It's nice to see that in a country where citizens debate principles on both sides of an issue with global ramifications... that congress reps first thoughts are still, "Mmmm... pork... " *drool*
Maybe we should get our rebuilding plans for oil production, water treatment, and transportation infrastructure taken care of first? Hey, maybe we can get DRM established there -- we can shape the future of the Middle East, and then the world!
Ham said that he views WLANs as a stopgap measure and that police departments around the country need additional WAN spectrum... large police departments would eventually need to buy wideband WAN service from commercial cellular carriers
I think this guy's got the right idea, deploying wireless stuff around police stations... but the article focuses on 802.11b when 802.11g is supposed to offer a substantial boost in performance -- can't they just upgrade their equipment when 11g gets stable instead of having to use up other parts of the spectrum?
In explaining the mission of our soldiers, we can't do any better than Major-General J.N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division now heading somewhere into Iraq. Here is what he told his troops in his "Message to All Hands" on the eve of war:
"For decades, Saddam Hussein has tortured, imprisoned, raped and murdered the Iraqi people; invaded neighboring countries without provocation; and threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction. The time has come to end his reign of terror. On your young shoulders rest the hopes of mankind.
"When I give you the word, together we will cross the Line of Departure, close with those forces that choose to fight, and destroy them. Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi army who choose to surrender. While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam's oppression.
"Chemical attack, treachery, and use of the innocent as human shields can be expected, as can other unethical tactics. Take it all in stride. Be the hunter, not the hunted: Never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down. Use good judgment and act in best interests of our Nation.
"You are part of the world's most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each other as we enter the uncertain terrain north of the Line of Departure. Keep faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine Air overhead. Fight with a happy heart and strong spirit.
"For the mission's sake, our country's sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division's colors in past battles -- who fought for life and never lost their nerve -- carry out your mission and keep your honor clean. Demonstrate to the world there is 'No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy' than a U.S. Marine."
I strongly believe that the interest on loans used to finance an education to make you a more productive member of society should be a fully deductible expense. If your net is the same as a person making $10K (although I seriously doubt that), you should pay the same amount of tax, all other things being equal.
However, you have more to lose from the crumbling of modern society. You were able to secure loans to finance your education. You were able to attend schools that prepared you for college. Heck, you *own your home* (albeit with a big mortgage). Does this make you or any other successful person necessarily evil? Of course not!
But if you think it sucks getting taxed at a higher rate for making more money, try being poor *without* access to the opportunities that your hard work took advantage of.
The people who are most interested in gaining power are those who wish to control others
FALSE. In the US, people run as Democrats to try to *prevent* Republicans from controlling others (Ideologically, Republicans want to do this by reducing the size of government through tax cuts even at the risk of damaging social programs that form the safety net of a moral, democratic society are undermined)
People run as Republicans to *prevent* Democrats from controlling others (Ideologically, Democrats want to do this by regulating industries, opposing tort reform, and creating new social programs to benefit even the poorest citizen, even at the risk of stifling economic growth that can eventually raise the living standards of all.)
At one point, Rand's objectivism had its appeal to me, but at some point you have to realize that real life is about respecting the philosophical arguments behind individualism and collectivism and then finding the right balance and working to achieve it.
"In the comfort of being digital, we forget the enormous leverage a single Net connection provides to, say, a rural primary school in one of the hundred poorest nations. In these places, there are no libraries and almost no books; the schoolhouse is sometimes a tree. To suddenly have access to the world's libraries - even at 4,800 bits per second - is a change of such magnitude that there is no way to understand it from the privileged position of the developed world.
But the [rest of the world] understands. World leaders realize that the most precious natural resource of any country is its children, and that the digital world is key to education. For this reason, development is starting not only to include but to mean telecommunications."
To be fair, Negroponte got the 'how' wrong (he thought satellites would provide cheap internet access), but the why is spot on. People talk about how you can't leapfrog 50-200 years of development to catch up to the industrialized world... but third-world countries can't wait around -- they *must* find ways to accelerate the process and skip stages (like the industrial revolution, perhaps) in order to build an economy to support their citizens.
We talk about helping the poor in the US or in Europe... you want to see poverty? Get to the rural areas of Asian countries. Do whatever you want with your money -- but at least hope the project or something like it will somehow succeed.
"a process for encrypting data and representing the result in XML. The data may be arbitrary data (including an XML document), an XML element, or XML element content. The result of encrypting data is an XML Encryption element which contains or references the cipher data."
The article offers some neat ideas about the strategic area various companies focus on...
HP: hardware, I guess (after merging with Compaq, I don't know what their strategy is -- I hope they're planning on more than economies of scale chasing after commodity hardware markets)
IBM: long ago it was PCs before Microsoft changed the rules on them. Now it's consulting, and they're hoping to press forward by helping everyone implement 'free' software solutions in a way that improves business bottom lines. HPQ has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to beat IBM at this game.
Microsoft: Windows and Office has carried them far, but now it seems like their strategy is to throw stuff at the walls and point to whatever sticks and say, "We did that -- we're still innovative and capable of leading the industry." XBox, set-top boxes/Ultimate TV, mobile phones, PocketPCs, embedded Windows... sheesh. On second thought, I guess they deliver value by making sure whatever they do integrates well with their monopoly product. It worked for AT&T, for a while. But people finally got tired of it.
Apple has the right idea. Their current ad campaign talks about switching -- how you can do the same things on a Mac as a PC, except on a Mac it's easier. This tries to make software a commodity while keeping the UI separate (not the core OS, Apple wants that to be a commodity, too). It also emphasizes that it's easy to switch -- low switching costs are really, really important.
Apple's core advantage is the amount of integration it can offer between hardware and software. It looks like they're trying to de-emphasize anything that's purely software (unix, apache, browser, for sure... but office suites and other applications, too) in favor of solutions that require hardware and software to work together well (iPhoto and digital cameras, iTunes and iPod, Airport's WiFi support).
The only problem is that Apple is still going it alone on some of their hardware components -- maybe because they've decided they can't make money trying to offer the same ease of use and integration across so many possible hardware configurations. Such a task either represents a real opportunity for the open source community, or a black hole of wasted effort trying to keep up. I'm not really sure which.
and to consider a number of strategies to use the US government's purchasing power to promote competition and make Microsoft behave;
But this, no no no. This is still a judicial matter, and any penalty against MS is going to be determined in court. An executive agency would be way overstepping its bounds here.
I disagree. While Microsoft's misconduct *is* a judicial matter, the United States government can participate in the market just like any other entity.
Automakers like the Big Three do this all the time to auto suppliers, even large suppliers, because they have *huge* purchasing power. Automakers will split their purchases across a variety of suppliers for the same part to spur competition, drive down prices, and basically to keep options open in case one supplier or another comes up with some breakthrough cost reduction or technology improvement.
In fact, MBAs study purchasing power as one aspect of Porter's five forces to determine how fast a firm in an industry can grow (what kind of stock returns it may show). In addition to purchasing power (buyer power), there are
Supplier Power (can affect anyone who builds their technology on top of Microsoft's proprietary technologies)
Threat of substitutes (Microsoft's fear of Linux will increase as the cost of switching to Linux decreases)
Barriers to entry (usually pretty low in the tech industry generally, but companies can build these over time by having better technology (cool) or by lobbying for laws that make it harder for companies to compete against them (not cool, unless you own stock in the current market leader))
Rivalry (how fiercely the existing firms compete -- the bursting of the tech bubble cut the number of competitors, but those who are left are fighting hard... although it sometimes seems that Microsoft is escaping this effect)
Combined, these factors represent capitalism at work, to the potential detriment of Microsoft and to the potential benefit of the rest of the market.
Going back to just the application of purchasing power, this may be a good idea for the government if the goal is to protect itself from risks, enhance efficiency, and all the other good parts of a market orientation. This is a bad idea if the goal is to 'screw Microsoft' or otherwise achieve political ends -- presented that way, you'll have all kinds of companies pestering the government to 'spur competition' in their neck of the woods.
The US gets more oil from Alberta than it gets from Saudi Arabia... yet watch the fascinating ass kissing...
This page lists imports as percentage of U.S. consumption by country: Canada 9.27% Venezuela 8.06% Saudi Arabia 8.06% Mexico 7.04% Nigeria 4.59% Iraq 3.18% (Iraq? WTF? "Once you go Iraqi, you never go backy" -- Jon Stewart)
The problem is that oil is sold in a global market, and supply problems in one or several countries (instability in the Middle East) drive up the prices that everybody pays for oil. Given how massive US consumption is, rising oil prices suck money right out of the economy, depressing growth or even causing recessions (1990). Thus, it's not odd to see the US take such inconsistent positions in the Middle East (democratic governments for all, right?) -- it just shows how vulnerable the US is and will continue to be until we start to lead the world into the future of energy instead of being dragged along.
Sums it up nicely: In the courtroom at the stand... Gates: The proposed restrictions are too severe! Gates: If they're imposed, I bet we'll have to stop selling Windows altogether! Judge (banging gavel): Order in the court. Judge: Everybody put your money away. I don't think Mr. Gates was literally offering that bet. (Standard Tom Toles Small Print -- Gates: You can't give our competitors our most valuable asset... an unfair advantage.)
A slightly different angle on this is available in an older Register article from last July, "MS poised to switch Windows file systems with Blackcomb." From the article:
From a historical perspective, the vision of Cairo will have truly come full circle. Back then, Microsoft promised a proper directory service, messaging, cross-machine working, a fluid and customisable user interface experience, and unified storage. Active Directory gives the first, Exchange Server gives the second, Common Runtime/SOAP/ XML gives the third, HTML/XML/XSL/IE gives the fourth, and Yukon's children give the latter.
For all their illegal business practices, Microsoft's one-stop shop approach (integrating/co-opting standards when necessary/appropriate) makes them tough to beat. I just hope it's like the Mac commercial where the last line from Big Brother is "We shall prevail..."
I see it as a way to indirectly fund Slash development. New features for subscribers --> new features for those who who use their free software. (Although I guess the 2nd edition of Running Weblogs with Slash will be required sooner than expected.)
I'll see how long the 1000 pageviews last, and go from there. Between NPR, Wall Street Journal Online, and Slashdot, I'm paying for content in several places but I'm getting my money's worth.
I like Slashdot because I don't have to waste my time reading crap (unless I'm moderating). I like Amazon because there are usually enough decent reviews ranked by usefulness to make my shopping experience easier. But I don't think I'd pay Amazon for the privilege of reading user reviews. It's still apples and oranges, though, because I can still get the content free but with annoying ads.
It would be nice to reward those who contribute to the site's success... the only problem is that karma alone is a truly bad way to decide who's contributing enough to be worth rewarding.
I'd say trying to acquire stuff falls under 'pursuit of happiness.' Private property might fall under that or under 'liberty.' You could argue that capitalism is moral in that competition and market forces work to supply people with an optimal set of goods and services for an optimal cost.
Still, the center is exactly wrong about Microsoft. There abuse of monopoly power is what abridges the rights of others to participate in a market economy. One of the key duties of government is to address market failures that can arise under capitalism. We can (and do) argue about what failures to address and how, but you can't just pull government out of the equation.
How about we give everyone (-1 extremist) mod points? Then the two sides can blow each other away, leaving the stuff in the middle for people to discuss further.
I'd say a free press is strong if it can expose problems and scandals in government and criticize officials without fear of imprisonment.
As for the rise of Hitler, I guess I don't have a good answer. Brin's position rests on a belief that the masses don't get enough credit, that they can do just fine if given enough power. But you're right, Hitler was elected by the German people and somehow got elections stopped after that -- I thought perhaps the 'rule of law' would imply a judiciary that can stop an overly exuberant executive branch... not counting Bush's election victory (although while I disagree with many of his policies, I *don't* equate the Bush administration with the Third Reich). I still don't know how the Holocaust could have been allowed to happen, and my deepest hope is that we're a smarter species now.
(Counterpoint: "Then don't equivocate while they take away our rights!!" My answer: "True, but which rights have what priority? I still claim the first amendment, while not absolute, should carry the most weight.")
Either way it seems like we either need to (a) fight for an active, well-informed populace, or (b) fight to put the 'good guys' in power (whoever that may be).
Brin's argument assumes a truly awful government will never be elected or take power by coup.
I think a *truly* awful government (I suppose we should define what that is) cannot be elected in a country with a strong free press.
I think power by coup can only occur in countries that lack respect for the rule of law.
In both respects, maybe *I* need a history lesson. But I hope that the US, as well as most other industrialized nations, possess at least these two things.
NYTimes article has more stuff to it
on
Woz's New Startup
·
· Score: 5, Informative
... It plans to have its first products finished sometime next year..... By driving down the cost of G.P.S. technology, the company says, it expects to help "everyday people track everyday things."... It is the first start-up venture for Mr. Wozniak since he closed his previous company, Cloud 9, a maker of high-end consumer remote control devices, in 1988.
While Mr. Jobs went on to found Next Inc., bought Pixar (news/quote), and then returned to Apple as its chief executive in 1997, Mr. Wozniak, now 51, has largely remained on the sidelines. That has made him unusual in a hothouse business and technology culture that is characterized by serial entrepreneurs, few of them walking away after either success or failure. Instead, he has occupied himself with private investments and has taught computer education for elementary through high school students in the Los Gatos, Calif., school district, where he lives.
The new company will not initially announce what products it is planning and Mr. Wozniak said this week it was likely that it would not at first market its own products. It will instead seek licensing and marketing arrangements with other consumer electronics and related companies.
He said one goal was to take technologies that are now costly and reduce them in price so they could be sold in consumer markets....
Mr. Wozniak said he had enjoyed simply being a consumer of new technologies for more than a decade. But last year, a friend visited and began talking about an idea that used G.P.S. in a strange way and he found himself excited by the prospects of doing something with this.
"Sometimes I say that and I'm not really serious," he remarked, "but this time I was really serious."
...
Mr. Galanos said his firm had been excited about both the company's technology idea and the possibility of backing Mr. Wozniak.
"After all how many times will Steve jump on something new again?" he said.
According to the print edition of the Wall Street Journal, the cost of the software would be the educational license cost, not the full retail value.
Still a lot more than the true incremental unit cost, but at least the schools get some more copies out of the deal.
If the choice were between $5 checks for everyone in the class action, and equipment and training for teachers and schools, I'd say the equipment/training is a better deal. Better something than nothing -- and who's to say that these people, once trained, might not in the future be ready to switch to another operating system?
In never-gonna-happen land, I'd love to see MS hit with a penalty similar to what the tobacco companies now faced... imagine taking a chunk of MS cash and funding FSF or some separate foundation for creating free software. That'd be cool.
That depends. IANAJP, but one of the.NET features is being able to inherit from and extend classes written in other languages. It's not enough to have Perl and Python ported to JVM, you need to be able to extend someone's Perl widget from your Python code.
Maybe beans already provide this? (Remember, not just using someone else's component, but actually building stuff on top of it.)
When I was in 9th grade, I had an Apple IIc that had a hardware toggle switch to go between dvorak / qwerty (then I had to pry off and reapply all the caps. The typing program I had (Typing Tutor IV?) let me learn in either style.
At the time, it took me a little over a week before I was typing faster in Dvorak, but then I (not knowing anything about ergo at the time) decided to switch back a few months later since it seemed like nobody else had dvorak layouts. It did not take long to regain qwerty typing speed (less than a week).
I guess I'm just saying that the learning curve was not that great, and nowadays the stakes are higher than just 'faster typing speed.' (Of course, this was back when I was young and mentally flexible... now that I'm old and decrepit maybe I should try it out and see just how ingrained my muscle memories are...)
The number of potential chess moves exceeds the number of atoms in the universe.
So it's as possible as extracting the works of Shakespeare from the set of all possible C-strings less than (insert number of characters in longest play) characters long.
Check out www.consumerreports.org... $24 a year, making (last I heard) enough to cover their online presence. They're not getting rich, but they've got their service out there...
For the same reason people give to National Public Radio -- they want to support content they like without forcing the stations to resort to ads.
Not that there's anything wrong with blockers, Tivo, et al. It's just more user choice to make ad-free subs available, which is a good thing. A subscription is better than letting Amazon get a chunk through their honor program or whatever...
When I went to add up the numbers on the pdf document, I only found two discrepancies:
1) The 2000 total was $700K higher than listed
2) The listed 1998 total included the DVD total, even though the chart notes that DVD product is included in the Music Video total.
Other than that, when I added up the dollar values (*not* the units shipped), everything seems to add up...
Let's make sure we don't leave any weaknesses in our analysis of RIAA-spin...
Slashdot Mirror
It's nice to see that in a country where citizens debate principles on both sides of an issue with global ramifications ... that congress reps first thoughts are still, "Mmmm ... pork ... " *drool*
Maybe we should get our rebuilding plans for oil production, water treatment, and transportation infrastructure taken care of first? Hey, maybe we can get DRM established there -- we can shape the future of the Middle East, and then the world!
Ham said that he views WLANs as a stopgap measure and that police departments around the country need additional WAN spectrum ... large police departments would eventually need to buy wideband WAN service from commercial cellular carriers
... but the article focuses on 802.11b when 802.11g is supposed to offer a substantial boost in performance -- can't they just upgrade their equipment when 11g gets stable instead of having to use up other parts of the spectrum?
I think this guy's got the right idea, deploying wireless stuff around police stations
(Care of the Wall Street Journal ...)
In explaining the mission of our soldiers, we can't do any better than Major-General J.N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division now heading somewhere into Iraq. Here is what he told his troops in his "Message to All Hands" on the eve of war:
"For decades, Saddam Hussein has tortured, imprisoned, raped and murdered the Iraqi people; invaded neighboring countries without provocation; and threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction. The time has come to end his reign of terror. On your young shoulders rest the hopes of mankind.
"When I give you the word, together we will cross the Line of Departure, close with those forces that choose to fight, and destroy them. Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi army who choose to surrender. While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam's oppression.
"Chemical attack, treachery, and use of the innocent as human shields can be expected, as can other unethical tactics. Take it all in stride. Be the hunter, not the hunted: Never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down. Use good judgment and act in best interests of our Nation.
"You are part of the world's most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each other as we enter the uncertain terrain north of the Line of Departure. Keep faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine Air overhead. Fight with a happy heart and strong spirit.
"For the mission's sake, our country's sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division's colors in past battles -- who fought for life and never lost their nerve -- carry out your mission and keep your honor clean. Demonstrate to the world there is 'No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy' than a U.S. Marine."
I strongly believe that the interest on loans used to finance an education to make you a more productive member of society should be a fully deductible expense. If your net is the same as a person making $10K (although I seriously doubt that), you should pay the same amount of tax, all other things being equal.
However, you have more to lose from the crumbling of modern society. You were able to secure loans to finance your education. You were able to attend schools that prepared you for college. Heck, you *own your home* (albeit with a big mortgage). Does this make you or any other successful person necessarily evil? Of course not!
But if you think it sucks getting taxed at a higher rate for making more money, try being poor *without* access to the opportunities that your hard work took advantage of.
The people who are most interested in gaining power are those who wish to control others
FALSE. In the US, people run as Democrats to try to *prevent* Republicans from controlling others (Ideologically, Republicans want to do this by reducing the size of government through tax cuts even at the risk of damaging social programs that form the safety net of a moral, democratic society are undermined)
People run as Republicans to *prevent* Democrats from controlling others (Ideologically, Democrats want to do this by regulating industries, opposing tort reform, and creating new social programs to benefit even the poorest citizen, even at the risk of stifling economic growth that can eventually raise the living standards of all.)
At one point, Rand's objectivism had its appeal to me, but at some point you have to realize that real life is about respecting the philosophical arguments behind individualism and collectivism and then finding the right balance and working to achieve it.
(http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired/WIRED
To be fair, Negroponte got the 'how' wrong (he thought satellites would provide cheap internet access), but the why is spot on. People talk about how you can't leapfrog 50-200 years of development to catch up to the industrialized world
We talk about helping the poor in the US or in Europe
Apple has the right idea. Their current ad campaign talks about switching -- how you can do the same things on a Mac as a PC, except on a Mac it's easier. This tries to make software a commodity while keeping the UI separate (not the core OS, Apple wants that to be a commodity, too). It also emphasizes that it's easy to switch -- low switching costs are really, really important.
Apple's core advantage is the amount of integration it can offer between hardware and software. It looks like they're trying to de-emphasize anything that's purely software (unix, apache, browser, for sure
The only problem is that Apple is still going it alone on some of their hardware components -- maybe because they've decided they can't make money trying to offer the same ease of use and integration across so many possible hardware configurations. Such a task either represents a real opportunity for the open source community, or a black hole of wasted effort trying to keep up. I'm not really sure which.
I disagree. While Microsoft's misconduct *is* a judicial matter, the United States government can participate in the market just like any other entity.
Automakers like the Big Three do this all the time to auto suppliers, even large suppliers, because they have *huge* purchasing power. Automakers will split their purchases across a variety of suppliers for the same part to spur competition, drive down prices, and basically to keep options open in case one supplier or another comes up with some breakthrough cost reduction or technology improvement.
In fact, MBAs study purchasing power as one aspect of Porter's five forces to determine how fast a firm in an industry can grow (what kind of stock returns it may show). In addition to purchasing power (buyer power), there are
Combined, these factors represent capitalism at work, to the potential detriment of Microsoft and to the potential benefit of the rest of the market.
Going back to just the application of purchasing power, this may be a good idea for the government if the goal is to protect itself from risks, enhance efficiency, and all the other good parts of a market orientation. This is a bad idea if the goal is to 'screw Microsoft' or otherwise achieve political ends -- presented that way, you'll have all kinds of companies pestering the government to 'spur competition' in their neck of the woods.
This page lists imports as percentage of U.S. consumption by country:
Canada 9.27%
Venezuela 8.06%
Saudi Arabia 8.06%
Mexico 7.04%
Nigeria 4.59%
Iraq 3.18% (Iraq? WTF? "Once you go Iraqi, you never go backy" -- Jon Stewart)
The problem is that oil is sold in a global market, and supply problems in one or several countries (instability in the Middle East) drive up the prices that everybody pays for oil. Given how massive US consumption is, rising oil prices suck money right out of the economy, depressing growth or even causing recessions (1990). Thus, it's not odd to see the US take such inconsistent positions in the Middle East (democratic governments for all, right?) -- it just shows how vulnerable the US is and will continue to be until we start to lead the world into the future of energy instead of being dragged along.
Sums it up nicely: ... ... an unfair advantage.)
In the courtroom at the stand
Gates: The proposed restrictions are too severe!
Gates: If they're imposed, I bet we'll have to stop selling Windows altogether!
Judge (banging gavel): Order in the court.
Judge: Everybody put your money away. I don't think Mr. Gates was literally offering that bet.
(Standard Tom Toles Small Print -- Gates: You can't give our competitors our most valuable asset
... right before the sledgehammer hits.
I see it as a way to indirectly fund Slash development. New features for subscribers --> new features for those who who use their free software. (Although I guess the 2nd edition of Running Weblogs with Slash will be required sooner than expected.)
... the only problem is that karma alone is a truly bad way to decide who's contributing enough to be worth rewarding.
I'll see how long the 1000 pageviews last, and go from there. Between NPR, Wall Street Journal Online, and Slashdot, I'm paying for content in several places but I'm getting my money's worth.
I like Slashdot because I don't have to waste my time reading crap (unless I'm moderating). I like Amazon because there are usually enough decent reviews ranked by usefulness to make my shopping experience easier. But I don't think I'd pay Amazon for the privilege of reading user reviews. It's still apples and oranges, though, because I can still get the content free but with annoying ads.
It would be nice to reward those who contribute to the site's success
I'd say trying to acquire stuff falls under 'pursuit of happiness.' Private property might fall under that or under 'liberty.' You could argue that capitalism is moral in that competition and market forces work to supply people with an optimal set of goods and services for an optimal cost.
Still, the center is exactly wrong about Microsoft. There abuse of monopoly power is what abridges the rights of others to participate in a market economy. One of the key duties of government is to address market failures that can arise under capitalism. We can (and do) argue about what failures to address and how, but you can't just pull government out of the equation.
How about we give everyone (-1 extremist) mod points? Then the two sides can blow each other away, leaving the stuff in the middle for people to discuss further.
I'd say a free press is strong if it can expose problems and scandals in government and criticize officials without fear of imprisonment.
... not counting Bush's election victory (although while I disagree with many of his policies, I *don't* equate the Bush administration with the Third Reich). I still don't know how the Holocaust could have been allowed to happen, and my deepest hope is that we're a smarter species now.
As for the rise of Hitler, I guess I don't have a good answer. Brin's position rests on a belief that the masses don't get enough credit, that they can do just fine if given enough power. But you're right, Hitler was elected by the German people and somehow got elections stopped after that -- I thought perhaps the 'rule of law' would imply a judiciary that can stop an overly exuberant executive branch
(Counterpoint: "Then don't equivocate while they take away our rights!!" My answer: "True, but which rights have what priority? I still claim the first amendment, while not absolute, should carry the most weight.")
Either way it seems like we either need to (a) fight for an active, well-informed populace, or (b) fight to put the 'good guys' in power (whoever that may be).
Brin's argument assumes a truly awful government will never be elected or take power by coup.
I think a *truly* awful government (I suppose we should define what that is) cannot be elected in a country with a strong free press.
I think power by coup can only occur in countries that lack respect for the rule of law.
In both respects, maybe *I* need a history lesson. But I hope that the US, as well as most other industrialized nations, possess at least these two things.
(The article can be found here. Excerpts follow.)
.... By driving down the cost of G.P.S. technology, the company says, it expects to help "everyday people track everyday things." ... It is the first start-up venture for Mr. Wozniak since he closed his previous company, Cloud 9, a maker of high-end consumer remote control devices, in 1988.
...
... It plans to have its first products finished sometime next year.
While Mr. Jobs went on to found Next Inc., bought Pixar (news/quote), and then returned to Apple as its chief executive in 1997, Mr. Wozniak, now 51, has largely remained on the sidelines. That has made him unusual in a hothouse business and technology culture that is characterized by serial entrepreneurs, few of them walking away after either success or failure. Instead, he has occupied himself with private investments and has taught computer education for elementary through high school students in the Los Gatos, Calif., school district, where he lives.
The new company will not initially announce what products it is planning and Mr. Wozniak said this week it was likely that it would not at first market its own products. It will instead seek licensing and marketing arrangements with other consumer electronics and related companies.
He said one goal was to take technologies that are now costly and reduce them in price so they could be sold in consumer markets.
Mr. Wozniak said he had enjoyed simply being a consumer of new technologies for more than a decade. But last year, a friend visited and began talking about an idea that used G.P.S. in a strange way and he found himself excited by the prospects of doing something with this.
"Sometimes I say that and I'm not really serious," he remarked, "but this time I was really serious."
...
Mr. Galanos said his firm had been excited about both the company's technology idea and the possibility of backing Mr. Wozniak.
"After all how many times will Steve jump on something new again?" he said.
According to the print edition of the Wall Street Journal, the cost of the software would be the educational license cost, not the full retail value.
... imagine taking a chunk of MS cash and funding FSF or some separate foundation for creating free software. That'd be cool.
Still a lot more than the true incremental unit cost, but at least the schools get some more copies out of the deal.
If the choice were between $5 checks for everyone in the class action, and equipment and training for teachers and schools, I'd say the equipment/training is a better deal. Better something than nothing -- and who's to say that these people, once trained, might not in the future be ready to switch to another operating system?
In never-gonna-happen land, I'd love to see MS hit with a penalty similar to what the tobacco companies now faced
That depends. IANAJP, but one of the .NET features is being able to inherit from and extend classes written in other languages. It's not enough to have Perl and Python ported to JVM, you need to be able to extend someone's Perl widget from your Python code.
Maybe beans already provide this? (Remember, not just using someone else's component, but actually building stuff on top of it.)
When I was in 9th grade, I had an Apple IIc that had a hardware toggle switch to go between dvorak / qwerty (then I had to pry off and reapply all the caps. The typing program I had (Typing Tutor IV?) let me learn in either style.
... now that I'm old and decrepit maybe I should try it out and see just how ingrained my muscle memories are ...)
At the time, it took me a little over a week before I was typing faster in Dvorak, but then I (not knowing anything about ergo at the time) decided to switch back a few months later since it seemed like nobody else had dvorak layouts. It did not take long to regain qwerty typing speed (less than a week).
I guess I'm just saying that the learning curve was not that great, and nowadays the stakes are higher than just 'faster typing speed.' (Of course, this was back when I was young and mentally flexible
From the article:
The number of potential chess moves exceeds the number of atoms in the universe.
So it's as possible as extracting the works of Shakespeare from the set of all possible C-strings less than (insert number of characters in longest play) characters long.
Check out www.consumerreports.org ... $24 a year, making (last I heard) enough to cover their online presence. They're not getting rich, but they've got their service out there ...
For the same reason people give to National Public Radio -- they want to support content they like without forcing the stations to resort to ads.
...
Not that there's anything wrong with blockers, Tivo, et al. It's just more user choice to make ad-free subs available, which is a good thing. A subscription is better than letting Amazon get a chunk through their honor program or whatever
When I went to add up the numbers on the pdf document, I only found two discrepancies:
... ...
1) The 2000 total was $700K higher than listed
2) The listed 1998 total included the DVD total, even though the chart notes that DVD product is included in the Music Video total.
Other than that, when I added up the dollar values (*not* the units shipped), everything seems to add up
Let's make sure we don't leave any weaknesses in our analysis of RIAA-spin