You are right, Corporations have very little interest in caring for the land per se. However, they don't want bad publicity, which is a powerful tool for watchdog groups.
Also, if you look at the version of the energy bill that passed the House, it included language to create a coordination office for the people of Kaktovik, with $1 million in funding. This office would report to Congress and be under the authority of the Borough (our verions of a count), which has the ability to shut drilling down.
So the folks that DO care about the land have some level of say over how things get done, and a million dollars to do it with.
This is a great example, one that I should have used myself.
My best friend was a drug rep for several years. We used to swap stories about our work and were often surprised by the similarities.
Big part of the drug rep's arsenal is information. If you are the educator, you control the information.
As a lobbyist, its slightly different because although you are educating, the audience you are speaking to is highly suspicious, and will never listen to you again if you mislead him/her. So you educate to explain the client's viewpoint, but you try to explain the pitfalls (adverse side effects?) as well.
And some Congressmen and women are like the next poster's mother, they don't want anything from lobbyists because it might be construed as undue influence.
Yep, though I would modify the original quote to add 'the voting box, a tip of a sabre and the barrel of a musket'.
Weird how some things never change!
I come from a state with a hard core libertarian streak, yet we lead the nation in per-capita government spending, per-capita government jobs, and royalty subsidized government.
I find myself watching in disappointment and amazement as comments roll in attacking my opening statement.
I have said it elsewhere in this discussion, but I wanted clarify my position in a separate thread.
My initial statement was strongly worded, and colored the reader's view of the rest of my answers.
I debated using my opening statement, concerned that the/. crowd would misconstrue or look with a jaundiced eye at what came later.
I contemplated pulling it, and it's clear from the tone here that I should have.
Not a single comment on Internet Sales Tax, almost nothing here about IP being a key issue for Congress.
Nope. Instead the vast majority of posters responded only to my geek call to arms.
I should have known better. As you can see from my number, I am not new to/. (Heck, it was at least a year after I started posting here that I actually registered, I was paranoid that I would get spam from registering).
I should have known better.
My apologies to those who were truly offended by the tone, but for better or worse, the sentiment is true: The government isn't evil or invisible, it responds to the interests of its people. Sometimes, your elected officials see those interests from a different perspective than the usual/.er. Oftentimes that perspective is instead the one held by the people whose jobs are affected. People ARE companies. They are shareholders, dock workers, retail store clerks and software engineers.
For those of you with jobs at companies, do you know what your own company is lobbying for?
Find out. Get involved, pay attention and work hard for issues and candidates you believe in.
I hope you take the time to read up on SSTP and other barriers to eCommerce that are headed our way.
I'll try and answer substantive questions that pop up as best I can.
Un-reconstructed southerners are always interesting.
In 1831 during his speech at Fort Hill, John C. Calhoun said essentially 'we are a nation of Sovereign States'. He repeated that thought in his 1849 'Southern Address'.
In 1861 these United States went to war to find out if Calhoun was right.
He wasn't.
In 1865 Lee surrendered, and these United States become THE United States.
Your comment about the power of the Union government to wield power over the states, and by extention smaller governmental bodies, was asked and answered.
You are free to vote for elected officals who advotate for smaller government and less government intervention. But to roll back the clock to the era of Hamilton and Jefferson isn't going to happen.
I commented that my tone in the initial post got away from me, and apologized accordingly.
Now, to your specific point about Alaska, I feel compelled to answer not as Morgan Reed from ACT, but as Morgan Reed a native of Alaska.
Non-ACT Morgan Reed has this to say about drilling in Alaska:
I believe in the right of people who possess something to make a decision about what to do with it. Do you know who owns the section of the 1002 in question? It's owned by the people who live and work there, the NATIVE people, though the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation (KIC). And to the best of my knowledge, both KIC and the City of Kaktovik, which is charged with representing all of the people who live in the area around the 1002, support reasonable use of the natural resources that they own, and have used and occupied for more than 10,000 years.
In a recent Congressional hearing in Kaktovik, many village elders spoke at length about how "the good old days" in Kaktovik were sometimes not so "good". Instead, the Kaktovimik faced hunger and uncertainty. Most lower 48ers would not survive a week above the arctic circle in the summer, much less in the winter. If they are allowed to use the resources they own, they can help mitigate that with better education for their children, better housing and a better standard of living.
So when you become paternalistic and describe how YOU think the people will feel in 50 years, you betray a near racist level of attitude toward the people of Kaktovik. The people there have seen drilling up close and personal, many of them worked in Barrow and at Prudoe Bay.
I'll trust the native people and listen to them; they know their land, and they are capable of making decisions about it.
Morgan Reed originally from Fairbanks, Alaska
Now, back to your regularly scheduled Tech lobbyist.
Yes, I agree, my tone in the first answer was a bit too "finger wagging". I gave in to the urge and let it go. So, mea culpa, the tone is too strong; but the message is still true. Geeks need to understand that the Government is not some unknowable monolith.
Pay attention to the actions of your representatives and think about how that might be doing what they perceive as "most useful" to the people they represent.
Again, you are right about the intial tone, my apologies to all who were offended.
Bad News: There is no easy way to send a page or a link directly from the browser. And by directly I mean through a person's preferred mail client (mail.app, entourage, etc.)
Good News: Right clicking on highlighted text gives you the option to copy!! A great day for me and plagiarists everywhere!
While I an sure you are an effective computer lawyer, you need to pull open a copy of the lobby registration requirements and the FEC regs regarding political action commitees before commenting. As you may already know, they are two very different and not necessarily connected animals.
As to the question of PAC costs, the "neverending myriad of laws" can be dealt with rather inexpensively. There are qualifed FEC experts that charge as little as $100 a month out of cycle and $200 month in cycle to manage the FEC compliance angle (depending on number of contributions of course). My own firm does provide this service, but only as part of a slightly more comprehensive (and therefore more expensive) proposition.
You are correct in stating that PAC contributions can be outweighed by consitutent interest, but even better is a combination of the two.
Finally, you suggest the "technology" committee as a "right committee". If you look on http://thomas.loc.gov and follow the referrals of key legislation such as the DMCA (105th Congress, S.2037 and HR 2281) and last year's HR 1554, you will note they both come out of the Judiciary Committee not the "technology" committee. I am putting technology in quotes because there is no specific technology committee.
There is an Ed and Workforce Subcommitee on 21st Century Competitiveness ; Commerce Commitee Subcommitees on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection and Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet; a Financial Services Subommittee on Domestic Monitary Policy, Technology and Economic Growth; a Government Affairs Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy; a Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property; a Science Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards and a Small Business Subcommitee on Regulatory Reform and Oversight. We have not even mentioned the powerful Ways and Means Committee and the Appropriations Committee yet and we still have the Senate side as well!
This is why you might need to hire a lobbyist if you want to get things done in Washington:)
In all seriousness, effective lobbying is not a simple task, especially when they odds are so long as they are in the case of the/. movement. It will take a dedicated lobbyist (or lobbyists) tied with an effective grassroots campaign to get anythign done. Even then, the most effective way will be to find business support, which will be hard to do.
FYI, the key committees you should be interested in are the Judiciary, both House and Senate, the Commerce Committee, House and Senate, and possibly the Ways and Means Committee if you are going to attack Internet taxation. Of course no committee is totally without power, but those two are a good starting place.
I am a Lobbyist in Washington D.C.
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As the subject states, I am a lobbyist with a firm here in Washington D.C. (you can look me up at opensecrets.org); and while much of the discussion here has the roots of a good ideas, there are some inconsistencies I have seen that should be corrected:
1. Creating an organization that can hire a lobbyist and Political Action Committee (PAC) are completely different things. A PAC is set up with the intent to pool and distribute campaign contributions to Members of Congress. Any organization can hire a lobbyist. There are some restrictions on using appropriated dollars to fund a lobbyist (commonly referred to as the Byrd rule) but otherwise, hiring a lobbyist is not a hard thing.
2. Hiring a lobbyist is expensive/cheap. You can find younger lobbyists that have recently left the Hill and are hungry to work hard for a relative pittance... but they may lack the access you need to compete against other interests. Some firms limit their monthly retainers to a minimum of $20,000 a month, others take interesting clients for much less. The costs really depend on how broad the issues dealt with are, how toxic you will become to other potential clients, how many hours the effort will take, what are the expenses (copies, dinners, cabs are important for tiny retainers) associated with it and so on.
3. Congress is already "bought" by big business. Patently not true, but I will say that the large telecommunications, software and entertainment industries have taken the time to express their concerns to Members of Congress, and to present information that suggests that, among other things, should their industry be harmed by the amorphous "open source" movement, there will be a loss of jobs in the respective congressperson's district.
4. Congress has turned a deaf ear on electronic freedom. Also not true, Congress knows of the issues, but frankly the other side makes a much more compelling case. Additionally, I do not believe some of the organizations who do work for the policies most of you express concern about operate in a politically savy mode. I know I may be shooting myself in the foot here, but I personally came up with an effective method to combatting the cybernanny software in libraries, and suggested the idea to a head of one of the non-profs here in town. Unfortunately they were so overwhelmed with issues and underwhelmed with cash, nothing was done with it. Some organizations tend to show a "zealot" side, which is not always an effective way to advocate a position.
Finally, why would an effective lobbyist work on behalf of the concepts expressed on slashdot? To get a lobbyist who knows the Members and staff of the Judiciary committee and the Commerce committee will require finding someone who probably already has connections with organizations that would oppose the "slashdot movement". Why would he make himself toxic and decrease his/her ability to put food on the table for his family for a movement that will cost him hours of time with a likely tiny reward?
Interesting about the Unix, are you implying a paid for Unix instead of a GPL *nix like Linux?
The AOL folks (man and woman to be specific) said the AOL client they were showing was for Linux. It is possible the Linux client was ported to run on a "real" Unix, but I have to wonder why.
What did you see that let you know it was Unix and not Linux or *BSD?
One other tidbit I did pick up at the show was related to whether or not they would be coming out with a 802.11b supporting device for the PS2. The Sony rep (not AOL) I asked said he didn't know, but thought he had seen them testing one. If Sony did release a WiFi adapter, that could be really useful if your stereo/TV/console is in a different room from your hub.
Just a brief note here, but at E3 (the Electronics Entertainment Expo) the Sony area had two AOL employees demonstrating AOL on the PS2 running linux. Additionally, there was an ethernet card adapter "thingie" (for lack of a better term) stuck on the back. From what I could tell, it was a production unit rather than a one-off. The demo personnel said there would be an ethernet adapter for PS2 out "soon". Unfortunately, the folks working that corner of the booth were from AOL (despite their PS2 shirts) and were not 100% familiar with Sony's plans.
"I get a lot more bang for the buck by buying a $2400 PIII system instead of buying a pricier G4 laptop."
Then you go on to present an arguably inferior system; to wit:
Ethernet: You had to buy an external PCMCIA card, you say $35 for a good 10/100 card??
Screen: You do not have the 15.2" screen, the g4 is the only beast with it (that said, I think I like the taller ones better than the wide aspect screens, but that doesn't change a thing)
Battery: If you get 8 hours on a single battery, then the g4 is likely to get the same or better. No matter how you slice it, the G4 is a lower power chip than the PIII, which is why the g4 and especially the g3 are used in embedded systems
Wireless: You would have to add a more expensive card if you wanted wireless 802.11b
Modem: The mac modem is not a winmodem. (lord help me if it has been changed and I am wrong, but AFAIK the only win-like- modems on macs were the old internal geoport things).
FireWire: You have none, to add via PCMCIA would be expensive, bringing the price of your laptop up.
Right now you are probably saying " but I don't NEED firewire or a modem or cheaper wireless", but that is based on _your_ desired featureset, and doesn't necessarily represent the best value for the money for everyone.
This is the essence of FUD, you say the pc "is better bang for the buck" even though it is not necessarily true. It may be better bang for YOUR buck, given your needs, but not in all cases. Now that you have itemized your system, the differences are comparable, and assessable.
By all accounts Apple makes really nice hardware. You pay a premium for their superior cases and motherboards. As I said in my first post, I figure you add an extra 150-250 depending on the model for the case and hardware. If you read my entire post, you will note that I specifically said that I could beat the price/performance with a pc vs. a G4; what may not have been clear was "at a cost of features"
Finally the 800PII vs. the G4: this is basically the topic of this whole question; does RISC outperform quasi-CISC. I figure that the original question lacked enough detail to accurately assess the questioner's needs, so I don't have any kind of answer:)!
From Apple's website, which does not have the best bundles for the laptops, we find this:
$2,599
1" thick
5.3 pounds
Slot load DVD
5 hour battery (lets figure it is over and call it 4 hours)
15.2 " screen
802.11b (Airport) ready, and cheaper 802.11b cards
400MHz PowerPC G4
1MB L2 cache
128MB SDRAM memory
10GB Ultra ATA drive
DVD-ROM w/DVD-Video
ATI Rage Mobility 128
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
56K internal modem
Two USB ports
One FireWire port
That said, I can come up with many PC laptops that beat the pants off that price wise. However, if the original poster is looking for speed at your home-grown number of $2400, he is better off to spring for the extra $200 for the speed and extra battery life and the big screen.
Personally, I can see several reasons to go with the PC, but the release of OSX might change that.
The OSX debate aside, the price issue is tired FUD, and not nearly as relevant as it used to be.
Figure you are getting a really cool case for an extra $150 and that would be about right.
Depending on the University policy, Dorm rooms do not have the same expectation of privacy as a home does (although there have been all sorts of debates about high school lockers).
Additionally, If they were using the Internet service provided by the university to connect to the server, the school could get to them that way.
Re:Fixing the URLs...
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Time to Fact Check the Checker.
I blew the URL's listed in my other post, so here it goes:
The question and answer session from the conference call, text and analysis from Motley Fool:
Re:Didn't MS fund Apple?
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Time for a reasonable facsimile of a fact checker to step in here.
Microsoft invested $150 Million dollars as well as settling some large lawsuits out of court with Apple. Microsoft agreed not to sell the $150-million worth of Apple stock for at least three years, and did not get any voting rights. At the time of the investment, Apple had more than 1 billion cash on hand. The 150 million investment was really more a of gesture (and has been rumored to be part of a legal settlement) than a needed cash injection.
For references see below:
The question and answer session from the conference call, text and analysis from Motley Fool:
First of all, in an act of full disclosure, I am a Washington D.C. lobbyist. I get paid to represent corporations and countries before the United States Government (you can look me up on opensecrets.org).
I have perused this/. topic many times and have been stunned by the lack of understanding of how things in Washington work. But, for the time being, let me point out that the biggest part of the problem is encapsulated in the first line quip: "tech savvy but world dumb"; and a similar statment I find true in Washington "world savvy but tech dumb"
People tend to avoid and denegrate subjects they don't fully understand or feel comfortable with. I am certain every reader can think back to an example of having a non-tech person make a disparaging, off the cuff comment about something they clearly don't have a good grasp of. I believe most of the readers who choose to avoid this topic are doing roughly the same thing. Quotes like "empty suits" and "crooks" signify a response based on discomfort due to lack of knowledge.
Most/. readers prize themselves on being knowledgable, especially about tech issues. Many readers depend on knowledge for their income. Yet, on issues involving the government, these same "knowledge workers" treat politics like the techphobic treat computers.
Fortunately or unfortunately, (and I believe fortunately) the US allows all people (over 18), even those who aren't paying attention, to vote.
I would suggest that before any reader makes a blanket statement about either party or any bill or any political issue, that you take the time to think "how much do I really know about how this bill got done?" Am I reading the full text, or am I being spun?
Be aware that pretty much anything you read on the editorial page of the newspaper, or what you hear on talk radio is spin. Read the byline of the author carefully (also understand in many cases he/she is not really the author, just a respected person whose name is being used to promote a position). Finally, imagine that the people making the decisions are overworked folks getting massive quantitites of information and trying to adequately represent the voters who put them in office.
I can tell you from here on the inside, I have rarely met, or heard of any Members of Congress of EITHER party that are really bad people. They are all just trying to represent the voters and get re-elected.
Your JOB as a US citizen to to select a representative who will adequately represent your views. It it essential that you not turn off from politics. Instead, take the time to embrace it for a few weeks, learn what you can, then check your gut. Don't be the kind of person you hate to meet who attacks your work, or calls it trivial, because they don't understand it, and are slightly fearful that they will look ignorant.
Is it really too much to ask for a few weeks every 2 or 4 years?
While the idea is massively flawed (wait six months and you get out scot free?) it has some interesting overtones. Possibly what is more interesting about it is information that has become part of the public domain by dint of the way the information is passed.
For example, an email message will never really disappear, even if the reciever and sender both delete it. The email server is backed up, and you probably have the stuff backed up on a separate computer in your office that you don't even know about.
So unlike the old days of a letter only likely having two parties, anything you send electronically is almost by definition in the public domain.
Interestingly enough, the mail has always been very protected....the whole "its a federal crime to open someone else's mail". At some point there will be a higher emphasis placed on protection of email.
I think what the judge is speaking about is not email used in the commission of a crime, but mail NOT used in a crime; email used instead in strictly the expression of ideas. And those ideas may become out of favor.
Again, history is replete with examples of this, just think of the blacklisting of folks who took an interest in socialism during the 40 and 50s. McCarthy used everything he could find against them, including old notes and roll call lists.
In my opinion, what he is speaking to is not something that is strictly found in electronic communication, but of all forms of communication.
My sense is he fears what we now refer to as "thought crimes", and while I think the spriti of what he is saying is great, there isn't much we can do legislatively, except for making some kind of admonitions against using old information without the author's permission. Unfortunately the folks most likely to punish us with that already have ways around any law like that: The fourth estate can always use first amendment protections to take illegally gained email and publish it (though some of the tobacco stuff has been interesting on this); and the government has the power of the subpoena. So basically, its a great core idea, but not a practical solution.
xeno,
Thanks, this is a well done, short and clear explanation for the masses of folks who view X windows as the gui for the Linux desktop.
There needs to be a Mac user angled FAQ for what a windows environment is, what KDE is what Gnome is and what exactly is X Windows. I believe most people don't view it as a server thing at all.
Morgan
As much of this has been hashed out over and over on/., I will just mention the basic advantage of OSX using BSD.
Software
Be rocks, Be is great, I saw Be at the first Mac show, loved it, still think it is good. I can't buy Microsoft office for it. I can't run ancient Db based DOS programs that some darn company has as an "integral part" of the business.
Yes, alternatives abound, but realistically, legacy software, retraining costs and sheer stubbornness place Be in a separate category. Unfortunately not a category with a bright future.
Even the Mac, with its 7% market share was forced to add the classic.app in order to support all the legacy software already out there, and will be forced to support OS 9.x for a long time to come.
With Be, they made a great operating system based on a clean slate. And they did a great job. Unfortunately none of us operate in a clean slate world!
OSX runs classic.app (OS9.x) and will eventually have binaries for all the major *nix based productivity software. Because of their cobbled together approach, the MIGHT just be able to get back a little ground on the Microsoft empire.
In my humble but biased opinion, Be will end up like Amiga. A great system everybody knows is better, but not too many people acutally uses.
This is not nearly the first time for one disk GUI
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Even though the article is really an attack on code bloat and the lack of true innovation that OpenSource produces (debatable, but not now), I would like to remind folks that the first widely available, publicly used, million unit selling operating system came on a floppy. An 800k floppy at that! Actually, someone correct me here, was it a 400k floppy?
The original Macintosh 128k booted from a floppy and featured no browser, but a word processor, and a paint/draw program that is essentially still the model for every major graphics program out there. Take a look at MacPaint. Notice the icons it uses for tasks. Now switch over to Photoshop or Illustrator. See the similarities?
The Word processor the same way. MacWrite is the model most GUI word processors use.
I am certain these ideas were stolen from someone, either PARC or some other great unsung genius, however, clearly the functionality has not been enhanced proportionately to the volume of lines of code. SO what happened? Features overcame form.
The article is very on target when it says that programmers would rather add features than debug. We should all respect that. That desire is what pushes innovation forward.
However, if Linus is right, the advantage of the open source model is that at least SOME debugging that would not be done by an innovator is done by the end user community.
I am very interested to see what happens with the upcoming culture clash of OSX from Apple. On one hand, it will be a feature and bug laden hack filled with unnecessary lines of code and poorly designed work arounds. By definition it has to be in order to support all the legacy software (if you think DOS support is strong, look at the legacy life of Mac software; folks are asking questions about support for apps that haven't been improved since 1987!)
On the other, the underpinnings are Darwin, which, still filled with over coding and bad form, appears to be moderately streamlined, in terms of today's space usage.
So will the OpenSource community keep Darwin clean and help keep the bugs down? Will they just build a new layer of patches? Will Apple keep the OpenSource Darwin as the bottom layer? Will the OpenSource community be able to reverse engineer the "Cocoa" layer or figure out some other way to strip the legacy MacOS code out to make a cleaner system that has a small footprint?
I don't know about everyone else, but I view OSX to be a real experiment in combining the R&D and oversight of a closed system , and the bug crunching, never satisfied nature of the OpenSource movement. I am sure there are tons of other projects combining the two, and I am sure they will all be the "next great thing" (TM) but you have to admit, this is the only one of this scale or scope.
Slashdot Mirror
You are right, Corporations have very little interest in caring for the land per se. However, they don't want bad publicity, which is a powerful tool for watchdog groups.
Also, if you look at the version of the energy bill that passed the House, it included language to create a coordination office for the people of Kaktovik, with $1 million in funding. This office would report to Congress and be under the authority of the Borough (our verions of a count), which has the ability to shut drilling down.
So the folks that DO care about the land have some level of say over how things get done, and a million dollars to do it with.
Morgan
This is a great example, one that I should have used myself.
My best friend was a drug rep for several years. We used to swap stories about our work and were often surprised by the similarities.
Big part of the drug rep's arsenal is information. If you are the educator, you control the information.
As a lobbyist, its slightly different because although you are educating, the audience you are speaking to is highly suspicious, and will never listen to you again if you mislead him/her. So you educate to explain the client's viewpoint, but you try to explain the pitfalls (adverse side effects?) as well.
And some Congressmen and women are like the next poster's mother, they don't want anything from lobbyists because it might be construed as undue influence.
Again, the drug rep is a good example, thanks
Morgan Reed
Whoops, sorry, it's in another post. I am originally from Alaska.
Morgan Reed
Yep, though I would modify the original quote to add 'the voting box, a tip of a sabre and the barrel of a musket'.
Weird how some things never change!
I come from a state with a hard core libertarian streak, yet we lead the nation in per-capita government spending, per-capita government jobs, and royalty subsidized government.
The world is a strange place.
I find myself watching in disappointment and amazement as comments roll in attacking my opening statement.
/. crowd would misconstrue or look with a jaundiced eye at what came later.
/. (Heck, it was at least a year after I started posting here that I actually registered, I was paranoid that I would get spam from registering).
/.er. Oftentimes that perspective is instead the one held by the people whose jobs are affected. People ARE companies. They are shareholders, dock workers, retail store clerks and software engineers.
I have said it elsewhere in this discussion, but I wanted clarify my position in a separate thread.
My initial statement was strongly worded, and colored the reader's view of the rest of my answers.
I debated using my opening statement, concerned that the
I contemplated pulling it, and it's clear from the tone here that I should have.
Not a single comment on Internet Sales Tax, almost nothing here about IP being a key issue for Congress.
Nope. Instead the vast majority of posters responded only to my geek call to arms.
I should have known better. As you can see from my number, I am not new to
I should have known better.
My apologies to those who were truly offended by the tone, but for better or worse, the sentiment is true: The government isn't evil or invisible, it responds to the interests of its people. Sometimes, your elected officials see those interests from a different perspective than the usual
For those of you with jobs at companies, do you know what your own company is lobbying for?
Find out. Get involved, pay attention and work hard for issues and candidates you believe in.
I hope you take the time to read up on SSTP and other barriers to eCommerce that are headed our way.
I'll try and answer substantive questions that pop up as best I can.
Morgan Reed
Un-reconstructed southerners are always interesting.
In 1831 during his speech at Fort Hill, John C. Calhoun said essentially 'we are a nation of Sovereign States'. He repeated that thought in his 1849 'Southern Address'.
In 1861 these United States went to war to find out if Calhoun was right.
He wasn't.
In 1865 Lee surrendered, and these United States become THE United States.
Your comment about the power of the Union government to wield power over the states, and by extention smaller governmental bodies, was asked and answered.
You are free to vote for elected officals who advotate for smaller government and less government intervention. But to roll back the clock to the era of Hamilton and Jefferson isn't going to happen.
Morgan Reed
I commented that my tone in the initial post got away from me, and apologized accordingly.
Now, to your specific point about Alaska, I feel compelled to answer not as Morgan Reed from ACT, but as Morgan Reed a native of Alaska.
Non-ACT Morgan Reed has this to say about drilling in Alaska:
I believe in the right of people who possess something to make a decision about what to do with it. Do you know who owns the section of the 1002 in question? It's owned by the people who live and work there, the NATIVE people, though the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation (KIC). And to the best of my knowledge, both KIC and the City of Kaktovik, which is charged with representing all of the people who live in the area around the 1002, support reasonable use of the natural resources that they own, and have used and occupied for more than 10,000 years.
In a recent Congressional hearing in Kaktovik, many village elders spoke at length about how "the good old days" in Kaktovik were sometimes not so "good". Instead, the Kaktovimik faced hunger and uncertainty. Most lower 48ers would not survive a week above the arctic circle in the summer, much less in the winter. If they are allowed to use the resources they own, they can help mitigate that with better education for their children, better housing and a better standard of living.
So when you become paternalistic and describe how YOU think the people will feel in 50 years, you betray a near racist level of attitude toward the people of Kaktovik. The people there have seen drilling up close and personal, many of them worked in Barrow and at Prudoe Bay.
I'll trust the native people and listen to them; they know their land, and they are capable of making decisions about it.
Morgan Reed
originally from Fairbanks, Alaska
Now, back to your regularly scheduled Tech lobbyist.
Yllabian Bit Pipe,
Yes, I agree, my tone in the first answer was a bit too "finger wagging". I gave in to the urge and let it go. So, mea culpa, the tone is too strong; but the message is still true. Geeks need to understand that the Government is not some unknowable monolith.
Pay attention to the actions of your representatives and think about how that might be doing what they perceive as "most useful" to the people they represent.
Again, you are right about the intial tone, my apologies to all who were offended.
Morgan Reed
Bad News:
There is no easy way to send a page or a link directly from the browser. And by directly I mean through a person's preferred mail client (mail.app, entourage, etc.)
Good News:
Right clicking on highlighted text gives you the option to copy!! A great day for me and plagiarists everywhere!
Morgan
Sir,
:)
/. movement. It will take a dedicated lobbyist (or lobbyists) tied with an effective grassroots campaign to get anythign done. Even then, the most effective way will be to find business support, which will be hard to do.
While I an sure you are an effective computer lawyer, you need to pull open a copy of the lobby registration requirements and the FEC regs regarding political action commitees before commenting. As you may already know, they are two very different and not necessarily connected animals.
As to the question of PAC costs, the "neverending myriad of laws" can be dealt with rather inexpensively. There are qualifed FEC experts that charge as little as $100 a month out of cycle and $200 month in cycle to manage the FEC compliance angle (depending on number of contributions of course). My own firm does provide this service, but only as part of a slightly more comprehensive (and therefore more expensive) proposition.
You are correct in stating that PAC contributions can be outweighed by consitutent interest, but even better is a combination of the two.
Finally, you suggest the "technology" committee as a "right committee". If you look on http://thomas.loc.gov and follow the referrals of key legislation such as the DMCA (105th Congress, S.2037 and HR 2281) and last year's HR 1554, you will note they both come out of the Judiciary Committee not the "technology" committee. I am putting technology in quotes because there is no specific technology committee.
There is an Ed and Workforce Subcommitee on 21st Century Competitiveness ; Commerce Commitee Subcommitees on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection and Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet; a Financial Services Subommittee on Domestic Monitary Policy, Technology and Economic Growth; a Government Affairs Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy; a Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property; a Science Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards and a Small Business Subcommitee on Regulatory Reform and Oversight. We have not even mentioned the powerful Ways and Means Committee and the Appropriations Committee yet and we still have the Senate side as well!
This is why you might need to hire a lobbyist if you want to get things done in Washington
In all seriousness, effective lobbying is not a simple task, especially when they odds are so long as they are in the case of the
FYI, the key committees you should be interested in are the Judiciary, both House and Senate, the Commerce Committee, House and Senate, and possibly the Ways and Means Committee if you are going to attack Internet taxation. Of course no committee is totally without power, but those two are a good starting place.
1. Creating an organization that can hire a lobbyist and Political Action Committee (PAC) are completely different things. A PAC is set up with the intent to pool and distribute campaign contributions to Members of Congress. Any organization can hire a lobbyist. There are some restrictions on using appropriated dollars to fund a lobbyist (commonly referred to as the Byrd rule) but otherwise, hiring a lobbyist is not a hard thing.
2. Hiring a lobbyist is expensive/cheap. You can find younger lobbyists that have recently left the Hill and are hungry to work hard for a relative pittance... but they may lack the access you need to compete against other interests. Some firms limit their monthly retainers to a minimum of $20,000 a month, others take interesting clients for much less. The costs really depend on how broad the issues dealt with are, how toxic you will become to other potential clients, how many hours the effort will take, what are the expenses (copies, dinners, cabs are important for tiny retainers) associated with it and so on.
3. Congress is already "bought" by big business. Patently not true, but I will say that the large telecommunications, software and entertainment industries have taken the time to express their concerns to Members of Congress, and to present information that suggests that, among other things, should their industry be harmed by the amorphous "open source" movement, there will be a loss of jobs in the respective congressperson's district.
4. Congress has turned a deaf ear on electronic freedom. Also not true, Congress knows of the issues, but frankly the other side makes a much more compelling case. Additionally, I do not believe some of the organizations who do work for the policies most of you express concern about operate in a politically savy mode. I know I may be shooting myself in the foot here, but I personally came up with an effective method to combatting the cybernanny software in libraries, and suggested the idea to a head of one of the non-profs here in town. Unfortunately they were so overwhelmed with issues and underwhelmed with cash, nothing was done with it. Some organizations tend to show a "zealot" side, which is not always an effective way to advocate a position.
Finally, why would an effective lobbyist work on behalf of the concepts expressed on slashdot? To get a lobbyist who knows the Members and staff of the Judiciary committee and the Commerce committee will require finding someone who probably already has connections with organizations that would oppose the "slashdot movement". Why would he make himself toxic and decrease his/her ability to put food on the table for his family for a movement that will cost him hours of time with a likely tiny reward?
For a more complete discussion of Washington, check out my other post at Tech savvy but world dumb is the root of the issue
Interesting about the Unix, are you implying a paid for Unix instead of a GPL *nix like Linux?
The AOL folks (man and woman to be specific) said the AOL client they were showing was for Linux. It is possible the Linux client was ported to run on a "real" Unix, but I have to wonder why.
What did you see that let you know it was Unix and not Linux or *BSD?
One other tidbit I did pick up at the show was related to whether or not they would be coming out with a 802.11b supporting device for the PS2. The Sony rep (not AOL) I asked said he didn't know, but thought he had seen them testing one. If Sony did release a WiFi adapter, that could be really useful if your stereo/TV/console is in a different room from your hub.
Morgan
Just a brief note here, but at E3 (the Electronics Entertainment Expo) the Sony area had two AOL employees demonstrating AOL on the PS2 running linux. Additionally, there was an ethernet card adapter "thingie" (for lack of a better term) stuck on the back. From what I could tell, it was a production unit rather than a one-off. The demo personnel said there would be an ethernet adapter for PS2 out "soon". Unfortunately, the folks working that corner of the booth were from AOL (despite their PS2 shirts) and were not 100% familiar with Sony's plans.
Morgan
"I get a lot more bang for the buck by buying a $2400 PIII system instead of buying a pricier G4 laptop."
Then you go on to present an arguably inferior system; to wit:
Ethernet: You had to buy an external PCMCIA card, you say $35 for a good 10/100 card??
Screen: You do not have the 15.2" screen, the g4 is the only beast with it (that said, I think I like the taller ones better than the wide aspect screens, but that doesn't change a thing)
Battery: If you get 8 hours on a single battery, then the g4 is likely to get the same or better. No matter how you slice it, the G4 is a lower power chip than the PIII, which is why the g4 and especially the g3 are used in embedded systems
Wireless: You would have to add a more expensive card if you wanted wireless 802.11b
Modem: The mac modem is not a winmodem. (lord help me if it has been changed and I am wrong, but AFAIK the only win-like- modems on macs were the old internal geoport things).
FireWire: You have none, to add via PCMCIA would be expensive, bringing the price of your laptop up.
Right now you are probably saying " but I don't NEED firewire or a modem or cheaper wireless", but that is based on _your_ desired featureset, and doesn't necessarily represent the best value for the money for everyone.
This is the essence of FUD, you say the pc "is better bang for the buck" even though it is not necessarily true. It may be better bang for YOUR buck, given your needs, but not in all cases. Now that you have itemized your system, the differences are comparable, and assessable.
By all accounts Apple makes really nice hardware. You pay a premium for their superior cases and motherboards. As I said in my first post, I figure you add an extra 150-250 depending on the model for the case and hardware. If you read my entire post, you will note that I specifically said that I could beat the price/performance with a pc vs. a G4; what may not have been clear was "at a cost of features"
Finally the 800PII vs. the G4: this is basically the topic of this whole question; does RISC outperform quasi-CISC. I figure that the original question lacked enough detail to accurately assess the questioner's needs, so I don't have any kind of answer :)!
$2,599
1" thick
5.3 pounds
Slot load DVD
5 hour battery (lets figure it is over and call it 4 hours)
15.2 " screen
802.11b (Airport) ready, and cheaper 802.11b cards
400MHz PowerPC G4
1MB L2 cache
128MB SDRAM memory
10GB Ultra ATA drive
DVD-ROM w/DVD-Video
ATI Rage Mobility 128
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
56K internal modem
Two USB ports
One FireWire port
That said, I can come up with many PC laptops that beat the pants off that price wise. However, if the original poster is looking for speed at your home-grown number of $2400, he is better off to spring for the extra $200 for the speed and extra battery life and the big screen.
Personally, I can see several reasons to go with the PC, but the release of OSX might change that.
The OSX debate aside, the price issue is tired FUD, and not nearly as relevant as it used to be.
Figure you are getting a really cool case for an extra $150 and that would be about right.
Depending on the University policy, Dorm rooms do not have the same expectation of privacy as a home does (although there have been all sorts of debates about high school lockers). Additionally, If they were using the Internet service provided by the university to connect to the server, the school could get to them that way.
I blew the URL's listed in my other post, so here it goes:
The question and answer session from the conference call, text and analysis from Motley Fool:
Motley Fool Conference call 1997
From an anti-Mac perspective
PC Mag perspective
A more neutral perspective
ZD Net Anchordesk story at the time
Microsoft invested $150 Million dollars as well as settling some large lawsuits out of court with Apple. Microsoft agreed not to sell the $150-million worth of Apple stock for at least three years, and did not get any voting rights. At the time of the investment, Apple had more than 1 billion cash on hand. The 150 million investment was really more a of gesture (and has been rumored to be part of a legal settlement) than a needed cash injection.
For references see below:
The question and answer session from the conference call, text and analysis from Motley Fool:
http://www.fool.com/Calls/1997/Calls970806AAPLAndM SFT.htm
From an anti-Mac perspective:
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/news/trends/t970806b.ht m
A more neutral perspective:
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/cgi-bin/print_stor y.cgi?story
One question though:
Who gets the product placement rights? Will it be Intel? Will he say "Intel inside"?
Will Sun make a comeback and have the child say "I am his Sun"
Maybe Moto can steal a march and have him say, "Well, it was a RISC to build me, but I think it was a success".
I have perused this /. topic many times and have been stunned by the lack of understanding of how things in Washington work. But, for the time being, let me point out that the biggest part of the problem is encapsulated in the first line quip: "tech savvy but world dumb"; and a similar statment I find true in Washington "world savvy but tech dumb"
People tend to avoid and denegrate subjects they don't fully understand or feel comfortable with. I am certain every reader can think back to an example of having a non-tech person make a disparaging, off the cuff comment about something they clearly don't have a good grasp of. I believe most of the readers who choose to avoid this topic are doing roughly the same thing. Quotes like "empty suits" and "crooks" signify a response based on discomfort due to lack of knowledge.
Most /. readers prize themselves on being knowledgable, especially about tech issues. Many readers depend on knowledge for their income. Yet, on issues involving the government, these same "knowledge workers" treat politics like the techphobic treat computers.
Fortunately or unfortunately, (and I believe fortunately) the US allows all people (over 18), even those who aren't paying attention, to vote.
I would suggest that before any reader makes a blanket statement about either party or any bill or any political issue, that you take the time to think "how much do I really know about how this bill got done?" Am I reading the full text, or am I being spun?
Be aware that pretty much anything you read on the editorial page of the newspaper, or what you hear on talk radio is spin. Read the byline of the author carefully (also understand in many cases he/she is not really the author, just a respected person whose name is being used to promote a position). Finally, imagine that the people making the decisions are overworked folks getting massive quantitites of information and trying to adequately represent the voters who put them in office.
I can tell you from here on the inside, I have rarely met, or heard of any Members of Congress of EITHER party that are really bad people. They are all just trying to represent the voters and get re-elected.
Your JOB as a US citizen to to select a representative who will adequately represent your views. It it essential that you not turn off from politics. Instead, take the time to embrace it for a few weeks, learn what you can, then check your gut. Don't be the kind of person you hate to meet who attacks your work, or calls it trivial, because they don't understand it, and are slightly fearful that they will look ignorant.
Is it really too much to ask for a few weeks every 2 or 4 years?
While the idea is massively flawed (wait six months and you get out scot free?) it has some interesting overtones. Possibly what is more interesting about it is information that has become part of the public domain by dint of the way the information is passed.
For example, an email message will never really disappear, even if the reciever and sender both delete it. The email server is backed up, and you probably have the stuff backed up on a separate computer in your office that you don't even know about.
So unlike the old days of a letter only likely having two parties, anything you send electronically is almost by definition in the public domain.
Interestingly enough, the mail has always been very protected. ...the whole "its a federal crime to open someone else's mail". At some point there will be a higher emphasis placed on protection of email.
I think what the judge is speaking about is not email used in the commission of a crime, but mail NOT used in a crime; email used instead in strictly the expression of ideas. And those ideas may become out of favor.
Again, history is replete with examples of this, just think of the blacklisting of folks who took an interest in socialism during the 40 and 50s. McCarthy used everything he could find against them, including old notes and roll call lists.
In my opinion, what he is speaking to is not something that is strictly found in electronic communication, but of all forms of communication.
My sense is he fears what we now refer to as "thought crimes", and while I think the spriti of what he is saying is great, there isn't much we can do legislatively, except for making some kind of admonitions against using old information without the author's permission. Unfortunately the folks most likely to punish us with that already have ways around any law like that: The fourth estate can always use first amendment protections to take illegally gained email and publish it (though some of the tobacco stuff has been interesting on this); and the government has the power of the subpoena. So basically, its a great core idea, but not a practical solution.
xeno,
Thanks, this is a well done, short and clear explanation for the masses of folks who view X windows as the gui for the Linux desktop.
There needs to be a Mac user angled FAQ for what a windows environment is, what KDE is what Gnome is and what exactly is X Windows. I believe most people don't view it as a server thing at all. Morgan
Software
Be rocks, Be is great, I saw Be at the first Mac show, loved it, still think it is good. I can't buy Microsoft office for it. I can't run ancient Db based DOS programs that some darn company has as an "integral part" of the business.
Yes, alternatives abound, but realistically, legacy software, retraining costs and sheer stubbornness place Be in a separate category. Unfortunately not a category with a bright future.
Even the Mac, with its 7% market share was forced to add the classic.app in order to support all the legacy software already out there, and will be forced to support OS 9.x for a long time to come.
With Be, they made a great operating system based on a clean slate. And they did a great job. Unfortunately none of us operate in a clean slate world!
OSX runs classic.app (OS9.x) and will eventually have binaries for all the major *nix based productivity software. Because of their cobbled together approach, the MIGHT just be able to get back a little ground on the Microsoft empire.
In my humble but biased opinion, Be will end up like Amiga. A great system everybody knows is better, but not too many people acutally uses.
Morgan
Well, maybe I was too :)
The original Macintosh 128k booted from a floppy and featured no browser, but a word processor, and a paint/draw program that is essentially still the model for every major graphics program out there. Take a look at MacPaint. Notice the icons it uses for tasks. Now switch over to Photoshop or Illustrator. See the similarities?
The Word processor the same way. MacWrite is the model most GUI word processors use.
I am certain these ideas were stolen from someone, either PARC or some other great unsung genius, however, clearly the functionality has not been enhanced proportionately to the volume of lines of code. SO what happened? Features overcame form.
The article is very on target when it says that programmers would rather add features than debug. We should all respect that. That desire is what pushes innovation forward.
However, if Linus is right, the advantage of the open source model is that at least SOME debugging that would not be done by an innovator is done by the end user community.
I am very interested to see what happens with the upcoming culture clash of OSX from Apple. On one hand, it will be a feature and bug laden hack filled with unnecessary lines of code and poorly designed work arounds. By definition it has to be in order to support all the legacy software (if you think DOS support is strong, look at the legacy life of Mac software; folks are asking questions about support for apps that haven't been improved since 1987!)
On the other, the underpinnings are Darwin, which, still filled with over coding and bad form, appears to be moderately streamlined, in terms of today's space usage.
So will the OpenSource community keep Darwin clean and help keep the bugs down? Will they just build a new layer of patches? Will Apple keep the OpenSource Darwin as the bottom layer? Will the OpenSource community be able to reverse engineer the "Cocoa" layer or figure out some other way to strip the legacy MacOS code out to make a cleaner system that has a small footprint?
I don't know about everyone else, but I view OSX to be a real experiment in combining the R&D and oversight of a closed system , and the bug crunching, never satisfied nature of the OpenSource movement. I am sure there are tons of other projects combining the two, and I am sure they will all be the "next great thing" (TM) but you have to admit, this is the only one of this scale or scope.