtf? was he just bored and decided to rehash a cringely article? i mean, really.

read these two articles from 2 years ago: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030123. html and http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030529. html

dvorak hasn't had an interesting article in years. i'd say he ought to just stop but i guess he'd then be left scratching his head looking for another job he isn't qualified for...

wtf? was he just bored and decided to rehash a cringely article? i mean, really.

read these two articles from 2 years ago: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030123. html and http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030529. html

dvorak hasn't had an interesting article in years. i'd say he ought to just stop but i guess he'd then be left scratching his head looking for another job he isn't qualified for...

Reminds me of an episode of The Red/Green Show (thank you, Canada) where the town decides to get its power from a windmill. Well, the wind stops blowing so they hook their truck's fan belts up to the windmill...see where this is going?

As Bob Cringely predicted in his article called 'The New Mac Mini is All About Movies'.

Apple Mac Mini + Tivo = ipod for tv programs

Ex-GAIN employees in the "Integrity Advisory Committee"??? That's like Richard Stallman working for the Patent Office!

I'd say it's more like hiring L0pht to protect you from hackers.

Now... If Apple decides to take chances and 'loophole' solutions to let their consumers do what they want with the content - THAT would be interesting. So far, it appears the consumer electronics industry as a whole is rolling over when challenged by the likes of the RIAA and MPAA.

That would be like selling MP3s and MP3 players without DRM restrictions. iCan't imagine that happening either.

Apropos of nothing, Bob Cringley wrote an interesting article recently.

I personally would like to see a standard, simple format for EULA's like credit card companies do with rate disclosures.

I wouldn't use credit cards as a good standard for disclosure. There was an episode of Frontline on PBS called "Secret History of the Credit Card" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cre dit/) and they pointed out the really fine print on those credit cards brochures - things like "a clause that allows the company to change your interest rate (APR) at any time, for any reason, as long as they give you 15 days' notice".

I think credit card disclosures are just as bad as EULA agreements and that there are more than a few companies that don't want you reading either.

Water is probably the best example anyone can give. Pull your Libertarian head out of your ass for a minute ruminate on the following.

Water is a REQUIREMENT for ALL LIFE.

Water in the USA is the safe and you can drink all of if you want without getting sick. Feel free to buy your bottled water from CocaCola Co. at your SuperWalMart for more than the price of gasoline, while BILLIONS of people across the globe (i) don't have running water, (ii) wouldn't drink it if they did and (iii) can't drink what they have. Do you know why our water is safe? Because our evil government mandates that it be so.

Did you know that unsafe drinking water is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the world? REF.

Did you know that our buddies over at Bechtel tried to "privatize" water distribution in some cities in Colombia and basically took a working service, shut it down and told the citizens that they would have to pay 10 times more for the exact same crappy water they were getting in the first place. SEE

If I weren't at work I would find references to show that a cheap and reliable power infrasctructuer, running water, and sewer systems all are keys to moving human beings from cycles of disease and poverty into a more healty and productive existence, which benefits ALL of us on EARTH. Furthermore if profit motive (Corps) instead of sacrificing a little to help those around you (Govt) is the driving force behind building a safe water, sewer and power infrastructure, the those poorer cities, municipalities, counties, states, countries and continents would never move forward. You see providing the basic necessities of life should never be a corporate issue...it is a human rights issue.

Yeah, and over here we don't ban personal expressions of religious identity. I agree that Europe does do some stuff better than the US, but this pro-Europe/anti-US sniping that comes up every time any US regulatory issue is on Slashdot is just another form of annoying zealotry. If we want to talk about unfair corporate/government interactions, lets discuss Airbus funding some time.

If population density makes it so easy to provide fast & cheap broadband, why doesn't it exist in New York or San Francisco?

What, it doesn't?

I suggest you get a wifi capable notebook, and stroll the lovely streets of San Fransisco. You'll find an open "hotspot" all over the place.

Heck, in Phoenix, AZ, I'm sitting at a rented condo borrowing some neighbor's hotspot! It's a Linksys, with default p/w.

It's not fiber, but the speed is decent enough that I can stream The Elegant Universe with little to complain about...

"..that automatically look at every document a user creates, receives or views, transmitting messages to 'action' plug-ins - and even to the plug-ins' authors - that can be used to decide what info you'll be presented with, what options you'll be given, what price you'll pay for goods, and even who you'll be permitted to buy from."

Interesting that anti-spyware has shown fresh installs of MS windows OS has spyware that tracks online use ...

Where are our privacy laws and fair competition laws?

Or do we really know who has bought them away from us?

The only way for this to be faired up is to allow any and everyone who wants to use such a thing, to be able to. Just like the solution to the "trillion dollar bet">/a> was faired up, via exposure and wide scope use.

Or in other words: nobody gets an unfair (anti-competition) advantage in marketing via patenting some automated privacy invading information collecting marketing process.

Most software is NOT patentable as shown by abstraction physics", and that certainly includes this.

Hypocrisy abound!

The hypocrisy is in those who love war heroes, but instead vote in a coward who's ready to send someone else's kids to die for his own stupidity, while knowing full well that if he were in those kids' shoes (as he was during Vietnam) he would have done whatever it took to dodge the very same war he created. Shrub was a war dodger, although he was paradoxically a hawk on the war. Now that's hypocrisy my gullible friend.

His rationale for choosing to join the National guard in 1968 instead of gambling on Vietnam via the selective service lottery:

"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada, So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."
GW Bush - 1990 interview with the Dallas Morning News

Hypocrisy abound!

The hypocrisy is in those who love war heroes, but instead vote in a coward who's ready to send someone else's kids to die for his own stupidity, while knowing full well that if he were in those kids' shoes (as he was during Vietnam) he would have done whatever it took to dodge the very same war he created. Shrub was a war dodger, although he was paradoxically a hawk on the war. Now that's hypocrisy my gullible friend.

His rationale for choosing to join the National guard in 1968 instead of gambling on Vietnam via the selective service lottery:

"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada, So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."
GW Bush - 1990 interview with the Dallas Morning News

Cringley talked about this last week. The VCs are running out of time to use the money they have, so instead of giving it back (as well as refunding the fees they charged to manage it), they're going to start putting it into everything they can.

This is both good and bad. Obviously, money is going to go into things that aren't really going to go anywhere. Money will also go into things that sorely need it and will produce something good.

The question is whether or not we remember the lessons learned just a short time ago. Will we all follow those investors and jack up the market on pie-in-the-sky dreams of hitting it big the easy way? Or will we hold back, actually research these things, and maybe play it a bit more conservatively?

Judging from the spam I get, I think more people will be into putting their life savings into the hot stocks again. Maybe the rest of us can use that to our advantage.

the venture capitalists would be a little more careful with their money

Actually, I, Cringely predicted this a while ago. Apparently, any money the VCs collected in '99-'00 which they haven't invested has to be returned to the investors in five years, along with the VC's management fee. To avoid giving the fee back, the VCs have to invest in something - anything - and soon.

I'm glad that hasn't happened ye--oh wait...

Here's a cringly article about building a http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020207. htmlpassive repeater for 802.11b. You could probably do something similar with a can shaped correctly for your cellphone frequency.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

This topic was on PBS Innovation, Episode Human Body Shop. It original aired in 2004 and was then repeated last month. From the website, here is the description:

Thought Into Action
To many researchers, the most exciting application of a mind-machine interface would involve tapping the brain for signals that trigger responses outside the body. The field of brain-machine interface (BMI) systems, as they are sometimes called, proposes to make it possible for thought to equal action.

In humans, rudimentary BMI systems have relied on monitoring a person's brain activity via electroencephalograph (EEG). Electrodes placed on the scalp read and amplify the activity before transmitting it to a computer. By thinking different types of thoughts, patients learn to exert control over a cursor on a video screen. In most cases, this simply moves the cursor in one of two directions. However, this binary code can communicate important thoughts. After the most obvious answers of "yes" or "no," a system can be set up to allow a person to slowly choose letters and thus spell words and make sentences. This research is still in its infancy, but its successful application could allow even those people who are completely paralyzed (a condition known as "locked in") to communicate with the outside world.

Aspirations for BMI, however, go far beyond communicating thoughts and wishes. The Holy Grail is finding ways for the brain to command the movement of other objects such as artificial limbs. In the mid-1990s, researchers at Duke University clarified how the brain sends out signals directing muscles to move. Miguel Nicolelis, one of the Duke researchers who made the discovery, has already proven that harnessing these signals can link thought and action.

Nicolelis and his colleagues monitored the brain activity of a monkey as it manipulated a joystick. The brain signals were picked up by hundreds of electrodes buried in the animal's scalp and connected to a cap on its head. Many repetitions of movement generated enough data for the researchers to recreate a "language" and thus enable the monkey to communicate with and control a robotic arm through its brain's neural signals. The animal was even able to control an artificial arm over the Internet 600 miles away. Further research at Duke and other institutions is exploring ways to allow the brain to achieve more delicate control of artificial limbs and also receive sensory feedback simultaneously about what the limbs are touching. Ultimately, when these motor and sensory systems are combined, someone commanding an artificial arm to pick up a glass of water would be able to "feel" where the glass was and control how hard to squeeze it.

In 2003, the BMI field received a tremendous boost from the U.S. military -- more specifically the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which manages research for the Department of Defense and specializes in funding explorations of high-risk, high-payoff technologies. In 2003, DARPA invested $24 million in BMI programs, split among six different laboratories, including the one at Duke.

A major challenge for BMI research is improving upon the weak, blurry signals provided by EEGs. One nascent technology that might solve this problem is a new kind of brain imaging known as magnetoencephalography (MEG), which measures the magnetic fields created by nerve cells as they produce the small electrical currents used for neurotransmission. MEG provides much better scanning speed and resolution and does not require physical contact to record signals. Current MEG scanners are massive and so sensitive they must be surrounded by shielded walls to prevent readings from being compromised by laboratory machinery or even nearby traffic. But DARPA is funding research into shrinking the scanners' size, with the ultimate goal being a device small enough to fit inside a helmet.

By the way, how do you expect magnetic reversals to impact climate? I don't know of any theory that it would matter.

When the magnetic field is in 'mid-phase' or lower than average, we have don't the protection from Sol radiation that we normally enjoy today.

Core samples show that our magnetic field has been reducing for quite a while and has also switched north and south numerous times in the past.

Without shielding from Sol's direct radiation, all sort of 'not so nice' things are likely to happen. Here are some links about our 'flakey' shielding from Sol: (some people see it as the Northern Lights) It's what deflects most dangerous Sol radiation:

Nova
Wikipedia
About the field
More stuff

Changes in that shielding will directly change our climate. After all, if the Earth is unprotected for a few days, things will heat up quite a bit unexpectedly. (Not to mention the damage to life forms without protection from that sort of intense radiation)

The worst part about it is that dip Tucker Carlson is now on pbs http://www.pbs.org/tuckercarlson/

Next time the pledge drive comes on people should call in and say they won't donate anything until they get this ass off the air.

I'd like to direct your attention to the graph of carbon dioxide. Graph showing a 450,000 year record of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the earth's atmosphere. Not a computer model. We have a lot more than computer models to go on here. Characterizing the evidence as such just shows your extreme bias, or your extreme lack of information.

I first learned about Ted Taylor from an episode of the US science television program NOVA titled The Plutonium Connection that was broadcase in 1975. So, no, this is not a new idea.

and just in case you want pretty pictures...Graphs

I personally hope downloads become more of a broadcast medium. Sure, throw some commercials in that 320x240 video! I'll watch them to watch decent News/Information/Entertainment. If I could subscribe to the Daily Show and scrap cable, I would. Even for like $10-$20 a month. I grab legal stuff from some places like Archive.org and play it on my PDA. There's some good content online both streaming and to download, but the models for getting to it (subscribe al la iFilm/Real, finesse google syntax, pray) suck when compared to downloading a file that I can convert into any format for any player I wish from the pirate channels. This, like other entertainment IP problems, comes down to convenience for a lot of folks. Listen up Networks!

I personally hope downloads become more of a broadcast medium. Sure, throw some commercials in that 320x240 video! I'll watch them to watch decent News/Information/Entertainment. If I could subscribe to the Daily Show and scrap cable, I would. Even for like $10-$20 a month. I grab legal stuff from some places like Archive.org and play it on my PDA. There's some good content online both streaming and to download, but the models for getting to it (subscribe al la iFilm/Real, finesse google syntax, pray) suck when compared to downloading a file that I can convert into any format for any player I wish from the pirate channels. This, like other entertainment IP problems, comes down to convenience for a lot of folks. Listen up Networks!

During the show Frontline show you'll see Clarke using his a slick Powerbook G4. Its nice to know I'm in good company, using a platform that represents a small yet prominent minority. These days unless my users have a specific application(s) that only runs on Windowson, my usual recommendation because of all my frustration with Windows is for them to get a Mac. If they can't afford to upgrade their hardware to Apple yet, I point them to the most popular Linux distro sites (except Red Hat) or BSD flavors, but I do warn them that there is a little of bit of work involved to get their environment set up right. For those people who like to argue that Windows has more security issues because its more popular, I say that's baloney. Five to six years ago it was my SGI Irix machines that kept getting hacked into once or twice a year. SGIs representing the smallest Unix flavor we had at the time and significantly smaller than the Mac population. Over the past 3 years the number of Windows security issues has exploded exponentially where I can't in good conscience recommend it to most folks.

A Visit from the FBI Seems like FBI prefers Mac OSX as well.

Here's an interesting interview with Clarke which discusses some of this history. It's part of the background material for the Frontline documentary "The Man Who Knew" which is also viewable online.

Here's an interesting interview with Clarke which discusses some of this history. It's part of the background material for the Frontline documentary "The Man Who Knew" which is also viewable online.

PBS' documentary on American language. It is going to get worse with these slangs. :(

This is nothing new... our company has been a defendant in "wrongful death" lawsuites twice now.

In Joe James, et al. v. Meow Media, Inc., et al. (aka the Paducah, KY school shootings),
the defendants claimed that their son visited Persian Kitty's Adult Links
[Note: Adult Content], where they viewed violent pornography which caused them to
shoot fellow high school students.

Here's an interesting summary by morelaw on the case.

Here's an interesting piece by PBS on this new fad.

As this national fad spread, we were then sued by the defendants in what's popularly known
as the Columbine High School Shootings. Again, we had to defend ourselves... in parallel. Two
lawsuits, in two different states... and the unsuccessful [by plaintiffs] appeals that followed.

Here's aa PDF of the Columbine case for those who are interested.

Fortunately, we were able to use the ruling (after plaintiffs had exhausted all appeals) in the
first case to get the second case dismissed, late in the game. By then, we had already paid out
six figures in legal fees alone. Good thing we're in the "online adult entertainment" business,
or else we might have been put out of business.

To those who say "so... sue them back!" -- I strongly recommend you learn more about our
legal system (through accredited sources, not word of mouth). I can see the newspaper headlines
now... "Family may lose home because of Pornographer's lawsuit, after having recently
lost their son."

YMMV.

Cringely asks, "What if WalMart got into the WiMax Business?"

Totally OT, I know, but there really were rats the size of cats (see about half way down), although the interviewee may have been turning Bowie's lyrics into fact. Or something.

Getting slightly back OT, the answer to the question "Is there life on Mars?" would seem to be a "definite maybe"

Mark C. Stephens, aka, Robert X. Cringely, had an interesting article about this topic a few months ago.

The Treaty has been a dead issue since before it ratified. The joke is that Bush couldn't get it through the Senate if he wanted to. Al "Earth in the Balance" Gore proved that.

Not sure if Discover/Wired did something on this, but PBS Frontline did an awesome show on our fear of anything "Nuclear" (IMHO, I think we're only scared of "Nukular" but whatever).

Sorry, I assumed the original article would have been read - it mentions that sexual reproduction is a puzzle. Try this article for a look at some of the problems (and possibly a solution). The only important thing is that they do better in th real world.

Ah, but then that means we don't understand what's going on yet, does it? If we can't reproduce the results with a model, then we need to learn more. That was the whole point. Same reasons many other parasites lost functions of and even the appearance of organs.

Note to self: rhetorical questions don't work well on Slashdot. Flight is a wonderful ability - animals from birds to mammals to ants. Birds that don't have predators almost always lose the ability to fly - c.f. ostrich. Flying's too expensive energy-wise - if it's not needed.

So, what is it that allows giardia to drop sexual reproduction? What is it that forces giardia to keep the genes ready "just in case?" There's a good chance the answer might be found because of giardia!

Leslie Moonves, Co-President and Co-COO of Viacom (listed on the ad) is a guy. So it's "Dear Mr. Moonves", not "Dear Ms. Moonves".

And don't use "To Whom it May Concern". Their actual names are listed on the ad.