I remember when I was a kid in the 80s, I thought it was so weird how some parents wouldn't let their kids go anywhere because they wre convinced predators, gangs and so on were all over the place. This was a quiet little town in the Pacific Northwest.
It's not that kids can't go to the playground because they need to be protected - it's that parents' interaction with their children's world occurs through a television screen publicizing every child tragedy anywhere in the country*.
*Especially it it's a cute white girl from a wealthy family.
At the end of the day, the only way in which different cases of infringement are fungible is if opposed parties agree to trade suit cancellations. They could hammer Cisco as hard as they want and Cisco's position vis-a-vis Apple would (probably) not be affected at all.
On the other hand, it's a nice bit of karma. Er, but not in the/. sense of the word.
By far the most critical aspect of this for me is its practicality for use in Mars exploration or, more to the point, colonization. While it's obviously too soon to colonize anything at a reasonable price (and real colonization will only occur when we can get some prospect of a return commensurate to the colossal investment) but the sooner the requisite technologies enter wide use, the sooner their price starts to drop, the more hospitable the cost/benefit balance sheet begins to look. Little things like this could make ten years worth of difference.
To some extent it's true that it just takes more work to deliver that sort of stuff to a rural residence. In that respect, one must pay for the inefficient use of infrastructure in low population density areas. For that I can offer no apologies (nor, I suspect, do you expect one)
That said, legislative distortion of the rural service market means that some service is underpriced (relative to the total expenditure necessary to deploy it) and the remaining services aren't viable for wide rollout because they have to compete with the underpriced service. Thus, provision expenses of other services have far fewer heads across whom to share the cost as well as no economies of scale*.
Add to that the fact that companies would likely try to find clever ways of providing service that are more appropriate for rural areas if, once again, they didn't have to compete with the regulation-favored (and possibly subsidized) entrenched (haha! punny!) services.
Overall, it's much more cost effective for telcos to lobby government for favorable legislation (and position themselves to protect against unfavorable legislation for which their strategic enemies lobbied) than it is to focus on competing for your dollar.
*Here I'm referencing the fact that the cost they quote you is probably inflated by at least 50% by the fact that they have to no installation workforce and equipment already allocated to that area. Developers find building a bunch of houses in the same area at the same time much cheaper than one-offs for the same reasons.
Since it's far cheaper per customer to provide service to dense areas but existing laws are designed to equalize service costs to rural customers, the question is really about all sorts of legislative changes. For example, if current subsidies end, then the rural areas could become suddenly (more) unprofitable.
It's just as you say, but there's more than one way revenue in rural areas is legislatively unstable.
Personally, I think rural areas shouldn't be treated any different legislatively than anyone else. They'll pay higher costs (reflecting the highter costs of serving them) but since telcos can charge those higher rates without worrying about legislative interference, they'd be willing to roll out better services to anyone willing to pay the rural premium.
Your restatement is more clearly that against which I'd wanted to argue. Not because it's a worse argument, but rather because it's a good argument that I think gets abused unless it's treated carefully.
Humans invariably characterize categories using metrics less complicated and varied than the real phenomenology of that being categorized - something of a truism, since otherwise categories fill no conceptual role except enumeration. Humans also have strong inborn desires to gender identify* - perhaps one of the most complex psychological behaviors that has in itself so little social component in its inception that we could fairly call it biological programming. The confluence of the two seems likely to generate socially constructed gender categories harder and less amenable to conquest through self-study than our other prejudices (such as tribalism). To sketch the argument, if a person is born into a world in which genders are given certain categorical features, their gender identification process would be somewhat linked to obtaining or conforming to those implicit norms. This isn't parents approving or disapproving certain toys or activities - it's looking for signals of genderedness to emulate and internalize.
Say women are, statistically speaking, 1% more intersubjectively "passive"** than males in a theoretical population containing no explicit or implicit gender norms with a standard deviation of 10%. This variation is so small that almost no one would notice unless they conducted a sufficiently large study. If the same population over time begins to establish communal gender norms regarding passivity, then the stochastic masking would begin to fall away as slightly more people labeled passivity as a female trait than male. Successive generations, using prior choices (norms) amongst their contacts as their template, would continue to amplify the 1% bias until all members of society associated passivity with females. This is not to say that all people would believe all females are passive, just that the subtext of any wider social interaction is going to identify women as (generally) more passive.
If the gender identification effect is at all strong, then it would swamp the inborn proclivity and be widespread enough to make for huge developmental differences even if the genetic differences are mostly ambiguous. We may at this point have no way of telling which gender differences are strongly biologically determined and which are cultural amplifications.
I do agree that in the end we will find some differences are more or less essential and large enough to have real and enduring relevance***. Others, I think, are noticeable only because we believe them significant. As we discard the belief (far easier said than done, of course), the statistical bias may drop below the noise floor for non-sociobiologists and no longer inform the self-identification process.
I have no idea if this would reduce the number of transsexuals by allowing more people to feel like they "fit" the gender for their sex well enough to self-identify with it.
*I use this to refer to one's self-identification, but I think it's arguable that the strong tendency to evaluate the gender of others springs from this.
**Activity/passivity measurements being similarly basic and critical, especially for social agents, sex-passivity mapping may be close to inevitable.
***These differences could still be fairly small compared to the standard deviation, but be large enough not to need amplification to be identifiable to youths. Thus "dispelling" the cultural norms becomes a futile exercise in political correctness.
You know, there are also biological differences between races but we've managed (mostly) to recognize that none of them are meaningful outside the very narrowest cases.
His lexical choices are highly evocative of "Men's Movement" type speech, and my experience is that members of the misogynist wing* thereof - if they're halfway intelligent, and the guy seems so to me - learn to use ambiguity so that they can later redeploy it as a defense. "That's not what I was saying at all!" they self-exculpate when subject to criticism, in a technique learned from the Postmodernists. Sadly, they can have their tongue in cheek even while they're promulgating ideas that they in some sense believe.
But that said, my intuitions are heavily informed by the bitter lessons of my purely anecdotal experiences. Basic decency obliges that one give the benefit of the doubt and so perhaps should have done so in this case.
*I'm not certain if this is a wing or the body, but I shouldn't paint the whole movement with that one brush, having an insufficiently deep acquaintance.
The man is clearly prone to gender essentialism, and is probably something like a "Men's Movement" member. He talks about the supposed bitterness of women raised by "castrai" - a code word for (presumably weak, pathetic) men who have failed to defend their machismo. I think he speaks very earnestly when discussing feminization, though neither humorlessly nor unintelligently.
The matter of expertise is critical. Perhaps they could turn their assets over to some SRI management firm with the experience and knowledge necessary to undertake such a monumental task as trying to differentially calculate the social value of each company in which it invests... but that still leaves the problem of deciding what SRI firm's goal significantly match their own conception of social good, and so on.
It's probably best that the foundation just lets its capital ride wherever the market takes it with its easy-to-read financial information while the foundation focuses on spending the proceeds on projects about which it knows a great deal.
A record company selling Beatles music sued a computer company selling microcomputer hardware, the former having a red apple logo, the latter using a rainbrow-striped apple with a bite in it. Which "Apple" was doing the steamrolling, here?
The standards regarding "infringement" require than the trademark similarity be prone to cause marketplace confusion between the products, diluting the brand.
Of course, Apple's prima facie argument that VOIP and cellular phones are too dissimilar to cause confusion remains highly questionable. It's true that the two are fairly dissimilar markets, but that could easily change, especially given Cisco's otherwise-spurious "interoperability" line. That request alone may prove to a judge that there's at least a case that the two markets are insufficiently dissimilar to allow Apple to use the same trademark.
It's very true that, objectively, the originals weren't Timeless Cinema or anything and that it's quite impossible to compete with folks' nostalgic perception of the movies.
HOWEVER... Star Wars was also the first time anyone had done the space opera for which everyone had been pining since, I dunno, Jules Verne finally came to fruition with grandeur. 2001 was great, but it was semi-mystical hard sci-fi. It wasn't the cowboy movie in outer space that spoke to the munchkin in everyone. Except Brett, perhaps.
I'm not sure I'd say that monopolies *should* exist. Rather, I would say the interference necessary to preclude monopolies is generally far more dangerous than allowing them in general terms. Simple economics says that any company that abuses its market power too egregiously makes itself a target for other companies looking for new markets to enter. Ceteris paribus, capital doesn't just sit around while someone's making an easy buck - they want to get in on the action too!
Of course, the real world is more complex than that modeled by simple economics. The single biggest barrier to entry of new competition tends to be friendly legislation/regulation. Entrenched companies convince the government to pass laws that make it difficult or risky to challenge their control of the market.
That said, "network effects" can also provide advantages to monopolists that allow them to charge higher prices for shoddier goods than otherwise. This is why I do still support some government involvement through specific anti-trust action. I think we currently have things pretty close to correct, though I will agree that tame administrations frequently decline to enforce anti-trust rules against the companies that are their benefactors.
Hackers have no legal obligation to do much of anything, but neither is basic human decency (eg. cleaning up after yourself if you make a mess in the company breakroom) a legal obligation. Just because what they're doing isn't illegal doesn't mean it's a good thing to do. Nor am I trying to argue that it *should* be illegal - it shouldn't. I'm just saying that giving them a pass just because they're not breaking the law.
Also, why give them a pass because they're MOxBing select vendors? Wouldn't it be better to reward better vendors with high marks for security consciousness and punish worse vendors? This choice based on PR seems like so much grandstanding.
Our government is supposed to be absolutely, positively, without remorse, without regard to anyone - against allowing monopolies to exist. They are NEVER supposed to exist unless they are government run monopolies (like the US Mail originally was).
Not true. There are certain business practices that are illegal if employed by a company with monopoly power.
Isn't that what I said? If you don't think so maybe you should read my message again.
When I said that "There are certain business practices that are illegal if employed by a company with monopoly power", I thought it would be clear that there's nothing legally wrong with being a private monopoly. You might say they are absolutely, positively, without remorse, allowed to exist.
However, if a company holding monopoly power behaves in certain anti-competitive ways, it's against the law.
In any case, I have no desire to exonerate corporate America of whatever skullduggery. Rather, I will asseverate that the kind of radical anti-monopolistic action you advocate would be byzantine, counter-productive, and confusing. It would inevitably be a complicated, badly administered scheme, rife with cheating that would impede knowledge gathering by economic actors (including consumers like you and me.)
Our government is supposed to be absolutely, positively, without remorse, without regard to anyone - against allowing monopolies to exist. They are NEVER supposed to exist unless they are government run monopolies (like the US Mail originally was).
Not true. There are certain business practices that are illegal if employed by a company with monopoly power.
The idea is - if a company makes X number of dollars a year, then it must split up into two companies to maintain competition.
So you're basically against economies of scale? Pro work-duplication? I suppose this would be great for middle managers, but for everyone else it would suck. It would actually hobble competition because it would remove the incentive to grow.
One could go on, but I think the main idea is that radical anti-corporate action is neither as justified or as desirable as might seem to those who fear the power of big business. The saying is that Democracy is the absolute worst political system, except for all the others. Similarly, one should think carefully about the alternatives before assuming that some nice-sounding idea would be superior to what we already have, economically and socially speaking.
It's far too hard to explain to the voting public exactly what's good about network neutralily without making overbroad statements that the telecoms can (appear to) counter. In fact, I very much doubt that most folks in Congress have any idea what it's about except in rhetorical terms: as a matter of profession, politicians have a fine sense of how "net neutrality" plays versus "dumb pipes" or whathaveyou, while explaining source-based throttling or whatever would probably leave them shrugging.
So if they don't feel some simplified explanation of net neutrality will sell considerably better to their constituency, money is likely to make a much bigger difference to them. After all, how are they going to know who's right and who's wrong? I mean, they (contra many on/.) are not going to assume that the telecoms are always wrong because they're inherently evil.
I thought about this after I posted, but it seems disingenuous for the article to mention his knowledge if it was merely of the backdating rather than of fradulent reporting. Perhaps it's a sort of "on his watch" sort of thing, which holds a little water, but certainly nothing criminal. That's just a management mistake and weighed against Jobs' other achievements is barely something to shrug about.
Unless you're determined to be pissed off at Jobs, I guess.
If Jobs was aware of the problems but didn't take appropriate action it could still damage the company more than the non-story linked might imply. Essentially, Jobs has been hailed as a hero by fanboys and shareholders alike, and anything significantly tarnishing his tenure might remove some of the aura of invulnerability Apple has acquired in recent years. I don't by any means imply that Jobs' um, job is in danger, but it might complicate business partnerships and other strategic moves that Apple needs to remain competitive. iPod dominance aside, Apple's position is at least assailable, if not so tenuous as it was a decade ago. To reach its growth targets it has to navigate agreements with telecom providers like Cingular as well as convince say, Intel and Toshiba to continue to give it most-favored-nation status. Apple isn't Dell or Microsoft to expect to make demands of suppliers and partners with impunity.
Not yet, anyway, and maybe never, if the next round of initiatives (smart phone, media ventures, etc.) collapses.
Distracting Jobs and blemishing his heretofore immaculate turtleneck might have more consequences than just an easy story for everyone from CNET to AP report and re-report.
While I have no problems with them recommending an iPod - they're okay machines and all - I do sort of wonder why they would make it on their gift list, which would presumably to suggest things one *hasn't* already considered. Can anyone honestly say the thought of giving an mp3 player to someone hasn't occurred to them?
I was also sort of wondering about the subs - nice recommendations, I must say, but doesn't it make something of an awkward gift? Maybe it's more of a "stuff we thought was neato" list. Certainly the cutlery discussion seemed to wend that way, though even non-chefs could appreciate the novelty of owning a knife that ridiculously fine.
Though the payout on these lawsuits isn't high, the story represents far more of a disincentive for music vendors to pursue shady DRM-like courses than most posters seem to recognize. The dollar value is low, but it sets a precedent, cost them money in legal fees as well as lost development investment, and most importantly makes would-be corporate coalition partners skittish.
Of course, I expect like-minded corporations to fund a fairly concerted lobbying effort after this to create some stealth legistlation legalizing whatever skullduggery they please. The bill will be called the Media Freedom Act or something like that.
I mean, in the sense that they've been mucking about with it for at least that long. Isn't it Cairo, finally arrived? Something like that, anyway.
Of course, it won't really be all there until next year, so perhaps they're being premature in including it on the list. Also, it will indisputably be the product of the year next year in terms of money.
One almost wonders if it made the list this year so they can omit it from next year, when other OSes might embarrass it. Not to name any names.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember when I was a kid in the 80s, I thought it was so weird how some parents wouldn't let their kids go anywhere because they wre convinced predators, gangs and so on were all over the place. This was a quiet little town in the Pacific Northwest.
It's not that kids can't go to the playground because they need to be protected - it's that parents' interaction with their children's world occurs through a television screen publicizing every child tragedy anywhere in the country*.
*Especially it it's a cute white girl from a wealthy family.
At the end of the day, the only way in which different cases of infringement are fungible is if opposed parties agree to trade suit cancellations. They could hammer Cisco as hard as they want and Cisco's position vis-a-vis Apple would (probably) not be affected at all.
/. sense of the word.
On the other hand, it's a nice bit of karma. Er, but not in the
Here's a link to an old plan for Mars operations leveraging the ease of obtaining methane and oxygen on Mars.
By far the most critical aspect of this for me is its practicality for use in Mars exploration or, more to the point, colonization. While it's obviously too soon to colonize anything at a reasonable price (and real colonization will only occur when we can get some prospect of a return commensurate to the colossal investment) but the sooner the requisite technologies enter wide use, the sooner their price starts to drop, the more hospitable the cost/benefit balance sheet begins to look. Little things like this could make ten years worth of difference.
To some extent it's true that it just takes more work to deliver that sort of stuff to a rural residence. In that respect, one must pay for the inefficient use of infrastructure in low population density areas. For that I can offer no apologies (nor, I suspect, do you expect one)
That said, legislative distortion of the rural service market means that some service is underpriced (relative to the total expenditure necessary to deploy it) and the remaining services aren't viable for wide rollout because they have to compete with the underpriced service. Thus, provision expenses of other services have far fewer heads across whom to share the cost as well as no economies of scale*.
Add to that the fact that companies would likely try to find clever ways of providing service that are more appropriate for rural areas if, once again, they didn't have to compete with the regulation-favored (and possibly subsidized) entrenched (haha! punny!) services.
Overall, it's much more cost effective for telcos to lobby government for favorable legislation (and position themselves to protect against unfavorable legislation for which their strategic enemies lobbied) than it is to focus on competing for your dollar.
*Here I'm referencing the fact that the cost they quote you is probably inflated by at least 50% by the fact that they have to no installation workforce and equipment already allocated to that area. Developers find building a bunch of houses in the same area at the same time much cheaper than one-offs for the same reasons.
Since it's far cheaper per customer to provide service to dense areas but existing laws are designed to equalize service costs to rural customers, the question is really about all sorts of legislative changes. For example, if current subsidies end, then the rural areas could become suddenly (more) unprofitable.
It's just as you say, but there's more than one way revenue in rural areas is legislatively unstable.
Personally, I think rural areas shouldn't be treated any different legislatively than anyone else. They'll pay higher costs (reflecting the highter costs of serving them) but since telcos can charge those higher rates without worrying about legislative interference, they'd be willing to roll out better services to anyone willing to pay the rural premium.
Your restatement is more clearly that against which I'd wanted to argue. Not because it's a worse argument, but rather because it's a good argument that I think gets abused unless it's treated carefully.
Humans invariably characterize categories using metrics less complicated and varied than the real phenomenology of that being categorized - something of a truism, since otherwise categories fill no conceptual role except enumeration. Humans also have strong inborn desires to gender identify* - perhaps one of the most complex psychological behaviors that has in itself so little social component in its inception that we could fairly call it biological programming. The confluence of the two seems likely to generate socially constructed gender categories harder and less amenable to conquest through self-study than our other prejudices (such as tribalism). To sketch the argument, if a person is born into a world in which genders are given certain categorical features, their gender identification process would be somewhat linked to obtaining or conforming to those implicit norms. This isn't parents approving or disapproving certain toys or activities - it's looking for signals of genderedness to emulate and internalize.
Say women are, statistically speaking, 1% more intersubjectively "passive"** than males in a theoretical population containing no explicit or implicit gender norms with a standard deviation of 10%. This variation is so small that almost no one would notice unless they conducted a sufficiently large study. If the same population over time begins to establish communal gender norms regarding passivity, then the stochastic masking would begin to fall away as slightly more people labeled passivity as a female trait than male. Successive generations, using prior choices (norms) amongst their contacts as their template, would continue to amplify the 1% bias until all members of society associated passivity with females. This is not to say that all people would believe all females are passive, just that the subtext of any wider social interaction is going to identify women as (generally) more passive.
If the gender identification effect is at all strong, then it would swamp the inborn proclivity and be widespread enough to make for huge developmental differences even if the genetic differences are mostly ambiguous. We may at this point have no way of telling which gender differences are strongly biologically determined and which are cultural amplifications.
I do agree that in the end we will find some differences are more or less essential and large enough to have real and enduring relevance***. Others, I think, are noticeable only because we believe them significant. As we discard the belief (far easier said than done, of course), the statistical bias may drop below the noise floor for non-sociobiologists and no longer inform the self-identification process.
I have no idea if this would reduce the number of transsexuals by allowing more people to feel like they "fit" the gender for their sex well enough to self-identify with it.
*I use this to refer to one's self-identification, but I think it's arguable that the strong tendency to evaluate the gender of others springs from this.
**Activity/passivity measurements being similarly basic and critical, especially for social agents, sex-passivity mapping may be close to inevitable.
***These differences could still be fairly small compared to the standard deviation, but be large enough not to need amplification to be identifiable to youths. Thus "dispelling" the cultural norms becomes a futile exercise in political correctness.
You know, there are also biological differences between races but we've managed (mostly) to recognize that none of them are meaningful outside the very narrowest cases.
His lexical choices are highly evocative of "Men's Movement" type speech, and my experience is that members of the misogynist wing* thereof - if they're halfway intelligent, and the guy seems so to me - learn to use ambiguity so that they can later redeploy it as a defense. "That's not what I was saying at all!" they self-exculpate when subject to criticism, in a technique learned from the Postmodernists. Sadly, they can have their tongue in cheek even while they're promulgating ideas that they in some sense believe.
But that said, my intuitions are heavily informed by the bitter lessons of my purely anecdotal experiences. Basic decency obliges that one give the benefit of the doubt and so perhaps should have done so in this case.
*I'm not certain if this is a wing or the body, but I shouldn't paint the whole movement with that one brush, having an insufficiently deep acquaintance.
The man is clearly prone to gender essentialism, and is probably something like a "Men's Movement" member. He talks about the supposed bitterness of women raised by "castrai" - a code word for (presumably weak, pathetic) men who have failed to defend their machismo. I think he speaks very earnestly when discussing feminization, though neither humorlessly nor unintelligently.
The matter of expertise is critical. Perhaps they could turn their assets over to some SRI management firm with the experience and knowledge necessary to undertake such a monumental task as trying to differentially calculate the social value of each company in which it invests... but that still leaves the problem of deciding what SRI firm's goal significantly match their own conception of social good, and so on.
It's probably best that the foundation just lets its capital ride wherever the market takes it with its easy-to-read financial information while the foundation focuses on spending the proceeds on projects about which it knows a great deal.
A record company selling Beatles music sued a computer company selling microcomputer hardware, the former having a red apple logo, the latter using a rainbrow-striped apple with a bite in it. Which "Apple" was doing the steamrolling, here?
I mean, should Anya Seton's estate executors be suing Toyota and Marion Bradley?
The standards regarding "infringement" require than the trademark similarity be prone to cause marketplace confusion between the products, diluting the brand.
Of course, Apple's prima facie argument that VOIP and cellular phones are too dissimilar to cause confusion remains highly questionable. It's true that the two are fairly dissimilar markets, but that could easily change, especially given Cisco's otherwise-spurious "interoperability" line. That request alone may prove to a judge that there's at least a case that the two markets are insufficiently dissimilar to allow Apple to use the same trademark.
It's very true that, objectively, the originals weren't Timeless Cinema or anything and that it's quite impossible to compete with folks' nostalgic perception of the movies.
HOWEVER... Star Wars was also the first time anyone had done the space opera for which everyone had been pining since, I dunno, Jules Verne finally came to fruition with grandeur. 2001 was great, but it was semi-mystical hard sci-fi. It wasn't the cowboy movie in outer space that spoke to the munchkin in everyone. Except Brett, perhaps.
I'm not sure I'd say that monopolies *should* exist. Rather, I would say the interference necessary to preclude monopolies is generally far more dangerous than allowing them in general terms. Simple economics says that any company that abuses its market power too egregiously makes itself a target for other companies looking for new markets to enter. Ceteris paribus, capital doesn't just sit around while someone's making an easy buck - they want to get in on the action too!
Of course, the real world is more complex than that modeled by simple economics. The single biggest barrier to entry of new competition tends to be friendly legislation/regulation. Entrenched companies convince the government to pass laws that make it difficult or risky to challenge their control of the market.
That said, "network effects" can also provide advantages to monopolists that allow them to charge higher prices for shoddier goods than otherwise. This is why I do still support some government involvement through specific anti-trust action. I think we currently have things pretty close to correct, though I will agree that tame administrations frequently decline to enforce anti-trust rules against the companies that are their benefactors.
Hackers have no legal obligation to do much of anything, but neither is basic human decency (eg. cleaning up after yourself if you make a mess in the company breakroom) a legal obligation. Just because what they're doing isn't illegal doesn't mean it's a good thing to do. Nor am I trying to argue that it *should* be illegal - it shouldn't. I'm just saying that giving them a pass just because they're not breaking the law.
Also, why give them a pass because they're MOxBing select vendors? Wouldn't it be better to reward better vendors with high marks for security consciousness and punish worse vendors? This choice based on PR seems like so much grandstanding.
When I said that "There are certain business practices that are illegal if employed by a company with monopoly power", I thought it would be clear that there's nothing legally wrong with being a private monopoly. You might say they are absolutely, positively, without remorse, allowed to exist.
However, if a company holding monopoly power behaves in certain anti-competitive ways, it's against the law.
In any case, I have no desire to exonerate corporate America of whatever skullduggery. Rather, I will asseverate that the kind of radical anti-monopolistic action you advocate would be byzantine, counter-productive, and confusing. It would inevitably be a complicated, badly administered scheme, rife with cheating that would impede knowledge gathering by economic actors (including consumers like you and me.)
Not true. There are certain business practices that are illegal if employed by a company with monopoly power.
So you're basically against economies of scale? Pro work-duplication? I suppose this would be great for middle managers, but for everyone else it would suck. It would actually hobble competition because it would remove the incentive to grow.
One could go on, but I think the main idea is that radical anti-corporate action is neither as justified or as desirable as might seem to those who fear the power of big business. The saying is that Democracy is the absolute worst political system, except for all the others. Similarly, one should think carefully about the alternatives before assuming that some nice-sounding idea would be superior to what we already have, economically and socially speaking.
It's far too hard to explain to the voting public exactly what's good about network neutralily without making overbroad statements that the telecoms can (appear to) counter. In fact, I very much doubt that most folks in Congress have any idea what it's about except in rhetorical terms: as a matter of profession, politicians have a fine sense of how "net neutrality" plays versus "dumb pipes" or whathaveyou, while explaining source-based throttling or whatever would probably leave them shrugging.
/.) are not going to assume that the telecoms are always wrong because they're inherently evil.
So if they don't feel some simplified explanation of net neutrality will sell considerably better to their constituency, money is likely to make a much bigger difference to them. After all, how are they going to know who's right and who's wrong? I mean, they (contra many on
They were trying to establish a viable colony and needed to attract more colonists. "Hostile Frigid Waste" wasn't working, so Greenland it was.
I thought about this after I posted, but it seems disingenuous for the article to mention his knowledge if it was merely of the backdating rather than of fradulent reporting. Perhaps it's a sort of "on his watch" sort of thing, which holds a little water, but certainly nothing criminal. That's just a management mistake and weighed against Jobs' other achievements is barely something to shrug about.
Unless you're determined to be pissed off at Jobs, I guess.
If Jobs was aware of the problems but didn't take appropriate action it could still damage the company more than the non-story linked might imply. Essentially, Jobs has been hailed as a hero by fanboys and shareholders alike, and anything significantly tarnishing his tenure might remove some of the aura of invulnerability Apple has acquired in recent years. I don't by any means imply that Jobs' um, job is in danger, but it might complicate business partnerships and other strategic moves that Apple needs to remain competitive. iPod dominance aside, Apple's position is at least assailable, if not so tenuous as it was a decade ago. To reach its growth targets it has to navigate agreements with telecom providers like Cingular as well as convince say, Intel and Toshiba to continue to give it most-favored-nation status. Apple isn't Dell or Microsoft to expect to make demands of suppliers and partners with impunity.
Not yet, anyway, and maybe never, if the next round of initiatives (smart phone, media ventures, etc.) collapses.
Distracting Jobs and blemishing his heretofore immaculate turtleneck might have more consequences than just an easy story for everyone from CNET to AP report and re-report.
While I have no problems with them recommending an iPod - they're okay machines and all - I do sort of wonder why they would make it on their gift list, which would presumably to suggest things one *hasn't* already considered. Can anyone honestly say the thought of giving an mp3 player to someone hasn't occurred to them?
I was also sort of wondering about the subs - nice recommendations, I must say, but doesn't it make something of an awkward gift? Maybe it's more of a "stuff we thought was neato" list. Certainly the cutlery discussion seemed to wend that way, though even non-chefs could appreciate the novelty of owning a knife that ridiculously fine.
Though the payout on these lawsuits isn't high, the story represents far more of a disincentive for music vendors to pursue shady DRM-like courses than most posters seem to recognize. The dollar value is low, but it sets a precedent, cost them money in legal fees as well as lost development investment, and most importantly makes would-be corporate coalition partners skittish.
Of course, I expect like-minded corporations to fund a fairly concerted lobbying effort after this to create some stealth legistlation legalizing whatever skullduggery they please. The bill will be called the Media Freedom Act or something like that.
I mean, in the sense that they've been mucking about with it for at least that long. Isn't it Cairo, finally arrived? Something like that, anyway.
Of course, it won't really be all there until next year, so perhaps they're being premature in including it on the list. Also, it will indisputably be the product of the year next year in terms of money.
One almost wonders if it made the list this year so they can omit it from next year, when other OSes might embarrass it. Not to name any names.
Why not a cube? What shape are your pockets?