Being the particular brand of slashdot surfing geek I am, I can't help but relate Freedom of Information to Free Software.
And your point is what exactly? Ok, I disagree with this beloved interpretation of free software, but let's examine it for a moment. Shall we? Would you really argue that because free software is "good", that therefore all software should be "free"? Would you assert that the burden should be on all non-free software makers to prove why they should not be free? I would hope not, because it would be disasterous. Yet, this is essentially what FOIA demands. By creating the default position that these things must be, without putting any substantial burden on the requester, you are putting a very large burden on the agencies and consequently on society as a whole.
See, if a foreign terrorist can easily query the dams across the nation, then a curious nerd living near the dam should be able to do the same thing. So not only can federal employees more easily access this information, but locals with a vested interest can also browse through this info. At this point, Johnny can find the previously concealed flaw in the dyke, and put his figurative finger in it. Or more likely, publicise the flaw, get his local congressman interested in it, and actually start the process of fixing the shortcoming.
Of course concrete is a bit more troublesome than C code, but exploiting superstructures is also more difficult than the standard stack overflow. While running the latest 'sploit can be almost anonymous, probably at least a few nosy bystanders would notice if somebody were trying to destroy a dam.
I think this is a real stretch. The trouble is that you ignore the vastly different nature of the what the two parties might attempt. The terrorist needs only to find a weak point, not even necessarily a flaw, out of the documents. Whereas the public cannot be of much use unless they spend the resources to examine most or all of the structure(s) and have the technical know-how to really understand it. I simply don't believe that the public has or will ever be inclined to take up this sort of cause--it's just too much work for a very marginal benefit. Sure, maybe there are a handful of geeks out there that might be inclined to examine a few bolts, so to speak, and maybe they'd even get lucky...but it's a stretch. If this sort of interest exists, then surely we can arrange it in a more secure fashion. Surely we can control access and know who is looking at what. If that local geek wants to see it, then we need not share it with the whole world. Surely if the public actually has the resources to UNDERSTAND and USE those documents, then they must have ENERGY to do a little more than just pick it up with their web browser (e.g., go through the courts, arrange a more secure system, etc). Raising the bar just a little across the board can go along way towards making it harder for terrorists while doing virtually nothing to inhibit the public from legitimate uses of the information. It's not an all or nothing proposition--I simply believe that FOIA is too far reaching and too much of a burden.
Then again, maybe I'm not the typical Slashdotter, because I am a registered Republican who tends to vote my party. I really don't think that these inane policies come from Bush. I am dissapointed in the federalization of airline security. There should be federal standards, but they should be enforced by the local state authorities.
I am also a Republican and I don't necessarily advocate federalized airline security. Certainly having government employees do security, whether they be municipal, state, or federal, doesn't make me feel any better. However, I don't see federal airline security as a threat (given the # of other federalized agencies) and I certainly don't see any benefit to having a bunch of seperate state agencies. Why should airline security agencies (those that supervise) be run on a state level any more than the FAA, SEC, FCC, and other similar agencies and bureaus should be run at a state level? It's a national problem. It's on national scale....
The relatively recent Freedom of Information Act was a great step towards reducing the opacity of our federal institutions. I must praise the Clinton Administation for letting that through, as the FBI has abused its power in the past, and we must not allow the U.S. to become a police state. As for liberty vs security, the burden of proof should be on the government institutions: exactly how do further restrictions on our current freedoms provide us with more security? If the previous laws weren't being properly enforced, how does adding new stricter laws help the situation?
I disagree. Yes, FOIA has in some cases performed some good services, but it has also created inestimable problems. It sounds fine in theory, but the trouble is that it doesn't scale. When the various agencies are forced to cope with thousands of them, it presents a very large burden. When they are forced with the choice of spending millions of dollars litigating to keep something out of the world's eye, it may (and indeed has in many cases) forced them to reveal very questionable sources. What's more, taking each particular item on its own may sound like nothing, but there is a real problem when you create such a large body of public documents that the critical information can be trivially gleaned. For instance, it may not be a big deal to list the tencile strength of one bolt on a particular dam (and there may even be a good reason for knowing it), but when every spot of every dam in the country can be quickly and easily queried to find the weakest point, THAT is a real problem. Without acts like FOIA, the same terrorist would have to spend millions of dollars trying to query this same data to perform his attack on a budget.
If the previous laws weren't being properly enforced, how does adding new stricter laws help the situation? Confiscating nail clippers does not improve the safety of airline passengers. A terrorist armed with only a bowie knife could not hijack a plane that contains at least 10 unarmed yet able-bodied passengers. A suicidal terrorist with an explosive would have better odds, but then, explosives are already illegal on planes. See, it is easy to prove that the right to board a public plane with a souvenier hand grenade is worth sacrificing for the security of the passengers on the flight. Now, why exactly can't I have a plastic knife to cut my microwave chicken?
I pretty much agree with this. In fact, I would say it's more than just not helpful, it's hurtful. When we spend our resources trying to keep nail clippers out of the hands of 80 year old grandmothers, we're wasting resources that could be better spent on far more probable threats. That said, this is NOT what slashdot is attacking the Administration, for by and large, and these kinds of decisions (they often aren't any sort of policy) are generally quite far removed from the Bush or his direct reports.
So, I find the comparison between our government and Nazi Germany offensive as well, but the point remains that the current administration has sacrificed liberty in favor of safety.
Instead of considering our system infallible and just saying "So?" all the time, we should be self-critical.
I agree. We should think and act critically. However, automatically critizing the administration and fighting them tooth and nail for any policy that might "sacrifice liberty" does not lead us to a considered path. Rather, this method leads us to the path of avoidance, to the extent that it works, whereby we merely avoid issues because they are politically unviable. You MIGHT get the administration to avoid stepping on your civil liberties today, but what does that mean when that causes a lapse in our security and causes you to end up dead tomorrow? For all the criticism that I've heard of the administration on slashdot, I've heard very few people actually consider the alternatives and/or the consequences of inaction with anything more than flip answers. I hear people on slashdot paraphrasing Jefferson and say they would rather give up security for liberty, but they remain very abstract as to what kinds of liberty and how much security.
Maybe creating completely opaque governmental agencies is wrong.
Completely opaque, are you kidding me?? Not even the CIA or NSA is completely opaque, never mind the Administration. We know what is coming in. We know what is coming out. We can judge most of their actions and we can, and have, held them accountable for it. We even have a whole lot of insight into the day to day proceedings, probably too much. So it's a wild exxageration to say it's completely opaque. What more transparency can you _realistically_ ask for? I'm sure you have some (though I'd disagree with most of it), but be realstic. Those things are relatively minor on the scale from transparency to opacity.
Everyone looks back on McCarthy as a retard, with hindsight, but now we are allowing the government the same, if not more, power.
A) Not everyone looks at McCarthy as a "retard" with hindsight and it wasn't by any means all in hindsight. Certainly most people today recognize that he was a dangerous zealot and that he destroyed a lot of innocent people. On the other hand, most educated people also recognize that there really were KGB agents that were at work trying to undermine this country; that is to say that they take history as an inevitable thing, playing monday morning quarterback, and like to ignore that certain things were and were not known then and that some things were done to have averted events that could have very well changed history. He was seen by most of his contemporary peers as being out of control at the time. What's changed, by and large, is that people of today take the KGB threat as a total joke when it couldn't be reasonably so easily dismissed then. That's not to totally excuse him by any means, but just to point out that it's not nearly as black and white as you point out.
B) Bush is NOT taking citizens on the grounds of unamerican activities or what have you. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. We're talking about a handful of non-US citizens that are believed to be associated with terrorists (murderers, not mere philosophical disagreements). This is not "anyone." This is not on "any grounds." You are distorting the facts.
C) Open government and "due process" is a good thing. However, not all good things are better when carried out to their extreme. In fact, some are downright harmful. Some of the practices that made sense 200 years ago, when it was very difficult for an individual to kill thousands of people, really make little sense now when it's relatively easy to do the same. I'm sorry, but I'm absolutely opposed to the idea of releasing someone who sneaks into this country illegally, who is KNOWN to be involved with terrorists organizations, either back into this country on bail or to deport them, merely because we can't find sufficient evidence to convict them in a traditional court of the more serious crime that they're probably involved in. Now that's not to say that I give my government carte blanche (and they DON'T have it) to do whatever they want with these people, but you'd attack ANY necessary change.
D) As for history, this cuts both ways. History has shown time and time again that you can't placate bullies, whether they be dictators in charge of a country or a terrorist leader. Some of the same policies that Bush has enacted are policies that should have been enacted in WWII and are being attacked by people like you.
E) It's a blatant stretch to assert that Bush, or anyone in this government, is so far gone in their change of policy that they're beyond control of the people. What's more, these policies that have been enacted are relatively slight policies and are easy to enact, so that enacting them really gets you no nearer to a police state, in reality, than we were previously. The press is still readily attacking Bush. The political opposition still does, although they're more hesitant because they're afraid to waste political capital. I really don't think that you can say with a straight face that we're in any danger of slipping into a police state given all the facts (especially when you take into account the greater risk of a massive terrorist attack).
from the real world. Bush's opinion polls are still as high as they were during height of the "War on Terror." What's more, besides the fact that he's merely extremely popular, I, at least, agree with his policies, by and large. We're not merely trying to secure justice, what we're really fighting is the future massive terrorist attacks. Although it will certainly help, these attacks won't go away just because Osama and every last Al Queda are dead. The simple truth of the matter is that we were NEVER previously configured to fight that kind of terrorism, from some of our laws, to our intelligence services, to simply the way that we treat those that harbor and aid terrorists. This means that, yes, sometimes people do need to be held without a public trial. Sometimes we need to draw clear lines and define those countries that accept terrorist camps on their land as "evil", so as to affect change, despite the fact that they may be nominally neutral. And so on... We can't just go back our old way of doing things entirely. It's foolish to expect us to fight something rather new while resting, albeit ignorantly, in the comfort of our old ways of doing things, at least with any real analysis. Yes, you may know the old way of doing things, but have you really thought through the consequences of it in light of the circumstances? I don't think you have.
Having deployed a couple hundred Palm M100 and M105s at work, I can say with certainty that the M100, and to a much lesser extent, the M105 have a problem with defective manufacture (something around 5% it seems) but are also of generally poorer construction than all other Palms. I dislike this, but I feel it is unfair to compare this series of Palm to other manufacturers because they're first generation devices and they're one of the few modern PDAs that are designed to enter the sub-100 dollar price range. All other Palms in my experience (from the IIIs, to the V series, and so on) are exceptionally reliable when you consider the amount of abuse they withstand. It's really an apples and oranges comparison. If you're willing to spend the same amount of money on a Palm as you are on the other handhelds, you can get as good, if not greater, quality.
What this company did is fundamentally different from the freedoms that you speak of. The benefits to society at large are practically non-existent in this company's case. The information that they shared was: A) of little risk to themselves because they owned the rights already (and because a failing company has little to lose) B) of little benefit to society. This situation is far more analogous to Microsoft releasing some of their source code with the condition that it can essentially only be used to make improvements to MS's product and virtually nothing else. If anything, Microsoft is a far more sympathetic case because it can be argued that there is educational value to their code and that they're taking a greater risk. While I'm no fan of Microsoft, I must admit that the open source advocates are being extremely hypocritical to praise this "open geology" on one hand and utterly dismiss Microsoft's claims on the other. Perhaps MS' open license isn't as "open" as other open source licenses, but nor is this mining example as "open" as it could be in the idealists minds (at least if we assume that they're capable of critical thinking). In the crackpot mindframe of the open source zealots this company *could* open their hard earned information without any additional protections that give them advantage over and above of those that recieve the data and charge a fee for support or some nonsense.
It is a shame that our intellectual property laws are such that these freedoms must be granted rather than assumed by default, making them (and their obvious benefits) so much rarer in our society than they need to be.
Yeah, because we all know societies that do this (e.g., China, Cuba, etc.) are vastly more productive places for ideas than the United States.....err yeah. Show me a time in history or a place in the world that has been as productive or spends as much money on research and development (proportionately speaking). The United States is extremely successful in this reguard because of our strong IP, not inspite of it. It may cost you, say, 100 dollars to purchase that textbook and that may be something of a negative, and of itself, but then you're taking for granted its creation and that its secondary benefits (i.e., your education from it, ideas you may have taken from it, etc) are generally free AFTER that point. For all the complaints of information being locked away, it simply does not stand up by and large. There is a TONS of information out there for anyone that wants it, it may cost a little something and take a little time, but the vast majority of information nonetheless available (and productive) to an extent that it's NOT anywhere else in the world (because it largely does not exist in those other places). EOF
Call it whatever you want, but the important bits of the GPL, that which differtiates it from the BSD-style licenses, are every bit as arbitrary as any other license. Both GPL and the proprietary packages that you deride are fundamentally based on the concept of intellectual property, whether or not RMS or his cohorts acknowledge it. In fact, they're both based on STRONG IP. I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that GPL's means (explicit code sharing each and every time) or its ends (the utopian vision that it is) would occur without a legal requirements for sharing. If I come across some code, I may very well choose to distribute binaries and not bother to share my code because I'm too lazy (or enjoy the competetive advantage). The fact that the GPL insists on this requirement says as much. What's more, I assert to you that the requirement for sharing of code is an odious one for many people. These people include software developers (who are denied code reuse...one of GPL's supposed visions), entrepreneurs, and even customers (those that might benefit from proprietary code that can be said to infringe an a GPL product).
No, the GPL is a license and it only differs from the other licenses in its particular form and the relative restrictiveness (in terms of verbosity--not necessarily, and often not, on the AGGREGATE). Your arguments for the GPL, that one can merely choose not to obey it and face "copyright law" can be used just as easily for proprietary software. What? You don't like our license? Fine don't obey it, we don't care. Oh yeah, and if you don't agree to it, well it's copyright law's fault that you can't use or copy my software. Totally disingenious.
If you don't care, then you wouldn't have the EXPLICIT requirement to do otherwise in the GPL. If you don't care, then you wouldn't whine and have your leader bark at and threaten anyone that is even IMPLIED to have violated the GPL's terms.
Re:The problem is not a failure of the market
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I mostly agree with your analysis (except for the government command part). While I, personally, fall more into the monied right wingers category (even with respect to the apparent bias), I think you underestimate NPR, even "Talk of the Nation." I know what you are talking about to some extent, but I see a fundamental difference between NPR (e.g., Talk of the Nation) and what can be found on AM radio in most cities, enough so that I'll tune into NPR fairly regularly when I'm driving (and only AM for traffic and such). I've yet to see the intelligence, insight, depth, or simple willingness to experiment that I see fairly often on NPR and virtually never on all other options out there (and I say this despite the fact that I often find their to be a slant that is considerably left of where the nation is and where I am particularly)
As for the general situation with radio, it seems to me that the inadequacy of radio has more to do simple economic realities (e.g., insufficient demand to make the costs worthwhile for commercial interest or public support) and people's preference than with any sort of conspiracy or attitude on the part of broadcasters. Yes, I find radio often lacks the substance or entertainment that I crave. Similarly, I can also claim that I'd like to get a good/fresh sushi in less than 5 minutes, within a 5 minute drive, during the lunch rush for less than 2 dollars. The point is that just because there is a "demand" for something different does not mean that there is an appropriate solution. There seems to be an widely held understanding on slashdot and other forums that radio sucks, but no real solutions are offered and superior alternative examples (e.g., other countries, other times, etc...just romantic ideas) are few and far between. BAH
10 dollars a month? I had Comcast@home (Philadelphia area) and they billed me 1.50 a month or something. I think they raised it to 3 dollars a month now, but it's certainly nothing like 10 dollars. Leasing it basically made sense then and I still think it does now, especially since I was just sent a letter stating that they wish to upgrade my cable modem to some sort of new technology...ugg. (I question if this "new" technology isn't just some kind of firmware to better manage bandwidth) Anyways, I'm still getting excellent speed with comcast, haven't run into any bandwidth caps or slow downs that other people seem to describe.
Well I don't know about so-called "geeks", because most of them are quite far removed from the need to make extensive use of an address address book, appointments, etc. However, for real business people these things are hugely useful. For instance, I know a lot of executives that have their secretaries/assistants add/lookup/edit schedules, phone #s, and addresses in Outlook from their own desks, which they then sync with their Palms. Having the ability to have the data readable and writable in multiple places at one time is a big deal. I'll grant you that it can take more time to write it down on the PDA (but not when it's combined with a computer) than with pen and paper. But looking it up IS often faster on both PC and PDA, plus it can be backed up, accessed by multiple people,e tc. They're really great productivity enhancers in this example. I know lots of other people that make great use of them as well (myself included), but that's one of the greatest using pure PDA functionality.
I think you underestimate it. Sure, you can't multi-task, but if I had the choice between having the ability to occassionally make use of multi-tasking features on a PDA and the vastly superior battery life (especially when you combine phone + pocketPC), I'd choose battery life every time. This is especially true when these highly evolved and used applications can find pretty decent ways to fake multitasking ability (e.g., polling for calls and suspending to memory). What's more, I believe you're underestimating the design and usability factors that come into play here, e.g., the placement of a proper keyboard, buttons, UI, battery, size, time to pull it out/open, and so on can make a huge difference in a device's utility and its ultimate success. In short, I assert that the Treo has a better chance of taking the combination market than the PocketPC based units. Time shall tell.
In any event, I'm going to buy a Treo because it suits my needs very well. The only thing that has caused me to hestitate was the question of GSM coverage.
This is not quite true. The so-called smurf attack did lend substantial leverage, but nothing in the realm of thousand-fold leverage, never mind tens of thousands. For one, few people configured their networks this way (with >1k hosts on a single broadcast address) even before smurf attacks came into vogue. For another, empirically speaking, I can tell you that the best addresses that you could normally expect to find, even in its hay day, is in the realm of 500 or so, and many of these hosts would easily saturate their own upstream (e.g., T1) links, so you'd need a lot of other equally leveraged addresses to take advantage of it. In other words, it's unrealistic to say that a 56k modem or what have you could take down something like Yahoo using its own bandwidth to originate the attack. A T1 or T3 perhaps, but much more is just unrealistic.
I also assert that a smurf attack is not "easy" to trace. It's actually very time consuming and troublesome, especially if the person does something like launch an attack from a machine that is set up, cleaned of all evidence, and abandoned (permanently) and uses a diverse list of broadcasts so that each broadcast address is only used a couple times. Almost every person that has gotten in trouble for such attacks has been detected by their own upstream usage (i.e., highly aberrantbehavior that invites further investigation by their own provider or upstream provider(s)) and/or a result of bragging about their exploits, ala mafiaboy and company. That said, it is a stupid and highly unoriginal attack (but just because it's stupid and foolish doesn't mean it can't be used to great effect) Anyone that launches an attack from their OWN modem or similar traceable equipment is both especially stupid and doomed.
I grant you that they probably could put a simple and extremely crude unmanned plane together with some work. However, it seems almost irrelevant to me, because these devices would have no real utility (to most attackers) without most of advantages of actual military-grade equivalent (e.g., stealth, speed, robustness). It wouldn't be particularly appropriate for some kind of enemy state to launch a wide attack against the US with from outside our borders, even with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. If they can file a valid flight plan or otherwise sneak one (or a couple) in through deception, rather than stealth and speed, then they could deliver one through more conventional means too (although I think they'd have a hard time sending a bunch at the US at one time) Nor would terrorist style attackers such as bin Laden. With their mindset, it seems far more cost effective, less risky (in terms of avoiding detection or losing payload), and more efficient (in terms of putting the payload on the target with precision) to just sacrifice some of their lives for it. I suspect it'd even be more practical for them to just drive up to these cities and detonate (in person or with some kind of timer or remote device).
You really don't know what you're talking about. I mean hell, all a surgeon is is a person with a scalpal and a few other tools that knows where to cut. The devil is in the details. You totally underestimate the amount of time and resources required to construct either of the 3 devices, but particularly an ICBM and a cruise missile. I don't mean to offend, but only a person without any practical and significant engineering experience could be so dismissive of such a project. My father worked for DARPA, amongst others, in the 70s and helped developed some early cruise missiles and unmanned planes (his speciality being the optics) and I can tell you from what I heard that it's a lot more complex than you think it is. I mean sure, technology has improved, but not that much. With the example of the cruise missile, you really want a rocket because you need it to be fast moving and you need it to fly quite low to the ground (easier said than done). In short, this is a project that requires lots of engineer time, significant manufacturing resources, and testing. I'm not going to say it's impossible, especially for a small government, but it's quite reasonable to assert that it is beyond the resources Joe and Jane terrorist.
A fission bomb, on the other hand, is quite simple to build providing you can get access to a couple key ingredients (which is of course easier said than done). Most of the hardwork has already been done and much of it is readily available to students of engineering. In terms of actually manufacturing one, if you can build, say, a laser from scratch, then you can build a nuke. It's a bit more involved than the garage project, but not that much more unfortunately.
Btw, a dirty nuke is brain dead simple to build and the materials are relatively easy to come by (no need for weapons grade nuclear material). It's basically just a bunch of radioactive materials wrapped around conventional explosives that are used to disperse the radioactive chemicals. That said, I think the fear of it is overplayed since the danger is rather localized.
Although I agree with much of what you said and feel that you said it rather eloquently, I disagree with you on a couple key points. Just as those with rascist agendas can use fear and legitimate facts to further their objectives (well beyond the ground that they might gain on more rational terms), so to can those with other agendas use fear of, say, the Nazis to crush any thoughtful analysis and policy. In other words, just because the Nazis can be said to have been anti-foreigner at their core does not mean that any movement that questions, say, immigration policy is of the same spirit, has the same potential for violence, or is intrinsically wrong. I do agree with you that the vast majority of the ill-will expressed on slashdot and in other forums against H1B visas and such are wrong-headed, often-irrational, and somewhat mean spirited. Their assertions are at their core emotional, not intellectual; most of their points do not hold up to intellectual scrunity or to the facts. Nonetheless, it is a dangerous mistake to cast aspersions on anyone whose questions may share some sliver of fact or desired policy in common.
As an example, there is an unwillingness in the United States and Canada to question immigration policy and to do anything substantial to change it. It is possible to believe STRONGLY in immigration and its benefits but also question the rate, direction, and nature of it. I, for one, believe that the United States is creating real problems for itself in the way that immigration, education, and other elements of our country have been configured. To allow any one group to rapidly populate an area without the presence of an environment where those people can be integrated into our society as a whole is problematic. For instance, I point to central and south americans massive immigration into in southern california over the past couple decades. We allow this immigration (both legal and illegal), without any real regaurd for that group's ability to land productive jobs, meanwhile we turn away many hundreds of thousands of people that are much better educated and capable with, often, as great of a need. We then compound the problem by creating a system where their children are not expected to learn English because we don't require that they be taught in their native tongue in school (I know, this has been since changed, but only with the community's bitter fight for it). Policy like this creates an environment where the immigrant community truly does not buy into what America stands for, lacking the common language, the integration into the broader social community (given the very high density in parts of the country), and the level and kind of employment necessary. (Yes, our country has undergone waves of immigration before, but often from much wider arrays of nationality, culture, with wider dispersion, and without any sort of welfare system to allow slacking.) Yet every time any meaningful debate might arrise, no one with any political viability is willing to ask the hard questions. (The fact that it's left to the fringe groups, to the extent that they remain on subject, while the problem grows is quite troublesome because it lends them some degree of legitimacy and a potential audience.)
Having read the Mein Kampf and related works and speeches (in similar settings) it is quite apparent that they are, by and large, appeals to emotion and lack the rational, reasoned, and intellectual nature that we generally expect and demand when making other decisions. I assert that it is the reasoning (or lack thereof) and openness (to debate) of the assertions that defines the nature and the danger, not the mere fact that it happens to bear some emphasis or direction in common. We should focus on and try the reasoning and not just dismiss any and everything based on some irrational fear that we may have something in common with some hate group. To do otherwise, to be intellectually dishonest, can do far more to promote hate and violence that that which you might resist.
Katz can't write well or, if he can, he chooses not to in all of his writings that I've read. I'll grant you that he has a certain knack for artistically wrapping words up in today's style and making his writing and the events that he writes about sound more profound than they are really. However, the mark of a good writer is to communicate well and to shed some light on a subject. Katz fails miserably on both counts. His thoughts are clouded. His premises are often, undeniably, incorrect. His conclusions are often wrong, misguided, or completely unclear. Katz can't communicate anything clearly, never mind persuade. Jon's writing lacks any significant insight on anything. What's more, besides just being a hack, he's insincere. He is constantly jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon and cloaking his words in that certain vagueness to cater to his audiences' fickle cause du jour. I, for one, can't respect Katz.
a. There are commercial software applications that are going to be used in life threatening applications. Medical software is a growing industry. As soon as someone dies as a result of your medical software, or even when a doctor was using it, expect a lawsuit. The standard threats of legality and fear of punishment are the motivators when writing software for that kind of industry. Therefore, in the commercial world, it is (in the most part, and especially in code with a more serious use than KaZaA) self regulating.
Having worked in the medical devices industry for years and having been otherwise involved in it and related industries before, I can tell you that it is hardly self-regulating, at least not as a result of what you say. Firstly, the state of the court system in this country is fucked up, especially when it comes to civil cases. A company's culpability in an accident, death, or fraud (i.e., a patient outright lying) has almost nothing to do with what they pay. Many innocent companies have been hurt tremendously due to no fault of their own in both awards, bad PR, and so on. It's something that anyone in a position of responsibility at a medical devices company (but also doctors, drug companies, etc) can tell you. Thus, this controls virtually nothing. Secondly, even if we presume it works the way you say it does, that's no more self-regulating than, say, a king saying that "sure you can jay walk, I'll just chop off your legs every time you do." Whether it's a king or a collection of people making secondary decisions about the fate, it's not independent and it's essentially compulsory. Thirdly, there are numerous standards and regulatory bodies that medical devices company go through and most of them are quite substantial (e.g., FDA, CE label, ISO standards, etc).
In summary, I'd say the safety of such devices today has more to do with market economics, i.e., if a bug causes 1k deaths no one will buy us and we'll go out of business, and the procedures established by the FDA and so on. The tort system is too arbitrary and random to have any meaningful effect; in fact, it does a tremendous amount of harm to the industry: look up silicon implants sometime or Dow chemical.
So let me get this straight...
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You believe in Open Source. You believe in breaking with tradition because it's not working for you and others (ignoring for a second that perhaps it SHOULDN'T work because the market doesn't really want it). Yet you don't "open source" (i.e., allow free distribution but ask for tips or some such) your own books? Pfft. If you're going to talk the talk, then you should at least walk the walk.
Anyways, I fail to see how you are qualititively different than the traditional publishers' means of promotion and sales. Sure, you are relying on the Net, by and large, to market your book(s) but I assert that that has more to do with your relations with this particular community and that, except for that relationship, the publishers are no less likely to experiment with banner ads and such than you would otherwise be. It's not as if marketing stuff online is exactly a massive departure from their business model. There's no revolution here, you just have a nominally different way of marketing your wares.
I suppose what I object to is your arrogance. You assume the publishers (not to mention the software industry and numerous other established entities) are stupid for being "traditional", yet you, yourself, barely manage to eak out an existance, despite the fact that you have a couple things here (e.g., slashdot) going for you that few can repeat. Nor can you point to substantial success stories. Yet you expect... what exactly?
Might there be a better way that some crafty entreprenuer can discover? Sure. Might the "traditional" way be better? Quite likely. The simple fact of the matter, though, is that it's unproven. Until someone can really show a workable, never mind superior, way, it's unrealistic, unreasonable, and just plain stupid to expect publishers to drop everything to chase pennies on the net.
While that precedent (if it does indeed exist as you say it does, IANAL) may have been right and prudent when it was set, it may not be so right now. The fact of the matter is that technology like the internet can potentially, and may even now, allow for such efficient secondary markets (e.g., allowing NEW book buyers to get 70% of what they paid for it within 2 weeks of reading) that it puts a MAJOR hole in sales of books. While some of you may scoff at this and say that these authors are just crying, consider that prior to those efficient secondary markets the market for many classes of books were just barely viable. With the new secondary markets, if the the reduction in sales approaches 50% or so, then some of these books may simply no longer get published or distributed in any shape way or form because there is no profit to be made by publisher or author. Consider also that increasing the price of the books may not be a satisfactory answer either as many people may not be able to afford the price of new books (and the secondary markets are not able to sustain it). If this is the case, then maybe society needs to consider either accepting the loss of a bunch of would-be books or allowing the publishers/authors greater control of their efforts. Like many things, a balance needs to be struck, but that balance is NOT a static thing. Numerous external influences like technology should cause us to re-evaluate the appropriateness of our laws. I haven't studied this particular situation extensively, but I'm presently inclined towards the later.
I'll take it one step further. Large corporations are not the way to go with the Internet in general.
The Internet is a naturally decentralizing force. At the protocol level, it's amazingly decentralized, by design. The tendency is for anything it touches to be decentralized.
That does not follow. Just because the NETWORK infrastructure CAN support decentralization does not mean that it WILL. Yes, decentralization allows for niche markets to develop that are otherwise not possible. However, it simply does not follow that ALL, or even the bulk, of commerce will follow that trend. Put simply, a well run larger company is often able to put things together more efficiently than a small company. Take, for instance, the PC industry. There is nothing with putting together a PC that requires or demands a large company per se. Virtually anyone can buy the necessary pieces and put them together. However, we have a handful of very large companies (e.g., Dell, IBM, Gateway, etc.) that have something like 95% of the market and a bunch of smaller niche firms fight for the remaining 5% (and barely managing to stay in business). The reasons are many, but amongst others, the larger firms are able to develop the economies of scale to do it for significantly less AND generally offer better service for most customers. Thus the larger firms continue to dominate. The internet hasn't really changed this much either, quite the opposite in fact.
Consider software. Open source is the ultimate in decentralized software. Could Open Source exist in anything approaching its current scope if there were no Internet? To be blunt, it couldn't. Look at the progress of the GNU project in 1993, the midpoint of its life to date. This was also just before the great explosion in the 'net.
And yet what has it done for consumers? Relatively little.
Consider entertainment. Ten years ago, if you wanted to distribute music on any sort of scale, you had to go to the RIAA or to an indie label that was limited in its reach. If you wanted to have your writing published, you had to go to a publisher of some sort, or pay exorbitant fees to a vanity press. And let's not get started on motion pictures. Now the Internet is allowing real distribution of entertainment media at huge savings (especially when P2P is taken into account).
Here again, you focus too much on the delivery protocol and ignore the surrounding facts. While the internet and technology may technically enable artists to remove the so-called middle-men from the actual act of transfering the music/data, it really doesn't make RIAA or its respective labels any less relevant. Their function is primarily one of marketing and capital/risk taking. Even if distribution changes radically (which I could well argue against), RIAA continues and will continue to dominate the industry.
Consider media. Ten years ago, the average home in the US got, what, 30 channels of TV, plus a newspaper and a few magazines. Now, there are thousands of websites, each offering a different focus and a different point of view.
Again, this is not terribly different than the PC OEMs. We have the emergence of MORE choices amongst major companies, that continue to retain some 95% of the market, and a bunch of little guys fighting over scraps. The technology may bring offering choices more into the cost effective region, but there's nothing to say the major media conglomerates will not dominate. The major companies enjoy many significant advantages over the little guys. In any event, there's no real significant decentralization happening here if you measure it as consumer mind/hour share or in dollar figures, just the emergence of increased choice.
In short, it was the great fallacy of the 1990's that you could become rich thanks to the Internet, the dominant effect of which, ultimately, is decentralization.
Here again, I disagree. While I was no cheerleader of the DotComs, the fallacy of the internet WAS that you could get rich quick without really working for it and without having to generate any real value for society...it was thought of as more of an act of arbitrage than anything else. There is still money to be made by exploiting the benefits of the Internet, but it requires some sanity, risk taking, honest to god effort, and willingness to scrounge for capital and take on all the nay-sayers.
Did the movie even mention insulin? I, and I suspect most viewers ASSumed insulin because that's the drug we think of when we think of diabetes, but I don't remember the movie saying what it was.
I don't recall it ever saying insulin per se, but the injection that she was given was labeled glucagon (if you read it) and anyone that really understands diabetes would just know that. In any event, while I may not blame you, it's still a mistake, and a dangerous one at that. That's why I pointed it out.
Why do people still use the Palm OS? I mean, I can understand that most of you probably hate Microsoft, but I mean c'mon, the IPaq is so much better in every regard over the PalmOS. I suppose price might be the major issue, but other than the two above-mentioned issues, is there anything that the PalmOS does better than PocketPC?
A) PalmOS devices get vastly superior battery life for the same functionality. Note: If you try to use a PocketPC in the way that they are advertized (e.g., Word, Excel, mp3s, etc), your batteries quickly drain.
B) PalmOS based devices tend to be smaller.
C) PalmOS is simpler and easier to use for PDA tasks (e.g., address book, contacts, etc) since they involve fewer strokes and such.
D) PalmOS devices cost less.
E) A wider selection of PalmOS applications.
I'd phrase the question another way, how is a PocketPC superior for the tasks that I need? Namely, what makes it superior, never mind not inferior, as a PDA? I just don't see it. Until batteries are improved on substantially, processing power grows rapidly, wireless connectivity is truely dependable, and/or data entry (e.g., keyboard) is improved on substantially, I just don't see a compelling argument for going much beyond what PalmOS is today. Palm is still very much on the game today and PocketPC's nominal improvements in offerings of features seem almost irrelevant given the missing pieces of today and probably tomorrow.
I've been seriously tempted to buy a Treo for the past couple months, however....
How's the coverage area in your experience with Voicestream (decent provider??) or Cingular? I live in the Philadelphia area and travel to NJ, NYC, and MD frequently. Apparently my only option is voicestream here, but is the coverage good in your experience where you are and outside? I'm on Cingular with a Nokia 8260 right now and I really don't want to give up decent coverage.
Also could you perhaps further expand on how it compares to the blackberry for the email service, not necessarily the integration with corporate email, but in general. I'm not so interested in web browsing, but I love the blackberry and the ability to get emails almost instantly without having to explicitly connect and stuff. I've got a Motorola T900 via Skytel which is sort of comparable, but I find the messaging size limitations rather annoying (I believe it piggybacks on SMS or something)...
Slashdot Mirror
I think this is a real stretch. The trouble is that you ignore the vastly different nature of the what the two parties might attempt. The terrorist needs only to find a weak point, not even necessarily a flaw, out of the documents. Whereas the public cannot be of much use unless they spend the resources to examine most or all of the structure(s) and have the technical know-how to really understand it. I simply don't believe that the public has or will ever be inclined to take up this sort of cause--it's just too much work for a very marginal benefit. Sure, maybe there are a handful of geeks out there that might be inclined to examine a few bolts, so to speak, and maybe they'd even get lucky...but it's a stretch. If this sort of interest exists, then surely we can arrange it in a more secure fashion. Surely we can control access and know who is looking at what. If that local geek wants to see it, then we need not share it with the whole world. Surely if the public actually has the resources to UNDERSTAND and USE those documents, then they must have ENERGY to do a little more than just pick it up with their web browser (e.g., go through the courts, arrange a more secure system, etc). Raising the bar just a little across the board can go along way towards making it harder for terrorists while doing virtually nothing to inhibit the public from legitimate uses of the information. It's not an all or nothing proposition--I simply believe that FOIA is too far reaching and too much of a burden.
I am also a Republican and I don't necessarily advocate federalized airline security. Certainly having government employees do security, whether they be municipal, state, or federal, doesn't make me feel any better. However, I don't see federal airline security as a threat (given the # of other federalized agencies) and I certainly don't see any benefit to having a bunch of seperate state agencies. Why should airline security agencies (those that supervise) be run on a state level any more than the FAA, SEC, FCC, and other similar agencies and bureaus should be run at a state level? It's a national problem. It's on national scale....
I pretty much agree with this. In fact, I would say it's more than just not helpful, it's hurtful. When we spend our resources trying to keep nail clippers out of the hands of 80 year old grandmothers, we're wasting resources that could be better spent on far more probable threats. That said, this is NOT what slashdot is attacking the Administration, for by and large, and these kinds of decisions (they often aren't any sort of policy) are generally quite far removed from the Bush or his direct reports.
Completely opaque, are you kidding me?? Not even the CIA or NSA is completely opaque, never mind the Administration. We know what is coming in. We know what is coming out. We can judge most of their actions and we can, and have, held them accountable for it. We even have a whole lot of insight into the day to day proceedings, probably too much. So it's a wild exxageration to say it's completely opaque. What more transparency can you _realistically_ ask for? I'm sure you have some (though I'd disagree with most of it), but be realstic. Those things are relatively minor on the scale from transparency to opacity.
B) Bush is NOT taking citizens on the grounds of unamerican activities or what have you. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. We're talking about a handful of non-US citizens that are believed to be associated with terrorists (murderers, not mere philosophical disagreements). This is not "anyone." This is not on "any grounds." You are distorting the facts.
C) Open government and "due process" is a good thing. However, not all good things are better when carried out to their extreme. In fact, some are downright harmful. Some of the practices that made sense 200 years ago, when it was very difficult for an individual to kill thousands of people, really make little sense now when it's relatively easy to do the same. I'm sorry, but I'm absolutely opposed to the idea of releasing someone who sneaks into this country illegally, who is KNOWN to be involved with terrorists organizations, either back into this country on bail or to deport them, merely because we can't find sufficient evidence to convict them in a traditional court of the more serious crime that they're probably involved in. Now that's not to say that I give my government carte blanche (and they DON'T have it) to do whatever they want with these people, but you'd attack ANY necessary change.
D) As for history, this cuts both ways. History has shown time and time again that you can't placate bullies, whether they be dictators in charge of a country or a terrorist leader. Some of the same policies that Bush has enacted are policies that should have been enacted in WWII and are being attacked by people like you.
E) It's a blatant stretch to assert that Bush, or anyone in this government, is so far gone in their change of policy that they're beyond control of the people. What's more, these policies that have been enacted are relatively slight policies and are easy to enact, so that enacting them really gets you no nearer to a police state, in reality, than we were previously. The press is still readily attacking Bush. The political opposition still does, although they're more hesitant because they're afraid to waste political capital. I really don't think that you can say with a straight face that we're in any danger of slipping into a police state given all the facts (especially when you take into account the greater risk of a massive terrorist attack).
from the real world. Bush's opinion polls are still as high as they were during height of the "War on Terror." What's more, besides the fact that he's merely extremely popular, I, at least, agree with his policies, by and large. We're not merely trying to secure justice, what we're really fighting is the future massive terrorist attacks. Although it will certainly help, these attacks won't go away just because Osama and every last Al Queda are dead. The simple truth of the matter is that we were NEVER previously configured to fight that kind of terrorism, from some of our laws, to our intelligence services, to simply the way that we treat those that harbor and aid terrorists. This means that, yes, sometimes people do need to be held without a public trial. Sometimes we need to draw clear lines and define those countries that accept terrorist camps on their land as "evil", so as to affect change, despite the fact that they may be nominally neutral. And so on... We can't just go back our old way of doing things entirely. It's foolish to expect us to fight something rather new while resting, albeit ignorantly, in the comfort of our old ways of doing things, at least with any real analysis. Yes, you may know the old way of doing things, but have you really thought through the consequences of it in light of the circumstances? I don't think you have.
Yes, it says he's a complete and utter looser.
Having deployed a couple hundred Palm M100 and M105s at work, I can say with certainty that the M100, and to a much lesser extent, the M105 have a problem with defective manufacture (something around 5% it seems) but are also of generally poorer construction than all other Palms. I dislike this, but I feel it is unfair to compare this series of Palm to other manufacturers because they're first generation devices and they're one of the few modern PDAs that are designed to enter the sub-100 dollar price range. All other Palms in my experience (from the IIIs, to the V series, and so on) are exceptionally reliable when you consider the amount of abuse they withstand. It's really an apples and oranges comparison. If you're willing to spend the same amount of money on a Palm as you are on the other handhelds, you can get as good, if not greater, quality.
Yeah, because we all know societies that do this (e.g., China, Cuba, etc.) are vastly more productive places for ideas than the United States.....err yeah. Show me a time in history or a place in the world that has been as productive or spends as much money on research and development (proportionately speaking). The United States is extremely successful in this reguard because of our strong IP, not inspite of it. It may cost you, say, 100 dollars to purchase that textbook and that may be something of a negative, and of itself, but then you're taking for granted its creation and that its secondary benefits (i.e., your education from it, ideas you may have taken from it, etc) are generally free AFTER that point. For all the complaints of information being locked away, it simply does not stand up by and large. There is a TONS of information out there for anyone that wants it, it may cost a little something and take a little time, but the vast majority of information nonetheless available (and productive) to an extent that it's NOT anywhere else in the world (because it largely does not exist in those other places). EOF
Call it whatever you want, but the important bits of the GPL, that which differtiates it from the BSD-style licenses, are every bit as arbitrary as any other license. Both GPL and the proprietary packages that you deride are fundamentally based on the concept of intellectual property, whether or not RMS or his cohorts acknowledge it. In fact, they're both based on STRONG IP. I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that GPL's means (explicit code sharing each and every time) or its ends (the utopian vision that it is) would occur without a legal requirements for sharing. If I come across some code, I may very well choose to distribute binaries and not bother to share my code because I'm too lazy (or enjoy the competetive advantage). The fact that the GPL insists on this requirement says as much. What's more, I assert to you that the requirement for sharing of code is an odious one for many people. These people include software developers (who are denied code reuse...one of GPL's supposed visions), entrepreneurs, and even customers (those that might benefit from proprietary code that can be said to infringe an a GPL product).
No, the GPL is a license and it only differs from the other licenses in its particular form and the relative restrictiveness (in terms of verbosity--not necessarily, and often not, on the AGGREGATE). Your arguments for the GPL, that one can merely choose not to obey it and face "copyright law" can be used just as easily for proprietary software. What? You don't like our license? Fine don't obey it, we don't care. Oh yeah, and if you don't agree to it, well it's copyright law's fault that you can't use or copy my software. Totally disingenious.
If you don't care, then you wouldn't have the EXPLICIT requirement to do otherwise in the GPL. If you don't care, then you wouldn't whine and have your leader bark at and threaten anyone that is even IMPLIED to have violated the GPL's terms.
I mostly agree with your analysis (except for the government command part). While I, personally, fall more into the monied right wingers category (even with respect to the apparent bias), I think you underestimate NPR, even "Talk of the Nation." I know what you are talking about to some extent, but I see a fundamental difference between NPR (e.g., Talk of the Nation) and what can be found on AM radio in most cities, enough so that I'll tune into NPR fairly regularly when I'm driving (and only AM for traffic and such). I've yet to see the intelligence, insight, depth, or simple willingness to experiment that I see fairly often on NPR and virtually never on all other options out there (and I say this despite the fact that I often find their to be a slant that is considerably left of where the nation is and where I am particularly)
As for the general situation with radio, it seems to me that the inadequacy of radio has more to do simple economic realities (e.g., insufficient demand to make the costs worthwhile for commercial interest or public support) and people's preference than with any sort of conspiracy or attitude on the part of broadcasters. Yes, I find radio often lacks the substance or entertainment that I crave. Similarly, I can also claim that I'd like to get a good/fresh sushi in less than 5 minutes, within a 5 minute drive, during the lunch rush for less than 2 dollars. The point is that just because there is a "demand" for something different does not mean that there is an appropriate solution. There seems to be an widely held understanding on slashdot and other forums that radio sucks, but no real solutions are offered and superior alternative examples (e.g., other countries, other times, etc...just romantic ideas) are few and far between. BAH
10 dollars a month? I had Comcast@home (Philadelphia area) and they billed me 1.50 a month or something. I think they raised it to 3 dollars a month now, but it's certainly nothing like 10 dollars. Leasing it basically made sense then and I still think it does now, especially since I was just sent a letter stating that they wish to upgrade my cable modem to some sort of new technology...ugg. (I question if this "new" technology isn't just some kind of firmware to better manage bandwidth) Anyways, I'm still getting excellent speed with comcast, haven't run into any bandwidth caps or slow downs that other people seem to describe.
Well I don't know about so-called "geeks", because most of them are quite far removed from the need to make extensive use of an address address book, appointments, etc. However, for real business people these things are hugely useful. For instance, I know a lot of executives that have their secretaries/assistants add/lookup/edit schedules, phone #s, and addresses in Outlook from their own desks, which they then sync with their Palms. Having the ability to have the data readable and writable in multiple places at one time is a big deal. I'll grant you that it can take more time to write it down on the PDA (but not when it's combined with a computer) than with pen and paper. But looking it up IS often faster on both PC and PDA, plus it can be backed up, accessed by multiple people,e tc. They're really great productivity enhancers in this example. I know lots of other people that make great use of them as well (myself included), but that's one of the greatest using pure PDA functionality.
I think you underestimate it. Sure, you can't multi-task, but if I had the choice between having the ability to occassionally make use of multi-tasking features on a PDA and the vastly superior battery life (especially when you combine phone + pocketPC), I'd choose battery life every time. This is especially true when these highly evolved and used applications can find pretty decent ways to fake multitasking ability (e.g., polling for calls and suspending to memory). What's more, I believe you're underestimating the design and usability factors that come into play here, e.g., the placement of a proper keyboard, buttons, UI, battery, size, time to pull it out/open, and so on can make a huge difference in a device's utility and its ultimate success. In short, I assert that the Treo has a better chance of taking the combination market than the PocketPC based units. Time shall tell.
In any event, I'm going to buy a Treo because it suits my needs very well. The only thing that has caused me to hestitate was the question of GSM coverage.
This is not quite true. The so-called smurf attack did lend substantial leverage, but nothing in the realm of thousand-fold leverage, never mind tens of thousands. For one, few people configured their networks this way (with >1k hosts on a single broadcast address) even before smurf attacks came into vogue. For another, empirically speaking, I can tell you that the best addresses that you could normally expect to find, even in its hay day, is in the realm of 500 or so, and many of these hosts would easily saturate their own upstream (e.g., T1) links, so you'd need a lot of other equally leveraged addresses to take advantage of it. In other words, it's unrealistic to say that a 56k modem or what have you could take down something like Yahoo using its own bandwidth to originate the attack. A T1 or T3 perhaps, but much more is just unrealistic.
I also assert that a smurf attack is not "easy" to trace. It's actually very time consuming and troublesome, especially if the person does something like launch an attack from a machine that is set up, cleaned of all evidence, and abandoned (permanently) and uses a diverse list of broadcasts so that each broadcast address is only used a couple times. Almost every person that has gotten in trouble for such attacks has been detected by their own upstream usage (i.e., highly aberrantbehavior that invites further investigation by their own provider or upstream provider(s)) and/or a result of bragging about their exploits, ala mafiaboy and company. That said, it is a stupid and highly unoriginal attack (but just because it's stupid and foolish doesn't mean it can't be used to great effect) Anyone that launches an attack from their OWN modem or similar traceable equipment is both especially stupid and doomed.
I grant you that they probably could put a simple and extremely crude unmanned plane together with some work. However, it seems almost irrelevant to me, because these devices would have no real utility (to most attackers) without most of advantages of actual military-grade equivalent (e.g., stealth, speed, robustness). It wouldn't be particularly appropriate for some kind of enemy state to launch a wide attack against the US with from outside our borders, even with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. If they can file a valid flight plan or otherwise sneak one (or a couple) in through deception, rather than stealth and speed, then they could deliver one through more conventional means too (although I think they'd have a hard time sending a bunch at the US at one time) Nor would terrorist style attackers such as bin Laden. With their mindset, it seems far more cost effective, less risky (in terms of avoiding detection or losing payload), and more efficient (in terms of putting the payload on the target with precision) to just sacrifice some of their lives for it. I suspect it'd even be more practical for them to just drive up to these cities and detonate (in person or with some kind of timer or remote device).
You really don't know what you're talking about. I mean hell, all a surgeon is is a person with a scalpal and a few other tools that knows where to cut. The devil is in the details. You totally underestimate the amount of time and resources required to construct either of the 3 devices, but particularly an ICBM and a cruise missile. I don't mean to offend, but only a person without any practical and significant engineering experience could be so dismissive of such a project. My father worked for DARPA, amongst others, in the 70s and helped developed some early cruise missiles and unmanned planes (his speciality being the optics) and I can tell you from what I heard that it's a lot more complex than you think it is. I mean sure, technology has improved, but not that much. With the example of the cruise missile, you really want a rocket because you need it to be fast moving and you need it to fly quite low to the ground (easier said than done). In short, this is a project that requires lots of engineer time, significant manufacturing resources, and testing. I'm not going to say it's impossible, especially for a small government, but it's quite reasonable to assert that it is beyond the resources Joe and Jane terrorist.
A fission bomb, on the other hand, is quite simple to build providing you can get access to a couple key ingredients (which is of course easier said than done). Most of the hardwork has already been done and much of it is readily available to students of engineering. In terms of actually manufacturing one, if you can build, say, a laser from scratch, then you can build a nuke. It's a bit more involved than the garage project, but not that much more unfortunately.
Btw, a dirty nuke is brain dead simple to build and the materials are relatively easy to come by (no need for weapons grade nuclear material). It's basically just a bunch of radioactive materials wrapped around conventional explosives that are used to disperse the radioactive chemicals. That said, I think the fear of it is overplayed since the danger is rather localized.
Although I agree with much of what you said and feel that you said it rather eloquently, I disagree with you on a couple key points. Just as those with rascist agendas can use fear and legitimate facts to further their objectives (well beyond the ground that they might gain on more rational terms), so to can those with other agendas use fear of, say, the Nazis to crush any thoughtful analysis and policy. In other words, just because the Nazis can be said to have been anti-foreigner at their core does not mean that any movement that questions, say, immigration policy is of the same spirit, has the same potential for violence, or is intrinsically wrong. I do agree with you that the vast majority of the ill-will expressed on slashdot and in other forums against H1B visas and such are wrong-headed, often-irrational, and somewhat mean spirited. Their assertions are at their core emotional, not intellectual; most of their points do not hold up to intellectual scrunity or to the facts. Nonetheless, it is a dangerous mistake to cast aspersions on anyone whose questions may share some sliver of fact or desired policy in common.
As an example, there is an unwillingness in the United States and Canada to question immigration policy and to do anything substantial to change it. It is possible to believe STRONGLY in immigration and its benefits but also question the rate, direction, and nature of it. I, for one, believe that the United States is creating real problems for itself in the way that immigration, education, and other elements of our country have been configured. To allow any one group to rapidly populate an area without the presence of an environment where those people can be integrated into our society as a whole is problematic. For instance, I point to central and south americans massive immigration into in southern california over the past couple decades. We allow this immigration (both legal and illegal), without any real regaurd for that group's ability to land productive jobs, meanwhile we turn away many hundreds of thousands of people that are much better educated and capable with, often, as great of a need. We then compound the problem by creating a system where their children are not expected to learn English because we don't require that they be taught in their native tongue in school (I know, this has been since changed, but only with the community's bitter fight for it). Policy like this creates an environment where the immigrant community truly does not buy into what America stands for, lacking the common language, the integration into the broader social community (given the very high density in parts of the country), and the level and kind of employment necessary. (Yes, our country has undergone waves of immigration before, but often from much wider arrays of nationality, culture, with wider dispersion, and without any sort of welfare system to allow slacking.) Yet every time any meaningful debate might arrise, no one with any political viability is willing to ask the hard questions. (The fact that it's left to the fringe groups, to the extent that they remain on subject, while the problem grows is quite troublesome because it lends them some degree of legitimacy and a potential audience.)
Having read the Mein Kampf and related works and speeches (in similar settings) it is quite apparent that they are, by and large, appeals to emotion and lack the rational, reasoned, and intellectual nature that we generally expect and demand when making other decisions. I assert that it is the reasoning (or lack thereof) and openness (to debate) of the assertions that defines the nature and the danger, not the mere fact that it happens to bear some emphasis or direction in common. We should focus on and try the reasoning and not just dismiss any and everything based on some irrational fear that we may have something in common with some hate group. To do otherwise, to be intellectually dishonest, can do far more to promote hate and violence that that which you might resist.
Katz can't write well or, if he can, he chooses not to in all of his writings that I've read. I'll grant you that he has a certain knack for artistically wrapping words up in today's style and making his writing and the events that he writes about sound more profound than they are really. However, the mark of a good writer is to communicate well and to shed some light on a subject. Katz fails miserably on both counts. His thoughts are clouded. His premises are often, undeniably, incorrect. His conclusions are often wrong, misguided, or completely unclear. Katz can't communicate anything clearly, never mind persuade. Jon's writing lacks any significant insight on anything. What's more, besides just being a hack, he's insincere. He is constantly jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon and cloaking his words in that certain vagueness to cater to his audiences' fickle cause du jour. I, for one, can't respect Katz.
In summary, I'd say the safety of such devices today has more to do with market economics, i.e., if a bug causes 1k deaths no one will buy us and we'll go out of business, and the procedures established by the FDA and so on. The tort system is too arbitrary and random to have any meaningful effect; in fact, it does a tremendous amount of harm to the industry: look up silicon implants sometime or Dow chemical.
You believe in Open Source. You believe in breaking with tradition because it's not working for you and others (ignoring for a second that perhaps it SHOULDN'T work because the market doesn't really want it). Yet you don't "open source" (i.e., allow free distribution but ask for tips or some such) your own books? Pfft. If you're going to talk the talk, then you should at least walk the walk.
... what exactly?
Anyways, I fail to see how you are qualititively different than the traditional publishers' means of promotion and sales. Sure, you are relying on the Net, by and large, to market your book(s) but I assert that that has more to do with your relations with this particular community and that, except for that relationship, the publishers are no less likely to experiment with banner ads and such than you would otherwise be. It's not as if marketing stuff online is exactly a massive departure from their business model. There's no revolution here, you just have a nominally different way of marketing your wares.
I suppose what I object to is your arrogance. You assume the publishers (not to mention the software industry and numerous other established entities) are stupid for being "traditional", yet you, yourself, barely manage to eak out an existance, despite the fact that you have a couple things here (e.g., slashdot) going for you that few can repeat. Nor can you point to substantial success stories. Yet you expect
Might there be a better way that some crafty entreprenuer can discover? Sure. Might the "traditional" way be better? Quite likely. The simple fact of the matter, though, is that it's unproven. Until someone can really show a workable, never mind superior, way, it's unrealistic, unreasonable, and just plain stupid to expect publishers to drop everything to chase pennies on the net.
While that precedent (if it does indeed exist as you say it does, IANAL) may have been right and prudent when it was set, it may not be so right now. The fact of the matter is that technology like the internet can potentially, and may even now, allow for such efficient secondary markets (e.g., allowing NEW book buyers to get 70% of what they paid for it within 2 weeks of reading) that it puts a MAJOR hole in sales of books. While some of you may scoff at this and say that these authors are just crying, consider that prior to those efficient secondary markets the market for many classes of books were just barely viable. With the new secondary markets, if the the reduction in sales approaches 50% or so, then some of these books may simply no longer get published or distributed in any shape way or form because there is no profit to be made by publisher or author. Consider also that increasing the price of the books may not be a satisfactory answer either as many people may not be able to afford the price of new books (and the secondary markets are not able to sustain it). If this is the case, then maybe society needs to consider either accepting the loss of a bunch of would-be books or allowing the publishers/authors greater control of their efforts. Like many things, a balance needs to be struck, but that balance is NOT a static thing. Numerous external influences like technology should cause us to re-evaluate the appropriateness of our laws. I haven't studied this particular situation extensively, but I'm presently inclined towards the later.
And yet what has it done for consumers? Relatively little.
Here again, you focus too much on the delivery protocol and ignore the surrounding facts. While the internet and technology may technically enable artists to remove the so-called middle-men from the actual act of transfering the music/data, it really doesn't make RIAA or its respective labels any less relevant. Their function is primarily one of marketing and capital/risk taking. Even if distribution changes radically (which I could well argue against), RIAA continues and will continue to dominate the industry.
Again, this is not terribly different than the PC OEMs. We have the emergence of MORE choices amongst major companies, that continue to retain some 95% of the market, and a bunch of little guys fighting over scraps. The technology may bring offering choices more into the cost effective region, but there's nothing to say the major media conglomerates will not dominate. The major companies enjoy many significant advantages over the little guys. In any event, there's no real significant decentralization happening here if you measure it as consumer mind/hour share or in dollar figures, just the emergence of increased choice.
Here again, I disagree. While I was no cheerleader of the DotComs, the fallacy of the internet WAS that you could get rich quick without really working for it and without having to generate any real value for society...it was thought of as more of an act of arbitrage than anything else. There is still money to be made by exploiting the benefits of the Internet, but it requires some sanity, risk taking, honest to god effort, and willingness to scrounge for capital and take on all the nay-sayers.
A) PalmOS devices get vastly superior battery life for the same functionality. Note: If you try to use a PocketPC in the way that they are advertized (e.g., Word, Excel, mp3s, etc), your batteries quickly drain.
B) PalmOS based devices tend to be smaller.
C) PalmOS is simpler and easier to use for PDA tasks (e.g., address book, contacts, etc) since they involve fewer strokes and such.
D) PalmOS devices cost less.
E) A wider selection of PalmOS applications.
I'd phrase the question another way, how is a PocketPC superior for the tasks that I need? Namely, what makes it superior, never mind not inferior, as a PDA? I just don't see it. Until batteries are improved on substantially, processing power grows rapidly, wireless connectivity is truely dependable, and/or data entry (e.g., keyboard) is improved on substantially, I just don't see a compelling argument for going much beyond what PalmOS is today. Palm is still very much on the game today and PocketPC's nominal improvements in offerings of features seem almost irrelevant given the missing pieces of today and probably tomorrow.
I've been seriously tempted to buy a Treo for the past couple months, however....
How's the coverage area in your experience with Voicestream (decent provider??) or Cingular? I live in the Philadelphia area and travel to NJ, NYC, and MD frequently. Apparently my only option is voicestream here, but is the coverage good in your experience where you are and outside? I'm on Cingular with a Nokia 8260 right now and I really don't want to give up decent coverage.
Also could you perhaps further expand on how it compares to the blackberry for the email service, not necessarily the integration with corporate email, but in general. I'm not so interested in web browsing, but I love the blackberry and the ability to get emails almost instantly without having to explicitly connect and stuff. I've got a Motorola T900 via Skytel which is sort of comparable, but I find the messaging size limitations rather annoying (I believe it piggybacks on SMS or something)...