The ACM Programming Contest, which has teams from various universities all over the world,
The ACM programming contest is an academic exercise. It measures the ability to implement high-quality solutions to well-specified problems, not innovation. And people participate in those contests often because their country doesn't give them enough outlets for their skills and creativity.
You know who does even better than China at the ACM programming contest? Russia. Does that make Russia a powerhouse of innovation in computer science? Of course not. It means Russia has a supply of smart kids with nothing better to do.
They are as smart as all of us humans, and if they get a decent education, they are as capable of producing "IP" and of defending it in court.
The problem with the Chinese isn't a lack of intelligence, it is their political system and their culture.
Oh, USA, seems you lived for too long from rent. You are going to crumble like the Soviet empire did, shortly ago.
The US may well "crumble". If we do, it is because we are adopting more and more Chinese-style policies: placing the needs of the community ahead of individual liberties, government interference in the economy, political centralization, limits on free speech, etc.
We'll see some little wars in your backyard, the once proud bald eagle eating flies and worms.
Well, despite your evident glee over this, the world economy is not a zero-sum game. If the US fails, the economic and political consequences for the rest of the world would be disastrous. That's, among other things, why Europeans keep begging the US not to become "isolationist".
In addition to filing twice as many patents as the U.S.
Well, that sure is a sign of innovation!/sarcasm
China is increasingly being selected as a key venue for patent litigation between non-Chinese companies. Why?
Perhaps because it is a totalitarian state friendly to the interests of well-connected corporations?
Litigants feel they are treated fairly. Reports indicated that in 2015, 65 foreign plaintiffs won all of their cases against other foreign companies before Beijing's IP court.
projecting your own behaviour onto others if you've been running through accounts.
I'm not "projecting", I was telling you: I have had accounts on Slashdot since nearly the beginning and marked you as a "foe" a couple of times before, long before your recent spate of dumb remarks.
And I'm not ashamed of "running through accounts": I have a long time account that I occasionally use for technical announcements, and otherwise, I change accounts as my views change. I started out as a fairly closeted gay immigrant, became a progressive and Democrat concerned about climate change and social justice, and now have become a political independent.
That is a lie. You marked me as foe last year after the primaries.
I marked you as a foe several times before. Your problem isn't your opposition to Trump (I couldn't care less), it's that you're a fool, every incarnation.
I do feel however that the larger companies are much more able to adapt to a higher bandwidth cost scenario than watchLosFromLA_makeAnAssOfHimself.com/livestream would..
Well, and I just explained to you why that's bullshit.
Like thousands of others I was here on day one (Rob Malda got the news out so a lot of people turned up). Pick something else for a petty little pissing contest.
I'm not into a "pissing contest". I simply pointed out that I didn't mark you foe "some time back" because of Trump, it long predates Trump. I don't know what your prior UID was, but I probably marked you as an idiot back then as well. It's obviously part of who you are and not changing.
razor thin margins on huge volume apparently adds up to huge market valuations and even some profit. Who would have thought that math works?
Yes, and razor thin margins also make businesses extremely sensitive to even small changes in cost structures. Furthermore, it's only really big businesses that can operation on razor thin margins.
See, tiny costs multiplied by a lot of volume means a lot of money, while tiny costs multiplied by a small volume means not very much money. That's why net neutrality is a big deal for large volume small margin companies, and not for small volume large margin companies. So, the belief that Google is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts is ridiculous; Google has a huge financial interest in net neutrality.
Would that competition include municipal broadband? I didn't think so.
Municipal broadband isn't competition; it's a government handout to special interest groups: public sector unions, construction companies, and privileged and wealthy residents.
Do you realize that it is federal government regulation that has eliminated exclusive franchises for cable companies? Poof went their legal monopolies. And, of course, ISPs have NEVER had monopolies from the local government.
The bottleneck, and the place where competitors frequently run into problems, is putting wires in the ground and putting up wireless towers. Local governments are often motivated to act against the interests of residents because that kind of construction work generates lots of income for cities, government employees, and politically connected contractors.
What new kind of legislation or regulation do you see that wouldn't overstep federal limits
There are limits on federal power? Who knew! They don't seem to have mattered much since the progressive era.
but would force local governments to "allow more competition" when the regulations that currently exist say they have to allow competition?
Generally speaking, protecting individual property rights and allowing more local decision making. A city council for a city with a population of 1M should not have much power deciding what happens in individual neighborhoods. How to go about that legally is a separate question.
Google, Facebook, and Amazon have razor-thin margins and huge volumes. If they had to pay for access, their business models might be in big trouble. Cloud computing might get more costly relative to local computing as well. So, no, they don't do this out of selflessness, they do it because it matters to their bottom line, big time.
In contrast, smaller players tend to have bigger margins, so they can more easily pay for this out of those margins. But ISPs are probably not going to bother with trying to charge small players anyway because it's a lot of effort for little revenue, and they'd much rather have the small players grow to be big, at which point they can then charge them.
Web companies met with FCC Ajit Pai on Tuesday and urged him not to gut the net neutrality rules that protect their traffic, a week after he met with broadband providers that have tried to kill the Obama-era regulations. From a report:
Do you think companies like YouTube, Facebook, etc. campaign for net neutrality out of the goodness of their hearts? Of course not. They are lobbying for their financial interests, which do not coincide with yours.
Internet service in the US is such an unholy mess of regulations, rent seeking, government-granted privileges, restrictions, political interests, big money, and clueless techies that it is hard to know what any particular regulation does. I strongly doubt, however, that "net neutrality" will accomplish what people promise for it. Most likely (and given who is lobbying for it), it will simply cement the role of politically powerful and well-connected corporations.
Instead of imposing even more regulations in the form of net neutrality, it would probably be better if the federal government got rid of regulations, and perhaps also forced local governments to allow more competition.
If you're going to end up with a legalised monopoly, I'd rather have a non-profit one run for the benefit of the people, than a for-profit one run for the benefit of the shareholders.
False dichotomy. The only reason we end up with "legalised monopolies" is because government regulations create them. Cable and Internet service is no more a natural monopoly than apples or bolts. The idea that the market causes monopolies is tired, ignorant old Marxism and fascism.
Having said that, government monopolies are not run for the benefit of the people; they are run for the benefit of politicians and government employees, which in no way coincide with the benefit of the people.
Not at all. You create a municipal internet, and you still allow everyone else to compete with it.
That's a predictable but nonsensical response. If you are concerned that a private market "leads to (natural) monopolies", then adding a publicly financed corporation into the mix is unlikely going to help because usually one of two things is going to happen: either the public option is so bad that it can't compete, or it is so well subsidized by taxes that private companies are relegated to minor status. It's usually the latter, because the people running public corporations have large amounts of political power and tend to get whatever taxes and regulations they need to stay in power. When their business is media related, they can additionally use their corporations for self-promotion and propaganda.
Hence my point: A "legislated monopoly" would be if those cities created municipal internets.
I've been arguing for years that if telecommunications companies take public money for expanding infrastructure, they need to be designated as common carriers.
First you force them at gunpoint to get in bed with the government, then you say "now that you're in bed with me...".
We need to go back to the old ISP days
You mean 9600 baud dial-up, with semi-illegal third party modems or leased lines that cost more than the apartment they go to? I absolutely don't need that, thank you very much.
If all you want is equal access to the wires, there is no need to "nationalize the fiber", you can just separate the hardware provider from the service provider.
However, an even better solution is for cities to just put in conduits instead of digging up the road for every cable.
For most party members, it's always their party before country. No matter what issue.
There, FTFY. See, both parties are the same in that regard. It's because in order to become a party member, you really have to be a believer that your party holds the truth.
Exactly my point. Some succeed, some fail, others replace them, and all this activity stimulates the economy, rather than wrecking it.
You're confusing cause and effect. A productive, active economy often creates corporate turnover and high employment. It doesn't follow that creating high corporate turnover and high employment is good for the economy. I know: it's a common mistake made by devotees of left and right wing politics.
Why "defend" any politician?? Only a rabid fool "defends" a politician...
Because, if you know anything about history, you'd realize that elections actually matter. Politicians are all dickheads (it takes a pathological desire for power to choose to be a politician), but some of those dickheads turn your country in fascist dictatorships, others into socialist states, and others keep things mostly going along. Just ask the people of Germany, Italy, or Venezuela.
Here in Australia we at least know we're voting for dickheads.
Down there in Australia, you don't know shit about politics or what can go wrong in politics. But you apparently have a pathological obsession with US politics.
The irony - it burns!;-)
I'm sorry, little fascists simply aren't worth a more artful phrasing or proofreading.
Bullshit, you marked me foe some time back because I wrote something critical of one of your little cheerleading pieces on Trump after the end of the primaries.
I have marked you a foe because I think you are are an idiot and have been for as long as I have been on Slashdot (likely longer than you). "Foe" is a holdover from the time when marking people as such actually let you downrank them out of existence so you wouldn't see their crap at all (a feature that has sadly disappeared).
As for Trump, when I say "I didn't support him", I simply mean that I didn't vote for him. I certainly have defended him against unwarranted attacks and attempts at character assassination. And so far, Trump hasn't done anything that particularly bothers me. On the other hand, I certainly don't hide the fact that I utterly despise Hillary and have for more than a decade, for her corruption, her lies, her opportunistic homophobia, and her incompetence. That's why I voted for Obama. It's also why I left the Democratic party last year and became an independent.
And to be crystal clear, if the election took place today, I probably would vote for Trump, because although I still don't like him, he has turned out to be less bad than expected, while Hillary, her supporters, and the Democratic party have behaved deplorably.
Does that clarify what "I didn't support him" mean? Or do you need me to draw you a map?
If the FBI had actually found anything, they would have arrested Page before the election and made a big deal out of it. The fact that the Obama administration did nothing tells you that didn't find anything, despite a massive effort and intrusive surveillance.
The real question is whether the surveillance was legitimate to begin with, or whether it was a political fishing expedition. If it's the latter, then the Obama administration is guilty of an abuse of power that makes Watergate look like a rounding error.
Slashdot Mirror
The ACM programming contest is an academic exercise. It measures the ability to implement high-quality solutions to well-specified problems, not innovation. And people participate in those contests often because their country doesn't give them enough outlets for their skills and creativity.
You know who does even better than China at the ACM programming contest? Russia. Does that make Russia a powerhouse of innovation in computer science? Of course not. It means Russia has a supply of smart kids with nothing better to do.
The problem with the Chinese isn't a lack of intelligence, it is their political system and their culture.
The US may well "crumble". If we do, it is because we are adopting more and more Chinese-style policies: placing the needs of the community ahead of individual liberties, government interference in the economy, political centralization, limits on free speech, etc.
Well, despite your evident glee over this, the world economy is not a zero-sum game. If the US fails, the economic and political consequences for the rest of the world would be disastrous. That's, among other things, why Europeans keep begging the US not to become "isolationist".
Well, that sure is a sign of innovation! /sarcasm
Perhaps because it is a totalitarian state friendly to the interests of well-connected corporations?
Ah, thought so!
I'm not "projecting", I was telling you: I have had accounts on Slashdot since nearly the beginning and marked you as a "foe" a couple of times before, long before your recent spate of dumb remarks.
And I'm not ashamed of "running through accounts": I have a long time account that I occasionally use for technical announcements, and otherwise, I change accounts as my views change. I started out as a fairly closeted gay immigrant, became a progressive and Democrat concerned about climate change and social justice, and now have become a political independent.
I marked you as a foe several times before. Your problem isn't your opposition to Trump (I couldn't care less), it's that you're a fool, every incarnation.
Well, and I just explained to you why that's bullshit.
I'm not into a "pissing contest". I simply pointed out that I didn't mark you foe "some time back" because of Trump, it long predates Trump. I don't know what your prior UID was, but I probably marked you as an idiot back then as well. It's obviously part of who you are and not changing.
Yes, and razor thin margins also make businesses extremely sensitive to even small changes in cost structures. Furthermore, it's only really big businesses that can operation on razor thin margins.
See, tiny costs multiplied by a lot of volume means a lot of money, while tiny costs multiplied by a small volume means not very much money. That's why net neutrality is a big deal for large volume small margin companies, and not for small volume large margin companies. So, the belief that Google is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts is ridiculous; Google has a huge financial interest in net neutrality.
Clear now? Who would have thought math works!
Municipal broadband isn't competition; it's a government handout to special interest groups: public sector unions, construction companies, and privileged and wealthy residents.
See, and stupid reasoning like yours is why we have monopolies. And to address that stupid reasoning, you propose even more stupid solutions.
If you think that video streaming is so profitable, you're welcome to create your own site. You'll find that it's hard.
The bottleneck, and the place where competitors frequently run into problems, is putting wires in the ground and putting up wireless towers. Local governments are often motivated to act against the interests of residents because that kind of construction work generates lots of income for cities, government employees, and politically connected contractors.
There are limits on federal power? Who knew! They don't seem to have mattered much since the progressive era.
Generally speaking, protecting individual property rights and allowing more local decision making. A city council for a city with a population of 1M should not have much power deciding what happens in individual neighborhoods. How to go about that legally is a separate question.
Google, Facebook, and Amazon have razor-thin margins and huge volumes. If they had to pay for access, their business models might be in big trouble. Cloud computing might get more costly relative to local computing as well. So, no, they don't do this out of selflessness, they do it because it matters to their bottom line, big time.
In contrast, smaller players tend to have bigger margins, so they can more easily pay for this out of those margins. But ISPs are probably not going to bother with trying to charge small players anyway because it's a lot of effort for little revenue, and they'd much rather have the small players grow to be big, at which point they can then charge them.
Do you think companies like YouTube, Facebook, etc. campaign for net neutrality out of the goodness of their hearts? Of course not. They are lobbying for their financial interests, which do not coincide with yours.
Internet service in the US is such an unholy mess of regulations, rent seeking, government-granted privileges, restrictions, political interests, big money, and clueless techies that it is hard to know what any particular regulation does. I strongly doubt, however, that "net neutrality" will accomplish what people promise for it. Most likely (and given who is lobbying for it), it will simply cement the role of politically powerful and well-connected corporations.
Instead of imposing even more regulations in the form of net neutrality, it would probably be better if the federal government got rid of regulations, and perhaps also forced local governments to allow more competition.
False dichotomy. The only reason we end up with "legalised monopolies" is because government regulations create them. Cable and Internet service is no more a natural monopoly than apples or bolts. The idea that the market causes monopolies is tired, ignorant old Marxism and fascism.
Having said that, government monopolies are not run for the benefit of the people; they are run for the benefit of politicians and government employees, which in no way coincide with the benefit of the people.
That's a predictable but nonsensical response. If you are concerned that a private market "leads to (natural) monopolies", then adding a publicly financed corporation into the mix is unlikely going to help because usually one of two things is going to happen: either the public option is so bad that it can't compete, or it is so well subsidized by taxes that private companies are relegated to minor status. It's usually the latter, because the people running public corporations have large amounts of political power and tend to get whatever taxes and regulations they need to stay in power. When their business is media related, they can additionally use their corporations for self-promotion and propaganda.
Hence my point: A "legislated monopoly" would be if those cities created municipal internets.
First you force them at gunpoint to get in bed with the government, then you say "now that you're in bed with me...".
You mean 9600 baud dial-up, with semi-illegal third party modems or leased lines that cost more than the apartment they go to? I absolutely don't need that, thank you very much.
If all you want is equal access to the wires, there is no need to "nationalize the fiber", you can just separate the hardware provider from the service provider.
However, an even better solution is for cities to just put in conduits instead of digging up the road for every cable.
There, FTFY. See, both parties are the same in that regard. It's because in order to become a party member, you really have to be a believer that your party holds the truth.
A "legislated monopoly" would be if those cities created municipal internets.
You're confusing cause and effect. A productive, active economy often creates corporate turnover and high employment. It doesn't follow that creating high corporate turnover and high employment is good for the economy. I know: it's a common mistake made by devotees of left and right wing politics.
Because, if you know anything about history, you'd realize that elections actually matter. Politicians are all dickheads (it takes a pathological desire for power to choose to be a politician), but some of those dickheads turn your country in fascist dictatorships, others into socialist states, and others keep things mostly going along. Just ask the people of Germany, Italy, or Venezuela.
Down there in Australia, you don't know shit about politics or what can go wrong in politics. But you apparently have a pathological obsession with US politics.
I'm sorry, little fascists simply aren't worth a more artful phrasing or proofreading.
I have marked you a foe because I think you are are an idiot and have been for as long as I have been on Slashdot (likely longer than you). "Foe" is a holdover from the time when marking people as such actually let you downrank them out of existence so you wouldn't see their crap at all (a feature that has sadly disappeared).
As for Trump, when I say "I didn't support him", I simply mean that I didn't vote for him. I certainly have defended him against unwarranted attacks and attempts at character assassination. And so far, Trump hasn't done anything that particularly bothers me. On the other hand, I certainly don't hide the fact that I utterly despise Hillary and have for more than a decade, for her corruption, her lies, her opportunistic homophobia, and her incompetence. That's why I voted for Obama. It's also why I left the Democratic party last year and became an independent.
And to be crystal clear, if the election took place today, I probably would vote for Trump, because although I still don't like him, he has turned out to be less bad than expected, while Hillary, her supporters, and the Democratic party have behaved deplorably.
Does that clarify what "I didn't support him" mean? Or do you need me to draw you a map?
Who knew Republicans were so much fun.
Actually, I'm an independent and former Democrat. I didn't support Trump.
However, the Democrats are evidently becoming increasingly unhinged.
If the FBI had actually found anything, they would have arrested Page before the election and made a big deal out of it. The fact that the Obama administration did nothing tells you that didn't find anything, despite a massive effort and intrusive surveillance.
The real question is whether the surveillance was legitimate to begin with, or whether it was a political fishing expedition. If it's the latter, then the Obama administration is guilty of an abuse of power that makes Watergate look like a rounding error.