There is fundamental differences between this and other commodities markets, even the newer ones such as electrical distribution. Electricty or gas, once you get it there, is the same regardless of where it came from. Bandwidth, on the other hand, is the "getting there" portion of this. Electricity *can* be moved from Boston to San Francisco, and so can gas, by bumping the gas along the way (though it's not the same in & out).
But bandwidth is always betwen A&B, and the only way to replace this is A->C->g->B. If you don't have ends at A & B, you just can't do it.
Some type of commoditization is certainly possible, but I've alwasy assumed it to be through a semi-intelligent part of the packet that chooses a path as it goes based on the cost& lag of each path
The chronological problem isn't to bad; it's been solved for electricity--you buy howevermany gigawatts for 2 pm on thursday, just as bandwidth would be. But there's those two loose ends of the path that need to be dealt with for bandwidth ... .
There is a lot of moderation occuring within replies. The problem remains that a 5 reply to a 1 is still listed with the 1, behind all the 2's, when sorting. perhaps comments should sort by the highest value of itself & its children?
In a nutshell, once you have had the account long enough, and if your usage falls within certain boundaries (read enough, but don't pound with scrips:), some days you log in and find 5 moderator points. It will give you a little doo-dad at the end of each posting, allowing you to moderate it, either upwards or downwards. Once your five are used, the different display leaves, and you're a regular user until sometime you connect again and find new points.
They expire on their own again in a few days if not used. It won't happen if the net moderation of your your own posings is negative. And if you get moderated down too often, your posts start below 1, as 0 (like an AC), or even -1. It used to be possible to start above 1, but I think that this got dropped a few weeks ago; there was just too much starting at 2 and 3. (it worked on cumalitive moderation of your posts, rather than average moderation. A couple of brilliant insights, and every post about your dog & hamster was suddenly plus a couple:)
There was talk about "micro-defaults" to replace the defaults, so that (for example) frequent positive moderation might start you at 1.1, being listed before the average poster, but after the moderated posts.
Also, you can't moderate and post in the same thread.
A "counterpoint" category would be nice as wll as the existing list--when something provocative is posted, and is popular, drawing heavy + moderation on itself & its siblings, an oterwise innocuous counterpoint, which wouldn't normally get moderated, can get promoted to stand on the same level. I suppose this is "insightful," but it ought to have its own category.
You can use any latex in lyx. I have it draw the lines for my letterhead, and it does just fine at importing graphics.
The only limitiation I've found with lyx is that it inherits latex' limitations on wrapping text around figures--it can be done, some of the time, but is awkward and hard to use (mostly guessing where things land, and making sure they're not near boundaries, defeating much of the point of latex).
There's an article on B1 of this morning's Wall Street Journal.
There are two service packages, at $9.95 and $24.95/month. The first comes with 50*K* of download, and I forget what the second came with. After that, it's about 30c/K . . . The reporter ran up $16 in her first week of testing.
Also, some of the canned sites aren't so friendly: she noted that ABC insisted on sending (unusable) links & graphics.
hawk, who's still holding out for a chording keyboard in the case.
>The thought of a proprietized Linux-based OS >really scares me.
I certainly see the problems with *a* proprietized linux distribution. HOwever, I think the risks evaporate with *multiple* such distributios, especially free distribuions out there. As long as there are multiple distributions, and as long as thare is no task which *requires* proprietary software, I don't see a threat.
> I take that back. It would seem this is a VERY >CLEVER way just to get more e-mail addresses.
Or, if we take the claims above that they only send with permission (or whatever) then eliminating the regular class of spammers is clearly in their own best interests . . .
It took out features I use, so I'm still using 3 . . . But then, the only reason I don't use lynx all the time is that it can't launch extra browser windows . . .
Uhh, yeah. That's why I don't have a fleet of old macintoshes dating from 1984 to 1994. Wnd why I don't have multiple purchased copies of word, excel, foxpro, billing software, bankruptcy software, and gaggles more that I can't think of. All told, several hundred to a couple of thousand dollars a year on software.
I stuck with mac's to continue using word 5.1, as 6+ femoved features that I depended upon (reasonable equation editing, usable mailmerge). Then I stumbled across Lyx, and it's equation facitilies.
While I would probably have purchased an X86 with windows by then if word hadn't changed from an excellent program to a disaster, price and ideology had *nothing* to do with my switching to linux. I bought the linux box because what lyx could do was flatly better then what was available for mac or windows. The part about never crashing (a year and a half on this machine, and another year or two on another cobbled from spare parts before that, though macbsd did kernel-panic once in the several months I used it) is a *bonus*.
I am not anti-microsoft. As an anti-trust attorney, I think they're in deep trouble, but that's a legal issue. I'm not even averse to buying their software. But the last software I saw from them that was worth paying for was word5.1 and excel 4. Nothing I've seen from them since has been worthwhile, even if it were free.
[I've really got to start doing this with Lynx; I've about had it with netscape's shenanigans. Once I figure out how to make it pop up new windows for links, I have no more use for netscape. But don't have time to read the source code right now. Especially with the time I'm spending retyping.]
Disclaimer: I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. I am probably not licensed in your state or nation. IF you need advice on this, see a lawyer who is. This disclaimer void on odd-numbered moons of Jupiter.
A contract must always have "offer" and "acceptance." While we frequently think of acceptance as explicit, it isn't. An acceptance may also be made by conduct. If I offer you ten bucks to mow my lawn, you can accept by showing up and beginning. Your favorite store clerk accpets your offer to buy merchandise at the posted price by ringing it up. And the theory behind shrinkwrap licenses has you axccepting by opening the wrapper.
This doesn't seem to fall into that case. The purported offer comes after the conduct to accept; it certainly doesn't apply to the original transaction.
I also dougbt that it can apply to later transactions--while the argument can be made based on prior notice from a previous listing, the "offer" and "acceptance" are not on the same putative contract.
A more interesting contract question comes from the attempt to add such conditions. The whois command has become standard, and is based on the arrangement to provide this information. THere may be an offer & acceptance of the original terms. I'm not sure what the answer is on that one, it will take a lot of thought that I don't have time for at the moment.
bifurcated strategy, not tit-for-tat
on
BSD vs GPL
·
· Score: 1
While it's stretching the analogy, tit-for-tat/cooperate is not quite right for GPL/BSD comparison. The GPL strategy is a bit more complicated: if the other player is the same type, play tit-for-tat, but if the other player is a different type, defect.
Let me startwith something i should have changed yesterday--sovereign immunity is an entirely different issue, the ability of a sovereign to reject broad classes of claims.
This is a different immunity, coming from the Twelvth Ammendment. Being black-letter from the Constitution, supremacy is irrelevant. The question is whether the immunity goes this far.
hawk, who's not sure what if any difference there is between small-l libertarianism & Classic Liberalism . . .
yes, it is still a barrier. But it isn't too tough to call the same hardware two different lines: "we have the Elephant, and the Cougar." The only difference is a label on the front.
IIAL (?) hmm. IA!NAL ? What's the abbreviation for, "I'm a lawyer, but I'm a recovering lawyer, and haven't sued anyone for nearly five years" ?:)
Anyway, you have the gist of the problem correct. However, immunity in federal courts is a states' rights issue. OTOH, it has generally been held to apply only to the states themselves, and not their subdivisions or creations (thus agencies, counties, cities, universities, etc. get sued.) The case that comes to mind is the copyright case against the University of California.
It would be nice if the case were about more a more reasonable patent; "business method" patents make software patents look like a good idea . . .
Also, careful of the authors' comments on the judges--when he refers to Scalia as a "conservative," he shows he doesn't understand the ideological makeup of the court: there are three blocks: liberal, conservative, and classic liberal. Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy (on his good days) are in the third block. This block votes with the conservative block more often than not, but that's largely a matter of which cases the court takes. If it's a matter of the government throwing it's weight around, you're going to get more help from the classic liberal block than the liberals (unless a) it's a "good thing" that the government's doing, which means we should sacrifice liberty for it, or b) Scalia's knee jerks to a law and order theme, in which case he bolts for the conservative block.)
Anyway, i've drifted, but your analysis is correct. Just don't go to law school, you'll become a lawyer and become miserable:)
Microsoft has signed a consent decree prohibitting these contracts. It's not that I trust microsoft to obey this, but that IBM is big enough to force the issue. I'd be stunned if IBM pays MS on these.
Hmm, how to justify a new laptop, when my thinkpad 755 does everything I need . . . hmm, why bother . . .:)
hawk, who will probably use that 486 with Linux for another couple of years, or at least until he has time to connect it to a network to switch to FreeBSD
1) I used a "buy pizza or records" example in an econ help room. I paused, then asked, "you've probably never seen a record, have you?" ANd got a strange look, and "Just how old *are* you?"
2) I passed afamily moving in with two teenage sweet young things, and my instinctive reaction was, "I wonder if they baby sit?"
Now, even the folks that want to dig back farther (the Atari 800) are talking about machines after my time:(
What makes me wistful are the old machines you could build, or build copies of. Apples before they fixed the purple text (rev 7). ANything wire-wrapped. HUngering for that 16k memory kit, with no idea what you'd do with it. Jealousy of those rich folks who could afford floppy drives.
But most of all, you could really understand the entire system, rather than pieces of it.
This isn't a broad "inclusion by reference" of US & California law, but a "choice of law" for interpretation.
California law was a peculiar choice, though, even given that Apple is based in Cupertino--it changes to damned often for no sensible reason. [for those not familiar with the California initiative process, it has conclusively shown that you can convince 51% of californians (and often 2/3) of *anything* forthe 24 hours or so needed to win an election]
Nah, these guys make Reagan, Reagan's speeches, and even his administration look like leftists.
Reagan antitrust enforcement was heavily of the "if it benefits the consumer, it's not anti-competitive." But this line of anti-trust reasoning does not jibe with the arguments in the article.
These guys *defend* practices of exclusionary license, and keeping API information information secret as both legal and good.
The Reagan crowd sees cut-throat competion as good, and believe its benefits outweigh its consequences. You can debate whether they're right or not, but that's where they came from.
These guys explicitly support barriers that are repugnant to that view. You can debate whether microsoft engaged in these practices, or whether they *should* be legal, but current law says 'No', and and the economic analysis behind the Reagan policies screams, 'NO!!!'
Slashdot Mirror
This is one of my areas of economics . . .
.. .
There is fundamental differences between this and other commodities markets, even the newer ones such as electrical distribution. Electricty or gas, once you get it there, is the same regardless of where it came from. Bandwidth, on the other hand, is the "getting there" portion of this. Electricity *can* be moved from Boston to San Francisco, and so can gas, by bumping the gas along the way (though it's not the same in & out).
But bandwidth is always betwen A&B, and the only way to replace this is A->C->g->B. If you don't have ends at A & B, you just can't do it.
Some type of commoditization is certainly possible, but I've alwasy assumed it to be through a semi-intelligent part of the packet that chooses a path as it goes based on the cost& lag of each path
The chronological problem isn't to bad; it's been solved for electricity--you buy howevermany gigawatts for 2 pm on thursday, just as bandwidth would be. But there's those two loose ends of the path that need to be dealt with for bandwidth .
There is a lot of moderation occuring within replies. The problem remains that a 5 reply to a 1 is still listed with the 1, behind all the 2's, when sorting. perhaps comments should sort by the highest value of itself & its children?
In a nutshell, once you have had the account long enough, and if your usage falls within certain boundaries (read enough, but don't pound with scrips :), some days you log in and find 5 moderator points. It will give you a little doo-dad at the end of each posting, allowing you to moderate it, either upwards or downwards. Once your five are used, the different display leaves, and you're a regular user until sometime you connect again and find new points.
:)
They expire on their own again in a few days if not used. It won't happen if the net moderation of your your own posings is negative. And if you get moderated down too often, your posts start below 1, as 0 (like an AC), or even -1. It used to be possible to start above 1, but I think that this got dropped a few weeks ago; there was just too much starting at 2 and 3. (it worked on cumalitive moderation of your posts, rather than average moderation. A couple of brilliant insights, and every post about your dog & hamster was suddenly plus a couple
There was talk about "micro-defaults" to replace the defaults, so that (for example) frequent positive moderation might start you at 1.1, being listed before the average poster, but after the moderated posts.
Also, you can't moderate and post in the same thread.
A "counterpoint" category would be nice as wll as the existing list--when something provocative is posted, and is popular, drawing heavy + moderation on itself & its siblings, an oterwise innocuous counterpoint, which wouldn't normally get moderated, can get promoted to stand on the same level. I suppose this is "insightful," but it ought to have its own category.
Rob bet that NT couldn't handle slashdot's load, and won :)
You can use any latex in lyx. I have it draw the lines for my letterhead, and it does just fine at importing graphics.
The only limitiation I've found with lyx is that it inherits latex' limitations on wrapping text around figures--it can be done, some of the time, but is awkward and hard to use (mostly guessing where things land, and making sure they're not near boundaries, defeating much of the point of latex).
There's an article on B1 of this morning's Wall Street Journal.
There are two service packages, at $9.95 and $24.95/month. The first comes with 50*K* of download, and I forget what the second came with. After that, it's about 30c/K . . . The reporter ran up $16 in her first week of testing.
Also, some of the canned sites aren't so friendly: she noted that ABC insisted on sending (unusable) links & graphics.
hawk, who's still holding out for a chording keyboard in the case.
> (why the hell was his/her message moderated down to a -1??)
probably because the first sentence was moderation bait . . .
>The thought of a proprietized Linux-based OS
>really scares me.
I certainly see the problems with *a* proprietized linux distribution. HOwever, I think the risks evaporate with *multiple* such distributios, especially free distribuions out there. As long as there are multiple distributions, and as long as thare is no task which *requires* proprietary software, I don't see a threat.
> I take that back. It would seem this is a VERY
>CLEVER way just to get more e-mail addresses.
Or, if we take the claims above that they only send with permission (or whatever) then eliminating the regular class of spammers is clearly in their own best interests . . .
It took out features I use, so I'm still using 3 . . . But then, the only reason I don't use lynx all the time is that it can't launch extra browser windows . . .
Uhh, yeah. That's why I don't have a fleet of old macintoshes dating from 1984 to 1994. Wnd why I don't have multiple purchased copies of word, excel, foxpro, billing software, bankruptcy software, and gaggles more that I can't think of. All told, several hundred to a couple of thousand dollars a year on software.
I stuck with mac's to continue using word 5.1, as 6+ femoved features that I depended upon (reasonable equation editing, usable mailmerge). Then I stumbled across Lyx, and it's equation facitilies.
While I would probably have purchased an X86 with windows by then if word hadn't changed from an excellent program to a disaster, price and ideology had *nothing* to do with my switching to linux. I bought the linux box because what lyx could do was flatly better then what was available for mac or windows. The part about never crashing (a year and a half on this machine, and another year or two on another cobbled from spare parts before that, though macbsd did kernel-panic once in the several months I used it) is a *bonus*.
I am not anti-microsoft. As an anti-trust attorney, I think they're in deep trouble, but that's a legal issue. I'm not even averse to buying their software. But the last software I saw from them that was worth paying for was word5.1 and excel 4. Nothing I've seen from them since has been worthwhile, even if it were free.
At whatever temperature the superconductor functions. If it's superconducting, it won't give off heat, as it has no resistance.
[I've really got to start doing this with Lynx; I've about had it with netscape's shenanigans. Once I figure out how to make it pop up new windows for links, I have no more use for netscape. But don't have time to read the source code right now. Especially with the time I'm spending retyping.]
Disclaimer: I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. I am probably not licensed in your state or nation. IF you need advice on this, see a lawyer who is. This disclaimer void on odd-numbered moons of Jupiter.
A contract must always have "offer" and "acceptance." While we frequently think of acceptance as explicit, it isn't. An acceptance may also be made by conduct. If I offer you ten bucks to mow my lawn, you can accept by showing up and beginning. Your favorite store clerk accpets your offer to buy merchandise at the posted price by ringing it up. And the theory behind shrinkwrap licenses has you axccepting by opening the wrapper.
This doesn't seem to fall into that case. The purported offer comes after the conduct to accept; it certainly doesn't apply to the original transaction.
I also dougbt that it can apply to later transactions--while the argument can be made based on prior notice from a previous listing, the "offer" and "acceptance" are not on the same putative contract.
A more interesting contract question comes from the attempt to add such conditions. The whois command has become standard, and is based on the arrangement to provide this information. THere may be an offer & acceptance of the original terms. I'm not sure what the answer is on that one, it will take a lot of thought that I don't have time for at the moment.
I think it means the inducement to the sheriff not to close down the brothel :)
Perhaps a password-style hash could be done, so that the actual retina information isn't stored?
OTOH, i simply presumed that they did this in the first place . . .
Nah, the technology to remove an eye is ancient :)
While it's stretching the analogy, tit-for-tat/cooperate is not quite right for GPL/BSD comparison. The GPL strategy is a bit more complicated: if the other player is the same type, play tit-for-tat, but if the other player is a different type, defect.
Let me startwith something i should have changed yesterday--sovereign immunity is an entirely different issue, the ability of a sovereign to reject broad classes of claims.
This is a different immunity, coming from the Twelvth Ammendment. Being black-letter from the Constitution, supremacy is irrelevant. The question is whether the immunity goes this far.
hawk, who's not sure what if any difference there is between small-l libertarianism & Classic Liberalism . . .
yes, it is still a barrier. But it isn't too tough to call the same hardware two different lines: "we have the Elephant, and the Cougar." The only difference is a label on the front.
IIAL (?) hmm. IA!NAL ? What's the abbreviation for, "I'm a lawyer, but I'm a recovering lawyer, and haven't sued anyone for nearly five years" ? :)
:)
Anyway, you have the gist of the problem correct. However, immunity in federal courts is a states' rights issue. OTOH, it has generally been held to apply only to the states themselves, and not their subdivisions or creations (thus agencies, counties, cities, universities, etc. get sued.) The case that comes to mind is the copyright case against the University of California.
It would be nice if the case were about more a more reasonable patent; "business method" patents make software patents look like a good idea . . .
Also, careful of the authors' comments on the judges--when he refers to Scalia as a "conservative," he shows he doesn't understand the ideological makeup of the court: there are three blocks: liberal, conservative, and classic liberal. Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy (on his good days) are in the third block. This block votes with the conservative block more often than not, but that's largely a matter of which cases the court takes. If it's a matter of the government throwing it's weight around, you're going to get more help from the classic liberal block than the liberals (unless a) it's a "good thing" that the government's doing, which means we should sacrifice liberty for it, or b) Scalia's knee jerks to a law and order theme, in which case he bolts for the conservative block.)
Anyway, i've drifted, but your analysis is correct. Just don't go to law school, you'll become a lawyer and become miserable
hawk, esq.
Microsoft has signed a consent decree prohibitting these contracts. It's not that I trust microsoft to obey this, but that IBM is big enough to force the issue. I'd be stunned if IBM pays MS on these.
:)
Hmm, how to justify a new laptop, when my thinkpad 755 does everything I need . . . hmm, why bother . . .
hawk, who will probably use that 486 with Linux for another couple of years, or at least until he has time to connect it to a network to switch to FreeBSD
Until this thread, I'd felt old twice in my life:
:(
1) I used a "buy pizza or records" example in an econ help room. I paused, then asked, "you've probably never seen a record, have you?" ANd got a strange look, and "Just how old *are* you?"
2) I passed afamily moving in with two teenage sweet young things, and my instinctive reaction was, "I wonder if they baby sit?"
Now, even the folks that want to dig back farther (the Atari 800) are talking about machines after my time
What makes me wistful are the old machines you could build, or build copies of. Apples before they fixed the purple text (rev 7). ANything wire-wrapped. HUngering for that 16k memory kit, with no idea what you'd do with it. Jealousy of those rich folks who could afford floppy drives.
But most of all, you could really understand the entire system, rather than pieces of it.
*sigh*
This isn't a broad "inclusion by reference" of US & California law, but a "choice of law" for interpretation.
California law was a peculiar choice, though, even given that Apple is based in Cupertino--it changes to damned often for no sensible reason. [for those not familiar with the California initiative process, it has conclusively shown that you can convince 51% of californians (and often 2/3) of *anything* forthe 24 hours or so needed to win an election]
>Beleive it or not.. in the early 20's when
>personal lawsuits were first introduced,
"personal lawsuits" ??? Does this mean "personal injury lawsuits"?
And assuming you mean the 1920's, you're off by several centuries--battery and negligence are ancient causes of action.
Nah, these guys make Reagan, Reagan's speeches, and even his administration look like leftists.
Reagan antitrust enforcement was heavily of the "if it benefits the consumer, it's not anti-competitive." But this line of anti-trust reasoning does not jibe with the arguments in the article.
These guys *defend* practices of exclusionary license, and keeping API information information secret as both legal and good.
The Reagan crowd sees cut-throat competion as good, and believe its benefits outweigh its consequences. You can debate whether they're right or not, but that's where they came from.
These guys explicitly support barriers that are repugnant to that view. You can debate whether microsoft engaged in these practices, or whether they *should* be legal, but current law says 'No', and and the economic analysis behind the Reagan policies screams, 'NO!!!'
hawk, esq., antitrust lawyer & economist