I think that the target customers for online pharmacies are people with recurring prescriptions - heart or allergy medications, where the patient is on the medication for a long time (preferably permanently) and can predict their usage. So, the need for speed isn't so acute.
I can't help wondering, though, whether this legislation is a handout to large HMOs, which often operate (or are in partnership with) mail-order prescription networks. These provide a similar service, at a discount compared with just running up to your local pharmacy - but are still quite profitable. The online pharmacies would certainly undercut them if left to their own devices.
I'm a Cato sponsor. Depending on one's sponsorship level (read: donations), we receive these. Cato publishes these sorts of briefings all the time. Typically they try to cover issues of the day from a libertarian/free-market perspective. The Internet is a hotbed of both libertarian and statist/regulatory action. Recent relevant briefings cover important policy issues like the need for strong cryptography, non-American encryption products, and the negative effect of corporate welfare on Silicon Valley.
There's an awful lot in the world of regulation that has nothing to do with tech. Cato is at the forefront of exploring free-market alternatives to social security, term limits, welfare reform, and lots and lots of other important topics. As a person closely involved with technology, I'm not always up on these other issues. Cato briefings provide some intellectual ammunition when these non-tech things come up. Lots of people with a libertarian bent come at it from other perspectives - like, say, a pro-laissez-faire-business or a free trade focus. They might not have thought privacy and anonymity issues through. I'm not influential, but maybe some of the people I talk to are. At worst, Cato papers tend to be well thought out and researched; suitable for distribution to and consumption by people who need an alternate viewpoint. Like my congressman.Who really needs one.
I assume Cato sends these to relevant policymakers too; I don't know. Cato staffmembers show up all the time on the political talk show circuit, op-ed columns, etc.
This hit about a month and a half ago, from a widely publicised article in the Journal of Neuroscience. Here's Wired's article; a bit more technical is this abstract, complete with a few pretty pictures (I love Google). I'm sure Slashdot picked it up too.
One neat thing is that research hits published journals often years after the experiments were performed. I'm sure things have progressed much since the cat experiements were done.
I'm a "consultant" (read: hourly contractor). I work about 40. On my previous gig at this same location I wasn't allowed to bill more than 40 per week, so I didn't work more than 40. Between the manager and I we worked out some informal arrangements: I had to come in on a weekend for testing, so I just stuck those hours in on Thanksgiving week, and it all came out even.
Now, on my current assignment, I routinely just punch out 40, and rarely really work much more. I don't like to watch the clock (don't like to be thought of as a clockwatcher, and can't be bothered to keep that close track of time), so I make sure I put in a minimum 8 hours, then leave when I'm ready. If they really need more than that (like, need me to come in early for a meeting or whatever), they pay more. These days I don't want to work much more than 40, so I don't. Works for me.
The salaried people don't have that option, of course.
TRS-80 games used to use the cassete port for sound. Another way to get sound out of the Trash-80 (model 1 at least, I think the others had more shielding) that we tried was to put an AM radio near the console and try different combinations of BASIC instructions inside loops. You could actually get decent spaceship effects this way.
The ultimate sound hacking I've seen involved playing music on... a Datapoint high-speed line printer - different bands of characters made different sounds. You do go thru most of a box of greenbar for each tune, but what a way to waste paper..
Google sometimes takes a while to pick things up, so if the site hasn't been around for long, wasn't linked to by much, and/or no one submitted its URL to Google, it's not surprising Google doesn't know about it.
Not just PDAs - I think typing everything does it too. Hackers are legendary for having awful handwriting. I know I do. I'm in the middle of reinstalling everything on my other box, a job I dropped last week. I made notes of all the settings on paper. Can't read a thing. I was amazed upon reinvestigation that a particular scrawl meant "Velocity". Shoulda've just used Notepad on the other box..
Despite their high prices, I see PDAs as being disposable, sort of like cell phones. They're the kinds of things you'll keep for a few years, until better tech comes along and the marketplace starts marginalizing the older stuff. You're not going to be using your Palm Pilot in 3 years. Who buys an analog cell phone anymore?
So, if 3Com sits on its high market share, no doubt that someone will come along and, over time, take it away (lighter, smaller, cheaper, flashier, cooler, reads-real-writing-instead-of-Graffiti-er, hipper, better).
Then I guess one has to wonder: I'd think a breakup would wind up eventually being a good thing for current MS shareholders all other things being equal (unlocking value and all that - look at what's happened to the Baby Bells since AT&T's divestiture, plus I'd figure the growth possibilities on MS employees' options would improve).. but all that stock being dumped, hoo boy.. maybe putting MS in the DJIA wasn't such a hot idea just now. (like it or not, many of us are MS investors thru 401k investments, funds, etc; MS is currently the single largest component of the S&P500).
.. and another thing which might be interesting if MS is broken up is the concentration of ownership of MS in relatively few hands. Unlike AT&T, which I believe was the most widely held stock on the NYSE, with no dominant shareholders at the time of the breakup, MS, while still widely held (in comparison with other/smaller tech companies), still has shareholders, such as Bill himself, with huge positions.
If MS were to be broken up, what's to prevent current large MS shareholders, like Bill and Steve Ballmer, etc., from maintaining control of the boards of the Baby Bills, and thereby maintaining the status quo by having the spinoffs collude? Forced divesiture? Does the Sherman act provide for this?
Maybe the freedom to do basic things, like participate in your government, and travel, and be educated, without submitting to search?
What freedoms do armed guards restrict?
Maybe the freedom to not be under constant evaluation by said armed guard as a potential threat? (it's a bit disconcerting when an armed man is watching your every move)
Of course it's ok just so long as those doing the metal detecting and armed guarding agree with you on what is and is not acceptable behavior. But if there's ever a difference of opinion, you're not in much of a position to do much of anything.
How do you get around that you're still (I guess) tracking the kids' behavior in a way, even though you haven't gathered anything that could really be thought of as personal, 'cause you're keeping track of them enough to stop giving them "free hits"? Wouldn't this violate the letter of the law (if not the spirit)?
Having only quickly scanned the top 25 pages or so of the PDF before getting bored (and having to get back to real work), it appears that Slashdot escapes because it's not directed at children (script kiddies aside I guess).
I didn't see (or maybe I didn't get to) the part that explains how one determines whether or not a site is "commercial", however, I'd expect that one need only look at Andover's business plan (let alone the banner ads) to answer this one.
It might also be that the people in large organizations setting the "standards" and controlling procurement also take into account the dinners at Morton's, World Series tickets, and other things that big-ticket proprietary software alesmen throw at them. Open Source solutions may be technically equivalent or better, but wheels like to be greased.
I don't know if this is that reference, but the maps they have there are cool nonetheless. All sorts of stuff, going back to the "original" ARPANET map.
actually, that was going to be my follow-on. (ooh, I'm scared! do that again!)
I can't see anything quite so extreme, but I can see how standards and protocols might be manipulated in such a way that instead of promoting openness and access, networked systems come to emphasize restrictiveness, security, and control. It doesn't even have to be officially mandated.
The various Internet protocols as they exist are well-understood, well-documented, and open. As security becomes an ever-more-serious concern, especially amongst the biggest, most powerful buyers of networked technology (governments among them, but also business entities which depend on the net for one reason or another), might insist on, and specify that their correspondents use, products which are more "secure" - and more limiting and more controlled.
Imagine, say, an environment where interprocess (and by extension interhost) communication had to be done thru an API which permitted only certain operations subject to authorization (by who/whatever) - and the set of operations was strictly limited. Sort of a computer Newspeak, where it's not possible to do dangerous things because the environment offers no way to express them.
I wonder what would happen if some script kiddies just happened to hack all the members of congress and US Senators private medical and banking records? MAybe that would change something...
Yeah, like: programming without a license becomes illegal? Ownership of hack(sic)ing tools becomes restricted ? (same way that guns have become)
There are times when it must be done, but messing with the powerful and (relatively) clueless might provoke the wrong sort of response these days.
.. of the future will be time, a clear mind with which to enjoy it, and the privacy to ensure that you won't be disturbed. The measure of how influential and powerful one is will be how little one appears to be connected. Your minions, agents, bots, and whatever will take care of the filtering, controlling, searching and organizing. Frantic wrestling with "information overload" will be the mark of a loser.
Point taken. I was thinking more of mindshare and (at least perceived) growth opportunities. Lots of "dinosaur" firms do just fine on the revenue side, but barring new revenue sources the trend tends to be downward - though it can be a long, long, long decline. How often do you hear of someone setting up a new installation and buying, say, Unisys, DG, or NCR servers? These guys might still be big revenue-wise, and might still make good hardware, but they're not in the running to grow those businesses anymore (without something happening to bump up their mindshare).
Some manage to transform themselves - hasn't Unisys become almost exclusively a service provider?
Slashdot Mirror
I think that the target customers for online pharmacies are people with recurring prescriptions - heart or allergy medications, where the patient is on the medication for a long time (preferably permanently) and can predict their usage. So, the need for speed isn't so acute.
I can't help wondering, though, whether this legislation is a handout to large HMOs, which often operate (or are in partnership with) mail-order prescription networks. These provide a similar service, at a discount compared with just running up to your local pharmacy - but are still quite profitable. The online pharmacies would certainly undercut them if left to their own devices.
I'm a Cato sponsor. Depending on one's sponsorship level (read: donations), we receive these. Cato publishes these sorts of briefings all the time. Typically they try to cover issues of the day from a libertarian/free-market perspective. The Internet is a hotbed of both libertarian and statist/regulatory action. Recent relevant briefings cover important policy issues like the need for strong cryptography, non-American encryption products, and the negative effect of corporate welfare on Silicon Valley.
There's an awful lot in the world of regulation that has nothing to do with tech. Cato is at the forefront of exploring free-market alternatives to social security, term limits, welfare reform, and lots and lots of other important topics. As a person closely involved with technology, I'm not always up on these other issues. Cato briefings provide some intellectual ammunition when these non-tech things come up. Lots of people with a libertarian bent come at it from other perspectives - like, say, a pro-laissez-faire-business or a free trade focus. They might not have thought privacy and anonymity issues through. I'm not influential, but maybe some of the people I talk to are. At worst, Cato papers tend to be well thought out and researched; suitable for distribution to and consumption by people who need an alternate viewpoint. Like my congressman.Who really needs one.
I assume Cato sends these to relevant policymakers too; I don't know. Cato staffmembers show up all the time on the political talk show circuit, op-ed columns, etc.
This hit about a month and a half ago, from a widely publicised article in the Journal of Neuroscience. Here's Wired's article; a bit more technical is this abstract, complete with a few pretty pictures (I love Google). I'm sure Slashdot picked it up too.
One neat thing is that research hits published journals often years after the experiments were performed. I'm sure things have progressed much since the cat experiements were done.
Short: sure. Easily memorizable: sure.
In some way related to what you find on the website: no. Amazon. Ebay. Yahoo. Slashdot.
I'm a "consultant" (read: hourly contractor). I work about 40. On my previous gig at this same location I wasn't allowed to bill more than 40 per week, so I didn't work more than 40. Between the manager and I we worked out some informal arrangements: I had to come in on a weekend for testing, so I just stuck those hours in on Thanksgiving week, and it all came out even.
Now, on my current assignment, I routinely just punch out 40, and rarely really work much more. I don't like to watch the clock (don't like to be thought of as a clockwatcher, and can't be bothered to keep that close track of time), so I make sure I put in a minimum 8 hours, then leave when I'm ready. If they really need more than that (like, need me to come in early for a meeting or whatever), they pay more. These days I don't want to work much more than 40, so I don't. Works for me.
The salaried people don't have that option, of course.
TRS-80 games used to use the cassete port for sound. Another way to get sound out of the Trash-80 (model 1 at least, I think the others had more shielding) that we tried was to put an AM radio near the console and try different combinations of BASIC instructions inside loops. You could actually get decent spaceship effects this way.
The ultimate sound hacking I've seen involved playing music on... a Datapoint high-speed line printer - different bands of characters made different sounds. You do go thru most of a box of greenbar for each tune, but what a way to waste paper..
Google sometimes takes a while to pick things up, so if the site hasn't been around for long, wasn't linked to by much, and/or no one submitted its URL to Google, it's not surprising Google doesn't know about it.
Not just PDAs - I think typing everything does it too. Hackers are legendary for having awful handwriting. I know I do. I'm in the middle of reinstalling everything on my other box, a job I dropped last week. I made notes of all the settings on paper. Can't read a thing. I was amazed upon reinvestigation that a particular scrawl meant "Velocity". Shoulda've just used Notepad on the other box..
Also, that volcano is what the volcano on the cover of "Dianetics" is supposed to represent.
Despite their high prices, I see PDAs as being disposable, sort of like cell phones. They're the kinds of things you'll keep for a few years, until better tech comes along and the marketplace starts marginalizing the older stuff. You're not going to be using your Palm Pilot in 3 years. Who buys an analog cell phone anymore?
So, if 3Com sits on its high market share, no doubt that someone will come along and, over time, take it away (lighter, smaller, cheaper, flashier, cooler, reads-real-writing-instead-of-Graffiti-er, hipper, better).
Then I guess one has to wonder: I'd think a breakup would wind up eventually being a good thing for current MS shareholders all other things being equal (unlocking value and all that - look at what's happened to the Baby Bells since AT&T's divestiture, plus I'd figure the growth possibilities on MS employees' options would improve).. but all that stock being dumped, hoo boy.. maybe putting MS in the DJIA wasn't such a hot idea just now. (like it or not, many of us are MS investors thru 401k investments, funds, etc; MS is currently the single largest component of the S&P500).
.. and another thing which might be interesting if MS is broken up is the concentration of ownership of MS in relatively few hands. Unlike AT&T, which I believe was the most widely held stock on the NYSE, with no dominant shareholders at the time of the breakup, MS, while still widely held (in comparison with other/smaller tech companies), still has shareholders, such as Bill himself, with huge positions.
If MS were to be broken up, what's to prevent current large MS shareholders, like Bill and Steve Ballmer, etc., from maintaining control of the boards of the Baby Bills, and thereby maintaining the status quo by having the spinoffs collude? Forced divesiture? Does the Sherman act provide for this?
.. and I love the jargon, intentional or not!
"authentification"
Sort of sums the whole process up.
Almost as entertaining is the third result on the Google result list for "more evil than satan":
www.disney.com
What freedoms do metal detectors restrict?
Maybe the freedom to do basic things, like participate in your government, and travel, and be educated, without submitting to search?
What freedoms do armed guards restrict?
Maybe the freedom to not be under constant evaluation by said armed guard as a potential threat? (it's a bit disconcerting when an armed man is watching your every move)
Of course it's ok just so long as those doing the metal detecting and armed guarding agree with you on what is and is not acceptable behavior. But if there's ever a difference of opinion, you're not in much of a position to do much of anything.
How do you get around that you're still (I guess) tracking the kids' behavior in a way, even though you haven't gathered anything that could really be thought of as personal, 'cause you're keeping track of them enough to stop giving them "free hits"? Wouldn't this violate the letter of the law (if not the spirit)?
Having only quickly scanned the top 25 pages or so of the PDF before getting bored (and having to get back to real work), it appears that Slashdot escapes because it's not directed at children (script kiddies aside I guess).
I didn't see (or maybe I didn't get to) the part that explains how one determines whether or not a site is "commercial", however, I'd expect that one need only look at Andover's business plan (let alone the banner ads) to answer this one.
(read with appropriate level of cynicism)
Make sure those hounds are carrying nice, big campaign contribution checks. Trial lawyers do.
It might also be that the people in large organizations setting the "standards" and controlling procurement also take into account the dinners at Morton's, World Series tickets, and other things that big-ticket proprietary software alesmen throw at them. Open Source solutions may be technically equivalent or better, but wheels like to be greased.
I don't know if this is that reference, but the maps they have there are cool nonetheless. All sorts of stuff, going back to the "original" ARPANET map.
actually, that was going to be my follow-on. (ooh, I'm scared! do that again!)
I can't see anything quite so extreme, but I can see how standards and protocols might be manipulated in such a way that instead of promoting openness and access, networked systems come to emphasize restrictiveness, security, and control. It doesn't even have to be officially mandated.
The various Internet protocols as they exist are well-understood, well-documented, and open. As security becomes an ever-more-serious concern, especially amongst the biggest, most powerful buyers of networked technology (governments among them, but also business entities which depend on the net for one reason or another), might insist on, and specify that their correspondents use, products which are more "secure" - and more limiting and more controlled.
Imagine, say, an environment where interprocess (and by extension interhost) communication had to be done thru an API which permitted only certain operations subject to authorization (by who/whatever) - and the set of operations was strictly limited. Sort of a computer Newspeak, where it's not possible to do dangerous things because the environment offers no way to express them.
I wonder what would happen if some script kiddies just happened to hack all the members of congress and US Senators private medical and banking records? MAybe that would change something ...
Yeah, like: programming without a license becomes illegal? Ownership of hack(sic)ing tools becomes restricted ? (same way that guns have become)
There are times when it must be done, but messing with the powerful and (relatively) clueless might provoke the wrong sort of response these days.
.. of the future will be time, a clear mind with which to enjoy it, and the privacy to ensure that you won't be disturbed. The measure of how influential and powerful one is will be how little one appears to be connected. Your minions, agents, bots, and whatever will take care of the filtering, controlling, searching and organizing. Frantic wrestling with "information overload" will be the mark of a loser.
Point taken. I was thinking more of mindshare and (at least perceived) growth opportunities. Lots of "dinosaur" firms do just fine on the revenue side, but barring new revenue sources the trend tends to be downward - though it can be a long, long, long decline. How often do you hear of someone setting up a new installation and buying, say, Unisys, DG, or NCR servers? These guys might still be big revenue-wise, and might still make good hardware, but they're not in the running to grow those businesses anymore (without something happening to bump up their mindshare).
Some manage to transform themselves - hasn't Unisys become almost exclusively a service provider?
One word: "Baring's". No bank's financial strength is beyond question.