Apple will not license OSX to run on other vendor's hardware because they are a *hardware company*. Yes, I know, they also make some great software. But the majority of Apple's computer division revenue comes from selling hardware and not from selling OSX licenses. (I think the iPod is still the largest single source of revenue for the company overall, though.)
Do you remember way back in 1994-5, when Apple granted licenses for "clone" Macs? The clones worked great, were significantly cheaper that Macs from Apple, and ran OS8 and 9 perfectly. Great idea for Apple, right? Wrong. The loss in hardware revenue was not offset by license revenue. The licensing blunder (and other mistakes) led to Job's return and the current state of Apple as a company. So, Apple is going to shy away fron licensing if it has any corporate memory at all.
1. Metallica did not force Yale, Harvard, and other universities "into booting Napster off their servers". Napster was never running on the schools servers. It's not even really a server at all, it's a peer-to-peer thing, which is why it's difficult to sue Napster itself in the first place. (Quiet down back there! Yes, there is a Napster server, but it only exists to index user files, maintain file/host relationships, and run the chat room stuff. It operates more like a web indexer than a server.)
2. Dr. Dre is not a rap group, it's just one guy! See, there is just one of him, so he can't be a group. If there were more than one, then it'd be a group, but there's not, so... never mind.
1. Look at the list of enhanced capabilities that were listed.
Unforgeable pseudonymous identities Bidirectional, typed, filterable links Arbitrage agents Bonding agents Escrow agents Digital Cash Capability Based Security w/ S. Encryption
Looking at thie list, you should realize that all of these capabilities, save the last, depand on the first. Without unforgeable identities you can't really perform any kind of commerce. Even more important is the realization that an unforgeable identity is itself dependent on encryption.
Let me repeat that - all higher level models of information exchange are fundamentally based on only _two_ cryptographic primitives, encryption and hashing. In the "Ask Slashdot" interview with Bruce Schneier, Bruce said,
"It's true that I described all sorts of interesting protocols in _Applied Cryptography_. The reality is that none of them is actually useful. What is useful are the few simple primitives -- signatures, encryption, authentication -- and the different ways to mirror real-life trust models using them. These protocols are simpler, easier to understand, and more useful."
This is why encryption is important and it's what encryption is really all about. As a community we should support strong crypto not because it will let us send privete naughty email, but because it is the foundation out of which is constructed digital cash, digital signatures, trusted arbitrage, and a host of other useful goodies.
2. Despite it's Katz-esque nature, question #11 is really rather profound. For the sake of argument let's remove the specificity and replace North Korea with "Oppressive Bastards", or OB for short.
My initial reaction to the question was "Why drop net appliances on these poor people? Send some food instead for the love of (insert deity here)." But then I thought hey, if you dropped them food they would eat, become hungry again, and you are right back where they started. Hmm, maybe air-dropping massive amounts of information is the right way to go. After all, to defeat the Oppressive Bastards you don't really need food or weapons, you need a collective will and the ability to organize. Both of these things can be done with the net, and you need _none_ of the advanced features listed at the start of the exam.
Profound, eh?
-Shane
Oh yeah, it probably wouldn't hurt to also send along Bobby Shaftoe to display some adaptability.
It sounds like the system that Mr. Katz has decided to call Clotho (Cool name, BTW.) is designed to perform two seperate functions. It's a technology filter, searching the hard and soft to decide what new gadgets and tools you actually need; at the same time Clotho can act as an information filter, determining what new ideas you are exposed to. Conspiracy theories aside, there are some interesting things that Clotho could do, but I think Katz is overlooking systems that we have right now that perform much of the functionality of Clotho.
Got Bits?
Let's take the second feature of Clotho first - the agent as an information filter. All of us on/. know that there is so much new information available each day that it is not possible for any one person to scan all of it. You might think that this is due to the internet, but you would be wrong. Back in the bad old days we used to get our information through newspapers, and I would bet that not a single person has ever sat down and read every page of the Sunday edition of a major newspaper.
The problem with a system like Clotho is that it would have to be tuned to my personal information tastes, which would be very difficult. What I would rather have is a system that does not make decisions for me, but one which let's me associate with a group of other people who have similar tastes in information as me. In this idealized system we would each scan a managable subset of the total news feeds and send interesting stories to each other as we come across them. Rather than forcing the technology into a role for which it is not suited, parsing news, in this system we would use people to find interesting news and use technology for something it _is_ good for, transmitting that information among people.
The system described above is more or less the same as Slashdot. I don't personally read the EETimes, but I don't need to becasue there is a group of people out there who do, and they send interesting tidbits to the/. editors, who put it in a place where I can find it. Likewise, most readers here probably don't listen to NPR in the morning, but I do, and if there are any stories that would be interesting to the/. crowd I'll send them off to the editors. Slashdot functions like an anthill, where each ant scurries off to there own little corner of the kitchen to search for tasty bits of food which they bring back home.
Next - Clotho as a technology filter.
Unlike the idea of an information filter, which is, in my biased opinion, a Good Thing (tm), the idea of having an agent stand between me a new technology is silly. Katz make it seem like we are all literaly drowning in a flood of new tech, frantically gasping for air as we sink into a quicksand pit of mobile phones, PDA's, and web-enabled running shoes. This is just not true.
Sure, I think that we all find the net-ready fridge is silly, but we have market forces that will take care of these things. If nobody buys it, it will smoothly fade into the background of failed gadgets and dissapear from our lives. And even if there are enough consumers out there who really do want a WebFridge (/. readers, no doubt.) that does not mean that _you_ have to buy one. Every person retains the magical ability to say "This is a piece of shit and I'm not buying one." Ta da! Problem solved.
If you want to be highly wired, then do it. Go on, proudly stuff that wireless, stereo, color LCD, Java enabled, PalmSuppository up your bum each morning and be secure in the knowledge that you can have stock quotes transmitted directly to your rectum wherever you are. But if you don't want to, then don't, and don't feel bad about it.
Recap.
Distributed human news filtering == good. Machine processed news filtering == bad. Technology filtering == silly. Making your own choices in life == priceless. Some things are priceless. For everything else, use your own goddammed judgment.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple will not license OSX to run on other vendor's hardware because they are a *hardware company*. Yes, I know, they also make some great software. But the majority of Apple's computer division revenue comes from selling hardware and not from selling OSX licenses. (I think the iPod is still the largest single source of revenue for the company overall, though.)
Do you remember way back in 1994-5, when Apple granted licenses for "clone" Macs? The clones worked great, were significantly cheaper that Macs from Apple, and ran OS8 and 9 perfectly. Great idea for Apple, right? Wrong. The loss in hardware revenue was not offset by license revenue. The licensing blunder (and other mistakes) led to Job's return and the current state of Apple as a company. So, Apple is going to shy away fron licensing if it has any corporate memory at all.
Let's review:
1. Metallica did not force Yale, Harvard, and other universities "into booting Napster off their servers". Napster was never running on the schools servers. It's not even really a server at all, it's a peer-to-peer thing, which is why it's difficult to sue Napster itself in the first place. (Quiet down back there! Yes, there is a Napster server, but it only exists to index user files, maintain file/host relationships, and run the chat room stuff. It operates more like a web indexer than a server.)
2. Dr. Dre is not a rap group, it's just one guy! See, there is just one of him, so he can't be a group. If there were more than one, then it'd be a group, but there's not, so... never mind.
-YuLe
If the main site is /.ed, try http://www.marsportal.com. They (we) have images and several live cameras from inside mission control at UCLA.
(Disclaimer - Yes, I am indirectly related to this site.)
-shane
1. Look at the list of enhanced capabilities that were listed.
Unforgeable pseudonymous identities
Bidirectional, typed, filterable links
Arbitrage agents
Bonding agents
Escrow agents
Digital Cash
Capability Based Security w/ S. Encryption
Looking at thie list, you should realize that all of these capabilities, save the last, depand on the first. Without unforgeable identities you can't really perform any kind of commerce. Even more important is the realization that an unforgeable identity is itself dependent on encryption.
Let me repeat that - all higher level models of information exchange are fundamentally based on only _two_ cryptographic primitives, encryption and hashing. In the "Ask Slashdot" interview with Bruce Schneier, Bruce said,
This is why encryption is important and it's what encryption is really all about. As a community we should support strong crypto not because it will let us send privete naughty email, but because it is the foundation out of which is constructed digital cash, digital signatures, trusted arbitrage, and a host of other useful goodies.
2. Despite it's Katz-esque nature, question #11 is really rather profound. For the sake of argument let's remove the specificity and replace North Korea with "Oppressive Bastards", or OB for short.
My initial reaction to the question was "Why drop net appliances on these poor people? Send some food instead for the love of (insert deity here)." But then I thought hey, if you dropped them food they would eat, become hungry again, and you are right back where they started. Hmm, maybe air-dropping massive amounts of information is the right way to go. After all, to defeat the Oppressive Bastards you don't really need food or weapons, you need a collective will and the ability to organize. Both of these things can be done with the net, and you need _none_ of the advanced features listed at the start of the exam.
Profound, eh?
-Shane
Oh yeah, it probably wouldn't hurt to also send along Bobby Shaftoe to display some adaptability.
It sounds like the system that Mr. Katz has decided to call Clotho (Cool name, BTW.) is designed to perform two seperate functions. It's a technology filter, searching the hard and soft to decide what new gadgets and tools you actually need; at the same time Clotho can act as an information filter, determining what new ideas you are exposed to. Conspiracy theories aside, there are some interesting things that Clotho could do, but I think Katz is overlooking systems that we have right now that perform much of the functionality of Clotho.
/. know that there is so much new information available each day that it is not possible for any one person to scan all of it. You might think that this is due to the internet, but you would be wrong. Back in the bad old days we used to get our information through newspapers, and I would bet that not a single person has ever sat down and read every page of the Sunday edition of a major newspaper.
/. editors, who put it in a place where I can find it. Likewise, most readers here probably don't listen to NPR in the morning, but I do, and if there are any stories that would be interesting to the /. crowd I'll send them off to the editors. Slashdot functions like an anthill, where each ant scurries off to there own little corner of the kitchen to search for tasty bits of food which they bring back home.
Got Bits?
Let's take the second feature of Clotho first - the agent as an information filter. All of us on
The problem with a system like Clotho is that it would have to be tuned to my personal information tastes, which would be very difficult. What I would rather have is a system that does not make decisions for me, but one which let's me associate with a group of other people who have similar tastes in information as me. In this idealized system we would each scan a managable subset of the total news feeds and send interesting stories to each other as we come across them. Rather than forcing the technology into a role for which it is not suited, parsing news, in this system we would use people to find interesting news and use technology for something it _is_ good for, transmitting that information among people.
The system described above is more or less the same as Slashdot. I don't personally read the EETimes, but I don't need to becasue there is a group of people out there who do, and they send interesting tidbits to the
Next - Clotho as a technology filter.
Unlike the idea of an information filter, which is, in my biased opinion, a Good Thing (tm), the idea of having an agent stand between me a new technology is silly. Katz make it seem like we are all literaly drowning in a flood of new tech, frantically gasping for air as we sink into a quicksand pit of mobile phones, PDA's, and web-enabled running shoes. This is just not true.
Sure, I think that we all find the net-ready fridge is silly, but we have market forces that will take care of these things. If nobody buys it, it will smoothly fade into the background of failed gadgets and dissapear from our lives. And even if there are enough consumers out there who really do want a WebFridge (/. readers, no doubt.) that does not mean that _you_ have to buy one. Every person retains the magical ability to say "This is a piece of shit and I'm not buying one." Ta da! Problem solved.
If you want to be highly wired, then do it. Go on, proudly stuff that wireless, stereo, color LCD, Java enabled, PalmSuppository up your bum each morning and be secure in the knowledge that you can have stock quotes transmitted directly to your rectum wherever you are. But if you don't want to, then don't, and don't feel bad about it.
Recap.
Distributed human news filtering == good.
Machine processed news filtering == bad.
Technology filtering == silly.
Making your own choices in life == priceless.
Some things are priceless. For everything else, use your own goddammed judgment.
-shane glynn