<sarcasm>We need more imported CEO's, too! You should see what the cost of labor is to get one. It is ridiculous, and an obvious sign that the specialized training required to be a CEO is just not being taught in schools. My own company has only 5 executive VP's out of its 15 employees. Our product just won't ship until we get more 'players' with leadership, moxie and backseat driving.</sarcasm>
Sarcasm aside, there are a few other things that the NYT didn't mention. First, the surplus they talk about was early on a product of the crash in biotech, who they lump as 'science guys'; later, it includes the recession, too (which hit middle management harder than any of us). Second, there is a big problem getting good coders.
They are treated terribly by their school peers and the media. In a previous job I occasionally dealt with reporters, and they are universally either Old Media snobs who see computer people as the dork stereotype, or New Media snobs who actively look down on 'mere techies' as mere servants (ignorant of the true nature of lit crit) who maintain the Internet they built.
And high schools do suck. They insist on mandating 4 years of gym and English. They move everyone in lock step through the grades, grading you more on attendence than performance. If you do try to learn, you are ridiculed by your fellow students. And if you learn past the all-important Lesson Plan, you are ridiculed by the teacher, too. Teachers are more worried with telling you what heroes they are and complaining about their pay than they are with actually teaching you something. I know this isn't true everywhere, but ask yourself what percentage of classes fit this stereotype. Mine is about 75-80%-- but your mileage may vary. Anything over 25% should be an emergency-- but the big argument right now is if anything needs to be done at all.
If you read the ICANN bylaws, at-large members are not "members" as defined by California non-profit law. The bylaws specifically explain that ICANN is not a membership organization. This way they avoid getting into those kind of legal problems. We can vote, we have certain other abilities, but we're not members by legal definition.
That's the point. If you read the platform, they ask that ICANN's membership be official members per the california definition. I see why he wants that, but that opens up a huge can of worms. Many issue advocates and trial lawyers would love ICANN to be vulnerable to a legal seige that this would allow.
OTOH, not being official members also leaves members without any legal protection whatsoever. The problem is that California's law gives groups no defense against people who join, then sue. As I said, by the trial lawyers, for the trial lawyers.
I thought that, since this uses cookies, and therefore offers different prices to different people, rather than different prices at different times, that it constitutes first degree price discrimination and is therefore illegal. Amazon could open themselves up to a class action lawsuit or even criminal charges over this if I recall my college econ correctly.
So far, so good. While they aren't the greatest series of ideas in history, they do seem to be pretty solid.
ICANN, so far, has been run as a "let's do what's right no matter what those idiot users think". This is one of the major arguments against letting ICANN do anything. Their arrogance is tremendous, but so far, they haven't been able to live up to their high opinion of themselves. So I like the ideas for reducing staff discretion, greater transparency and more open procedures. And burn all TLD's? That's right up my alley.
IANAL, but:
One problem which ICANN has is that it must play by California's rules regarding membership. A single massive lawsuit (or series of them) could starve ICANN into irrelevance. Those lawsuits are easy to make in California, whose legal system is designed by the lawyers, for the lawyers. A 'member', in California law, is a very specific thing with very special powers. It is very easy to be sued on just about any grounds-- or worse, on a class action basis. All you need are a very small number of upset ICANN members (and an organization like this will
always have people mad at them) and they can file a suit on behalf of the rest of ICANN members, whether they agree or not. I can understand ICANN not wanting to be vulnerable to this-- even though I think they are taking advantage of this to squash members even more.
With all that said, ICANN does need to be sent a message. So far, it has been autocratic, condescending and rude. They have managed to be a weird combination of three stereotypes: Faceless Corporations, Big Government Bullies, and the BSOFH. So while I think we need better ideas for the direction ICANN will take, this isn't a bad start.
He isn't saying that CmdrTaco is somehow obliged to editorialize in comments rather than in the story. He's just saying that it would be more effective, and better for slashdot.
I agree w/ the editorial this time, but I still think it would be more effective. Or at least at the end rather than in between.
I don't think the real problem is IP. If it was, then it would be a fairly clear-cut problem. As far as I can tell, all cue-cat is is a barcode reader which returns a universal ID number-- which is then sent in software to the company, which then forwards the computer's browser to a web page.
That's it.
So which pieces are genuine IP, and which are Business Model Legal Defense? The former, I think, represents hard work which they have a right to hold onto. The latter represents them using lawyers to try to force people to not take advantage of their business model.
I don't see much of a market for this scanner-- I guess that's their main problem. Trying to put one in everyone's hands might work, but more likely, people will think "great, one more piece of crap to plug into my machine". I-openers are at least great products which have obvious and well-addressed market openings. The guys at CueCat just seem like they are reaching. I haven't seen their product, but if my understanding of their system is right, then it is underwhelming no matter how well implemented it is.
Then the question becomes, what IP are they defending? The ability to read barcodes? To do so by hand-held scanners? Or to link codes to webpages? Except for the latter, all are pretty commonly in use. And the last, well, they can have that technology, as far as I am concerned.
This is a non-obvious, novel use for a scanner. So I do think they have some genuine IP here-- though none in the hardware driving department, which seems to be what they are complaining about. As for links to Amazon, etc, well, my opinion is that it is IP, but pretty pathetic, worthless IP. Good example of how even bad ideas can be IP if they meet the requirements.
Unfortunately, I doubt that California will ever learn. They once tried to create an income tax for ex-citizens of California (a 'fee for people who had the priviledge of once having lived here). Enough is enough-- you ought to start thinking about moving your companies to somewhere better. And might I suggest Atlanta, Georgia?
1) Great weather: Whereas Silly Valley's nights are permanent Leather Jacket weather, Atlanta is a little warmer. Shorts and T-shirt weather. One month winters and long beautiful springs and falls.
2) Low cost of living: You can pay your $100k people $80k, and due to lower taxes and cost of products, they'll live even better lifestyles. Why pay $2000/mo for rent when you could pay $800/mo and get a better place? Gas is about $1.36/gal right now, but has been as low as a $1.00/gal before. All other prices are also much lower than in CA.
3) Good university system: Georgia Tech, for one. Emory and Georgia state for your marketting and graphic design needs. Agnes Scott and Emory for a supply of high-quality females (women: Tech and GSU have great guys). Tech is #1 in the world in a number of CS fields, and its co-op program means you can hire people while they're still in school for cheap!
4) Cheap university system: OK, not emory. But GSU and Tech are state schools-- subject to the HOPE scholarship. If your kids/siblings/etc get a 3.0+ GPA, they get tuition from the state. Period. So don't think you aren't getting the same great service you would get in CA.
5) Less media distraction: This point is often overlooked. Silly Valley was once run by technical people first, others second. However, in the last ten years, it has been overrun by technically ignorant, get-rich-quick managerial types and media 'players' who claim to know technology better than coders and engineers. Bottom line: they are taking over, and to the detriment of most startups. Count the number of customers you have. Then the number of sales/marketting people you have. If the second number is bigger than the first, your company is in trouble.
I'm not saying that that doesn't start down here in Atlanta, but we're simply not overrun with them the way the bay area is. And there is plenty of venture capital to be had without jumping through the hoops of hiring 'high status' managers who are still living off their high school football successes and fraternity affiliations.
Well, that's it: five good reasons to move to Atlanta. To be honest, this description fits many other places as well, like Austin, Pittsburgh, etc. The point is this: don't try to change CA, because they will never learn. They are a gold rush economy: if it isn't gold, or booze, or software, it'll be something else. If you are worried that some lean company outside the valley is able to make their VC last longer, and pay their people less to live better lives, and is getting first dibs on the best people, then just do what they're doing: head for the Peach State.
But that wasn't what I was saying. EVEN IF they had been burnt and scratched, they would have looked like burnt and scratched concept models. They didn't look functional, they looked like they were designed with extras to make them stand out in a showroom.
Look at the XWing-- even a pristine Xwing looks like it was a practical, production spaceship-- designed to fight, not to look pretty. Even the wreckage of a Naboo fighter looks like it was designed to be the most powerful-looking and fast-seeming ship, rather than actually powerful or fast. Maybe the Nabooians were dominated by their Marketting Droids.
Well, although sports has virtually nothing to do with my life...
I'm glad the Olympic games are going to resume their tradition of stupid, communist restrictions on their athletes in the name of... well, who knows? For a while, I thought that they might actually be trying to operate rationally. I can't understand why they are doing this, except out of that twisted restrictive stubbornness that only entrenched bureaucrats are capable of.
These are obviously the same people who ran the Campus Printing Center in the Good Old Days.
Good point-- everything they use is leftover stuff from the Old Republic. And thought XWings are built during the Rebellion, they saw constant combat, as opposed to Naboo fighters, which had never been used due to the peace of the Republic.
Shiney isn't the problem. The two problems with SW:E1 were:
1) Nothing looked usable. Everything was a show-room model, not something you would buy on a day to day basis. The stuff could have been bent, broken, dirty and scratched, but to me it still would have looked like concept models.
2) Nothing had texture. Texture seems to be the lost art of moviemaking, now that everything is CGI. Muppets and costumes have great texture and subtlety. CGI creatures look too 'raytraced'-- like someone painted over plastic wrap.
We're losing the personality from these movies. You couldn't make the Dark Crystal from a cartoon or CGI. Lucas seems to enamored of the latest technologies, and has left behind the old ones which are still useful.
I looked the site over. It doesn't seem too different than the sites they use to do men's apparel or socks or pistachios. Of course, the +1, Funny potential is high, but nuclear fuel isn't that bizarre.
IIRC, the isotopes used by reactors are different from the isotopes used in weapons-grade uranium. So it isn't much of a danger-- it would take the resources of a third world country to process U-235 into U-238 (or is it the other way backwards-- I always forget). Either way, Third World countries have plenty of uranium-- what they are missing is processing technology, such as gas-centrifuge systems and other technologies. And we, happily, are watching those technologies pretty closely.
Tritium, on the other hand, is useful for both industrial and military purposes, and so is much more interesting.;)
Transmeta is great and all, and Crusoe seems really cool. But I do think they should at least wait until they have a proven, shipping, mass market product before moving forward.
This is protection, if nothing else, for their employees, who are going to have to rely on Transmeta's success, not the day of the IPO, but months and often years later.
1) DARPA's projects are more a matter of their internal organization than anything any politician has had any influence over. Newt Gingrich learned FORTRAN in the early 70's because he forsaw somthing similar to the Internet eventually forming-- but while he encouraged that kind of research, he never pretended to have been responsible for it.
Many people have already pointed out that much of the real progress on the Internet came as a result of people dodging regulations and oversight-- not because of them.
2) The administration Gore is a part of has produced the Clipper Chip, restrictions on encryption export, lawsuits defending the Communications Decency Act, encouraged trial lawyers to sue virtually everyone for everything, nearly gave everyone a National ID Card, and now gives us Carnivore. Gore is like that guy in marketting who kept telling you how to code your product, and then when you ignored him and the product was a success, claimed the credit.
3) I don't know what you mean by 'frat boy image'-- I think your dislike of Bush is just painting him as that. Bush's view is that the government should stay out of people's coding-- which I pretty much agree with. I don't like everything he stands for, but he's the best that's out there. It takes about five years for an effective bill to get signed after wading through all the bureaucracy-- and two or three years for the conditions of technology to change. So I don't see what legislation could be passed to regulate the internet which wouldn't be obsolete two years before it was signed.
George W. will let coders code while he worries about running the government agencies we have. Gore will try to push for the same things Clinton did: Clipper chip, national ID's and Carnivore. If he did know more about technology, that would just make him more confident that he could regulate it. Gore's talking nice to us now because he's running for office. At least Ralph Nader doesn't already have a track record of being against us.
I do wish that they would all fill out the Vote Smart questionaires. Most of the congressmen did-- I remember using it to check up on Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi on B5-- running for Congress from LA).
Re:the destruction of the Reform Party
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Online Voting?
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· Score: 2
The "John Hagelin" idiots have really destroyed the Reform Party. If you look at the Natural Law Party page you can see that this guy has NO chance of getting votes -- the whole NLP is a bunch of eastern mystics who want to use 'transcendential meditation' to solve all the world's problems... yeah, right. This guy should be running for the Legalize LSD Party, not the Reform Party.
Pat Buchanan might not be very popular in some circles, but at least he gives the Reform Party some legitimacy. He is the right wing's equivalent of Ralph Nader.
I pretty much agree with you except on Buchanan, but I didn't want to inject more opinions than necessary into my analysis of the Reform Party's structural problems.
It is a common misconception that Buchanan is radically conservative. But George Will argued persuasively in 1992 and 1996 although Buchanan's old job was to be conservative on Crossfire, that his actual beliefs on most issues were radically liberal (government controls on trade and the economy). What excites radical conservatives was that he was very conservative on social issues (gays, abortion, etc).
Not many reporters listened to Will at the time, but it is telling that as soon as Republicans who were radical conservatives on all issues appeared (Alan Keyes, Gary Baurer), Buchanan lost nearly all his support.
When a primary ends, the factions form a compromise based on their voting strength. They form a message for their party which everyone in the party can live with and which can win the general election. But how do you compromise between Hagelin and Buchanan? They're nothing alike, and that's why the Reform Party is breaking up-- it has no overarching message. It is a cautionary example for people who want to just vote 'no'. I could summarize the Greens, Libertarians, Republicans and Democrats in about five minutes. All we know about the Reform party is who's in it.
I agree with you that Ventura isn't a big-l libertarian. He would be at home as a New Democrat or a Libertarian Republican (both are strong, growing factions in their party). I think he chose the Reform Party for recognition, but also because with them, he wouldn't have to compromise on his message. Very rare that you can do that and win an election-- it only works if you accidentially represent a good compromise between the major parties.
I think the other posts are covering online voting's problems and advantages pretty well, so I'll write about the other half of the question: the Reform Party and what the web can do for them. Disclaimer: I don't like them, but I will try very hard to be impartial.
The Reform Party is falling apart. Two years ago, when Governor Ventura was elected, the Reform Party was deeply divided between Ross Perot's people (pro-balanced budget, protectionist) and Jesse Ventura's faction (basically libertarian). Governor Ventura's campaign team made heavy use of the Web and email to organize his campaign, and received no help from the national Reform Party. Ventura felt that Perot was trying to dictate everything to his party.
Eventually, everything came to a head during the race for a Reform Party Chairman. Ventura and Perot each had their favorite guy, and Ventura's won. Perot spent about a year undermining him, and then his faction organized a 'surprise general meeting' where only Perot people managed to show up. They voted the chairman out, over objections that the convention had been illegally called. At one point, the situation at the meeting was so strong that the police had to be called to break up a fight. Ventura quit the party, saying the party was dead.
That's when Pat Buchanan showed up. His views are very different from Perot's. He believes in a national industrial policy, heavy protectionism, opposes immigration, etc. In many ways, he is the opposite of the Libertarians-- a liberal radical on economics, and a conservative radical on social issues.
He ran for President, and this time, Perot laid low. I don't know if he is trying to get out of politics (realizing that the Reform Party is pretty much dead) or if he is just trying to let the party onto its own feet (I think the Ventura thing killed the possibility of that happening).
Perot's faction, though, is pissed. Buchanan won the primary, but they say that he used non-Reform Party voters to do it (the point of a primary is to let a party know who its members support-- there isn't much point in having one if many of the voters will jump off the ticket if their man loses). Buchanan says he has expanded the appeal of the Reform party. The dispute got so tough that apparantly, the two factions are each holding their own convention, have nominated their own candidates, and each claim that they are the One True Reform Party.
Whichever party is the One True Reform Party is entitled to fifteen million dollars in federal campaign funds, so this question will probably end up in the courts. Ultimately, the Reform Party still isn't sure just what it actually stands for. It originally tried to be a vote for a moderate in a time when the Two Big Parties were seen as radical, ideological opposites who couldn't agree on anything. Now, people are more worried that the parties look too much the same. That pretty much squeezes the Reform Party out.
Now, at last: how will this affect on-line voting? Well, I'm not sure what they will be voting for at this stage-- they have their candidates (in fact, they have too many candidates!) and they have had their convention, such as it is. The web might have been a good forum for them to reconcile their differences, or hammer out a set of guiding principles. But their problem is that they are not a community.
Everyone on Slashdot starts with a certain level of similarity-- RMS and ESR (to shamelessly pick at a longstanding political feud) are still very similar in many ways. I don't know that Reform Party members have anything in common other than a feeling that they don't like where the country is going. They have formed into cults of personality which all have radically different views on what the party should be. And so, to be honest, I don't think that the internet can band-aid over all these differences and make their party work.
I think that Perot hung on for too long, and by not allowing the party to digest his views and Governor Ventura's, he turned the party politics into an adversarial mess. Parties are built on compromise and dialogue-- Perot basically destroyed the faction which didn't agree with him. I think the party is now suffering for it, and will finish flying to pieces this year. Add to that that people want the major parties to be more, not less, radicalized this year (that's why the Greens and Libertarians are doing so well), and you pretty much leave no place for Perot's people.
I was pleased to see that the criteria for member nomination (once referred to as 'self-nomination') has been loosened up. 2% is still an onerous burden when you remember that you can't find out who your constituents are due to privacy rules, but it is much better than it was.
Frankly, ICANN is at sea. We all know the issues they are facing, but I think we need to start thinking about the people from our community, and who can best represent North America in ICANN.
Since I suspect that a large proportion of ICANN @Large members read this, I think we have a good chance of nominating and electing someone with the administrative skills, technical knowledge, and political savvy to really get something done out there.
Absolutely. I totally agree that there are other traditions from which to start. I am just explaining the libertarian view. Too many people see it as a negative philosophy (that is, "it is what I am against, not what I am for that matters"). But that doesn't need to be, and usually isn't, the case.
I don't personally see the notion of a 'state of nature' as a useful idea. But I do see what you mean. Either way, I think much of the problem comes when people consider 'society' (or other non-people constructs, such as corporations, nations, races, gender groups, classes, etc) as being their unit of analysis and their main concern, rather than individuals.
What the policeman was asking him to do was surrender his rights, explicitly granted by the 4th amendment, not to be searched unreasonably.
In view of his attitude, it sounded totally reasonable. He was, on purpose, acting in a fashion which was calculated to make him look as dangerous as possible, in an environment where the groups were breaking laws.
Getting arrested on purpose and then complaining about it is stupid. It is a violation of Larry Niven's First and Second Laws, if nothing else.
I think it is more helpful to ask "Why not be libertarian? (Little 'l', since this includes many Republicans and Democrats who feel similarly, BTW.)
The burden of proof should be on people who want to pass laws to prove that using the force of law is the only way to solve a problem. Government regulation, government action and other uses of power and force available only to the government is only one of many possible ways to accomplish something-- quicker, more seductive, but also dangerous and heavy-handed.
Of course, if you do like passing laws to make people do things your way, your best bet is to set up a straw man. You know, the gun-toting nut (agrees with the Second Amendment) who is paranoid (worried about the Clipper Chip, or Carnivore, or the National ID Card, or encryption restrictions, or threats to freedom of speech) and wants to shut down the government (worried that their husband and them both have to work overtime to feed their latchkey kids so that they can send half their paychecks to Washington).
Calling libertarians selfish is wrong. They are opposed to quick and kludgy solutions when good alternatives exist. I don't see that as selfish. Reducing poverty, fixing the environment and educating people are all things we all want. The question is one of how do we get from here to there, not whether or not we should go.
Actually, the police have been pretty restrained. These 'peaceful demonstrators' were only peaceful if you count them attacking Newt Gingrich and pinning him to a wall for half an hour while the police tried to get him out of there. Or the reports of venomous animals being brought to philly to be released near the convention center.
I first read 2600 about 10 years ago. They call everyone they agree with a 'peaceful demonstrator'. Whenever anyone is arrested as part of a protest, they are always referred in carefully worded phrases designed to make them sound like innocent bystanders. Often, protesters are just peaceful protesters.
But don't look to 2600 to tell you that. They have no credibility in that.
On the Bush thing, well, I do think that there's nothing wrong with these editorials. But I wish that people would actually look at the Governor's record in Texas before they say something that makes them look uninformed. Seeing him once on the TV at Best Buy or hearing what Gore is saying about him doesn't count.
Reading Taco or Katz or whoever when they are spouting politics is like hearing Geraldo talk about Unix-- and for the same reasons. Cheap shots like that are just unmoderatable trolls. At least give a reason or something other than "he's a dummy" or "I don't like how he looks".
Cut costs: You can reduce the expense of development both by getting other contributors and developers to help out-- free of charge. Other companies, including companies you don't compete with, could see a reason to contribute code. Show them how much a developer costs (say circa $75k for a good one), then tell them that 10 people who 'volunteer' (or are assigned by their company) are worth $750,000 dollars.
Stability: Fixing bugs and adding features is difficult and time-consuming if the architecture of the product you are using isn't sufficiently extensible, or the code unreadable. Open products have to be easy to modify, so that the project can move at all, so it is easier to add or update the product.
Good marketting: There is no substitute for being the company which wrote the industry standard app for a given market. You pick up the best developers in that market, support people learn your product first, and your brand is plastered everywhere. Even your competitors, if they use your product, become part of your marketting. Finally, the people who make purchase decisions are often technical people who will appreciate the flexibility of having access to the source.
Control of the market: Remember, if your company has the maintainer and most of the developers for a project, you can shape its direction. This gives your company useful strategic control over a market. EG: if you make operating systems, and are dominant in that market (just a hypothetical example), you could redefine the product range to, for instance, include web browsing as one of your product's features. Comparing yourselves to Microsoft will help with marketting/management types.
Simplify HR: A well known and understood open source project is much easier to staff. When an employee leaves, there is no fear that noone will understand his part of the source tree. When you hire someone, they can start working on the product on day one, rather than wasting time training on the details of your proprietary app. Regular, skilled contributors become recruitment material-- a good OSS project will help identify and build connections with great people to bring onto your team.
Open source methodology, if done right, can significantly improve your position in the market.
If you are a small fish in a market with plenty of big corporations, OSS is the means by which you can compete with them-- and win.
OK, since this article is more than an hour old, I guess being moderated up is out of the question. So for those of you browsing low:
First, this idea is silly and relatively useless. The private sector operates something similar and better. All the post office can add is a mechanism which other regulations will glom onto until it becomes your mandatory official email address-- a little like what has happened with Social Security numbers.
Second, the post office has NO interest in stopping spam. For one thing, their paper-mail revenue stream isn't supported by those silly first-class stamps you've been buying. It is supported by third class 'business mail' aka junk mail. Good side: you get cheap postal mail. Bad side: you get a ream of banner ads in your mailbox every week.
Third, the government's problem all along has been a weakness of adapting to innovation. They come up with this great paper plan, and five months into it, as circumstances change, the plan ends up solidifying. Within a year or two, the whole system is out of date. I've worked with government agencies and contractors in the past; this is how it has always gone.
Finally, and most importantly, if the post office really wants to do something good, they should create a name server system for postal addresses. IE abstract the physical address away from the resident. So I just write "CmdrTaco, 80486DX" on the envelope, plop down a stamp, and it goes to Commander Taco, whereever his physical address might be. Do that, and right there you would only need one change of address card, and everyone who uses your EasyCode would automatically be updated. People who need a physical address can always still use that. You could update it over the web or at a post office if people are really worried about security.
Sadly, the post office is doing what other people do just fine already, and not coming up with a way to stay relevent. Dare I wonder if we will soon even need a USPS?
Slashdot Mirror
<sarcasm>We need more imported CEO's, too! You should see what the cost of labor is to get one. It is ridiculous, and an obvious sign that the specialized training required to be a CEO is just not being taught in schools. My own company has only 5 executive VP's out of its 15 employees. Our product just won't ship until we get more 'players' with leadership, moxie and backseat driving.</sarcasm>
Sarcasm aside, there are a few other things that the NYT didn't mention. First, the surplus they talk about was early on a product of the crash in biotech, who they lump as 'science guys'; later, it includes the recession, too (which hit middle management harder than any of us). Second, there is a big problem getting good coders.
They are treated terribly by their school peers and the media. In a previous job I occasionally dealt with reporters, and they are universally either Old Media snobs who see computer people as the dork stereotype, or New Media snobs who actively look down on 'mere techies' as mere servants (ignorant of the true nature of lit crit) who maintain the Internet they built.
And high schools do suck. They insist on mandating 4 years of gym and English. They move everyone in lock step through the grades, grading you more on attendence than performance. If you do try to learn, you are ridiculed by your fellow students. And if you learn past the all-important Lesson Plan, you are ridiculed by the teacher, too. Teachers are more worried with telling you what heroes they are and complaining about their pay than they are with actually teaching you something. I know this isn't true everywhere, but ask yourself what percentage of classes fit this stereotype. Mine is about 75-80%-- but your mileage may vary. Anything over 25% should be an emergency-- but the big argument right now is if anything needs to be done at all.
</rant>
That's the point. If you read the platform, they ask that ICANN's membership be official members per the california definition. I see why he wants that, but that opens up a huge can of worms. Many issue advocates and trial lawyers would love ICANN to be vulnerable to a legal seige that this would allow.
OTOH, not being official members also leaves members without any legal protection whatsoever. The problem is that California's law gives groups no defense against people who join, then sue. As I said, by the trial lawyers, for the trial lawyers.
I thought that, since this uses cookies, and therefore offers different prices to different people, rather than different prices at different times, that it constitutes first degree price discrimination and is therefore illegal. Amazon could open themselves up to a class action lawsuit or even criminal charges over this if I recall my college econ correctly.
NOTE: I am not an economist or a lawyer.
Well, that's what you get when you start trying to compensate people based on who seems more 'deserving'.
I hope someday to be popular and charismatic enough to merit having money forcibly rerouted to me by the government. ;)
So far, so good. While they aren't the greatest series of ideas in history, they do seem to be pretty solid.
ICANN, so far, has been run as a "let's do what's right no matter what those idiot users think". This is one of the major arguments against letting ICANN do anything. Their arrogance is tremendous, but so far, they haven't been able to live up to their high opinion of themselves. So I like the ideas for reducing staff discretion, greater transparency and more open procedures. And burn all TLD's? That's right up my alley.
IANAL, but:
With all that said, ICANN does need to be sent a message. So far, it has been autocratic, condescending and rude. They have managed to be a weird combination of three stereotypes: Faceless Corporations, Big Government Bullies, and the BSOFH. So while I think we need better ideas for the direction ICANN will take, this isn't a bad start.
And, hey, I got my PIN; I'm ahead of the game.
He isn't saying that CmdrTaco is somehow obliged to editorialize in comments rather than in the story. He's just saying that it would be more effective, and better for slashdot.
I agree w/ the editorial this time, but I still think it would be more effective. Or at least at the end rather than in between.
I don't think the real problem is IP. If it was, then it would be a fairly clear-cut problem. As far as I can tell, all cue-cat is is a barcode reader which returns a universal ID number-- which is then sent in software to the company, which then forwards the computer's browser to a web page.
That's it.
So which pieces are genuine IP, and which are Business Model Legal Defense? The former, I think, represents hard work which they have a right to hold onto. The latter represents them using lawyers to try to force people to not take advantage of their business model.
I don't see much of a market for this scanner-- I guess that's their main problem. Trying to put one in everyone's hands might work, but more likely, people will think "great, one more piece of crap to plug into my machine". I-openers are at least great products which have obvious and well-addressed market openings. The guys at CueCat just seem like they are reaching. I haven't seen their product, but if my understanding of their system is right, then it is underwhelming no matter how well implemented it is.
Then the question becomes, what IP are they defending? The ability to read barcodes? To do so by hand-held scanners? Or to link codes to webpages? Except for the latter, all are pretty commonly in use. And the last, well, they can have that technology, as far as I am concerned.
This is a non-obvious, novel use for a scanner. So I do think they have some genuine IP here-- though none in the hardware driving department, which seems to be what they are complaining about. As for links to Amazon, etc, well, my opinion is that it is IP, but pretty pathetic, worthless IP. Good example of how even bad ideas can be IP if they meet the requirements.
Unfortunately, I doubt that California will ever learn. They once tried to create an income tax for ex-citizens of California (a 'fee for people who had the priviledge of once having lived here). Enough is enough-- you ought to start thinking about moving your companies to somewhere better. And might I suggest Atlanta, Georgia?
Well, that's it: five good reasons to move to Atlanta. To be honest, this description fits many other places as well, like Austin, Pittsburgh, etc. The point is this: don't try to change CA, because they will never learn. They are a gold rush economy: if it isn't gold, or booze, or software, it'll be something else. If you are worried that some lean company outside the valley is able to make their VC last longer, and pay their people less to live better lives, and is getting first dibs on the best people, then just do what they're doing: head for the Peach State.
But that wasn't what I was saying. EVEN IF they had been burnt and scratched, they would have looked like burnt and scratched concept models. They didn't look functional, they looked like they were designed with extras to make them stand out in a showroom.
Look at the XWing-- even a pristine Xwing looks like it was a practical, production spaceship-- designed to fight, not to look pretty. Even the wreckage of a Naboo fighter looks like it was designed to be the most powerful-looking and fast-seeming ship, rather than actually powerful or fast. Maybe the Nabooians were dominated by their Marketting Droids.
If so, who can blame Senator Palpatine.
Well, although sports has virtually nothing to do with my life...
I'm glad the Olympic games are going to resume their tradition of stupid, communist restrictions on their athletes in the name of... well, who knows? For a while, I thought that they might actually be trying to operate rationally. I can't understand why they are doing this, except out of that twisted restrictive stubbornness that only entrenched bureaucrats are capable of.
These are obviously the same people who ran the Campus Printing Center in the Good Old Days.
Good point-- everything they use is leftover stuff from the Old Republic. And thought XWings are built during the Rebellion, they saw constant combat, as opposed to Naboo fighters, which had never been used due to the peace of the Republic.
Shiney isn't the problem. The two problems with SW:E1 were:
1) Nothing looked usable. Everything was a show-room model, not something you would buy on a day to day basis. The stuff could have been bent, broken, dirty and scratched, but to me it still would have looked like concept models.
2) Nothing had texture. Texture seems to be the lost art of moviemaking, now that everything is CGI. Muppets and costumes have great texture and subtlety. CGI creatures look too 'raytraced'-- like someone painted over plastic wrap.
We're losing the personality from these movies. You couldn't make the Dark Crystal from a cartoon or CGI. Lucas seems to enamored of the latest technologies, and has left behind the old ones which are still useful.
1) Companies pay you not to research yours.
2) Work secretly-- companies hire you to provide evidence when they sue over the bad patent.
3) Work openly-- companies hire you to break their competitor's patents.
I looked the site over. It doesn't seem too different than the sites they use to do men's apparel or socks or pistachios. Of course, the +1, Funny potential is high, but nuclear fuel isn't that bizarre.
IIRC, the isotopes used by reactors are different from the isotopes used in weapons-grade uranium. So it isn't much of a danger-- it would take the resources of a third world country to process U-235 into U-238 (or is it the other way backwards-- I always forget). Either way, Third World countries have plenty of uranium-- what they are missing is processing technology, such as gas-centrifuge systems and other technologies. And we, happily, are watching those technologies pretty closely.
Tritium, on the other hand, is useful for both industrial and military purposes, and so is much more interesting. ;)
Transmeta is great and all, and Crusoe seems really cool. But I do think they should at least wait until they have a proven, shipping, mass market product before moving forward.
This is protection, if nothing else, for their employees, who are going to have to rely on Transmeta's success, not the day of the IPO, but months and often years later.
1) DARPA's projects are more a matter of their internal organization than anything any politician has had any influence over. Newt Gingrich learned FORTRAN in the early 70's because he forsaw somthing similar to the Internet eventually forming-- but while he encouraged that kind of research, he never pretended to have been responsible for it.
Many people have already pointed out that much of the real progress on the Internet came as a result of people dodging regulations and oversight-- not because of them.
2) The administration Gore is a part of has produced the Clipper Chip, restrictions on encryption export, lawsuits defending the Communications Decency Act, encouraged trial lawyers to sue virtually everyone for everything, nearly gave everyone a National ID Card, and now gives us Carnivore. Gore is like that guy in marketting who kept telling you how to code your product, and then when you ignored him and the product was a success, claimed the credit.
3) I don't know what you mean by 'frat boy image'-- I think your dislike of Bush is just painting him as that. Bush's view is that the government should stay out of people's coding-- which I pretty much agree with. I don't like everything he stands for, but he's the best that's out there. It takes about five years for an effective bill to get signed after wading through all the bureaucracy-- and two or three years for the conditions of technology to change. So I don't see what legislation could be passed to regulate the internet which wouldn't be obsolete two years before it was signed.
George W. will let coders code while he worries about running the government agencies we have. Gore will try to push for the same things Clinton did: Clipper chip, national ID's and Carnivore. If he did know more about technology, that would just make him more confident that he could regulate it. Gore's talking nice to us now because he's running for office. At least Ralph Nader doesn't already have a track record of being against us.
I do wish that they would all fill out the Vote Smart questionaires. Most of the congressmen did-- I remember using it to check up on Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi on B5-- running for Congress from LA).
The "John Hagelin" idiots have really destroyed the Reform Party. If you look at the Natural Law Party page you can see that this guy has NO chance of getting votes -- the whole NLP is a bunch of eastern mystics who want to use 'transcendential meditation' to solve all the world's problems... yeah, right. This guy should be running for the Legalize LSD Party, not the Reform Party.
Pat Buchanan might not be very popular in some circles, but at least he gives the Reform Party some legitimacy. He is the right wing's equivalent of Ralph Nader.
I pretty much agree with you except on Buchanan, but I didn't want to inject more opinions than necessary into my analysis of the Reform Party's structural problems.
It is a common misconception that Buchanan is radically conservative. But George Will argued persuasively in 1992 and 1996 although Buchanan's old job was to be conservative on Crossfire, that his actual beliefs on most issues were radically liberal (government controls on trade and the economy). What excites radical conservatives was that he was very conservative on social issues (gays, abortion, etc).
Not many reporters listened to Will at the time, but it is telling that as soon as Republicans who were radical conservatives on all issues appeared (Alan Keyes, Gary Baurer), Buchanan lost nearly all his support.
When a primary ends, the factions form a compromise based on their voting strength. They form a message for their party which everyone in the party can live with and which can win the general election. But how do you compromise between Hagelin and Buchanan? They're nothing alike, and that's why the Reform Party is breaking up-- it has no overarching message. It is a cautionary example for people who want to just vote 'no'. I could summarize the Greens, Libertarians, Republicans and Democrats in about five minutes. All we know about the Reform party is who's in it.
I agree with you that Ventura isn't a big-l libertarian. He would be at home as a New Democrat or a Libertarian Republican (both are strong, growing factions in their party). I think he chose the Reform Party for recognition, but also because with them, he wouldn't have to compromise on his message. Very rare that you can do that and win an election-- it only works if you accidentially represent a good compromise between the major parties.
I think the other posts are covering online voting's problems and advantages pretty well, so I'll write about the other half of the question: the Reform Party and what the web can do for them. Disclaimer: I don't like them, but I will try very hard to be impartial.
The Reform Party is falling apart. Two years ago, when Governor Ventura was elected, the Reform Party was deeply divided between Ross Perot's people (pro-balanced budget, protectionist) and Jesse Ventura's faction (basically libertarian). Governor Ventura's campaign team made heavy use of the Web and email to organize his campaign, and received no help from the national Reform Party. Ventura felt that Perot was trying to dictate everything to his party.
Eventually, everything came to a head during the race for a Reform Party Chairman. Ventura and Perot each had their favorite guy, and Ventura's won. Perot spent about a year undermining him, and then his faction organized a 'surprise general meeting' where only Perot people managed to show up. They voted the chairman out, over objections that the convention had been illegally called. At one point, the situation at the meeting was so strong that the police had to be called to break up a fight. Ventura quit the party, saying the party was dead.
That's when Pat Buchanan showed up. His views are very different from Perot's. He believes in a national industrial policy, heavy protectionism, opposes immigration, etc. In many ways, he is the opposite of the Libertarians-- a liberal radical on economics, and a conservative radical on social issues.
He ran for President, and this time, Perot laid low. I don't know if he is trying to get out of politics (realizing that the Reform Party is pretty much dead) or if he is just trying to let the party onto its own feet (I think the Ventura thing killed the possibility of that happening).
Perot's faction, though, is pissed. Buchanan won the primary, but they say that he used non-Reform Party voters to do it (the point of a primary is to let a party know who its members support-- there isn't much point in having one if many of the voters will jump off the ticket if their man loses). Buchanan says he has expanded the appeal of the Reform party. The dispute got so tough that apparantly, the two factions are each holding their own convention, have nominated their own candidates, and each claim that they are the One True Reform Party.
Whichever party is the One True Reform Party is entitled to fifteen million dollars in federal campaign funds, so this question will probably end up in the courts. Ultimately, the Reform Party still isn't sure just what it actually stands for. It originally tried to be a vote for a moderate in a time when the Two Big Parties were seen as radical, ideological opposites who couldn't agree on anything. Now, people are more worried that the parties look too much the same. That pretty much squeezes the Reform Party out.
Now, at last: how will this affect on-line voting? Well, I'm not sure what they will be voting for at this stage-- they have their candidates (in fact, they have too many candidates!) and they have had their convention, such as it is. The web might have been a good forum for them to reconcile their differences, or hammer out a set of guiding principles. But their problem is that they are not a community.
Everyone on Slashdot starts with a certain level of similarity-- RMS and ESR (to shamelessly pick at a longstanding political feud) are still very similar in many ways. I don't know that Reform Party members have anything in common other than a feeling that they don't like where the country is going. They have formed into cults of personality which all have radically different views on what the party should be. And so, to be honest, I don't think that the internet can band-aid over all these differences and make their party work.
I think that Perot hung on for too long, and by not allowing the party to digest his views and Governor Ventura's, he turned the party politics into an adversarial mess. Parties are built on compromise and dialogue-- Perot basically destroyed the faction which didn't agree with him. I think the party is now suffering for it, and will finish flying to pieces this year. Add to that that people want the major parties to be more, not less, radicalized this year (that's why the Greens and Libertarians are doing so well), and you pretty much leave no place for Perot's people.
I was pleased to see that the criteria for member nomination (once referred to as 'self-nomination') has been loosened up. 2% is still an onerous burden when you remember that you can't find out who your constituents are due to privacy rules, but it is much better than it was.
Frankly, ICANN is at sea. We all know the issues they are facing, but I think we need to start thinking about the people from our community, and who can best represent North America in ICANN.
Since I suspect that a large proportion of ICANN @Large members read this, I think we have a good chance of nominating and electing someone with the administrative skills, technical knowledge, and political savvy to really get something done out there.
Absolutely. I totally agree that there are other traditions from which to start. I am just explaining the libertarian view. Too many people see it as a negative philosophy (that is, "it is what I am against, not what I am for that matters"). But that doesn't need to be, and usually isn't, the case.
I don't personally see the notion of a 'state of nature' as a useful idea. But I do see what you mean. Either way, I think much of the problem comes when people consider 'society' (or other non-people constructs, such as corporations, nations, races, gender groups, classes, etc) as being their unit of analysis and their main concern, rather than individuals.
What the policeman was asking him to do was surrender his rights, explicitly granted by the 4th amendment, not to be searched unreasonably.
In view of his attitude, it sounded totally reasonable. He was, on purpose, acting in a fashion which was calculated to make him look as dangerous as possible, in an environment where the groups were breaking laws.
Getting arrested on purpose and then complaining about it is stupid. It is a violation of Larry Niven's First and Second Laws, if nothing else.
I think it is more helpful to ask "Why not be libertarian? (Little 'l', since this includes many Republicans and Democrats who feel similarly, BTW.)
The burden of proof should be on people who want to pass laws to prove that using the force of law is the only way to solve a problem. Government regulation, government action and other uses of power and force available only to the government is only one of many possible ways to accomplish something-- quicker, more seductive, but also dangerous and heavy-handed.
Of course, if you do like passing laws to make people do things your way, your best bet is to set up a straw man. You know, the gun-toting nut (agrees with the Second Amendment) who is paranoid (worried about the Clipper Chip, or Carnivore, or the National ID Card, or encryption restrictions, or threats to freedom of speech) and wants to shut down the government (worried that their husband and them both have to work overtime to feed their latchkey kids so that they can send half their paychecks to Washington).
Calling libertarians selfish is wrong. They are opposed to quick and kludgy solutions when good alternatives exist. I don't see that as selfish. Reducing poverty, fixing the environment and educating people are all things we all want. The question is one of how do we get from here to there, not whether or not we should go.
PS: first post.
Actually, the police have been pretty restrained. These 'peaceful demonstrators' were only peaceful if you count them attacking Newt Gingrich and pinning him to a wall for half an hour while the police tried to get him out of there. Or the reports of venomous animals being brought to philly to be released near the convention center.
I first read 2600 about 10 years ago. They call everyone they agree with a 'peaceful demonstrator'. Whenever anyone is arrested as part of a protest, they are always referred in carefully worded phrases designed to make them sound like innocent bystanders. Often, protesters are just peaceful protesters.
But don't look to 2600 to tell you that. They have no credibility in that.
On the Bush thing, well, I do think that there's nothing wrong with these editorials. But I wish that people would actually look at the Governor's record in Texas before they say something that makes them look uninformed. Seeing him once on the TV at Best Buy or hearing what Gore is saying about him doesn't count.
Reading Taco or Katz or whoever when they are spouting politics is like hearing Geraldo talk about Unix-- and for the same reasons. Cheap shots like that are just unmoderatable trolls. At least give a reason or something other than "he's a dummy" or "I don't like how he looks".
Cut costs: You can reduce the expense of development both by getting other contributors and developers to help out-- free of charge. Other companies, including companies you don't compete with, could see a reason to contribute code. Show them how much a developer costs (say circa $75k for a good one), then tell them that 10 people who 'volunteer' (or are assigned by their company) are worth $750,000 dollars.
Stability: Fixing bugs and adding features is difficult and time-consuming if the architecture of the product you are using isn't sufficiently extensible, or the code unreadable. Open products have to be easy to modify, so that the project can move at all, so it is easier to add or update the product.
Good marketting: There is no substitute for being the company which wrote the industry standard app for a given market. You pick up the best developers in that market, support people learn your product first, and your brand is plastered everywhere. Even your competitors, if they use your product, become part of your marketting. Finally, the people who make purchase decisions are often technical people who will appreciate the flexibility of having access to the source.
Control of the market: Remember, if your company has the maintainer and most of the developers for a project, you can shape its direction. This gives your company useful strategic control over a market. EG: if you make operating systems, and are dominant in that market (just a hypothetical example), you could redefine the product range to, for instance, include web browsing as one of your product's features. Comparing yourselves to Microsoft will help with marketting/management types.
Simplify HR: A well known and understood open source project is much easier to staff. When an employee leaves, there is no fear that noone will understand his part of the source tree. When you hire someone, they can start working on the product on day one, rather than wasting time training on the details of your proprietary app. Regular, skilled contributors become recruitment material-- a good OSS project will help identify and build connections with great people to bring onto your team.
Open source methodology, if done right, can significantly improve your position in the market.
If you are a small fish in a market with plenty of big corporations, OSS is the means by which you can compete with them-- and win.
Actually, I heard that the Simpsons live in North Tacoma.
OK, since this article is more than an hour old, I guess being moderated up is out of the question. So for those of you browsing low:
First, this idea is silly and relatively useless. The private sector operates something similar and better. All the post office can add is a mechanism which other regulations will glom onto until it becomes your mandatory official email address-- a little like what has happened with Social Security numbers.
Second, the post office has NO interest in stopping spam. For one thing, their paper-mail revenue stream isn't supported by those silly first-class stamps you've been buying. It is supported by third class 'business mail' aka junk mail. Good side: you get cheap postal mail. Bad side: you get a ream of banner ads in your mailbox every week.
Third, the government's problem all along has been a weakness of adapting to innovation. They come up with this great paper plan, and five months into it, as circumstances change, the plan ends up solidifying. Within a year or two, the whole system is out of date. I've worked with government agencies and contractors in the past; this is how it has always gone.
Finally, and most importantly, if the post office really wants to do something good, they should create a name server system for postal addresses. IE abstract the physical address away from the resident. So I just write "CmdrTaco, 80486DX" on the envelope, plop down a stamp, and it goes to Commander Taco, whereever his physical address might be . Do that, and right there you would only need one change of address card, and everyone who uses your EasyCode would automatically be updated. People who need a physical address can always still use that. You could update it over the web or at a post office if people are really worried about security.
Sadly, the post office is doing what other people do just fine already, and not coming up with a way to stay relevent. Dare I wonder if we will soon even need a USPS?