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How can this be less expensive as a means of distribution than simply setting up a server and sell direct, like Apple did ? I mean, don't think about only bandwidth costs but: 1) Costs of paying people down the pyramid 2) Fraud Management 3) "CRM" with the huge mass of "distribution partners"
Unless they have some brilliant marketing concept hidden in there, which I may have missed, it seems like just a more expensive way of doing the same thing Itunes does.
Standard oil offered the best prices to consumers, without predatory pricing.
Boy you are provocative. I googled after the basis for your allegations and found that it seems to be this 1958 economics article. I had never heard about it, and I am sure most/.ers hadn't either.
You seem to be more knowledgeable in this topic, but I am sorry you do not give us more pointers to the theory. I am also left wondering whether there are contrary views to that article in the academic world.
Re:Read Mark Weiser's original work on UbiComp
on
Sentient Data Access
·
· Score: 1
Wish I could mod you "informative".
You rescued the concept for me.
What a poor pretentious article
on
Sentient Data Access
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Did anybody try to read the article ? Holy, that is the type of logic that drove me away from social sciences. And the authors seem to be computer science guys !
Let's see what this is all about:
1) FIND AN OBVIOUS TREND We think microprocessors are spreading everywhere, and see/predict they doing a lot of things, including communication
2) GIVE IT A SOPHISTICATED SOUNDING NAME I think I will call it... UbiComp (ubiquitous computing)!.
3) ELABORATE ON WHAT NAMED TREND WILL IMPLY Computers will be everywhere. People will talk to them. They will talk to people... they will talk with each other ! (claps)
4) WRITE ABOUT WHY IMPLICATIONS DIDN'T HAPPEN "New forms of interaction must be developed for this environment (...)"
5) PEPPER IT ALL WITH UNBEARABLY OBSCURE PHRASES "Thoughts exchanged by one another are not the same in one room as in another. This includes "thoughts" exchanged between people and/or machines, and implies that behavior is sensitive to location, and as a consequence of mobility, must adapt to changes in physical and social location." Make sure you make references to lots of other authors and experts.
6) RELEASE TEXT TO A "WANT TO LOOK INTELLECTUAL" AUDIENCE Which will pretend this is the smartest piece of writing ever, and the uninitiated simply are just not smart enough to understand.
No thanks, I think I can do without concepts like UbiComp.
Within a decade armies of tiny helicopter drones will monitor traffic, Humm... Cheaper than fixed cameras ? Even if the machines were cheap, that doesn't seem energy efficient, with fuel cost and all.
inspect buildings for maintenance problems Cosmetic problems, that is. It is flying on the outside, after all. Doesn't seem to be more appealing than using binoculars or climbing a building across the street.
map bushfires Although I am not familiar with the art of fighting bush fires, it seems to me that they propagate along a frontier line which is defined by the wind, so as long as you know about the wind, you can infer where the fire is going. So, it seems, these machines wouldn't add much.
look for faults in powerlines This looks interesting, although (1) Not sure if that many faults are apparent (e.g. burnt transformer, loose cables) and (2) Isn't there remote sensing equipment that can already do that (e.g. reflecting waves in the cable?, or signaling from checkpoints ?)
join search-and-rescue missions If those things become popular in 10 years, what would you say about smart cell phones, network based location systems and cheap GPS ? All right cell networks won't cover 100% of areas. But close !
Now some ideas to provoke: * Helicopter drones acting as quick messengers in crowded cities (substituting motorcycle carriers for legal documents, small product purchases, etc.) * Helicopter drones tracking suspect vehicles or individuals for police enforcement * Helicopter drones doing advertisement from the sky
And, unfortunately but very predictable: * Helicopter drones carrying terrorist bombs to explode national landmarks
and
* Armies of tiny helicopter drones machine gunning armies of infantry or mobs in protest
Notice this robot is 60cm tall ? Back when I was young I played a lot with Playmobil figures, and in fact I had never thought I could have *them* play with me... until now.
Sure I remember looking at cartoons on TV, and thinking I would like to play with them, at a time it was impossible (I am that old). Then videogames came along. In their time Pitfall and Keystone Kapers on the Atari 2600 were close enough to controlling a cartoon. Since then things have gotten better).
It's a good time to be alive, sit and watch.
Tonight, Live on TV: Starcraft Tournament Finals
on
Paid to Play Video Games
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I heard in Korea they broadcast computer games over cable tv, with comentators and the full suite.
"It seems Li-hun should have sent a few more Zergs to that narrow pass, what do you think John ?" "You are right, now watch as the Protoss break through in a classic destroy-the-Hatchery offensive. He used this in last year's finals to great effect." "Right -- but wait -- Li Hun opened up a second front down in the SE corner of the map !" (...)
I never did watch such a thing on TV here in the west, but I guess it would be interesting to see some pro-guys playing a game which I have tried to master, and figuring out how they think.
Once that happens, well, sponsors are the natural next step.
DNA Sequencing ? As Homer Simpson would put it, "Boring !" I mean, "see kid, this barcode is different from this barcode, this is a black bean DNA and this is a green pea DNA", "dad, can't I go back to my playstation ?".
But, hey, I would like to play with them Pixel Blocks myself ! (from the same wired review).
Actually, an early-days PC sound card. Check this out:
" Serious game music for the mainstream user on the PC started with Sierra back in 1988. Before this, PC's were only equipped with a tiny beeping speaker. Sierra prepared to change all this by creating games that contained serious, high quality musical compositions drawing on add-on hardware. Sierra struck a deal with two companies, Roland and Adlib. Sierra adopted the Roland MT-32 and the Adlib Music Synthesizer. They would compose music for these units starting with King's Quest 4. Sierra would also become a reseller for these units.
The Roland MT-32 was the higher end of these music devices. In today's terminology, it would be labeled a "Wavetable Synthesizer". A wavetable synthesizer usually implies that real instrument sounds are recorded into the hardware of the device. This device can then manipulate them to play them back at the various notes you need. This may not be the most accurate description as the MT-32 had the ability to manipulate parts of its built in sounds using something called "Linear Arithmetic (LA)" synthesis. Technobabble aside, it was a very good device that can rival even today's sound cards (though Tom and other MT-32 users will be quick to point out the lack of a built-in piano patch). It was also a very expensive sound card, costing $550 through Sierra. " (quoting an article by Eric Wing)
I saw one of these things, in the beginning of the 90s, at a friend's house. It was really high end... and he used "Leisure Suit Larry" to demo it (!). Anyway, this MT-32 emulation effort will probably be interesting for running the golden DOS-era games (many abandoware, check Home of The Underdogs).
Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis.
One thing I am trying to understand is... slideware reduces the analytical quality of presentations as compared to what ? Let me see some alternatives:
1) Oral presentations with no slide back-up. This can only be worse, unless using powerpoint the presenter sees his job as "orally supporting a visual presentation", instead of the other way around. I mean, no matter how bad graphical data is, it must be better than no data at all. Plus having a slide behind the presenter can help one look back at the sequence of thought, and appreciate how many angles were explored.
2) Presentation of a full, dense and well structured textual report.
Such a thing was made to read, and perhaps talked about, not be presented. To use it raw in a public forum would require IMHO that either everyone reads the report before coming in, or that the presenter shows the conclusions and tells everyone "trust me, I have 250 pages of 10-point print to back it up".
Reminds me of the old Churchill saying about Democracy: "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."
Cant wait to see how they will deal with international expansion of this great "invention". After all, if 99c per track is a good deal in the US, it is a lousy deal in countries with a weak currency and lower income, such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, etc...
In general recorded audio and video material will be price adjusted to reflect differences in local purchasing power. For example, the Lion King Special Edition VHS goes for US$ 20.99 in the US. In Brazil the same *legit* product goes for about one third of that price (R$ 24.60 which is worth US$ 8.40 in today's exchange rate).
This difference in pricing has to be done in order to "milk" different local markets, each with a different pricing point requirement. This is, after all, the motivation behing the DVD region coding scheme (not realease dates, mind you).
Now, it will be interesting to see an internet site selling buckets of bits for different prices depending on where (it thinks) you physically are, won't it. Of course they could leave the third world to be served solely by that most efficient institution, the pirate market.
I have in the past considered the abortion question, also trying to escape from a religious/dogmatic point of view, and I have found the following book to be interesting: Peter Singer's Practical Ethics. I'd like to recommend it to anyone interested, like you, in taking a humanist point of view.
There are at least three differences between the argument you are making and the type of argument made in the book (not only about abortion but about a lot of other things):
1) The book refrains from giving powerful and graphic images of what is being discussed, thus trying to stay on the rational side of issues. (no dounbt what you said chinese do with about-to-be-born babies is repulsive, but I do not think the picture helps us being rational, and I believe it may indicate and/or create a bias)
2) The book does not assume that "the ends don't justify the means" is a general principle, but rather considers what are the means versus what are the ends, and how they can be weighted/compared.
3) Finally, and very interistingly, the book does not assume that "being a human" is a valid switch for moral/ethical conduct. Should you be allowed to kick a dog but not kick a baby, just because one is human and the other not ? Therefore it escapes the question you pose, of "when is it that the embryo becomes a human" (for which my answer is, it has always been human, even before the sperm meets the egg), but goes on to more interesting questions, such as when it starts to have feelings, when it starts to be scient, and whether eliminating the possibility of it reaching these stages should be unethical.
I know if I bought a DirecTivo in the US I could hack it so it would not need to call anyhwere, and would still receive programming information through the dish. But would it work, meaning would it decode the signal sent to South America ? Calling DirecTV down here in Brazil they say "no". But it could be for at least 4 reasons:
1) The signal frequency is different so one need to buy some different tuner/adapt the receiving system 2) The image and programming codification is different, so the algorithms run by the chipset would need to be changed 3) The Codification of the Access Cards could be different, so that my local subscription would not be validated by a US receiver 4) Or perhaps it will work, but they just don't want me to try it, and thus say it won't.
Sorry for the off topic post, but if some tech wiz in here could help me, or at least give me some pointers, it would be great.
Do not fear AOL
on
AOL's $299 PC
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
With this action AOL controls everything from the OS to the Word Processor to the web sites their customers browse."
That is funny. Down here in Brazil AOL is advertising on TV "New AOL: Now With No Installation CD Required". They had taken a serious beating trying to push forward their proprietary browser and now they have thrown the towel, and decided to become a more vanilla ISP, working with any regular browser. In case you are wondering: yes, that is desperate. They are not even a top three ISP in Brazil, after (how many? 3, 4?) years of throwing tons of cash in advertising and promotions.
It comes to prove IMHO that AOL's current positioning in the US market is a "path dependent" phenomenon, coming to be by a succession of (unlikely) historic events, and by no means natural. I do not fear AOL controling or dominating anything. It seems to me the only thing they are trying to do is to control their downhill slide.
One last thing. I thought you would be interested to know that AOL Brasil has a Linux download area, and that they are recommending Netscape 7.0 as a browser. I'm not sure, but I believe this has no parallel in AOL other markets.
Working as a consultant I am faced everyday with what I think is the biggest failed promise: That computers would bring about the "paperless office".
Not only they didn't, but they made people consume more paper than ever before. On top of all the paper spent, the cost of printing pages increased, as industry made us believe that ink jets were better, and B&W laser passee.
My DVD player does MP3, and is connected to my Sound System for Dolby Surround. If I didn't have the DVD connected, nor a MP3 capable mini system, still a portable MP3 CD Player would be more value for my dollar, even if less geeky.
BRAIN: The same thing we do every night,Pinky!
Try to take over the world!
{Pinky and the Brain theme}
BRAIN: Email messages, Pinky, is our new tool! We will take over computers with trojan horses, send spam from there, and then we will sell everyone Anti-Spam... for what it's worth !
PINKY: What if they don't buy your anti-Spam, Brain?
BRAIN: Even better ! We will scare the people off the internet, leaving their connected PCs behind! This in turn will give us more hosts from which to send Spam. We will then have taken over the world!
PINKY: Egad, Brain, Brilliant! Oh, oh, wait, no, no -- why would they be scared of us? We're so small, um, we're practically the size of mice, Brain!
BRAIN: We *are* mice, Pinky.
PINKY: Oh, right. Well, there you are then. Nya-ha-ha!
The interesting thing is that for Spam to make any sense, it has to get people to pay real money. Thus any profit making Spam will give away a payment trail. So, if I may ask why in the world no authority goes after whoever sells through SPAM ?
Standard answers:
1) They will move offshore
(my reply, yes, but how will they get a payment if not through Visa/Amex/MC or other major intl institution)
2) There will be "false positives"
(I am not so sure about this one. One line of thought is that punishment may be directed to the profit coming from an Spam event, so if innocent sites make money w/out Spam they won't be very hurt. For instance, say spammers send Spam in the name of Amazon.com -- amazon might need to forfeit extra sales attributed to unusual traffic/sales in that period, attributable to the action of Spammers, if they bighugeenlargement.com doesn't have any traffic normally, they should be blown out of the water )
(...)about $2 million was spent on technology and the salaries of folks at MIT who oversee the technology. (...) A student asks the speakers why they chose Microsoft Content Management Server (...) The answer: "We read a Gartner Group report (...)"
It is very obvious to me that this Longhorn system is not something people can use today, as it is. I mean, MS will still work on it for a long while before it can be trusted upon (if then).
So, what use are they except as a "preview" of what MS is cooking ? And, as a "preview", how much different is it from an article about it ? And how much can it hurt ? Everything that looks good will be "wow", everything that looks bad will be "can't wait for them to fix it"!
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly what IBM wants to achieve, it seems.
I don't want to think about why this term ever arose and was able to drive trafic through google.
How can this be less expensive as a means of distribution than simply setting up a server and sell direct, like Apple did ? I mean, don't think about only bandwidth costs but:
1) Costs of paying people down the pyramid
2) Fraud Management
3) "CRM" with the huge mass of "distribution partners"
Unless they have some brilliant marketing concept hidden in there, which I may have missed, it seems like just a more expensive way of doing the same thing Itunes does.
You seem to be more knowledgeable in this topic, but I am sorry you do not give us more pointers to the theory. I am also left wondering whether there are contrary views to that article in the academic world.
Wish I could mod you "informative".
You rescued the concept for me.
Did anybody try to read the article ? Holy, that is the type of logic that drove me away from social sciences. And the authors seem to be computer science guys !
Let's see what this is all about:
1) FIND AN OBVIOUS TREND
We think microprocessors are spreading everywhere, and see/predict they doing a lot of things, including communication
2) GIVE IT A SOPHISTICATED SOUNDING NAME
I think I will call it... UbiComp (ubiquitous computing)!.
3) ELABORATE ON WHAT NAMED TREND WILL IMPLY
Computers will be everywhere. People will talk to them. They will talk to people... they will talk with each other ! (claps)
4) WRITE ABOUT WHY IMPLICATIONS DIDN'T HAPPEN
"New forms of interaction must be developed for this environment (...)"
5) PEPPER IT ALL WITH UNBEARABLY OBSCURE PHRASES
"Thoughts exchanged by one another are not the same in one room as in another. This includes "thoughts" exchanged between people and/or machines, and implies that behavior is sensitive to location, and as a consequence of mobility, must adapt to changes in physical and social location." Make sure you make references to lots of other authors and experts.
6) RELEASE TEXT TO A "WANT TO LOOK INTELLECTUAL" AUDIENCE
Which will pretend this is the smartest piece of writing ever, and the uninitiated simply are just not smart enough to understand.
No thanks, I think I can do without concepts like UbiComp.
Within a decade armies of tiny helicopter drones will monitor traffic,
Humm... Cheaper than fixed cameras ? Even if the machines were cheap, that doesn't seem energy efficient, with fuel cost and all.
inspect buildings for maintenance problems
Cosmetic problems, that is. It is flying on the outside, after all. Doesn't seem to be more appealing than using binoculars or climbing a building across the street.
map bushfires
Although I am not familiar with the art of fighting bush fires, it seems to me that they propagate along a frontier line which is defined by the wind, so as long as you know about the wind, you can infer where the fire is going. So, it seems, these machines wouldn't add much.
look for faults in powerlines
This looks interesting, although (1) Not sure if that many faults are apparent (e.g. burnt transformer, loose cables) and (2) Isn't there remote sensing equipment that can already do that (e.g. reflecting waves in the cable?, or signaling from checkpoints ?)
join search-and-rescue missions
If those things become popular in 10 years, what would you say about smart cell phones, network based location systems and cheap GPS ? All right cell networks won't cover 100% of areas. But close !
Now some ideas to provoke:
* Helicopter drones acting as quick messengers in crowded cities (substituting motorcycle carriers for legal documents, small product purchases, etc.)
* Helicopter drones tracking suspect vehicles or individuals for police enforcement
* Helicopter drones doing advertisement from the sky
And, unfortunately but very predictable:
* Helicopter drones carrying terrorist bombs to explode national landmarks
and
* Armies of tiny helicopter drones machine gunning armies of infantry or mobs in protest
Notice this robot is 60cm tall ? Back when I was young I played a lot with Playmobil figures, and in fact I had never thought I could have *them* play with me... until now.
Sure I remember looking at cartoons on TV, and thinking I would like to play with them, at a time it was impossible (I am that old). Then videogames came along. In their time Pitfall and Keystone Kapers on the Atari 2600 were close enough to controlling a cartoon. Since then things have gotten better).
It's a good time to be alive, sit and watch.
I heard in Korea they broadcast computer games over cable tv, with comentators and the full suite.
"It seems Li-hun should have sent a few more Zergs to that narrow pass, what do you think John ?"
"You are right, now watch as the Protoss break through in a classic destroy-the-Hatchery offensive. He used this in last year's finals to great effect."
"Right -- but wait -- Li Hun opened up a second front down in the SE corner of the map !"
(...)
I never did watch such a thing on TV here in the west, but I guess it would be interesting to see some pro-guys playing a game which I have tried to master, and figuring out how they think.
Once that happens, well, sponsors are the natural next step.
DNA Sequencing ? As Homer Simpson would put it, "Boring !" I mean, "see kid, this barcode is different from this barcode, this is a black bean DNA and this is a green pea DNA", "dad, can't I go back to my playstation ?".
But, hey, I would like to play with them Pixel Blocks myself ! (from the same wired review).
I saw one of these things, in the beginning of the 90s, at a friend's house. It was really high end... and he used "Leisure Suit Larry" to demo it (!). Anyway, this MT-32 emulation effort will probably be interesting for running the golden DOS-era games (many abandoware, check Home of The Underdogs).
1) Oral presentations with no slide back-up.
This can only be worse, unless using powerpoint the presenter sees his job as "orally supporting a visual presentation", instead of the other way around. I mean, no matter how bad graphical data is, it must be better than no data at all. Plus having a slide behind the presenter can help one look back at the sequence of thought, and appreciate how many angles were explored.
2) Presentation of a full, dense and well structured textual report.
Such a thing was made to read, and perhaps talked about, not be presented. To use it raw in a public forum would require IMHO that either everyone reads the report before coming in, or that the presenter shows the conclusions and tells everyone "trust me, I have 250 pages of 10-point print to back it up".
Reminds me of the old Churchill saying about Democracy: "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."
Win XP Pro Corporate doesn't have product activation in it. You can buy a CD with a pirated copy of it for about US$ 3.00 in the streets of Sao Paulo.
MS may close this door in any future release of windows. But I seriously wonder what would it do to the Linux vs. Windows clash if it did.
Cant wait to see how they will deal with international expansion of this great "invention". After all, if 99c per track is a good deal in the US, it is a lousy deal in countries with a weak currency and lower income, such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, etc...
In general recorded audio and video material will be price adjusted to reflect differences in local purchasing power. For example, the Lion King Special Edition VHS goes for US$ 20.99 in the US. In Brazil the same *legit* product goes for about one third of that price (R$ 24.60 which is worth US$ 8.40 in today's exchange rate).
This difference in pricing has to be done in order to "milk" different local markets, each with a different pricing point requirement. This is, after all, the motivation behing the DVD region coding scheme (not realease dates, mind you).
Now, it will be interesting to see an internet site selling buckets of bits for different prices depending on where (it thinks) you physically are, won't it. Of course they could leave the third world to be served solely by that most efficient institution, the pirate market.
I have in the past considered the abortion question, also trying to escape from a religious/dogmatic point of view, and I have found the following book to be interesting: Peter Singer's Practical Ethics. I'd like to recommend it to anyone interested, like you, in taking a humanist point of view.
There are at least three differences between the argument you are making and the type of argument made in the book (not only about abortion but about a lot of other things):
1) The book refrains from giving powerful and graphic images of what is being discussed, thus trying to stay on the rational side of issues. (no dounbt what you said chinese do with about-to-be-born babies is repulsive, but I do not think the picture helps us being rational, and I believe it may indicate and/or create a bias)
2) The book does not assume that "the ends don't justify the means" is a general principle, but rather considers what are the means versus what are the ends, and how they can be weighted/compared.
3) Finally, and very interistingly, the book does not assume that "being a human" is a valid switch for moral/ethical conduct. Should you be allowed to kick a dog but not kick a baby, just because one is human and the other not ? Therefore it escapes the question you pose, of "when is it that the embryo becomes a human" (for which my answer is, it has always been human, even before the sperm meets the egg), but goes on to more interesting questions, such as when it starts to have feelings, when it starts to be scient, and whether eliminating the possibility of it reaching these stages should be unethical.
At the risk of spending some Karma points, let me ask a question to anyone who may know about how the DirecTV receivers work.
Basically, I want to know whether the DirecTV signal in Latin America is (or can be somehow) decoded by a US-bought DirecTV receiver.
DirecTV does have operations in South America / Latin America, and as far as I know the programming is the same. Yet, unfortunately, they do not sell DirecTivos down here.
I know if I bought a DirecTivo in the US I could hack it so it would not need to call anyhwere, and would still receive programming information through the dish. But would it work, meaning would it decode the signal sent to South America ? Calling DirecTV down here in Brazil they say "no". But it could be for at least 4 reasons:
1) The signal frequency is different so one need to buy some different tuner/adapt the receiving system
2) The image and programming codification is different, so the algorithms run by the chipset would need to be changed
3) The Codification of the Access Cards could be different, so that my local subscription would not be validated by a US receiver
4) Or perhaps it will work, but they just don't want me to try it, and thus say it won't.
Sorry for the off topic post, but if some tech wiz in here could help me, or at least give me some pointers, it would be great.
It comes to prove IMHO that AOL's current positioning in the US market is a "path dependent" phenomenon, coming to be by a succession of (unlikely) historic events, and by no means natural. I do not fear AOL controling or dominating anything. It seems to me the only thing they are trying to do is to control their downhill slide.
One last thing. I thought you would be interested to know that AOL Brasil has a Linux download area, and that they are recommending Netscape 7.0 as a browser. I'm not sure, but I believe this has no parallel in AOL other markets.
Working as a consultant I am faced everyday with what I think is the biggest failed promise:
That computers would bring about the "paperless office".
Not only they didn't, but they made people consume more paper than ever before. On top of all the paper spent, the cost of printing pages increased, as industry made us believe that ink jets were better, and B&W laser passee.
For more discussion see an article in Newsday about it. There's even a full book dedicated to the question of why the paperless office never came to be.
My DVD player does MP3, and is connected to my Sound System for Dolby Surround. If I didn't have the DVD connected, nor a MP3 capable mini system, still a portable MP3 CD Player would be more value for my dollar, even if less geeky.
PINKY: Gee, Brain, what do you wanna do tonight?
BRAIN: The same thing we do every night,Pinky!
Try to take over the world!
{Pinky and the Brain theme}
BRAIN: Email messages, Pinky, is our new tool! We will take over computers with trojan horses, send spam from there, and then we will sell everyone Anti-Spam... for what it's worth !
PINKY: What if they don't buy your anti-Spam, Brain?
BRAIN: Even better ! We will scare the people off the internet, leaving their connected PCs behind! This in turn will give us more hosts from which to send Spam. We will then have taken over the world!
PINKY: Egad, Brain, Brilliant! Oh, oh, wait, no, no -- why would they be scared of us? We're so small, um, we're practically the size of mice, Brain!
BRAIN: We *are* mice, Pinky.
PINKY: Oh, right. Well, there you are then. Nya-ha-ha!
The interesting thing is that for Spam to make any sense, it has to get people to pay real money. Thus any profit making Spam will give away a payment trail. So, if I may ask why in the world no authority goes after whoever sells through SPAM ?
Standard answers:
1) They will move offshore
(my reply, yes, but how will they get a payment if not through Visa/Amex/MC or other major intl institution)
2) There will be "false positives"
(I am not so sure about this one. One line of thought is that punishment may be directed to the profit coming from an Spam event, so if innocent sites make money w/out Spam they won't be very hurt. For instance, say spammers send Spam in the name of Amazon.com -- amazon might need to forfeit extra sales attributed to unusual traffic/sales in that period, attributable to the action of Spammers, if they bighugeenlargement.com doesn't have any traffic normally, they should be blown out of the water )
3) Costs of enforcement will be too high
Perhaps. But what are governments for ? If OKOKRIM can worry about persecuting 15 year old computer wizards, and the DoD can worry about persecuting a 66 year old dictator, why can't someone go after Mr. Joe Spammer and his clients ?
DeCSS2 will be created just like DeCSS was, but instead of one "Jon Johansen" its creator's name will most likely sound like "d00d" or "DaMan".
I mean, the definition of the word "piracy".
It is very obvious to me that this Longhorn system is not something people can use today, as it is. I mean, MS will still work on it for a long while before it can be trusted upon (if then).
So, what use are they except as a "preview" of what MS is cooking ? And, as a "preview", how much different is it from an article about it ? And how much can it hurt ? Everything that looks good will be "wow", everything that looks bad will be "can't wait for them to fix it"!