"The AHRA dictates that we have Fair Use copying rights, and some people are paying for that right in the form of surcharges."
Nope. The fee supposedly compensates the industry for the illegal copying that goes on using CD-R's (and cassette tapes). The law imposing the fee did not make it legal to make copies that would otherwise be illegal. So it's still illegal to burn CD-R's of your music (or tape it) and give it to other people. And the fee isn't for "fair use" copying, because that is legal use, and thus not a harm that would justify compensation.
This is different from Canada, where (supposedly, I don't live there) the equivalent law imposing fees on blank media did, in fact, authorize people to make copies for personal use.
"How does iTunes' DRM handle a full OS re-install? Or a hardware migration? What does Apple recommending doing when, in 2 years, our hardware is outdated and needs to be replaced? Or in 3 months when XP has an irrecoverable crash and we have to reinstall everything from scratch?"
I do this all the time (buy at home, copy to work, etc.). You copy your music to the new machine and click play. If you haven't played your music on that machin before, iTunes asks for your username and password, and you enter it. The music plays.
You can authorize up to three computers at once. So you should deauthorize the old machine if you're upgrading.
OS upgrades and re-installs on MacOS X don't affect user data, so there's no issue with iTunes DRM. On the PC, I have only been running iTunes for a few days, so I haven't done a re-install of the OS yet, but the worst case would be re-entering your username and password.
"Restricted file formats are a frustrating thing. But restricted file formats tied to a piece of hardware that is replaced on average every 3 years is foolish."
Yes, this is a problem with Microsoft's DRM. Apple's DRM is tied to a username & password, not hardware. The authorization is stored on your computer for convenience, of course, but you can authorize any other computer easily. And multiple people's music can be authorized on the same computer. Cool, eh?
"So I have to convert uncompressed audio to an mp3 to play in the player. Easy enough, I have CDex. Now how do I do this with something from iTMS? Oh wait, I can't. The songs are locked into AAC. I can't convert them to any other format without burning them to a CD first and further degrading the quality (not to mention the questionable legality of doing this)."
You don't actually have to burn a CD, just a virtual one (i.e. a CD that only exists in RAM). Tne RIP that into MP3's. And if you don't like having to click a couple of times, write an AppleScript to automate it.
"Question, if your hard drive goes tits up do you go to the iTMS and say, "Please let me have this file again for free?" "
That's what backups are for. Luckily you can fit 200 tracks on a CD-R, so the cost of backing up is, oh, 0.05 cents per track?
"but is it *yours to copy* once bought?... Both the Supreme Court and the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 say 'yes'"
Depends on what you mean by "yours to copy". You can copy music to another device to listen to it (e.g. RIP a CD to listen to on your PC or MP3 player). You can't (legally) make copies for friends (or strangers, come to think of it). When you buy a book, you have the right to use it any way you like; burn it, sell it, etc. But you don't have the right to make new copies of the book. The trick is that with digital media, "copying" went from being a difficult, expensive thing (set up your own printing press) to an easy, cheap thing (RIP and burn a CD, email a file, etc.). So in 1970 if you told someone "you bought that LP and you can do what you like with it" nobody would have thought that you could set up a record plant and publish copies of the record. But with a CD and a PC on the internet, you can effectively do just that. The hard part is figuring out what to do about it.
"by the AHRA we pay for those copying rights whenever we buy blank audio CDs"
In the US, no. In Canada, apparently so (for personal use only).
The reaspn that the download services don't have all music isn't the record companies, it's the artists. THe labels are doing deals for as much as they can as fast as they can; all of the major download services (iTMS, PressPlay, MusicMatch, BuyMusic.com, Liquid, etc.) have done deals with all of the majors, and some independents. But if the Beatles or Led Zeppelin don't want their music sold digitally, there's nothing a label can do about it.
So if you had a database of which artist was signed with which label, etc., you still wouldn't know who could sell what.
OK, I simplified a bit. It's the next version of the same DRM system, which has (supposedly) been better packaged. Specifically, it's _not_ a fork or a different DRM system.
Keep in mind that a "fresh install" on a Macintosh doesn't mean the same thing as on, say, Windows. A "clean install" means that the installer renames the previous System directory and writes out a new one, so you don't lose any data, settings, etc. The alternatives are:
- Upgrade: write the new OS over the old one. This sometimes has side effects, if you had system extensions installed (e.g. third party drivers) that don't work with the new version of the OS. - Clean Install, preserve settings: do a Clean Install (as below), but preserves system and user settings, etc. This is the best choice, unless you're really short on disk space. - Clean Install: renames the old System, and installs a clean new one. You then have a nice clean system, and can selectively copy third party drivers, application settings, etc., that you know you want. - Format: reformat the drive, then do the install. This is for when you're doing an install on a random external drive, or wiping an old machine.
The DRM integrated into Office is the same DRM as in WMP. Hopefully debugged and made more of a real product rather than pile of libraries that one could build a DRM system out of.;-)
At the iTMS for Windows launch, Apple provided some numbers, with references to the sources (e.g. "Last month Forrester counted..."). It's all in a video stream on Apple's web site, though, so I can't copy/paste the info here.
This interpretation of the licenses is completely wrong. While CMU asks that improvements to Mach be contributed back to them so that they can redistribute them, they do not require it. Similarly for BSD, anyone can take BSD code, generate a derived closed package, and distribute it. They just have to credit them.
So Apple is playing nice and is contributing all of their enhancements to Mach, BSD, etc., back, but they don't have to, any more than Microsoft (which uses the BSD TCP/IP stack) had to. Of course, Apple decided to acknowledge the way they benefit from open source projects, and contribute to the projects, while Microsoft hides their use of BSD code as much as they legally can, and forbids their employees (generally) from working on open source projects, or even using open source software.
U agreem about your point that Apple is very careful to keep the open and closed layers of their OS clearly separated. This isn't because of any BSD/Mach licensing issues, though.
So the big point is that under the licenses for those projects, Darwin doesn't have to be open. Apple chose to make it open. Apple also sells closed software (Cocoa, Carbon, iTunes, etc.). Personally, I think that they're doing a good job of balancing open and closed source; feel free to disagree.
My first reaction was "great, the iBook is the same as the PowerBook I bought a few months ago". After a few minutes digging, though, there are some real differences, though they're subtle. So Apple managed to give the core benefits of the PB to the iBook at a somewhat lower price, which is a good thing, even if it does reduce the product differentiation a bit.
The differences I can see are: - Bluetooth is extra (an internal module, like AirPort). - No SuperDrive option. This is a big deal to me -- I do backups on DVD-R's (you don't want to back 60 GB onto CD-R's!). - No DVI out (also none on my PB, but there is on new ones) - White plastic instead of metal case. - 0.3 pounds heavier, perhaps 1/2 inch thicker. - 10 GB smaller hard drives - Plastic probably more impact resistant than metal (but also leads to case being thicker). - $500 more for PowerBook.
So overall, a tradeoff. I'm still as happy as ever with my 12" PB, but now more people can buy most of what I've got, and while that makes it a little less exclusive, that's really a good thing...:-)
I'll second this -- simple scantron's are far cheaper than these touchscreen terminals, and are auditable. Even better, any problem reading the vote is immediately rejected by the scanner, meaning that the voter can simply correct their ballot and resubmit it.
I have no idea why anyone would consider spending $millions to go from a cheap, reliable, transparent, auditable system to an expensive, unreliable, "black box" that isn't auditable.
You're right -- you can't construct your example filters using iTunes' Smart Playlists. That being said:
1) If you wanted to support those complexities (nested boolean expressions, the condition 'not in my other playlists', the condition 'in this other playlist') you could certainly do so via a GUI. GUI's and scripting languages are logically identical (anything you can do in a script, you can do in a sufficiently complicated GUI).
2) These examples are rather contrived, and "cost" more in UI complexity than they provide in utility. In particular, fully generalized boolean expressions (with nesting, etc.) would confuse the heck out of most people.
3) Scripting is a good thing. iTunes on the Mac is scriptable, so you can build a playlist that expresses any logic you like. You can even make your script appear in the iTunes GUI. I don't think that you can trigger your script every time there's new content in the iTunes library, though, so you'll have to re-run it to regenerate your playlist every so often.
It's not legitimate (or legal, though IANAL) to classify something simply because it's embarassing or reveals stupidity. That's one of the reasons that the Freedom of Information Act was passed -- to reveal information that we, the people who pay for and have ultimate authority over the government, can manage it effectively.
Well, rather obviously those devices have CPU's, storage, etc., so they're "computers" in the technical sense. But when a normal person says "computer" what they mean is "personal computer" that is a complex, general purpose computing device, and not "cell phone" or "pager" or "watch" or "videogame" -- all of which are simple to use, specialized computing devices. The key difference is simplicity -- people don't want to deal with complex, unpredictable devices. So when a marketing person says "no PC required" what they mean is "get things done without dealing with the confusing mess that is Windows".
Let me get this straight -- you're blaming DRM because you deleted some files and Apple won't replace them? I don't see how DRM is relevant -- if they'd sold you MP3's that you deleted, you'd still be in trouble. Heck, if they were CD's, you'd still be in trouble -- try going back to The Wiz to ask for a replacement for a CD that you microwaved.
Well, MS' DRM option is completely proprietary to Microsoft, just as Apple's is to Apple. The key differences are that (1) MS licenses their DRM to other retailers so that you can buy DRM'd WMA's from multiple vendors, and (2) MS' current DRM is really annoying to use, so all of those vendors are stuck on a platform that people don't want to use. If you have to pick between "the same as everybody else" or "better than everybody else" which would you pick?
Keep in mind that in the MP3 player market, Apple is the clear market leader, with 54% of all MP3 player sales by dollars, and around 35% of unit sales. And they've sold over half of all music sold online. So I think that they're pretty well positioned...
You can either use the operating system's built in text layout widget, which supports all of this correctly with no work, but doesn't give you any control over what's going on, or you can code your own layout engine, giving you complete control, but you'd have to add support for everything yourself. Given the control you'd need for a real word processor, I am sure that MS coded their own layout engine, so it'd be an immense amount of work to add support for bi-directional languages, etc. If MS supports any right-to-left languages already (Arabic, etc.) it shouldn't be any work at all to add support for Hebrew.
I think that he's proposing that than every web site add some new micropayment technology/system in order to impement metered site access at $0.001 per page, requiring users to install software and establish a paument relationship with some new party in order to access the site. That's not going to happen, as people have been implementing that same model, with virtually no acceptance, for many years now.
Instead, imagine if the ISP's drove the process. You've already got a billing relationship with them, so it simply turns a fixed cost into a slightly variable cost. They simply count the number of HTTP transactions initiated by their customers to each site (IP address), and the number of transactions initiated by each user. (Note: there's no need to log each transaction, just keep running counts). At the end of the month, they total up the numbers, multiply by $0.001, add the numbers to the month's bill, and mail checks out to all of the web sites that their customers visit (by looking up DNS contact info, and probably filtering out sites with too little traffic to make it worth cutting a check). Or instead of checks, deposit to Paypal, etc.
If people don't want to pay a variable cost, then it could operate like a pool. That is, if they have 100K customers, each puts $1 into a pool, so there's $100K in the pool. Then allocate the pool based on their traffic levels.
Either way, sites could decide to allow or block non-paying users pretty easily, either by enforcing an IP range map (i.e. return all request from non-paying ISP's to a 'please use a cool ISP' page) or by checking for a "flag" in the request. The ISP's could all modify HTTP requests that are "paid for" on the way through the routers by setting some available bit that the site could check for. It's technically messier, but gives sites more control.
I was surprised that a single CPU Opteron could be in the same performance ballpark as a dual CPU G5. Does the Opteron do more per clock cycle than the G5? Are applications not taking advantage of the second processor? Is there some other performance bottleneck, such as the memory subsystem? I look forward to finding out...
The declaration of independence carefully avoids any religion -- the phrases "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" and "Creator" reflect not a Christian viewpoint, but a more objective, Deist one. It's particularly important to understand that Deists (e.g. Jefferson, Washington, Paine) belief is founded in the observation of nature and application of reason, not on obedience to an organized church or authority. The Constitution only mentions religion in order to place limits on it to keep it from interfering with the proper running of the country. The foundation of the United States was a glorius triumph of rationality over the authority-driven mindset of the "old world".
As an aside, I find that the whole 1950's (and since) obsession with promoting Christianity and obedience to authority in the name of "patriotism" rather ironic given that the United States was founded largely by people who were not Christians and were in rebellion to their own government. That's why they were so careful to restrict the roles of religion and the federal government, though after 200 years of diligent work both restrictions are significantly weakened, ironically enough, by those most loudly "patriotic".
You're right that for a typical workgroup raw performance doesn't much matter -- either NT or Linux+SAMBA would be "fast enough."
Where this does matter is to someone:
1) Making a decision between NT and Linux+SAMBA. It's great for the OSS alternative to not only be better strategically, but faster and cheaper. You'd have to work pretty hard to justify why you'd pay more (forever) for a slower fileserver that's less secure and requires you to do more paperwork and maintenance.
2) Trying to save money. A 2.5x performance advantage on the same hardware can also mean perfectly good performance on 1/2.5th of the hardware. So instead of buying a NT and a "2Ghz fileserver with fast ethernet and half-a-gig of RAM" you can get the same performance out of Linux+SAMBA on an old 800 MHz PC with 128 MB RAM that you have lying around, or which can be bought for almost nothing compared to the macho server required to get the same performance out of NT.
"People in their ivory towers of idealism do not recognize that there are millions of businesses that are NOT big brutes like a Microsoft or an IBM or any other big corporation. Many of these businesses operate on razor-thin profit margins."
Missed my point by a mile. While companies like to complain about the terrible impact of giving their cheapest workers a querter an hour raise, the reality is that companies pay people because they get work done. If the pizza place fires workers because they cost $3.20 a day more (the last minimum wage increase, in 1997, was 40 cents an hour), they'll lose sales because they won't be able to make or deliver as much pizza. So despite the predictions of doom before every minimum wage increase, business just raise their prices trivially, and keep all of their employees, because that's the only rational business strategy. Personally, I'm pretty happy if a pizza place charges 5 cents a pizza more, and gives it employees a better wage.
"It's one thing to make minor adjustments every few years to keep minimum wage from becoming too low." The actual value of the minimum wage has dropped dramatically since 1965. All of the actual data, as well as some nice graphics, are at http://qrc.depaul.edu/arogers/InstructorTemplate/A ctivities/Activity08.htm. It's a pretty good class exercise. Anyway, based on the data, the minimum wage would have to increase by almost $3 an hour to break even with the minimum wage in 1965. I assume, based on your statements, that you'd be supporting that?
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"The AHRA dictates that we have Fair Use copying rights, and some people are paying for that right in the form of surcharges."
Nope. The fee supposedly compensates the industry for the illegal copying that goes on using CD-R's (and cassette tapes). The law imposing the fee did not make it legal to make copies that would otherwise be illegal. So it's still illegal to burn CD-R's of your music (or tape it) and give it to other people. And the fee isn't for "fair use" copying, because that is legal use, and thus not a harm that would justify compensation.
This is different from Canada, where (supposedly, I don't live there) the equivalent law imposing fees on blank media did, in fact, authorize people to make copies for personal use.
The canadian law is a lot cooler, if you ask me.
"How does iTunes' DRM handle a full OS re-install? Or a hardware migration? What does Apple recommending doing when, in 2 years, our hardware is outdated and needs to be replaced? Or in 3 months when XP has an irrecoverable crash and we have to reinstall everything from scratch?"
I do this all the time (buy at home, copy to work, etc.). You copy your music to the new machine and click play. If you haven't played your music on that machin before, iTunes asks for your username and password, and you enter it. The music plays.
You can authorize up to three computers at once. So you should deauthorize the old machine if you're upgrading.
OS upgrades and re-installs on MacOS X don't affect user data, so there's no issue with iTunes DRM. On the PC, I have only been running iTunes for a few days, so I haven't done a re-install of the OS yet, but the worst case would be re-entering your username and password.
"Restricted file formats are a frustrating thing. But restricted file formats tied to a piece of hardware that is replaced on average every 3 years is foolish."
Yes, this is a problem with Microsoft's DRM. Apple's DRM is tied to a username & password, not hardware. The authorization is stored on your computer for convenience, of course, but you can authorize any other computer easily. And multiple people's music can be authorized on the same computer. Cool, eh?
"So I have to convert uncompressed audio to an mp3 to play in the player. Easy enough, I have CDex. Now how do I do this with something from iTMS? Oh wait, I can't. The songs are locked into AAC. I can't convert them to any other format without burning them to a CD first and further degrading the quality (not to mention the questionable legality of doing this)."
You don't actually have to burn a CD, just a virtual one (i.e. a CD that only exists in RAM). Tne RIP that into MP3's. And if you don't like having to click a couple of times, write an AppleScript to automate it.
"Question, if your hard drive goes tits up do you go to the iTMS and say, "Please let me have this file again for free?" "
That's what backups are for. Luckily you can fit 200 tracks on a CD-R, so the cost of backing up is, oh, 0.05 cents per track?
"but is it *yours to copy* once bought? ...
Both the Supreme Court and the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 say 'yes'"
Depends on what you mean by "yours to copy". You can copy music to another device to listen to it (e.g. RIP a CD to listen to on your PC or MP3 player). You can't (legally) make copies for friends (or strangers, come to think of it). When you buy a book, you have the right to use it any way you like; burn it, sell it, etc. But you don't have the right to make new copies of the book. The trick is that with digital media, "copying" went from being a difficult, expensive thing (set up your own printing press) to an easy, cheap thing (RIP and burn a CD, email a file, etc.). So in 1970 if you told someone "you bought that LP and you can do what you like with it" nobody would have thought that you could set up a record plant and publish copies of the record. But with a CD and a PC on the internet, you can effectively do just that. The hard part is figuring out what to do about it.
"by the AHRA we pay for those copying rights whenever we buy blank audio CDs"
In the US, no. In Canada, apparently so (for personal use only).
The reaspn that the download services don't have all music isn't the record companies, it's the artists. THe labels are doing deals for as much as they can as fast as they can; all of the major download services (iTMS, PressPlay, MusicMatch, BuyMusic.com, Liquid, etc.) have done deals with all of the majors, and some independents. But if the Beatles or Led Zeppelin don't want their music sold digitally, there's nothing a label can do about it.
So if you had a database of which artist was signed with which label, etc., you still wouldn't know who could sell what.
OK, I simplified a bit. It's the next version of the same DRM system, which has (supposedly) been better packaged. Specifically, it's _not_ a fork or a different DRM system.
Keep in mind that a "fresh install" on a Macintosh doesn't mean the same thing as on, say, Windows. A "clean install" means that the installer renames the previous System directory and writes out a new one, so you don't lose any data, settings, etc. The alternatives are:
- Upgrade: write the new OS over the old one. This sometimes has side effects, if you had system extensions installed (e.g. third party drivers) that don't work with the new version of the OS.
- Clean Install, preserve settings: do a Clean Install (as below), but preserves system and user settings, etc. This is the best choice, unless you're really short on disk space.
- Clean Install: renames the old System, and installs a clean new one. You then have a nice clean system, and can selectively copy third party drivers, application settings, etc., that you know you want.
- Format: reformat the drive, then do the install. This is for when you're doing an install on a random external drive, or wiping an old machine.
The DRM integrated into Office is the same DRM as in WMP. Hopefully debugged and made more of a real product rather than pile of libraries that one could build a DRM system out of. ;-)
At the iTMS for Windows launch, Apple provided some numbers, with references to the sources (e.g. "Last month Forrester counted..."). It's all in a video stream on Apple's web site, though, so I can't copy/paste the info here.
This interpretation of the licenses is completely wrong. While CMU asks that improvements to Mach be contributed back to them so that they can redistribute them, they do not require it. Similarly for BSD, anyone can take BSD code, generate a derived closed package, and distribute it. They just have to credit them.
So Apple is playing nice and is contributing all of their enhancements to Mach, BSD, etc., back, but they don't have to, any more than Microsoft (which uses the BSD TCP/IP stack) had to. Of course, Apple decided to acknowledge the way they benefit from open source projects, and contribute to the projects, while Microsoft hides their use of BSD code as much as they legally can, and forbids their employees (generally) from working on open source projects, or even using open source software.
U agreem about your point that Apple is very careful to keep the open and closed layers of their OS clearly separated. This isn't because of any BSD/Mach licensing issues, though.
So the big point is that under the licenses for those projects, Darwin doesn't have to be open. Apple chose to make it open. Apple also sells closed software (Cocoa, Carbon, iTunes, etc.). Personally, I think that they're doing a good job of balancing open and closed source; feel free to disagree.
My first reaction was "great, the iBook is the same as the PowerBook I bought a few months ago". After a few minutes digging, though, there are some real differences, though they're subtle. So Apple managed to give the core benefits of the PB to the iBook at a somewhat lower price, which is a good thing, even if it does reduce the product differentiation a bit.
:-)
The differences I can see are:
- Bluetooth is extra (an internal module, like AirPort).
- No SuperDrive option. This is a big deal to me -- I do backups on DVD-R's (you don't want to back 60 GB onto CD-R's!).
- No DVI out (also none on my PB, but there is on new ones)
- White plastic instead of metal case.
- 0.3 pounds heavier, perhaps 1/2 inch thicker.
- 10 GB smaller hard drives
- Plastic probably more impact resistant than metal (but also leads to case being thicker).
- $500 more for PowerBook.
So overall, a tradeoff. I'm still as happy as ever with my 12" PB, but now more people can buy most of what I've got, and while that makes it a little less exclusive, that's really a good thing...
Sounds like you two are in violent agreement.
I'll second this -- simple scantron's are far cheaper than these touchscreen terminals, and are auditable. Even better, any problem reading the vote is immediately rejected by the scanner, meaning that the voter can simply correct their ballot and resubmit it.
I have no idea why anyone would consider spending $millions to go from a cheap, reliable, transparent, auditable system to an expensive, unreliable, "black box" that isn't auditable.
This ought to be posted into FreeNet, where it cannot be killed. And putting up a BitTorrent of the files isn't a bad idea, either.
You're right -- you can't construct your example filters using iTunes' Smart Playlists. That being said:
1) If you wanted to support those complexities (nested boolean expressions, the condition 'not in my other playlists', the condition 'in this other playlist') you could certainly do so via a GUI. GUI's and scripting languages are logically identical (anything you can do in a script, you can do in a sufficiently complicated GUI).
2) These examples are rather contrived, and "cost" more in UI complexity than they provide in utility. In particular, fully generalized boolean expressions (with nesting, etc.) would confuse the heck out of most people.
3) Scripting is a good thing. iTunes on the Mac is scriptable, so you can build a playlist that expresses any logic you like. You can even make your script appear in the iTunes GUI. I don't think that you can trigger your script every time there's new content in the iTunes library, though, so you'll have to re-run it to regenerate your playlist every so often.
Sounds like we're in violent agreement.
It's not legitimate (or legal, though IANAL) to classify something simply because it's embarassing or reveals stupidity. That's one of the reasons that the Freedom of Information Act was passed -- to reveal information that we, the people who pay for and have ultimate authority over the government, can manage it effectively.
Well, rather obviously those devices have CPU's, storage, etc., so they're "computers" in the technical sense. But when a normal person says "computer" what they mean is "personal computer" that is a complex, general purpose computing device, and not "cell phone" or "pager" or "watch" or "videogame" -- all of which are simple to use, specialized computing devices. The key difference is simplicity -- people don't want to deal with complex, unpredictable devices. So when a marketing person says "no PC required" what they mean is "get things done without dealing with the confusing mess that is Windows".
Let me get this straight -- you're blaming DRM because you deleted some files and Apple won't replace them? I don't see how DRM is relevant -- if they'd sold you MP3's that you deleted, you'd still be in trouble. Heck, if they were CD's, you'd still be in trouble -- try going back to The Wiz to ask for a replacement for a CD that you microwaved.
Well, MS' DRM option is completely proprietary to Microsoft, just as Apple's is to Apple. The key differences are that (1) MS licenses their DRM to other retailers so that you can buy DRM'd WMA's from multiple vendors, and (2) MS' current DRM is really annoying to use, so all of those vendors are stuck on a platform that people don't want to use. If you have to pick between "the same as everybody else" or "better than everybody else" which would you pick?
Keep in mind that in the MP3 player market, Apple is the clear market leader, with 54% of all MP3 player sales by dollars, and around 35% of unit sales. And they've sold over half of all music sold online. So I think that they're pretty well positioned...
You can either use the operating system's built in text layout widget, which supports all of this correctly with no work, but doesn't give you any control over what's going on, or you can code your own layout engine, giving you complete control, but you'd have to add support for everything yourself. Given the control you'd need for a real word processor, I am sure that MS coded their own layout engine, so it'd be an immense amount of work to add support for bi-directional languages, etc. If MS supports any right-to-left languages already (Arabic, etc.) it shouldn't be any work at all to add support for Hebrew.
I think that he's proposing that than every web site add some new micropayment technology/system in order to impement metered site access at $0.001 per page, requiring users to install software and establish a paument relationship with some new party in order to access the site. That's not going to happen, as people have been implementing that same model, with virtually no acceptance, for many years now.
Instead, imagine if the ISP's drove the process. You've already got a billing relationship with them, so it simply turns a fixed cost into a slightly variable cost. They simply count the number of HTTP transactions initiated by their customers to each site (IP address), and the number of transactions initiated by each user. (Note: there's no need to log each transaction, just keep running counts). At the end of the month, they total up the numbers, multiply by $0.001, add the numbers to the month's bill, and mail checks out to all of the web sites that their customers visit (by looking up DNS contact info, and probably filtering out sites with too little traffic to make it worth cutting a check). Or instead of checks, deposit to Paypal, etc.
If people don't want to pay a variable cost, then it could operate like a pool. That is, if they have 100K customers, each puts $1 into a pool, so there's $100K in the pool. Then allocate the pool based on their traffic levels.
Either way, sites could decide to allow or block non-paying users pretty easily, either by enforcing an IP range map (i.e. return all request from non-paying ISP's to a 'please use a cool ISP' page) or by checking for a "flag" in the request. The ISP's could all modify HTTP requests that are "paid for" on the way through the routers by setting some available bit that the site could check for. It's technically messier, but gives sites more control.
I was surprised that a single CPU Opteron could be in the same performance ballpark as a dual CPU G5. Does the Opteron do more per clock cycle than the G5? Are applications not taking advantage of the second processor? Is there some other performance bottleneck, such as the memory subsystem? I look forward to finding out...
The declaration of independence carefully avoids any religion -- the phrases "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" and "Creator" reflect not a Christian viewpoint, but a more objective, Deist one. It's particularly important to understand that Deists (e.g. Jefferson, Washington, Paine) belief is founded in the observation of nature and application of reason, not on obedience to an organized church or authority. The Constitution only mentions religion in order to place limits on it to keep it from interfering with the proper running of the country. The foundation of the United States was a glorius triumph of rationality over the authority-driven mindset of the "old world".
As an aside, I find that the whole 1950's (and since) obsession with promoting Christianity and obedience to authority in the name of "patriotism" rather ironic given that the United States was founded largely by people who were not Christians and were in rebellion to their own government. That's why they were so careful to restrict the roles of religion and the federal government, though after 200 years of diligent work both restrictions are significantly weakened, ironically enough, by those most loudly "patriotic".
You're right that for a typical workgroup raw performance doesn't much matter -- either NT or Linux+SAMBA would be "fast enough."
Where this does matter is to someone:
1) Making a decision between NT and Linux+SAMBA. It's great for the OSS alternative to not only be better strategically, but faster and cheaper. You'd have to work pretty hard to justify why you'd pay more (forever) for a slower fileserver that's less secure and requires you to do more paperwork and maintenance.
2) Trying to save money. A 2.5x performance advantage on the same hardware can also mean perfectly good performance on 1/2.5th of the hardware. So instead of buying a NT and a "2Ghz fileserver with fast ethernet and half-a-gig of RAM" you can get the same performance out of Linux+SAMBA on an old 800 MHz PC with 128 MB RAM that you have lying around, or which can be bought for almost nothing compared to the macho server required to get the same performance out of NT.
"People in their ivory towers of idealism do not recognize that there are millions of businesses that are NOT big brutes like a Microsoft or an IBM or any other big corporation. Many of these businesses operate on razor-thin profit margins."
A ctivities/Activity08.htm. It's a pretty good class exercise. Anyway, based on the data, the minimum wage would have to increase by almost $3 an hour to break even with the minimum wage in 1965. I assume, based on your statements, that you'd be supporting that?
Missed my point by a mile. While companies like to complain about the terrible impact of giving their cheapest workers a querter an hour raise, the reality is that companies pay people because they get work done. If the pizza place fires workers because they cost $3.20 a day more (the last minimum wage increase, in 1997, was 40 cents an hour), they'll lose sales because they won't be able to make or deliver as much pizza. So despite the predictions of doom before every minimum wage increase, business just raise their prices trivially, and keep all of their employees, because that's the only rational business strategy. Personally, I'm pretty happy if a pizza place charges 5 cents a pizza more, and gives it employees a better wage.
"It's one thing to make minor adjustments every few years to keep minimum wage from becoming too low." The actual value of the minimum wage has dropped dramatically since 1965. All of the actual data, as well as some nice graphics, are at http://qrc.depaul.edu/arogers/InstructorTemplate/