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Or is that 404 error I see at http://reilly.typepad.com/cameronreilly/2004/09/aa c_vs_wma_vs_m.html/ mean that they have been DUN DUN DUN SLASHDOTTED!!!!!

Respectfully, I am not sure what organizations you are referring to.

I posted links in my original reply to you. For clarity's sake:

• AIPLA statement: see point 10.
• IPO statement: see point 10 (and 6)

It sounds strange, since the whole concept of IP is based on economic incentive.

That's the theory, yes. In practice, not all types of IP are able to meet that goal. There is no economic law that says "more and stronger exclusion rights per definition result in a healthier economy". And there's also no juridical law that says "lawyers will always defend what's in the best interest of the economy as a whole".

Actually, I was talking about investment incentive, not incentives to innovate. Competition indeed promotes innovation. But property rights promote investment.

One person's rights are another person's limitation. You always need a proper balance to get good results on the whole. You cannot look at single entities in the market and conclude from that it must be beneficial on the whole (or harmful for that matter).

Case in point: offering one company a monopoly on selling things via the internet, makes investment in all online shopping companies a lot less attractive.

You also say "almost all studies...." I assume this means you have read some studies that support the arguments for patents in software.

Indeed, there is also one economical study in the entire world (that I know of, I really don't know any others) that claims that software patents are generally beneficial, and that patent thickets are a myth. You can find it here. And here's a rebuttal.

Litigation is not the only way patents are used. There is a large market in licensing, and lots of money changes hands based on patents without ever litigating.

Yes, but that's not productive. In fact, every time such a transfer occurs, you extract money from the software business and invest it in lawyers. Something like that is only defensible if the effects on the whole are positive, e.g. if such transfers are necessary to spread knowledge throughout the industry. That is not the case with the software sector (see the studies I pointed you to).

Your argument, respectfully, sounds like this: "Civil tort litigation can cost millions. Therefore we should do away with tort claims."

My argument was simply that small companies do not have the means to enforce software patents, and that therefore arguing that they are beneficial for small companies is at least very doubtful. That's not even specific to software patents, it's a general recognised problem of the patent system.

However, in some sectors this negative effect may be offset by other, positive effects that patents have (e.g., if you need tens of millions of dollars to even start doing your product development, the cost a few patents on top of that can be disregarded).

The point remains that lots of capital goes into software based on property rights.

You keep talking about "property rights" as if software patents are the only form of property rights in the software industry. They're not by a long shot, as you probably know. I'm also not asking for abolishment of copyright or trademarks or anything else.

Remove those rights and you will weaken the industry by reducing the amount invested in it.

I fail to see how you can weaken an industry by stopping to invest in something which hampers that same indust

Respectfully, I am not sure what organizations you are referring to.

I posted links in my original reply to you. For clarity's sake:

• AIPLA statement: see point 10.
• IPO statement: see point 10 (and 6)

It sounds strange, since the whole concept of IP is based on economic incentive.

That's the theory, yes. In practice, not all types of IP are able to meet that goal. There is no economic law that says "more and stronger exclusion rights per definition result in a healthier economy". And there's also no juridical law that says "lawyers will always defend what's in the best interest of the economy as a whole".

Actually, I was talking about investment incentive, not incentives to innovate. Competition indeed promotes innovation. But property rights promote investment.

One person's rights are another person's limitation. You always need a proper balance to get good results on the whole. You cannot look at single entities in the market and conclude from that it must be beneficial on the whole (or harmful for that matter).

Case in point: offering one company a monopoly on selling things via the internet, makes investment in all online shopping companies a lot less attractive.

You also say "almost all studies...." I assume this means you have read some studies that support the arguments for patents in software.

Indeed, there is also one economical study in the entire world (that I know of, I really don't know any others) that claims that software patents are generally beneficial, and that patent thickets are a myth. You can find it here. And here's a rebuttal.

Litigation is not the only way patents are used. There is a large market in licensing, and lots of money changes hands based on patents without ever litigating.

Yes, but that's not productive. In fact, every time such a transfer occurs, you extract money from the software business and invest it in lawyers. Something like that is only defensible if the effects on the whole are positive, e.g. if such transfers are necessary to spread knowledge throughout the industry. That is not the case with the software sector (see the studies I pointed you to).

Your argument, respectfully, sounds like this: "Civil tort litigation can cost millions. Therefore we should do away with tort claims."

My argument was simply that small companies do not have the means to enforce software patents, and that therefore arguing that they are beneficial for small companies is at least very doubtful. That's not even specific to software patents, it's a general recognised problem of the patent system.

However, in some sectors this negative effect may be offset by other, positive effects that patents have (e.g., if you need tens of millions of dollars to even start doing your product development, the cost a few patents on top of that can be disregarded).

The point remains that lots of capital goes into software based on property rights.

You keep talking about "property rights" as if software patents are the only form of property rights in the software industry. They're not by a long shot, as you probably know. I'm also not asking for abolishment of copyright or trademarks or anything else.

Remove those rights and you will weaken the industry by reducing the amount invested in it.

I fail to see how you can weaken an industry by stopping to invest in something which hampers that same indust

This far-fetched idea of no software patents

Large software development houses derive a large percentage of their income from royalties from intellectually-based patents.

You're very naive if you think all large companies favor software patents. And you're even more naive if you think that per definition means that Europe will legalise software patents.

This far-fetched idea of no software patents

Large software development houses derive a large percentage of their income from royalties from intellectually-based patents.

You're very naive if you think all large companies favor software patents. And you're even more naive if you think that per definition means that Europe will legalise software patents.

They did everything right, ~.

2. Consider yourself a long-term contractor, not an employee. The company will discard you when it becomes expedient. You should be prepared to do the same.
-- Ripples

Speaking of making up shit, hows the search for WMDs goin nowadays?

It's slow go, what with all the mass graves they keep having to go through.

Because the North Korean government does things like kidnap citizens from other countries, conducts experiments on human subjects, and starves their population.

All in all, since the North Korean really can't build nukes without China's tacit acquiescence, I'd say we should go to the Chinese and say "If North Korea doesn't give up its nukes now, we'll support the nuclear arming of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan."

That'd go over well with the Commies in Peking.

Oh, and you should see from both game theory and the results of Jimmy Carter's previous negotiations during the Clinton administration with North Korea why negotiating directly with North Korea only is a bad idea. Not that being a bad idea ever stopped John Kerry from opening his yap.

Did you also know that a few days after Kerry went off about North Korea in the first debate, the North Koreans pulled out of negotiations and want to wait until after the US elections? I guess they think they can get a better deal from Kerry.

Yes I'd seen this over in mip's scan that the OQO has finally launched and is taking orders on their website. I'm not sure though - it seems pretty underpowered for the price. The Flipstart seems to be a more promising unit.

Yes I'd seen this over in mip's scan that the OQO has finally launched and is taking orders on their website. I'm not sure though - it seems pretty underpowered for the price. The Flipstart seems to be a more promising unit.

Besides, this proposal has a problem of its own: software patents can include so-called "program claims". In that case, not just the use of a program which infringes the patent, but also the publication of such a program can be forbidden. Many software patents (and even non-software patents) are starting to include those.

If you start adding source code to patents, then those patent descriptions themselves can infringe on other patents. It's completely silly since the patent system is supposed to encourage publication of information, but nowadays it can also be used to for forbidding publication of information (because some people think software is the same as a "machine", instead of simply a description of something).

Typing that post that you just typed does not-- technically-- make you retarded. Your 21st chromosome is still the same as before you typed it. But in practice, you are as retarded as this guy.

The page was unintuitive and confusing, but here is a permalink to the story that actually works.

Just in case anyone didn't see this as satire....

MPAA mistakes various free code in small zip files (all under 64k) as the movie "Basic" and television serial "Alias")
http://www.scene.org/showforum.php?forum=5&topic=4 0047

MPAA mistakes a file manager for X windows as X-Files movie based on television series.
http://lsolum.typepad.com/copyfutures/2004/09/dmca _iselfhelpi.html

ESA mistakes "INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip" as Pac Mac video game.
http://gauley.ucs.indiana.edu/~cshields/dmca_lette r

RIAA accuses Penn State's Peter Usher of pirating music by rap band "Usher".
http://news.com.com/RIAA+apologizes+for+threatenin g+letter/2100-1025_3-1001095.html

RIAA admitts to "several dozens more additional errors" but won't disclose details. No direct link to Cnet coverage on May 13, 2003.
http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/20030926_unsafe_harbors. php#_edn2

Diebold intentionally files false takedown notice to silence (very well deserved) criticism of its shoddly voting machines:
http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/001465. php

Cult of Scientology attempts (yet again) to shut down xenu.net, which exposes embarrasing truths about their documents made public in a court case:
http://www.peerfear.org/rss/permalink/2003/02/04/1 044497702-DMCA_Takedown_Notice_Scientology_and_Pac Bell.shtml

Apparant con artist David Waathiq attempts to use DMCA threat to shut down critical website:
http://mdwaathiq.worldwidewarning.net/DMCA.aspx

.

To be fair, many of these aren't the MPAA (though at least the 2nd one is)... but there is definately a pattern of abuse. These are just the ones I found in 5-10 minutes of searching. It's quite likely there are many more out there, and many that go utterly unreported.

This is for all the responding posts to the parent asking for corroboration. 10 minutes of Googling later, here (requires registration) are some related links.

No one has been able to fully enumerate the five Congressional members and their offspring who are serving in Iraq. However, some facts pointed out in this discussion:

1. Moore never asserted in his movie that the children of US Congressmen are under-represented in US forces in Iraq. See the movie transcript to verify from primary source. Instead, he asked the people that authorized the Iraq war (members of Congress) if they would send thier kids to Iraq.
2. Equally factual is that in the United States, you can only enlist in the armed forces when you are of the age of majority. Meaning your parents (the Congressmen Moore was posing his question to) cannot do what he posits. They can no more send their children to Iraq than violate some fundamental precepts of the Constitution.
3. Quote: Senators and Congressmen (and Pentagon workers, and the President himself) ARE on the front lines of this war, and have been since its opening salvo. They don't need their children to be put in harm's way to show their bravery and resolve. They need only show up for work. If you don't think Washington, D.C. is a target, you haven't been listening to Osama.
4. The Congressional members who are known to have children serving in the Enduring Freedom theatre of operations or are expected to be there soon are: Sen. Tim Johnson, D-SD, son Brooks Johnson, 31, a staff sergeant with the Army's 101st Airborne Division; Rep. John Kline, R-MN, son, Dan Kline who is slotted for shipping out.
5. For anyone who still wants to play the statistics game and still assert that Congress members' families are under-represented, fine. Let's see where the numbers take us. Quote: The correct comparison would be to compare the total number of parents in the US with children of military age over the total number of troops and then the same comparison in the Congress - number of Reps with children of military age vs. number serving...assume that all people from the age of 40 to 79 have children of military age and likewise all Congressional Reps. - the errors are likely to be in the same direction (overstated in both cases) and so even out. There are around 130 million in the 40 to 79 age group. So the rate of service is around 1 per thousand potential parents. Applying this to Congress, you'd expect less than 1 child in Iraq. Instead, we can count one for certain, possibly another four depending upon your sources. So the representation, in known terms from primary sources, is at least the enlistment rate of the general population.
6. This is just immediate family members. Including first relations, representation of Congress members' families is likely to go much, much higher. If you are a Moore fan, would you care to chase down primary sources on that, which will only widen the gap further, o

As a small business owner these types of studies are interesting, but a write up on the use of open source (like OpenOffice) really drives home the strength of open source.

Simpler is better, especially for people like this guy:

http://thx.typepad.com/advthxance/

And I predict this guy makes a million bucks at a startup selling movies online.

Precisely my point. The terminology was making unintended implications.

BTW, I disagree sharply with many fundies. Check my weblog: http://gus3.typepad.com/i_am_therefore_i_think/200 2/12/why_im_not_a_st.html

If TRIP says all patents should be treated in the same way - well lets do so - just say that the term of _any_ patent is dependent on the time taken to develop/implement the idea (this would require you to submit some evidence with the application)... then apply a fixed multiplyer. Why should an idea developed in an afternoon get the same protection as one that took 5 years of development and trials?

If you want something different, you need a different regime. It does not make sense to first apply some system from the 15th century to all sorts of new stuff it was never designed for, and then to bolt on all kinds of extra rules because -surprise- it simply doesn't work as intended when used to monopolise that new stuff. You should instead look at new paradigms, if you think copyright is not sufficient for the protection investments of computer programs.

As to your second point, you are saying nothing can be changed!

Well thats just not true, plenty of laws beneficial to some (and not to others) have been repealed or superceded (for example the community-charge in the UK). I think there is a much stronger argument for reduction than abolition, so instantly you will get less opposition.

Anyway, since you appear to be from Europe, here we're in a better situation, since here at least software patents aren't legalised yet.

How can anyone effectively argue against a patent term dependant on the effort put into developent of an idea - the only effective argument I can see would be to question the ability of the patent office to determine the novelty/difficaulty of the patent - that argument also criticises the current system too.

For keychain drives that truly are fashion statements, check out some of the finds over on shiny shiny, including one that looks like a cat, accompanied by the memorable headline "Store things in your pussy."

Altercation (what liberal media?)

Here are some blogs I like that are often political, but not stupidly partisan, such as:

• The Volokh Conspiracy -- mostly libertarian law professors
• Marginal Revolution -- a couple of economists, one of whom also posts at The Volokh Conspiracy
• Daniel Drezner-- a political scientist
• Foreign Dispatches--a Nigerian-American programmer with many interesting perspectives.
• ParaPundit--some random bloke named Randall Parker, a computer programmer, I think.

In case you haven't heard, BlogLines is a great way to read blogs online.

Atrios/Eschaton
Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo
Billmon's Whiskey Bar
Matthew Yglesias
Eric Alterman
Kevin Drum
Brad DeLong
Daily Kos
Digby
Mark Kleiman
Hesiod's Counterspin
Bob Somerby's incomparable Daily Howler

and the inimitable Bartcop
(and Fafblog)

Polling: Daily Kos Wonderful poll analysis, great community, lots of smart commenters

Economics: Brad DeLong He's a PhD economist and a former economic advisor to the Clinton administration

Social Policy: Body and Soul She blogs the uncomfortable places where others won't go.

Politics: Atrios The man reads everything. This site is especially good for U.S. politics.

Snark: Sisyphus Shrugged This woman has it. Her recent posts on Nader are vicious and painfully accurate.

Satire: Fafblog!!! The world's only source of Fafblog. Do not drink while reading. Your keyboard will thank you.

Washington Monthly (by Kevin Drum)

Talking Points Memo (Josh Marshall)

Atrios

Matthew Yglesias

Digby's Blog

Top 10 Reasons to Vote for John Kerry:

10. John Kerry would handle the war in Iraq differently. I think.
9. He's got better hair.
8. John Kerry will personally create thousands of jobs in America.
7. He has a plan for America's future. I think.
6. George Bush stole the last election.
5. I think John Kerry may have served in Vietnam.
4. George Bush didn't go to Vietnam, AND he skipped a physical!
3. The french people and the rest of the world all like him best.
2. Didn't he get some medals in Vietnam?
1. He's Not George Bush! (TM)


Top 10 Reasons to Vote for George Bush:

10. George Bush is Tough on Terrorism.(TM)
9. He supports educating children.
8. George Bush freed all those Afgan and Iraqi people. Personally.
7. He will lower your taxes.
6. George Bush was President on September 11th, 2001.
5. John Kerry's medals are fakes.
4. Those CBS memos were forged, duh.
3. The french people and the rest of the world all hate him most.
2. He's not as rich as John Kerry.
1. George Bush will keep America safe.

I can't make up my mind about these Annenberg 'independent' groups. On the one hand, Walter Annenberg has a rep as a conservative, but on the other hand, you have Adam "Asshole" Clymer as Annenberg Political Director.

The other wierd thing is that you're like the third person who has sent me a 2-3 sentence recommendation of Factcheck.org. It seems like an astroturf campaign or something. For example, see here.

The best criticism I've seen of Fact check is that they don't actually point to the primary sources; they point to news articles about the primary sources.

The thing that varies most, even among different implementations of the same "font" is the character spacing. So the fact that it is possible to type the same text into Microsoft Word and have the relative lengths of the lines come out exactly the same is very strong evidence.

Somebody has actually tried the same thing on the Selectric Composer. The line lengths don't match. Here is a more detailed explanation of why the exact spacing differs.

The fact that the subscripting of the "th" matches exactly the automatic subscripting rule in Word (which subscripts if and only if there is no space between the digit and the "th") is icing on the cake. Even if there were a ball with a custom superscripted "th" (for the test referenced above, the guy had to switch balls to get the small characters) it would be manual, not automatic as it is in Word.

The thing that varies most, even among different implementations of the same "font" is the character spacing. So the fact that it is possible to type the same text into Microsoft Word and have the relative lengths of the lines come out exactly the same is very strong evidence.

Somebody has actually tried the same thing on the Selectric Composer. The line lengths don't match. Here is a more detailed explanation of why the exact spacing differs.

The fact that the subscripting of the "th" matches exactly the automatic subscripting rule in Word (which subscripts if and only if there is no space between the digit and the "th") is icing on the cake. Even if there were a ball with a custom superscripted "th" (for the test referenced above, the guy had to switch balls to get the small characters) it would be manual, not automatic as it is in Word.

Realize that no nation would risk its own destruction by using a nuclear weapon against another nuclear power (Formerly known as M.A.D), and help the North Korean economy as much as possible (by supporting capitalistic experiments such as the Kaesong Industrial Region), therefore helping the nation become self sufficient.

Just three problems with that:

1) The leader of North Korea is a nut-job.
2) North Korea can't be trusted (see ref to 1994 Carter negotiation).
3) The leader of North Korea is a nut-job (I know I'm repeating #1 - but it's important).

Still don't believe me - read about the Ryugyong Hotel.

Times New Roman is a clone of Times Roman carefully designed to have identical metrics as Times Roman.

Apparently false. Scroll down to the part where the author talks about all the different varieties of Times New Roman.

Um... you might want to look up the IBM Selectric Composer.

Funny you should mention that. On the exact same site, a guy (a reporter, evidently, or maybe just a really determined blogger) found somebody with the only known working Selectric Composer in North America. They tested it to see if it could produce these memos. Turns out it couldn't. And they've got lots of documentation explaining why.

Also, the Composer wasn't a typewriter at all. It was a typesetting machine. Completely different.

The Executive's default font is a wide-bowl serif font that doesn't resemble Times. But IBM sold a number of optional fonts for the Executive.

None of which was Times New Roman, ya putz.

Times New Roman is a clone of Times Roman carefully designed to have identical metrics as Times Roman.

Apparently false. Scroll down to the part where the author talks about all the different varieties of Times New Roman.

Um... you might want to look up the IBM Selectric Composer.

Funny you should mention that. On the exact same site, a guy (a reporter, evidently, or maybe just a really determined blogger) found somebody with the only known working Selectric Composer in North America. They tested it to see if it could produce these memos. Turns out it couldn't. And they've got lots of documentation explaining why.

Also, the Composer wasn't a typewriter at all. It was a typesetting machine. Completely different.

The Executive's default font is a wide-bowl serif font that doesn't resemble Times. But IBM sold a number of optional fonts for the Executive.

None of which was Times New Roman, ya putz.

LOL. Good one. Spit Dan Rather's dick out and go see what real reporters are doing. You know, the kind who go find out things and tell you about them, instead of just making shit up?

This (work safe) will satisfy your curiosity. Just stare long enough on the picture.

You also have all the little or low-population states who, perhaps, get more than their fair share of electoral votes. The minimum number of electoral votes allocated to a state is 3. So, states such as Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, DC, North and South Dakota, and Vermont each gets three votes, regardless of population. Is that fair? In a sense, each voter in such small states has control over a larger fraction of an electoral vote than does a voter in a large state, such as California.

This is a pretty interesting read on the whole voter purge thing. I'm still reading it, but it looks like the purge for this election will be the same. In a state that's 20% hispanic, only 61 out of 48,000 "felons" on the purge list are hispanic.

Wow, sorry about your DTV allocation!

70% of people watch on cable anyway - will your LP station get an HD slot with your MSO?

While ATSC standards seems like something written in stone, keep in mind that ATSC just approved Enhanced VSB which is a variant bitstream than can be added to your existing DTV signal to provide a channel that is easier to receive.

No doubt if H.264/WMT comes along in a serious way, ATSC will buy into it, and the CEA will lobby the FCC to make the change so they can sell lots of new set-top-boxes.

Not to criticize js7a--he gave you fair warning--but his list leans to the left. I don't know if I have the definitive right-leaning counterexample, but here's a list of guys who are biased right but seem to be fair in their analysis...
mainstream media:
Best of the Web Today
Andrew Sullivan
The Corner
blogs:
Instapundit
oxblog
JustOneMinute
Daniel Drezner
Captains Quarters
cartoons:
Cox and Forkum
Day by Day

All are blogs and/or openly opinionated. They are generally right wing. This is in no way a complete list, and should not even be considered the "best of", since I haven't spent a lot of time exploring. YMMV.

I'd actually be interested in hearing from people who knew of right-leaning blogs not on this list that they recommended. I am not trying to start a flame war about who's better or why Instapundit/Daily Kos is a snooty liar.

The license specifically excludes patents and patent applications. Thus, IBM and Intel can retain control over the technology through their vast patent portfolio.

Seems like both were on the same page, eh?

There's enough math and computational expertise required in advanced economics to keep any math geek satisfied. It's not a coincidence that large numbers of Physics PhD's are working on Wall Street these days. The cookbook economics you hear on the tube is not the economics being done in research today; it's the economics that politicians and TV newshosts can understand, and communicate in soundbites.

As you alluded, much of basic Econ can be described as a bunch of rules-of-thumb and ad hoc arguments, of the sort, "If we ignore all these things here, and assume that they are constant, we can pretend that this here happens." The problem is that economic systems are complex systems (analogous to the brain's neural network), and can't be modeled well using "billiard ball" physics models. Until recently the only alternative has been to use statistical, "gas law" models and other simplifications of the systems.

Example: a small town may have 1000 citizens, 200 businesses, and perhaps 500 formal and informal groups/organizations. Each of those individuals and organizations has over 1000 'inputs' and 1000 'outputs' - relations with each other and outside entities, that may be considered as economic factors. (Relations may be financial or other.) You have a social network with something like 10^13 relations/interconnections. And that's just a small town or neighborhood.

I'm embarking on a PhD in Econ shortly, after many years in computing, and my math skills are being stretched like they haven't in a long time. Differential equations is a prerequisite for several of the introductory graduate level courses, along with linear algebra and a bunch of statistics and game theory. Thomas Bayes' much appreciated Bayesian Theorem probability is a tool of economists. Vilfredo Pareto (Pareto-optimal" game outcomes) was an economist. Many elements of modern statistics, probability and game theory were developed by economists.

The problem faced by economists has been not that it was too simple, but that the systems under study have been too complex to delve into very deeply until both the mathematical tools and the computational power became available. It was necessary to drastically simplify the models in order to get any sense at all. And, of course, there is a strong philosophical and social-studies thread throughout economics.

Nowadays there is a strong thrust into new approaches to Economics, including complex adaptive systems, agent based systems, Neuroeconomics, Experimental Economics (vis. Vernon Smith, 2002 Bank of Sweden "Nobel" and social network economics.

Often in addition to training and/or experience in biology, physics, systems theory and other disciplines, these approaches require a good understanding of differential equations, comfort in manipulating long chains of partial derivatives, and working with multi-layered irregular networks. Interestingly, even fluid dynamics equations are applicable in some cases.

Republican-Democrat:
Columnist Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune has called for presidential debates on patent law legislation.
Link

i think this one is the actual article.

not even slashdotted yet, probably because it's so hard to find.

OK - how's this?

Back in April, Slashdot reported the announcement of a Universal 3D File Format by Intel, Microsoft & others - to be "as open as MP3". Of course, that's not all that open. And this turns out to be the sneaky part. There is a real open standard already - X3D is ISO-ratified, royalty-free, and has multiple open source implementations. U3D is "going to be submitted to ISO" - one day - but right now they're talking to ECMA, which allows royalty-bearing patents.
I found this article by Tony Parisi, co-chair of the X3D Working Group a fascinating insider's picture of the standards wars, along with insights into what it takes to release an online game, what really killed VRML, and why open standards do (and don't) matter.
I mean, a royalty-bearing, pseudo-open universal 3D format from Intel and Microsoft? Sorry, guys. That trick doesn't work anymore


BTW, I need to get a life.

I belive the Article mentioned:

Non-camera SKU available at launch

see this feature list

This must be why John Kerry has taken the Swift Boat Vets for Truth to court for libel ... NOT ... instead John Kerry is threatening third-party TV Stations & bookstores instead. I guess the real threat to freedom is Kerry not some scarry "Patriot Act" that has harmed zero US Citizens and zero US Permanent Residents that you or anyone else can name

I'm confused about the Kerry in Cambodia thing ... I guess the SwiftVets were telling the turth about Kerry never being in Cambodia @ Christmas ... again you would think Kerry would be taking somebody to court for libel ... am I missing something???

Kerry lied to the US Senate ... Kerry lied to the People of Massachussettes ... Kerry lied to the American People and Kerry may have lied to both of his wives & associated children

"The real issue here is the speed and low cost of astroturf attack campaigns via the net,"

There would appear to be several issues per both the original /. article and the Belmont Club blog article ... perhaps the most interesting story is the power of the internet to overcome an entrenched thought police, group think, what have you ... Mainstream Media vs Kid Internet .

Convenient how you have forgotten about MoveOn and their infamous Hitler ad??? link #1 link #2

(GRIN) Please do not forget to throw George Soros' millions to MoveOn & Co. down the memory hole (/GRIN) while you focus only on the two $100K contributions by a Texas building contractor to the SwiftVets, will you rememember to mention the over 30,000 additional contributions of ~$64 (average) to the SwiftVets for a total of $2 million???

Bill Gates thinks that 'it as a commodity' idea is the dumbest thing he has ever read

If Bill is one thing, he's deeply passionate about what he believes to be the nearly endless power of software. I personally asked him about his opinion of Nicholas Carr's prediction surrounding the commoditization of information technology. His response (verbatim, might I add), "well it was the dumbest thing I've ever read!" Now, one could argue, being that he owns 24% of MSFT stock, that Bill can't possibly answer that question in any other way. This is, of course, true.

-- from this I personally conclude that Gates and Microsoft will fight with all their powers against software becoming a commodity. And what do you do when you see that it is really happenning? You change the rules of the game, you change the idea of what software is. Software is only a commodity if it is really just a piece of code that can be copied and shared or even bought for a nominal price. Software is a commodity if it is thought of as just a tool to achieve some goal.

On the other hand if you want to still get good revenues from the same software that you sold for the past 9 years, you repackage it, repackage the idea because there are no more features you can add to a new release to make it worth buying once again. You stop supporting all the old releases, and if you are a monopolly on the currently most popular operating system, you release another one that will redefine what software is for office and home user. Software becomes a service, Microsoft becomes a service provider and the end-user becomes a service client that will subscribe to the service.

That is how you stop such nonsence as thinking of software as a commodity.

Granted, the right ain't keeping their mud to themselves, and sure, I personally don't think there's a whole lot of positives about Kerry's self-flaggelation of his service or his plans, but there's got to be some decent legislation in those 20 years, and we can't seem to get any of it put forth as 'a good thing' (all I've heard is the POW stuff...good stuff by the way).

At some point, and maybe it's when people are standing in the voting booth, there's got to be a consideration of whether 'tis better to vote for someone you support, or to vote against someone you hate. In the long run, I don't see the second as one that leads to good places.

There's a very interesting post on kottke.org that discusses online applications in relation to weblogs. I quote:

Taking the weblog example to the extreme, you could use TypePad to write a weblog entry; Flickr to store your photos; store some mp3s (for an mp3 blog) on your ISP-hosted shell account; your events calendar on Upcoming; use iCal to update your personal calendar (which is then stored on your .Mac account); use GMail for email; use TypeKey or Flickr's authentication system to handle identity; outsource your storage/backups to Google or Akamai; you let Feedburner "listen" for new content from all those sources,
transform/aggregate/filter it all, and publish it to your Web space; and you manage all this on the Web at each individual Web site or with a Watson-ish desktop client.

From Googling:

This study is mentioned in this book excerpt and here.

The first reviewer here mentions a reference that would seek to discredit the cited study's author however.