Just a reminder: Google and Android are not affiliated in any way any longer except that Google is a member of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA).
Google bought Android the company, developed Android the OS, then spun it off under control of the OHA, in which they are one participating member.
When a phone company develops hardware using Android, the operating system is open source/freely available. They can customize it. But if they want to bundle applications on it, say Google Maps, they have to license those apps from Google. Android is not Google, Google is not Android.
For what it's worth, I run a G1 with Cyanogen's latest mod. I have no Google apps that I care about anymore.
Having an organization that is bureaucratic instead of market driven is going to cause the biggest issues. Today, we still are wasting a significant portion of bandwidth on broadcasting when the future is point to point communications along with some form of P2P crowdcasting. Get rid of the public airwaves and work on letting the market come up with standards -- frequency hopping software radios, hive networks, whatever. It'll be more efficient, cheaper, and it'll provide for much more competition.
The truth: Enron was a monopoly, and monopolies are almost always created by State regulation and preferential treatment. The market was never deregulated, instead it was a State-corporate creation that sounded like "privatization" or "deregulation" just as much as "free speech" can still include stifling laws preventing speech.
I don't use FOSS usually (Audacity, Filezilla, etc) -- and I'd prefer a Googleless phone. I have Gmail for email, but I use Opera to read my email over the Gmail app on the phone. I use Waze instead of Google Maps. I do use Google Voice, but I'm thinking of going to a SIP app instead. I use Meebo instead of Google Chat.
Android is good software, but it's not really ready for primetime (mostly due to the underperforming phones that need 4x the RAM to get anything running consistently).
Try researching before commenting. Android is not Google's operating system. Android is run by the Open Handset Alliance. Google is a member of the OHA. Yes, Google created Android -- you or I or anyone can download Android, compile it for our hardware, and run it without paying Google or anyone a single dime.
Google Maps, Google Mail, Google Market? They're GOOGLE'S software, not OHA's. Google wants money for them. You want it on your phone, you pay.
Why is it so hard to see that Google and Android are not affiliated anymore. Separate companies.
I love my Android G1 (with Cyanogen's Mod). But Google is not Android, nor vice versa. Google created Android, and then spun it off to the Open Handset Alliance (OHA).
This means that Google is now an application developer for Android, just like any other application developer. Android supports competitive markets (and there are at least 3 Android markets out there). Gmail isn't the only email interface, Google Maps is not the only maps interface.
I love my Android phone, but I don't love the Google apps -- they're too intrusive. I'd love a Google-less G1, and I'm down for trying the new mod without the Google apps if it will work fine.
Again, Google is not Android. Android is Android, maintained by the Open Handset Alliance. Cyanogen might be wiser to join the OHA, actually, and license the apps if he wants them.
He didn't lose his job, he became less efficient than someone or something else at it.
The unions definitely ruin the efficiency of the division of labor in the world. It is the division of labor that makes us wealthier by saving us time and money. PCs, phones, iPods, TVs, even clothes and food have a tendency to get cheaper because new competitors enter a market and do things faster/cheaper/better.
I hope IT continually gets cheaper -- it means cheaper infrastructure and support for the 99% of the world that doesn't work in IT. No problem here for me.
You're going to have anarchy (read: lack of a ruler), but you won't have CHAOS. Big difference.
First of all, to transmit on wide ranges of frequencies at high power costs a TON of money in electricity. I've researched what a radio station (5000 watts) alone has to pay for a slim band of frequency, and it's not trivial at all.
The reality is that in the biggest chaos, it isn't the strongest that survive, it's generally the weakest groups that make it. Look at hurricanes (VERY strong, but don't last) versus slightly windy weeks. It's not the strong that maintain for long.
In the airwaves industry, we have so many proofs of things going right. I know people will cry foul if I say "What about WiFi?" but with WiFi, we have a VERY slim band of frequency that is working VERY well except in the most congested areas. What, in those areas, we had tripled the amount of frequency range? What if we quadrupled it? Again, it's the State's regulations, not WiFi, that breaks that most congested area.
All those people who have TV and radio now would still have it, but they'd get it on-demand, a la carte. Broad-casting is efficient only in spectrum, it is terribly inefficient in time scheduling. It's lost completely in terms of data analysis to see who is watching/listening to what and when (Nielsen is a failure, really). Since few people can truly watch TV, listen to the radio, talk on the phone, and browse the web at the same time efficiently, most of the spectrum in their given area set for a given service is WASTED. When you are watching TV in your living room, what is happening to all the AM and FM spectrum? Wasted. Cell phone channels? Wasted. It's endless to think of the spectrum being wasted in your given area right now with useless transmissions that are actually using energy to be transmitted to you and not received.
We won't need 50,000 watt radio stations anymore, when a 2 watt transmitter/receiver in your locale will cover so much more, so much more efficiently. And what if no one is using a given set of frequencies at a given time? We can throttle back the transmitter power -- saving energy, saving money.
I say bring on the anarchy, it'll REDUCE the chaos. Especially in terms of the airwaves.
In the U.S., we have the slow, bureaucratic and oligarchic FCC that limits technology from acquiring near limitless spectrum/bandwidth.
We're moving to a truly digital age, but still we have the FCC regulating that we should keep analog/digital spectrum separate for various "needs" such as TV, radio, ham, cordless phones, FRS, etc. It's ridiculous.
We have technology TODAY that allows for frequency hopping, for signal strength negotiation, for handling multiple devices on the same frequencies/channels, etc. Private industries can blossom to utilize the right frequency, the right transceiving power, the right tower hopping mechanisms, etc. But they can't get there because the FCC overregulates and strangulates the future.
On my 3G phone (I'm on AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, shared via my lovely Cradlepoint router on-the-go even), I can watch TV on-demand. I can listen to music, on-demand. I can read my websites, send my emails, talk via Google voice/Gizmo5 VoIP, send SMS via Google Voice, etc. But there's a limited run of bandwidth.
I don't have a TV at home, so the TV spectrum is useless. I don't listen to radio in the car, so radio spectrum is useless. So much that we do today would be better suited to a HUGE amount of spectrum divvied up and utilized by every device that could hop frequencies as needed to find a clean channel, that could raise power needs when a tower is far but drop them significantly when towers are near.
The future is nearly endless bandwidth for endless users, but we're throttled because our lovely State decides it wants only the powerful to play ball, with the weak kept out of the game.
But what would happen if the FCC went away, and all of a sudden the power players who control TV, radio and other spectra would need to compete with the YouTube amateurs of the world? The powerful would fall. And the State can't let that happen.
I find this repulsive because AT&T services are something that should be considered a life necessity. Since AT&T is the only business that provides these services, consumers have no choice where to get this required need to sustain their lives.
What we really need is another option than AT&T, so that when we are given the contract to sign, we can just say "no" and go to a competitor with a less stringent contract.
That will be the day, friends, when the first competitor to AT&T arrives and gives us an option.
There is no liquidity crisis. Banks have reserves that are at historical records, and with fractional reserve banking they could loan out historical amounts.
They won't, because it's better this way. The more people THINK there's a crisis, the more power is given to the Fed to "do something."
Once the Fed gets more power, the banks will open the debt floodgates again.
More importantly, a government that only protects against force and fraud is a government that doesn't regulate industry. We've seen where that leads, from healing tonics to meat packing to investment banking. There's plenty of deception and destruction that doesn't quite fall under the umbrella of "force and fraud".
This is insightful? In a world where BILLIONS of consumers can rate and review the efficacy and truthfulness of products on the web, government regulation of healing tonics is worthless.
Meat packing? Do you really think government regulations has made food safer, or market forces?
Investment banking is a world regulated by government's manipulation of their near-worthless fiat currency. I don't blame the banks, I blame the people in charge of creating the fluff-money most people think has value over their lifetimes.
I'd rather have government ONLY working on actual crimes (Someone versus Me in court) than actual non-crimes ("The People" versus Me in court).
First, all government is force. It uses force to do what it wants to do. So far, no government has ever done what every voter has wanted them to do. Ever. Have you read laws that enable "government agents" to work on your behalf? Ever?
The private sector does EVERYTHING better, because it is done voluntarily. They don't force you to make a decision against your will.
It's ok for 10 crooks in office to take your money by force, or tell you what you can do with your land or your body or your tools (by force), but if CmdrTaco and I decide to lift your wallet, it's illegal?
All it takes is ONE manufacturer seeing their sales slip to cut their profits. Then the rest follow.
I've been in the wholesale, retail AND manufacturing businesses, and I can tell you that profit margins are flexible in things such as this. The moment one company does it, while still being profitable overall, they all do it.
I dislike Cory. I hate Creative Commons. I detest copyright, public-use rights, public utilities, and anything related to non-market forces for real property. Intellectual property is a dying term, long dead in my dictionary (note, I am a writer and I get paid to write).
I want to see municipal allowances for duopolies destroyed. Let residents who own property rent it to whoever wants to take the time to rent it. Let competing companies, even at the local level, battle for access to the last mile. They'll get good international uplinks, they'll battle each other on service and price and performance.
Today, we have public funding across the board, regulations that restrict competition, and people afraid of seeing 500 internet lines over their house (note, they won't).
Cory should roll over and retire. He's a geek's dream, and a capitalist's nightmare. Capitalism will save the web, net neutrality won't.
I also understand most legal gibberish (as an anarcho-capitalist, if it is law-focused, it's gibberish). I would wager one year's income that 9 out of 10 people (my definition of "laymen") would not be able to.
The court wants/demands/expects technical terms and ideology laid out in a way than 9 out of 10 people would understand. The garbage they spew in response wouldn't meet the standards to what they expect.
My cases rarely have much to do with a judge, because civil cases tend to settle. And then get sealed, so you can't see them.
I think being an expert witness in a civil trial is vastly different than being called to testify for a criminal case. In civil cases, the penalties are financial and usually end up being worth settling because the legal costs can be more excessive than the settlement costs.
You can't settle criminal cases easily, so shopping for an expert to prevent jail time probably has a heavier weight than finding one to prevent a financial loss or catastrophe.
It's funny that you mention that your job is to produce expert testimony in laymen's terms, when the lawyers (and the judge) do the absolute opposite.
you really want to live in a world where the people that cant afford school dont get it?.
Yes, because that will never happen.
Education should be competitive. If it was, we'd see TONS of competitors reaching every level of education need. I know a few megacorporations would love to get into it, but I also know some local parents who would love to start their own local learning centers.
Wal*Mart offers generic drugs to the uninsured for $4 per month. Thank you, Wal*Mart. Target offers relatively decent, designer-designed clothes for under $20. Thank you, Target.
Education is not a right, but it also shouldn't cost $15,000 per year per kid. How ridiculous. Thank you, State, for making education too expensive at EVERY level by over-subsidizing bad educators.
I love my G1 and go over 5GB a month on T-Mobile's 3G plan. It works very well in most cities I visit. It makes me MUCH more productive and saves me a ton of time and even money (ShopSavvy actually saved me about $300 last month!).
I also have an Acer Aspire One netbook (paid $170 for it new by luck) and I love it, too. I rigged an AT&T 3G card into it, and it works just fine with XP. Monitor resolution is a bit off for some sites, but it handles everything great -- and I love the extended battery life.
An Android netbook? I'd buy one, only to try to get more developers to make apps I really need and can use. If Google can make Google Docs work on an Android netbook, I'd buy 8 (two for me, and 6 for the rest of my staff who can use them). I don't need much more than Google Apps right now (we use many apps daily). The downside of the G1 is the lack of Google Docs working properly (you can view, you can't edit).
I see no purpose to use XP/Mac very much. I hate Apple, but I was a huge Newton MessagePad fan, and I would consider a huge iPhone -- if I had a big enough screen and a stylus. Somehow, I doubt it will. I prefer my G1 touchscreen to my iPhone (unused now) screen. I also _need_ the built in keyboard.
I wonder if some netbooks will have the option to use a Bluetooth headset to make phone calls (via GSM or VoIP)?
This is why capitalism failed: because commoners and the intelligent don't understand that no transaction is one-sided except theft (which is why government is theft, by the way).
You aren't the consumer of broadband, you are a party involved in a transaction. You decide that a broadband connection is worth more than the dollars you have. The provider decides that the connection is worth less than the dollars they want. You consume broadband, they consume dollars. You're both providers of something. It's not an equal trade because both of you are profiting.
Here's why you all will fail: unlimited broadband does not mean unlimited data. It means unlimited connect time.
Do you people remember dial-up? You paid by the hour (x.25/Compuserve). That's how it was. Then there were some "unlimited" plans but you'd get disconnected every few hours. You might have still paid for the phone minutes.
Then broadband came along offering unlimited connect time, not data.
Ugh, when will people learn? There's a ton of competition on the broadband-consumer side, but not a ton of competition on the dollar-consumer side that offers broadband. Whose fault is this?
I'd point to the voters of the communities that allow monopolies to exist rather than letting competition reign in pricing.
Many research scientists live their comfy lives on government-stolen funds. They have to, because no one wants to buy their junk.
I have friends who admit to me, off the record, that their government grants are the only way they can pay off their ridiculous college debt that paid for a talent no one wants. Some have even said that they knowingly adopt accepted practices of shenanigans that fudge the data to support beliefs desired by the State.
This is nothing new:
Teacher's unions don't teach. Public healthcare takes care of its own industry rather than patients. Police officers serve and protect the State, not society. TSA agents work hard to enforce their own barrel-chested powers rather than actual securty.
Why should government-granted shills be any different?
It is time for science to be market-driven rather than socialist in nature.
The biggest problem here, as far as I can tell, is dealing with privacy laws or fear of reprisal in dealing with privacy issues.
No ISP worries just about the overall network, they worry about the last mile connections just as much. Since neighborhoods share a certain-sized pipe to the backbone, that pipe's overall usage is their major cause for concern. I know everyone here thinks this has to do with profitability, but when you run a business and see a limited-supply item skyrocket in usage (i.e., everyone is using YouTube or Hulu or whatever), you have to take steps AHEAD of schedule to price in expansion of that limited-supply item.
What the ISPs need to do is offer ALL users upgrades immediately to routers that will display their current monthly usage in a simple LED/LCD screen. This would not be hard to do, but it would be costly. By doing so, users would get comfortable with what they're using in terms of data transfer to/from their ISP. Get people involved NOW.
If things keep moving upwards in terms of data transfer needs, then you can let people know that there either has to be caps or there has to be price increases. Anyone who thinks "unlimited" means unlimited bandwidth is a retard. Unlimited means you don't have to disconnect your modem when you're done: you can stay connected for an unlimited amount of time.
I have _THREE_ mobile broadband cards to deal with the 5GB caps and to deal with areas with network shortfalls: AT&T, Sprint, TMobile. The 3G service is great, and I use about 20GB a month between the three. I have 2 running at all times through my Cradlepoint router, and when one gets past 5GB, I pull it for the rest of the time period and stick in the third. It's great for me. Yes, it costs me $200, but for business purposes its a write-off and I need my access everywhere. Even my TMobile G1 untethered exceeds 5GB per month -- from a handheld phone.
My home DSL is uncapped, but I don't have a problem paying more if I am in the top tier of users (I'm not). The problem is figuring out how much I am using.
I'd rather see a hardhack than a software interface to the router, especially for beginning users. Throttling after hitting a cap is the best move, I'd say, because they still have web/email access, and they'll have to learn to cut back on video or music next month (or buy the larger cap).
Google isn't losing money on YouTube. They're investing.
People forget that Google isn't about advertising, or search, or webmail. They're not about video content or data farms or VoIP.
Google is about one thing: data harvesting. Google is doing a fine job at that. We all know that cable, satellite and broadcast methods of transmitting video and audio are dying. There's no future in doing things through unidirectional multicast. Entering the cable business can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to start a channel and get it redistributed. Google is spending pennies compared to that losing game.
What YouTube offers Google is the ability to figure out how to send video and audio information to desiring users: who are they, what do they want, how long do they watch, how many people redistribute the video on their blogs or social networks, who leaves a comment, etc. This information is priceless, and paying $1 a person a day is NOTHING.
For my businesses, acquiring a client can cost me thousands of dollars of time, marketing, and brain energy. Google acquires new people and knows their statistics for $1 a person? That's throwaway money.
YouTube now does "HD", which is quite a step up from their "SD" resolution. The horizon shows Google doing more with what they have.
YouTube, in my opinion, is Google's best acquisition. Search terms are great to know, but when you can combine that information with what a person watches, and what they say in comments, you've got a future goldmine of opportunities to create a data store for billions of people now coming online.
These corporate media researchers are clueless. Their jobs are at stake by passing on false information rather than spending man-hours discovering WHY Google is making this and many other investments that the old school thinks are senseless.
I advertise on Facebook. CPC set at $0.60. CTR is miserable (WELL under 0.1%), but impressions is gigantic (200,000 per day average). Out of those who click through (let's say 140 per day average), I get at LEAST 5 orders. 3.6% conversion. Average order profit is over $100. So Facebook ads that cost me about $85 per day (on average) get me around $550 per day profit. For no additional marketing work on my part.
I can pick sex (male, for my product), age (21-45), and even pick specific groups they're members of or keywords in their profile.
I track my Facebook clicks and offer people a $20 credit if they fill out a 15 question multiple choice review. Most do, even if they didn't buy. Every single one of them said they prefered clicking my ad than accidentally clicking an ad at Google or on a blog -- they KNEW it was an ad, and my product interested them.
Also, the retention rate of clickers-but-not-buyers is relatively high. Almost 20% of people who clicked and didn't buy DO come back to buy. So that is additional return that isn't in the figure above.
Google AdWords cost me around $100 per customer to acquire, on orders I made $110 on (on average). Facebook, OTH, costs me $20 or less per customer acquired, and I make a decent profit. There is no going back to Google AdWords for me, ever, unless I can use their data mining to target my crowd better. I've NEVER clicked an Adwords ad, but I've clicked a few Facebook ads, and even made purchases myself.
Slashdot Mirror
Just a reminder: Google and Android are not affiliated in any way any longer except that Google is a member of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA).
Google bought Android the company, developed Android the OS, then spun it off under control of the OHA, in which they are one participating member.
When a phone company develops hardware using Android, the operating system is open source/freely available. They can customize it. But if they want to bundle applications on it, say Google Maps, they have to license those apps from Google. Android is not Google, Google is not Android.
For what it's worth, I run a G1 with Cyanogen's latest mod. I have no Google apps that I care about anymore.
Having an organization that is bureaucratic instead of market driven is going to cause the biggest issues. Today, we still are wasting a significant portion of bandwidth on broadcasting when the future is point to point communications along with some form of P2P crowdcasting. Get rid of the public airwaves and work on letting the market come up with standards -- frequency hopping software radios, hive networks, whatever. It'll be more efficient, cheaper, and it'll provide for much more competition.
Broadcasting is dying.
This is interesting?
California energy was NEVER deregulated. Never. Ever. Not once. Not a part of it, not a sliver of it, not the entire market.
What happened was MORE regulation.
Here are some links to the flip-side of what the government-run TV channel said in the link provided above:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul12.html
http://mises.org/story/872
The truth: Enron was a monopoly, and monopolies are almost always created by State regulation and preferential treatment. The market was never deregulated, instead it was a State-corporate creation that sounded like "privatization" or "deregulation" just as much as "free speech" can still include stifling laws preventing speech.
I don't use FOSS usually (Audacity, Filezilla, etc) -- and I'd prefer a Googleless phone. I have Gmail for email, but I use Opera to read my email over the Gmail app on the phone. I use Waze instead of Google Maps. I do use Google Voice, but I'm thinking of going to a SIP app instead. I use Meebo instead of Google Chat.
Android is good software, but it's not really ready for primetime (mostly due to the underperforming phones that need 4x the RAM to get anything running consistently).
Try researching before commenting. Android is not Google's operating system. Android is run by the Open Handset Alliance. Google is a member of the OHA. Yes, Google created Android -- you or I or anyone can download Android, compile it for our hardware, and run it without paying Google or anyone a single dime.
Google Maps, Google Mail, Google Market? They're GOOGLE'S software, not OHA's. Google wants money for them. You want it on your phone, you pay.
Why is it so hard to see that Google and Android are not affiliated anymore. Separate companies.
I love my Android G1 (with Cyanogen's Mod). But Google is not Android, nor vice versa. Google created Android, and then spun it off to the Open Handset Alliance (OHA).
This means that Google is now an application developer for Android, just like any other application developer. Android supports competitive markets (and there are at least 3 Android markets out there). Gmail isn't the only email interface, Google Maps is not the only maps interface.
I love my Android phone, but I don't love the Google apps -- they're too intrusive. I'd love a Google-less G1, and I'm down for trying the new mod without the Google apps if it will work fine.
Again, Google is not Android. Android is Android, maintained by the Open Handset Alliance. Cyanogen might be wiser to join the OHA, actually, and license the apps if he wants them.
He didn't lose his job, he became less efficient than someone or something else at it.
The unions definitely ruin the efficiency of the division of labor in the world. It is the division of labor that makes us wealthier by saving us time and money. PCs, phones, iPods, TVs, even clothes and food have a tendency to get cheaper because new competitors enter a market and do things faster/cheaper/better.
I hope IT continually gets cheaper -- it means cheaper infrastructure and support for the 99% of the world that doesn't work in IT. No problem here for me.
Haha, "these things worked here for 50 years", haha. Thanks for making me laugh, I hadn't seen such obvious comedy on slashdot in awhile.
Mod parent +1 funny.
Lord, I hate responding to ACs.
You're going to have anarchy (read: lack of a ruler), but you won't have CHAOS. Big difference.
First of all, to transmit on wide ranges of frequencies at high power costs a TON of money in electricity. I've researched what a radio station (5000 watts) alone has to pay for a slim band of frequency, and it's not trivial at all.
The reality is that in the biggest chaos, it isn't the strongest that survive, it's generally the weakest groups that make it. Look at hurricanes (VERY strong, but don't last) versus slightly windy weeks. It's not the strong that maintain for long.
In the airwaves industry, we have so many proofs of things going right. I know people will cry foul if I say "What about WiFi?" but with WiFi, we have a VERY slim band of frequency that is working VERY well except in the most congested areas. What, in those areas, we had tripled the amount of frequency range? What if we quadrupled it? Again, it's the State's regulations, not WiFi, that breaks that most congested area.
All those people who have TV and radio now would still have it, but they'd get it on-demand, a la carte. Broad-casting is efficient only in spectrum, it is terribly inefficient in time scheduling. It's lost completely in terms of data analysis to see who is watching/listening to what and when (Nielsen is a failure, really). Since few people can truly watch TV, listen to the radio, talk on the phone, and browse the web at the same time efficiently, most of the spectrum in their given area set for a given service is WASTED. When you are watching TV in your living room, what is happening to all the AM and FM spectrum? Wasted. Cell phone channels? Wasted. It's endless to think of the spectrum being wasted in your given area right now with useless transmissions that are actually using energy to be transmitted to you and not received.
We won't need 50,000 watt radio stations anymore, when a 2 watt transmitter/receiver in your locale will cover so much more, so much more efficiently. And what if no one is using a given set of frequencies at a given time? We can throttle back the transmitter power -- saving energy, saving money.
I say bring on the anarchy, it'll REDUCE the chaos. Especially in terms of the airwaves.
In the U.S., we have the slow, bureaucratic and oligarchic FCC that limits technology from acquiring near limitless spectrum/bandwidth.
We're moving to a truly digital age, but still we have the FCC regulating that we should keep analog/digital spectrum separate for various "needs" such as TV, radio, ham, cordless phones, FRS, etc. It's ridiculous.
We have technology TODAY that allows for frequency hopping, for signal strength negotiation, for handling multiple devices on the same frequencies/channels, etc. Private industries can blossom to utilize the right frequency, the right transceiving power, the right tower hopping mechanisms, etc. But they can't get there because the FCC overregulates and strangulates the future.
On my 3G phone (I'm on AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, shared via my lovely Cradlepoint router on-the-go even), I can watch TV on-demand. I can listen to music, on-demand. I can read my websites, send my emails, talk via Google voice/Gizmo5 VoIP, send SMS via Google Voice, etc. But there's a limited run of bandwidth.
I don't have a TV at home, so the TV spectrum is useless. I don't listen to radio in the car, so radio spectrum is useless. So much that we do today would be better suited to a HUGE amount of spectrum divvied up and utilized by every device that could hop frequencies as needed to find a clean channel, that could raise power needs when a tower is far but drop them significantly when towers are near.
The future is nearly endless bandwidth for endless users, but we're throttled because our lovely State decides it wants only the powerful to play ball, with the weak kept out of the game.
But what would happen if the FCC went away, and all of a sudden the power players who control TV, radio and other spectra would need to compete with the YouTube amateurs of the world? The powerful would fall. And the State can't let that happen.
I find this repulsive because AT&T services are something that should be considered a life necessity. Since AT&T is the only business that provides these services, consumers have no choice where to get this required need to sustain their lives.
What we really need is another option than AT&T, so that when we are given the contract to sign, we can just say "no" and go to a competitor with a less stringent contract.
That will be the day, friends, when the first competitor to AT&T arrives and gives us an option.
Oh, wait...
There is no liquidity crisis. Banks have reserves that are at historical records, and with fractional reserve banking they could loan out historical amounts.
They won't, because it's better this way. The more people THINK there's a crisis, the more power is given to the Fed to "do something."
Once the Fed gets more power, the banks will open the debt floodgates again.
More importantly, a government that only protects against force and fraud is a government that doesn't regulate industry. We've seen where that leads, from healing tonics to meat packing to investment banking. There's plenty of deception and destruction that doesn't quite fall under the umbrella of "force and fraud".
This is insightful? In a world where BILLIONS of consumers can rate and review the efficacy and truthfulness of products on the web, government regulation of healing tonics is worthless.
Meat packing? Do you really think government regulations has made food safer, or market forces?
Investment banking is a world regulated by government's manipulation of their near-worthless fiat currency. I don't blame the banks, I blame the people in charge of creating the fluff-money most people think has value over their lifetimes.
I'd rather have government ONLY working on actual crimes (Someone versus Me in court) than actual non-crimes ("The People" versus Me in court).
Queue anarcho-capitalist reply.
First, all government is force. It uses force to do what it wants to do. So far, no government has ever done what every voter has wanted them to do. Ever. Have you read laws that enable "government agents" to work on your behalf? Ever?
The private sector does EVERYTHING better, because it is done voluntarily. They don't force you to make a decision against your will.
It's ok for 10 crooks in office to take your money by force, or tell you what you can do with your land or your body or your tools (by force), but if CmdrTaco and I decide to lift your wallet, it's illegal?
More: http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/kinsella/kinsella15.html
All it takes is ONE manufacturer seeing their sales slip to cut their profits. Then the rest follow.
I've been in the wholesale, retail AND manufacturing businesses, and I can tell you that profit margins are flexible in things such as this. The moment one company does it, while still being profitable overall, they all do it.
I dislike Cory. I hate Creative Commons. I detest copyright, public-use rights, public utilities, and anything related to non-market forces for real property. Intellectual property is a dying term, long dead in my dictionary (note, I am a writer and I get paid to write).
I want to see municipal allowances for duopolies destroyed. Let residents who own property rent it to whoever wants to take the time to rent it. Let competing companies, even at the local level, battle for access to the last mile. They'll get good international uplinks, they'll battle each other on service and price and performance.
Today, we have public funding across the board, regulations that restrict competition, and people afraid of seeing 500 internet lines over their house (note, they won't).
Cory should roll over and retire. He's a geek's dream, and a capitalist's nightmare. Capitalism will save the web, net neutrality won't.
I also understand most legal gibberish (as an anarcho-capitalist, if it is law-focused, it's gibberish). I would wager one year's income that 9 out of 10 people (my definition of "laymen") would not be able to.
The court wants/demands/expects technical terms and ideology laid out in a way than 9 out of 10 people would understand. The garbage they spew in response wouldn't meet the standards to what they expect.
My cases rarely have much to do with a judge, because civil cases tend to settle. And then get sealed, so you can't see them.
I think being an expert witness in a civil trial is vastly different than being called to testify for a criminal case. In civil cases, the penalties are financial and usually end up being worth settling because the legal costs can be more excessive than the settlement costs.
You can't settle criminal cases easily, so shopping for an expert to prevent jail time probably has a heavier weight than finding one to prevent a financial loss or catastrophe.
It's funny that you mention that your job is to produce expert testimony in laymen's terms, when the lawyers (and the judge) do the absolute opposite.
you really want to live in a world where the people that cant afford school dont get it?.
Yes, because that will never happen.
Education should be competitive. If it was, we'd see TONS of competitors reaching every level of education need. I know a few megacorporations would love to get into it, but I also know some local parents who would love to start their own local learning centers.
Wal*Mart offers generic drugs to the uninsured for $4 per month. Thank you, Wal*Mart. Target offers relatively decent, designer-designed clothes for under $20. Thank you, Target.
Education is not a right, but it also shouldn't cost $15,000 per year per kid. How ridiculous. Thank you, State, for making education too expensive at EVERY level by over-subsidizing bad educators.
I love my G1 and go over 5GB a month on T-Mobile's 3G plan. It works very well in most cities I visit. It makes me MUCH more productive and saves me a ton of time and even money (ShopSavvy actually saved me about $300 last month!).
I also have an Acer Aspire One netbook (paid $170 for it new by luck) and I love it, too. I rigged an AT&T 3G card into it, and it works just fine with XP. Monitor resolution is a bit off for some sites, but it handles everything great -- and I love the extended battery life.
An Android netbook? I'd buy one, only to try to get more developers to make apps I really need and can use. If Google can make Google Docs work on an Android netbook, I'd buy 8 (two for me, and 6 for the rest of my staff who can use them). I don't need much more than Google Apps right now (we use many apps daily). The downside of the G1 is the lack of Google Docs working properly (you can view, you can't edit).
I see no purpose to use XP/Mac very much. I hate Apple, but I was a huge Newton MessagePad fan, and I would consider a huge iPhone -- if I had a big enough screen and a stylus. Somehow, I doubt it will. I prefer my G1 touchscreen to my iPhone (unused now) screen. I also _need_ the built in keyboard.
I wonder if some netbooks will have the option to use a Bluetooth headset to make phone calls (via GSM or VoIP)?
This is why capitalism failed: because commoners and the intelligent don't understand that no transaction is one-sided except theft (which is why government is theft, by the way).
You aren't the consumer of broadband, you are a party involved in a transaction. You decide that a broadband connection is worth more than the dollars you have. The provider decides that the connection is worth less than the dollars they want. You consume broadband, they consume dollars. You're both providers of something. It's not an equal trade because both of you are profiting.
Here's why you all will fail: unlimited broadband does not mean unlimited data. It means unlimited connect time.
Do you people remember dial-up? You paid by the hour (x.25/Compuserve). That's how it was. Then there were some "unlimited" plans but you'd get disconnected every few hours. You might have still paid for the phone minutes.
Then broadband came along offering unlimited connect time, not data.
Ugh, when will people learn? There's a ton of competition on the broadband-consumer side, but not a ton of competition on the dollar-consumer side that offers broadband. Whose fault is this?
I'd point to the voters of the communities that allow monopolies to exist rather than letting competition reign in pricing.
Many research scientists live their comfy lives on government-stolen funds. They have to, because no one wants to buy their junk.
I have friends who admit to me, off the record, that their government grants are the only way they can pay off their ridiculous college debt that paid for a talent no one wants. Some have even said that they knowingly adopt accepted practices of shenanigans that fudge the data to support beliefs desired by the State.
This is nothing new:
Teacher's unions don't teach.
Public healthcare takes care of its own industry rather than patients.
Police officers serve and protect the State, not society.
TSA agents work hard to enforce their own barrel-chested powers rather than actual securty.
Why should government-granted shills be any different?
It is time for science to be market-driven rather than socialist in nature.
The biggest problem here, as far as I can tell, is dealing with privacy laws or fear of reprisal in dealing with privacy issues.
No ISP worries just about the overall network, they worry about the last mile connections just as much. Since neighborhoods share a certain-sized pipe to the backbone, that pipe's overall usage is their major cause for concern. I know everyone here thinks this has to do with profitability, but when you run a business and see a limited-supply item skyrocket in usage (i.e., everyone is using YouTube or Hulu or whatever), you have to take steps AHEAD of schedule to price in expansion of that limited-supply item.
What the ISPs need to do is offer ALL users upgrades immediately to routers that will display their current monthly usage in a simple LED/LCD screen. This would not be hard to do, but it would be costly. By doing so, users would get comfortable with what they're using in terms of data transfer to/from their ISP. Get people involved NOW.
If things keep moving upwards in terms of data transfer needs, then you can let people know that there either has to be caps or there has to be price increases. Anyone who thinks "unlimited" means unlimited bandwidth is a retard. Unlimited means you don't have to disconnect your modem when you're done: you can stay connected for an unlimited amount of time.
I have _THREE_ mobile broadband cards to deal with the 5GB caps and to deal with areas with network shortfalls: AT&T, Sprint, TMobile. The 3G service is great, and I use about 20GB a month between the three. I have 2 running at all times through my Cradlepoint router, and when one gets past 5GB, I pull it for the rest of the time period and stick in the third. It's great for me. Yes, it costs me $200, but for business purposes its a write-off and I need my access everywhere. Even my TMobile G1 untethered exceeds 5GB per month -- from a handheld phone.
My home DSL is uncapped, but I don't have a problem paying more if I am in the top tier of users (I'm not). The problem is figuring out how much I am using.
I'd rather see a hardhack than a software interface to the router, especially for beginning users. Throttling after hitting a cap is the best move, I'd say, because they still have web/email access, and they'll have to learn to cut back on video or music next month (or buy the larger cap).
Google isn't losing money on YouTube. They're investing.
People forget that Google isn't about advertising, or search, or webmail. They're not about video content or data farms or VoIP.
Google is about one thing: data harvesting. Google is doing a fine job at that. We all know that cable, satellite and broadcast methods of transmitting video and audio are dying. There's no future in doing things through unidirectional multicast. Entering the cable business can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to start a channel and get it redistributed. Google is spending pennies compared to that losing game.
What YouTube offers Google is the ability to figure out how to send video and audio information to desiring users: who are they, what do they want, how long do they watch, how many people redistribute the video on their blogs or social networks, who leaves a comment, etc. This information is priceless, and paying $1 a person a day is NOTHING.
For my businesses, acquiring a client can cost me thousands of dollars of time, marketing, and brain energy. Google acquires new people and knows their statistics for $1 a person? That's throwaway money.
YouTube now does "HD", which is quite a step up from their "SD" resolution. The horizon shows Google doing more with what they have.
YouTube, in my opinion, is Google's best acquisition. Search terms are great to know, but when you can combine that information with what a person watches, and what they say in comments, you've got a future goldmine of opportunities to create a data store for billions of people now coming online.
These corporate media researchers are clueless. Their jobs are at stake by passing on false information rather than spending man-hours discovering WHY Google is making this and many other investments that the old school thinks are senseless.
I advertise on Facebook. CPC set at $0.60. CTR is miserable (WELL under 0.1%), but impressions is gigantic (200,000 per day average). Out of those who click through (let's say 140 per day average), I get at LEAST 5 orders. 3.6% conversion. Average order profit is over $100. So Facebook ads that cost me about $85 per day (on average) get me around $550 per day profit. For no additional marketing work on my part.
I can pick sex (male, for my product), age (21-45), and even pick specific groups they're members of or keywords in their profile.
I track my Facebook clicks and offer people a $20 credit if they fill out a 15 question multiple choice review. Most do, even if they didn't buy. Every single one of them said they prefered clicking my ad than accidentally clicking an ad at Google or on a blog -- they KNEW it was an ad, and my product interested them.
Also, the retention rate of clickers-but-not-buyers is relatively high. Almost 20% of people who clicked and didn't buy DO come back to buy. So that is additional return that isn't in the figure above.
Google AdWords cost me around $100 per customer to acquire, on orders I made $110 on (on average). Facebook, OTH, costs me $20 or less per customer acquired, and I make a decent profit. There is no going back to Google AdWords for me, ever, unless I can use their data mining to target my crowd better. I've NEVER clicked an Adwords ad, but I've clicked a few Facebook ads, and even made purchases myself.