I don't think anyone would argue that taking out the space trash is a worthwhile endeavor. But who would pay for it? Even at $10 mil for the launch, this is an expensive operation.
The BBC article quotes the developers as saying funding may come from the insurance agencies.
He said Snap has yet to find a buyer, but he expects strong interest from insurance companies, especially those responsible for high-budget projects like the International Space Station.
But I find this difficult to believe as the probability of collision (even for 65,000 pieces of junk) is still fairly remote (space is vast) and insurance agencies can most likely better secure themselves by charging larger premiums and "deductibles." Anyways, for many of these large space operations, the insurer of last resort are the federal governments. This is, IRC, the case for the Space Shuttle flights.
I think a better alternative is for major launch groups (federal governments and large private firms) to band together and institute some kind of a clean-up fee with each launch... similar to the tax applied to beverages in aluminum cans instituted in many states, countries (in California, the cash-value deposit). Then use those funds to launch these Snaps (or their competitors).
I am, for the most part, a supporter and student of the free market... but there is such a thing as market failure. And I think Space Trash is just such a case (usually occurs when property rights are not well defined... as in the case of space)
U.S. ISPs should just use the Napster defense... don't sue us, we're not the ones infringing on the patent - it's our tens of millions of users!
I'd like to see those cybersleuths come up with a list of 'hyperlink abusers', a la Metallica. They'll have to haul in the print-outs using hydraulic lifts!
Perhaps the best measure of a technological break-through's impact is through an examination of its effect on society.
The printing press broke the information monopoly owned by the Church and helped encourage independent thought and analysis among the masses.
Agricultural mechanization (cotton gin and all) allowed for the modern, urban lifestyle as it freed people from agriculutural labor and allowed them the luxury to pursue other fields
Electricity along with the light bulb changed people's perception of a day... 'night life' and 'night work' became a distinct reality
These are just a few, rash examples. But what has been the impact of the 'Digital Revolution' ?
I'm not sure... people still seem to be like people before WWW. More than anything, the Internet has brought about more convenience and maybe created more communities (like Slashdot)... but to me, so far, it looks like an extension of existing trends rather than the creation of new ones.
What the Napster scare actually reminds me most is the formal, government-led attack on copy stores (e.g. Kinko's) several years back.
For years, students have been using copy stores to copy expensive texts and journals at the fraction of their copyright-approved distribution. But after the attack, stores like Kinko's began to refuse service on full service copying (i.e. they did copying for you) on material that may be copyrighted... of course, this did not mean that students couldn't do the copying themselves at one of the self-service copy machines...
So I can see it now... government somehow manages to cower Napster into some concessions... which only leads to students having to exert a little bit more effort and find ways to circumvent these concessions... as suggested by the earlier post, maybe ICQ...
I don't think enforcement really is the issue anymore. Technology has made enforcement moot. I think the more relevant question, raised by many of the icons of open source, is whether we are seeing the demise of commercial recorded music. We'll most likely still have professional musicians... however, they will make their money through live performances rather than from sales of their recording.
I agree that Boies is a competant and succesful anti-trust laywer... his IBM defense was solid. But at the same token, an analysis of the recent hi-tech anit-trust cases including the IBM case (as well as AT&T and Xerox) shows that basically the government (regardless of prosecuter's ability) cannot win unless the firm in question has already lost.
Remember that the AT&T break-up was a consent decree (one the govt knew it could not unilaterally force)... a decree that AT&T had voluntarily adhered. Furthermore, the IBM and Xerox cases show that even with solid evidence, the government with current constitutional laws face a very uphill battle... the major obstacle being that it is very difficult to quantify 'damages' from anti-competitive activities in a hi-tech, knowledge based industry. As people argued during the MS case, how dou you measure the cost of MS 'stifling innovation' ? (Easier to do so in traditional industries where the price mark-up is easier to calculate)
Basically, MS is in the situation it is now because it was incompetant and greedy at the same time. Their expert witnesses were inadequately prepped and their anti-competitive actions were too aggresive... it is one thing to try to corner a market... another to do so blatantly and openly (its panic attack against Netscape).
So what Napster needs to get from the MS court case isn't so much Boies but a lesson in caution.
I've heard of similar background check mishaps... actually at an alarming frequency.
In fact, a background mishap happened to me. I was applying and was accepted for a position at a sensitive government institution. I assumed there would be no problem in the background check as I had nothing more serious than a traffic ticket on my record... I even pay my credit cards ontime;)
Then all of a sudden they started grilling me and even called every one of the references I gave. After several days it quieted down and I was allowedto start work. After a month or so and becomming friends with the security staff, they told me the whole story:
Supposedly, the person who was typing my records for the background check had rested his fingers on the wrong set of keys when he started typing. So when he typed my name, something else (surprisingly still pronounceable) came out!
A forgotten rule for classic Japanese Haiku, in addition to the usual 5-7-5 syllable rule, is that the Haiku must contain at least one reference to a season.
For example:
Under the blue sky
I take a dip in the pool
To wash off my sweat
Hopefully, my reference to summer is obvious enough... I admit freely, I'm no Basho
I challenge any of the serious contenders for this Haiku contest to write their code taking into consideration this 'seasonal reference' rule.
I would be interested in seeing the Haiku generated by such a code... especially since Cyberspace is rather devoid of seasons... much like most of California (hmmm, coincidence?)
Having some expertise on this matter, I'd like to clarify some of the information presented in this post
Privatised utilities can offer a far superior service to consumers given the competition built into the free market socioeconomic model, and the privatisation of utilities in countries like the UK has been an unqualified success for both consumers and utilities, allowing people to choose exaclty who offers the best deals on their gas, electricity and so on.
In the U.K., like in many European countries, the electric utilities were GOVERNMENT owned. In the U.S., most major utilities are already privately owned by investors. You can buy stock in many of these companies on the major exchanges. The main reason why Thatcher initiated U.K. privatization was to bust up the Coal Miner Union who were requiring U.K. owned electric generators to buy and use expensive (and environmentally unsound) U.K. coal for fuel stock. So it's difficult to say what degree of the success of U.K. is due to privatization and what degree to deregulation (not the same thing).
What America needs is to have more privitised utilities - look at the success we've had with our health service, it is the envy of the world with the best equipped hospitals to be found anywhere. Surely it is obvious that this success could be used elsewhere, such as in an ailing electrical market.
Already happening. At least 23 states have passed some measure of deregulation. For example, California (perhaps the state most affected and effecting the Silicon Revolution) has one of the most aggressive deregulation program with a competitive wholesale electricity market. One of the problems with the current electricity industry (mentioned in the article), large price spikes along the magnitude of $10000/MWh, is a result of deregulation... under regulation, prices were effectively regulator capped and determined. Under deregulation, firms can try to exercise market power (see Microsoft).
That said, there's also the issue of whether competition leads to better reliability. Remember, firms are just as likely to cut corners in an effort to provide 'cheaper' electrcity as they are provide better 'quality' (reliable) electricity in a competitive market...
While waiting for a Linux port for Diablo II, which may or may not happen, you might want to take a look at the inspiration for Diablo: a game that IS available for Linux (both as binary and source code), is free, fairly stable in design and coding (DevTeam thinks of everything), and perhaps best of all... PK-free!
And people thought the system requirements for Diablo II were un-demanding... this game can (almost) practically run on a floppy! Save your 500+ MB of HD space for your MP3s and your CD-ROM for the music CDs you *gasp* actually buy/burn yourself!
I find it rather amusing that the poster argues that most "intelligent and concerned consumers cannot really understand the full implications of the products they buy" yet we assume that there is some government/regulatory agency who can understand and act upon these implications for us.
No one, not even hard core academic economists, would deny that we might be better off if we had an appropriate social planner - someone who embodied the knowledge and wisdom of society as well as moral/ethical fortitude - make our decisions for us. In the academic literature, it's called the "Social Planner Solution." Heck, this idea predates as far back as at least Plato.
But the issue is: does such a Social Planner exist? Is there some group of people to whom we would trust such decision making? So what this boils down to is not so much an economics question, as a question on government.
If such a group exist, let's vote them in as benign disctators and long live a environmentally friendly, people friendly society! But if you tell me it's democracy, then let's go back to my first point... if even intelligent consumers can't tell... then how should we assume the mobocracy can! Remember, greed influences as much politicians as businessmen...
Before beating up the market, tell me a specific mechanism that is better... not just some theoretical black box. Both the environment and the economy are engineering problems, not pure science/theory.
Heck, I've got an overkill way of fixing the problem... Yahoo should just pull out of France completely! Deny access to all French IP addresses. The problem with the world is that we all expect the ideal - this is what we should strive for but not necessarily expect and impose - when in actuality we have to deal with second-best, third-best, and even sometimes fourth-best solutions. As with any censorship, limiting civil liberties type issues... the key is whether the benefits from having those liberties outweigh their cost. Do the French lose out more from people profitting from Nazi memorabilia than they gain from having a Yahoo Internet portal/service site? I swear, the Internet is either going to save us or damn us all.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think anyone would argue that taking out the space trash is a worthwhile endeavor. But who would pay for it? Even at $10 mil for the launch, this is an expensive operation.
The BBC article quotes the developers as saying funding may come from the insurance agencies.
But I find this difficult to believe as the probability of collision (even for 65,000 pieces of junk) is still fairly remote (space is vast) and insurance agencies can most likely better secure themselves by charging larger premiums and "deductibles." Anyways, for many of these large space operations, the insurer of last resort are the federal governments. This is, IRC, the case for the Space Shuttle flights.
I think a better alternative is for major launch groups (federal governments and large private firms) to band together and institute some kind of a clean-up fee with each launch ... similar to the tax applied to beverages in aluminum cans instituted in many states, countries (in California, the cash-value deposit). Then use those funds to launch these Snaps (or their competitors).
I am, for the most part, a supporter and student of the free market ... but there is such a thing as market failure. And I think Space Trash is just such a case (usually occurs when property rights are not well defined ... as in the case of space)
U.S. ISPs should just use the Napster defense ... don't sue us, we're not the ones infringing on the patent - it's our tens of millions of users!
I'd like to see those cybersleuths come up with a list of 'hyperlink abusers', a la Metallica. They'll have to haul in the print-outs using hydraulic lifts!
Perhaps the best measure of a technological break-through's impact is through an examination of its effect on society.
The printing press broke the information monopoly owned by the Church and helped encourage independent thought and analysis among the masses.
Agricultural mechanization (cotton gin and all) allowed for the modern, urban lifestyle as it freed people from agriculutural labor and allowed them the luxury to pursue other fields
Electricity along with the light bulb changed people's perception of a day ... 'night life' and 'night work' became a distinct reality
These are just a few, rash examples. But what has been the impact of the 'Digital Revolution' ?
I'm not sure ... people still seem to be like people before WWW. More than anything, the Internet has brought about more convenience and maybe created more communities (like Slashdot) ... but to me, so far, it looks like an extension of existing trends rather than the creation of new ones.
What the Napster scare actually reminds me most is the formal, government-led attack on copy stores (e.g. Kinko's) several years back.
For years, students have been using copy stores to copy expensive texts and journals at the fraction of their copyright-approved distribution. But after the attack, stores like Kinko's began to refuse service on full service copying (i.e. they did copying for you) on material that may be copyrighted ... of course, this did not mean that students couldn't do the copying themselves at one of the self-service copy machines ...
So I can see it now ... government somehow manages to cower Napster into some concessions ... which only leads to students having to exert a little bit more effort and find ways to circumvent these concessions ... as suggested by the earlier post, maybe ICQ ...
I don't think enforcement really is the issue anymore. Technology has made enforcement moot. I think the more relevant question, raised by many of the icons of open source, is whether we are seeing the demise of commercial recorded music. We'll most likely still have professional musicians ... however, they will make their money through live performances rather than from sales of their recording.
I agree that Boies is a competant and succesful anti-trust laywer ... his IBM defense was solid. But at the same token, an analysis of the recent hi-tech anit-trust cases including the IBM case (as well as AT&T and Xerox) shows that basically the government (regardless of prosecuter's ability) cannot win unless the firm in question has already lost.
Remember that the AT&T break-up was a consent decree (one the govt knew it could not unilaterally force) ... a decree that AT&T had voluntarily adhered. Furthermore, the IBM and Xerox cases show that even with solid evidence, the government with current constitutional laws face a very uphill battle ... the major obstacle being that it is very difficult to quantify 'damages' from anti-competitive activities in a hi-tech, knowledge based industry. As people argued during the MS case, how dou you measure the cost of MS 'stifling innovation' ? (Easier to do so in traditional industries where the price mark-up is easier to calculate)
Basically, MS is in the situation it is now because it was incompetant and greedy at the same time. Their expert witnesses were inadequately prepped and their anti-competitive actions were too aggresive ... it is one thing to try to corner a market ... another to do so blatantly and openly (its panic attack against Netscape).
So what Napster needs to get from the MS court case isn't so much Boies but a lesson in caution.
I've heard of similar background check mishaps ... actually at an alarming frequency.
In fact, a background mishap happened to me. I was applying and was accepted for a position at a sensitive government institution. I assumed there would be no problem in the background check as I had nothing more serious than a traffic ticket on my record ... I even pay my credit cards ontime ;)
Then all of a sudden they started grilling me and even called every one of the references I gave. After several days it quieted down and I was allowedto start work. After a month or so and becomming friends with the security staff, they told me the whole story:
Supposedly, the person who was typing my records for the background check had rested his fingers on the wrong set of keys when he started typing. So when he typed my name, something else (surprisingly still pronounceable) came out!
A forgotten rule for classic Japanese Haiku, in addition to the usual 5-7-5 syllable rule, is that the Haiku must contain at least one reference to a season.
For example:
Under the blue sky
I take a dip in the pool
To wash off my sweat
Hopefully, my reference to summer is obvious enough ... I admit freely, I'm no Basho
I challenge any of the serious contenders for this Haiku contest to write their code taking into consideration this 'seasonal reference' rule.
I would be interested in seeing the Haiku generated by such a code ... especially since Cyberspace is rather devoid of seasons ... much like most of California (hmmm, coincidence?)
Having some expertise on this matter, I'd like to clarify some of the information presented in this post
Privatised utilities can offer a far superior service to consumers given the competition built into the free market socioeconomic model, and the privatisation of utilities in countries like the UK has been an unqualified success for both consumers and utilities, allowing people to choose exaclty who offers the best deals on their gas, electricity and so on.
In the U.K., like in many European countries, the electric utilities were GOVERNMENT owned. In the U.S., most major utilities are already privately owned by investors. You can buy stock in many of these companies on the major exchanges. The main reason why Thatcher initiated U.K. privatization was to bust up the Coal Miner Union who were requiring U.K. owned electric generators to buy and use expensive (and environmentally unsound) U.K. coal for fuel stock. So it's difficult to say what degree of the success of U.K. is due to privatization and what degree to deregulation (not the same thing).
What America needs is to have more privitised utilities - look at the success we've had with our health service, it is the envy of the world with the best equipped hospitals to be found anywhere. Surely it is obvious that this success could be used elsewhere, such as in an ailing electrical market.
Already happening. At least 23 states have passed some measure of deregulation. For example, California (perhaps the state most affected and effecting the Silicon Revolution) has one of the most aggressive deregulation program with a competitive wholesale electricity market. One of the problems with the current electricity industry (mentioned in the article), large price spikes along the magnitude of $10000/MWh, is a result of deregulation ... under regulation, prices were effectively regulator capped and determined. Under deregulation, firms can try to exercise market power (see Microsoft).
That said, there's also the issue of whether competition leads to better reliability. Remember, firms are just as likely to cut corners in an effort to provide 'cheaper' electrcity as they are provide better 'quality' (reliable) electricity in a competitive market ...
While waiting for a Linux port for Diablo II, which may or may not happen, you might want to take a look at the inspiration for Diablo: a game that IS available for Linux (both as binary and source code), is free, fairly stable in design and coding (DevTeam thinks of everything), and perhaps best of all ... PK-free!
And people thought the system requirements for Diablo II were un-demanding ... this game can (almost) practically run on a floppy! Save your 500+ MB of HD space for your MP3s and your CD-ROM for the music CDs you *gasp* actually buy/burn yourself!
NetHack 3.3.0 ... available at www.nethack.org
I find it rather amusing that the poster argues that most "intelligent and concerned consumers cannot really understand the full implications of the products they buy" yet we assume that there is some government/regulatory agency who can understand and act upon these implications for us.
No one, not even hard core academic economists, would deny that we might be better off if we had an appropriate social planner - someone who embodied the knowledge and wisdom of society as well as moral/ethical fortitude - make our decisions for us. In the academic literature, it's called the "Social Planner Solution." Heck, this idea predates as far back as at least Plato.
But the issue is: does such a Social Planner exist? Is there some group of people to whom we would trust such decision making? So what this boils down to is not so much an economics question, as a question on government.
If such a group exist, let's vote them in as benign disctators and long live a environmentally friendly, people friendly society! But if you tell me it's democracy, then let's go back to my first point ... if even intelligent consumers can't tell ... then how should we assume the mobocracy can! Remember, greed influences as much politicians as businessmen ...
Before beating up the market, tell me a specific mechanism that is better ... not just some theoretical black box. Both the environment and the economy are engineering problems, not pure science/theory.
Heck, I've got an overkill way of fixing the problem ... Yahoo should just pull out of France completely! Deny access to all French IP addresses. The problem with the world is that we all expect the ideal - this is what we should strive for but not necessarily expect and impose - when in actuality we have to deal with second-best, third-best, and even sometimes fourth-best solutions. As with any censorship, limiting civil liberties type issues ... the key is whether the benefits from having those liberties outweigh their cost. Do the French lose out more from people profitting from Nazi memorabilia than they gain from having a Yahoo Internet portal/service site? I swear, the Internet is either going to save us or damn us all.