Which reminds me, changing business plans doesn't necessarily mean screwing your customer. There's the uplink providers, and content provider (like hulu and netflix) in the value chain whom they can work deals with to make everyone more profitable without changing cost on customer.
Lets face it, this is not the time to try and get more from the customer. They could negotiate lower prices with uplink providers, or better yet, why not negotiate with hulu and netflix to have their servers hosted more closer to the user!. this way everyone would be happy, and they don't have to pay the uplink providers for extra bandwidth!
they can't afford it? How would you explain then having to pay a premium if you dont get TV service? even though there is more cost to them with TV services? why would they continue to market higher bandwidth packages if they can't afford bandwidth from uplink?
I sure would like to change my cable provider, but I couldn't find anyone here besides charter. Seems to me like price gauging.
I am all for agility and changing business plans, but it shouldn't be at the expense of the customer. If you set a certain expectation from the customer and have a contract with him, then see it through, don't flip the switch on him. After all, they don't pay per glass like jamba juice.
The way I see it, they would like to treat their customers like wireless carriers and are taking us slowly there.
might this qualify as price gauging?
They have been offering the services for a long time now without caps. So they cant claim they can't maintain it.
I wouldn't have a problem with it if they instead offered an alternative package wit caps, with a lowered price, to entice people to switch instead of just flipping the switch on current subscribers.
If they took their cue from wireless carriers, then I think they will charge users on usage beyond the cap.
developer mindshare and market share
You dont have to stop work on other distros to get a winning distribution. If you like one, just stick to it and as much as you can to get it better.
I really don't buy the idea that pooling resources will make things better. As I would expect most people on/. read the mythical man month, it would be unreasonable to expect that a distro will get better by pooling programmer resources. As for monetary resources, they will eventually follow the best amongst all these distros.
I second that. If you are visualizing graphs be sure to get the igraph package which can be used with R, Python, C, or Ruby. http://cneurocvs.rmki.kfki.hu/igraph/
Processing is another package that is geared towards data visualization which java developers might find easier use http://www.processing.org/
am I the only one who thinks this is obvious? isn't social networks supposed to connect?
its like telling the world that terrorists also use the streets to drive their vehicles on. What is significant about this?
Think of government as just another player in the market. They can be better or worse than other player in the market.
Here are equivalent examples that show how governments don't necessarily do better than private sector:
- Have you been to india or egypt and used their railway or public transportation? they are government owned btw.
- I Worked in a foreign country for a few years that had a government owned postal service (no need to mention the country's name), the service was a disgrace! no home delivary, mail was occasionally opened, I would say you are lucky if you receive anything at all. You walk into the post office and letters are scattered all over the floor, you cant even find an employee whom you can complain to. They even had discussions in their parliament (yes it's a democracy!) about the issue, but 10 years later, things are just worse.
- another country I lived in which is considered one of the richest countries in the world with some of the highest capita per head. They had scheduled blackouts because their power infrastructure was so outdated and couldnt meet demand. It is equally disgraceful with water and internet. Need I mention you need to pay bribes to get your service hooked up within a week? otherwise it could take months
- As for internet... one word....censorship.
I wonder though where we can really find a government without interest in profitability (or self interest). I have seen many government initiatives that start with good intentions and do extremly well in the short run, but over time, self interest, whether in politics or personal profit, would bring about corruption and what follows is degradation in quality of service.
The sad thing is, when such a thing happens, there are no other players in the market who can cease the opportunity of this sole player slacking off, and offering better service.
We can certainly be better off if we are aware that government run business are similar to monopolies and realize what that entails. More importantly, we should be willing to take the responsibility and oversee them, or perhaps allow them to operate for a limited amount of time then privatize the business.
But absolute government control is not a good answer in the long run
. The worst harm IMHO from such initiatives is the behavioral changes in society that comes from the sense of entitlement. I have certainly seen it in the countries I lived in and how it kills the entrepreneurial drive of individuals in that country, let alone the hostile feelings towards foreigners because they are reaping the benefits of the country's public infrastructure. Its a recipe for disaster and a cause for much unneeded political conflict.
corporations will push new laws to prevent that from happening. just like they are trying to prevent this kind of freedom of information that is already there, by trying to end network neutrality, so anyone who is not in line with them, will receive a high bandwidth bill.
Again, I am against burdensome regulation. regulations can, as you have demonstrated, be in place to protect the interests of large organizations and not the individuals. It is interesting that you bring up the example of net neutrality, since it is analogous to a free market. As you clearly put it, net neutrality can only be hindered by "regulation" which organizations would push on us. Competition would actually push providers to be net neutral so as to one up their competitors (since customers prefer net neutral providers). Providers can only afford to not be net neutral if they have a monopoly (or cartel) or are forced to by regulation.
no. there is no other way. this is the way we invented to get us out of caves, to irrigation and then to cities and civilization. we have to perfect it, not stop it. solution is simple :
1 - updated regulations, new ones if necessary, especially in new fields
2 - freedom of information to prevent corporations hiding filth behind trade secrets excuse
3 - freedom of information to prevent politicians hiding filth behind state secrets excuse
I agree with you whole heartedly. Lack of regulation is no answer (even greenspan would disagree with that), I see it as a necessary evil that should be avoided if possible, where as from what I understand from you, it is a first resort.
Whereas in reality, the solution will lie somewhere in between. It will be a balancing act between people who take your approach, and people who take mine. Having both mindsets participate in the system will ensure that we understand the negatives of both approaches. But we have to participate and be willing to disagree and accept that there may be things that we appreciate yet that are important to the other mindset, so we can improve upon the regulations that are in place.
Much has changed since that era in terms of fiscal and monetary policy, and we should have learned much from what happened back then. So god willing, we will not see a repeat of what happened.
I guess all our discussion so far has been circling about the idea of justice in society. Justice does not come about from a purely free market or a highly regulated centrally planned economy.
The free market would turn into a jungle.
Greenspan acknowledges this fact and see's an important role for government in protecting rights of individuals.
What amazes me is that we might think that "more regulation" brings about justice. In the extreme case of a centrally planned economy, we would assume that the government knows everything about everyone. This by itself is unjust as privacy advocates would tell you, however, we know also that it is impossible. In less extreme cases it would be to add regulation to a current free market system in response to certain events, to deter certain unwanted behavior which I would also argue is unjust for the following reasons:
1- There is enough regulation in the market for government and any market participant to know what is considered right and what is considered wrong, therefore the justice system can take care of any cases of illegal behavior.
2- More regulation would just add more burden on the market players that choose not to participate in the illegal behavior, and therefore, it is a punishment for them more than it is a deterrent for future illegal activity.
3- More regulation would reduce the number of entrants which free markets rely on to correct itself and bring about innovation.
4- Market players who have an intent of illegal activity will not be deterred from regulation, and will find new ways of gaming the system. It will just be more difficult finding them because we might have regulations up to a point where it would simply obscure what they are doing (and people wonder why madoff got away with a 50$billion ponzi scheme).
5- More regulations creates more opportunity for corruption, especially if the regulation becomes burdensome, and therefore, the lawful organizations will find it hard to compete in this environment
Let me conclude by suggesting an alternative to more regulation. The internet already empowers individuals to seek and disseminate information. Why not leverage the power of individuals to monitoring corrupt organizations. We already have the regulations in place, and no one would argue that it is government duty to step in and sort out the cream from the crud for that particular situation. It is counter productive however, to exert punishment on everyone else, by more knee jerk regulation in response to that instance.
Slashdot Mirror
Should we expect this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq-l7FQz-6Q
omg .. did youtube get /.ed?
SkyNet> Segmentation fault, core dumped ++ LOST CARRIER
is the solution to all our problems.
Taking a purely logical approach
Google [good] + Microsoft [Evil] = Neutral
Which reminds me, changing business plans doesn't necessarily mean screwing your customer. There's the uplink providers, and content provider (like hulu and netflix) in the value chain whom they can work deals with to make everyone more profitable without changing cost on customer.
Lets face it, this is not the time to try and get more from the customer. They could negotiate lower prices with uplink providers, or better yet, why not negotiate with hulu and netflix to have their servers hosted more closer to the user!. this way everyone would be happy, and they don't have to pay the uplink providers for extra bandwidth!
they can't afford it? How would you explain then having to pay a premium if you dont get TV service? even though there is more cost to them with TV services? why would they continue to market higher bandwidth packages if they can't afford bandwidth from uplink?
I sure would like to change my cable provider, but I couldn't find anyone here besides charter. Seems to me like price gauging.
I am all for agility and changing business plans, but it shouldn't be at the expense of the customer. If you set a certain expectation from the customer and have a contract with him, then see it through, don't flip the switch on him. After all, they don't pay per glass like jamba juice.
The way I see it, they would like to treat their customers like wireless carriers and are taking us slowly there.
I think 101.1a protocol is proprietary. You need to pay a license fee to use it.
could wimax be the solution?
might this qualify as price gauging? They have been offering the services for a long time now without caps. So they cant claim they can't maintain it. I wouldn't have a problem with it if they instead offered an alternative package wit caps, with a lowered price, to entice people to switch instead of just flipping the switch on current subscribers. If they took their cue from wireless carriers, then I think they will charge users on usage beyond the cap.
developer mindshare and market share You dont have to stop work on other distros to get a winning distribution. If you like one, just stick to it and as much as you can to get it better. /. read the mythical man month, it would be unreasonable to expect that a distro will get better by pooling programmer resources. As for monetary resources, they will eventually follow the best amongst all these distros.
I really don't buy the idea that pooling resources will make things better. As I would expect most people on
Would your desktop get a VAgena if you install VMWare?
fiber to make a good dump
Before a spelling nazi comments about the typo in the title ..
Note the sig, I only speak it very best
Skynet> Segmentation fault, Core dumped++CARRIER LOST++
I second that. If you are visualizing graphs be sure to get the igraph package which can be used with R, Python, C, or Ruby.
http://cneurocvs.rmki.kfki.hu/igraph/
Processing is another package that is geared towards data visualization which java developers might find easier use
http://www.processing.org/
its called masterbation
am I the only one who thinks this is obvious? isn't social networks supposed to connect?
its like telling the world that terrorists also use the streets to drive their vehicles on. What is significant about this?
Think of government as just another player in the market. They can be better or worse than other player in the market. ... one word....censorship.
Here are equivalent examples that show how governments don't necessarily do better than private sector:
- Have you been to india or egypt and used their railway or public transportation? they are government owned btw.
- I Worked in a foreign country for a few years that had a government owned postal service (no need to mention the country's name), the service was a disgrace! no home delivary, mail was occasionally opened, I would say you are lucky if you receive anything at all. You walk into the post office and letters are scattered all over the floor, you cant even find an employee whom you can complain to. They even had discussions in their parliament (yes it's a democracy!) about the issue, but 10 years later, things are just worse.
- another country I lived in which is considered one of the richest countries in the world with some of the highest capita per head. They had scheduled blackouts because their power infrastructure was so outdated and couldnt meet demand. It is equally disgraceful with water and internet. Need I mention you need to pay bribes to get your service hooked up within a week? otherwise it could take months
- As for internet
I wonder though where we can really find a government without interest in profitability (or self interest). I have seen many government initiatives that start with good intentions and do extremly well in the short run, but over time, self interest, whether in politics or personal profit, would bring about corruption and what follows is degradation in quality of service.
The sad thing is, when such a thing happens, there are no other players in the market who can cease the opportunity of this sole player slacking off, and offering better service.
We can certainly be better off if we are aware that government run business are similar to monopolies and realize what that entails. More importantly, we should be willing to take the responsibility and oversee them, or perhaps allow them to operate for a limited amount of time then privatize the business.
But absolute government control is not a good answer in the long run
. The worst harm IMHO from such initiatives is the behavioral changes in society that comes from the sense of entitlement.
I have certainly seen it in the countries I lived in and how it kills the entrepreneurial drive of individuals in that country, let alone the hostile feelings towards foreigners because they are reaping the benefits of the country's public infrastructure. Its a recipe for disaster and a cause for much unneeded political conflict.
one of them is filtered as insightful +5
I can only say ...
http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/75619/detail/
omg .. one slip and I get 3 responses in a matter of minutes :)
I don't know whether to be happy or curl up in a dark corner
ever used an electric cook top?
corporations will push new laws to prevent that from happening. just like they are trying to prevent this kind of freedom of information that is already there, by trying to end network neutrality, so anyone who is not in line with them, will receive a high bandwidth bill.
Again, I am against burdensome regulation. regulations can, as you have demonstrated, be in place to protect the interests of large organizations and not the individuals. It is interesting that you bring up the example of net neutrality, since it is analogous to a free market. As you clearly put it, net neutrality can only be hindered by "regulation" which organizations would push on us. Competition would actually push providers to be net neutral so as to one up their competitors (since customers prefer net neutral providers). Providers can only afford to not be net neutral if they have a monopoly (or cartel) or are forced to by regulation.
no. there is no other way. this is the way we invented to get us out of caves, to irrigation and then to cities and civilization. we have to perfect it, not stop it. solution is simple : 1 - updated regulations, new ones if necessary, especially in new fields 2 - freedom of information to prevent corporations hiding filth behind trade secrets excuse 3 - freedom of information to prevent politicians hiding filth behind state secrets excuse
I agree with you whole heartedly. Lack of regulation is no answer (even greenspan would disagree with that), I see it as a necessary evil that should be avoided if possible, where as from what I understand from you, it is a first resort.
Whereas in reality, the solution will lie somewhere in between. It will be a balancing act between people who take your approach, and people who take mine. Having both mindsets participate in the system will ensure that we understand the negatives of both approaches. But we have to participate and be willing to disagree and accept that there may be things that we appreciate yet that are important to the other mindset, so we can improve upon the regulations that are in place.
touché ..
however, the birth of fascism just goes to show people's ignorance of the free market system, and is an indicator of the type of people (hitler et al) who would espouse "excessive" government intervention.
Much has changed since that era in terms of fiscal and monetary policy, and we should have learned much from what happened back then. So god willing, we will not see a repeat of what happened.
I guess all our discussion so far has been circling about the idea of justice in society. Justice does not come about from a purely free market or a highly regulated centrally planned economy.
The free market would turn into a jungle. Greenspan acknowledges this fact and see's an important role for government in protecting rights of individuals.
What amazes me is that we might think that "more regulation" brings about justice.
In the extreme case of a centrally planned economy, we would assume that the government knows everything about everyone. This by itself is unjust as privacy advocates would tell you, however, we know also that it is impossible.
In less extreme cases it would be to add regulation to a current free market system in response to certain events, to deter certain unwanted behavior which I would also argue is unjust for the following reasons:
1- There is enough regulation in the market for government and any market participant to know what is considered right and what is considered wrong, therefore the justice system can take care of any cases of illegal behavior.
2- More regulation would just add more burden on the market players that choose not to participate in the illegal behavior, and therefore, it is a punishment for them more than it is a deterrent for future illegal activity.
3- More regulation would reduce the number of entrants which free markets rely on to correct itself and bring about innovation.
4- Market players who have an intent of illegal activity will not be deterred from regulation, and will find new ways of gaming the system. It will just be more difficult finding them because we might have regulations up to a point where it would simply obscure what they are doing (and people wonder why madoff got away with a 50$billion ponzi scheme).
5- More regulations creates more opportunity for corruption, especially if the regulation becomes burdensome, and therefore, the lawful organizations will find it hard to compete in this environment
Let me conclude by suggesting an alternative to more regulation. The internet already empowers individuals to seek and disseminate information. Why not leverage the power of individuals to monitoring corrupt organizations. We already have the regulations in place, and no one would argue that it is government duty to step in and sort out the cream from the crud for that particular situation. It is counter productive however, to exert punishment on everyone else, by more knee jerk regulation in response to that instance.