Yes, the analogy breaks down because I used two different means of transportation. A better version would have been to compare two different switching systems for a common transportation mode: a centrally managed switching network versus a network where every junction is free to make its own decisions. With a centrally managed network, one central station monitors traffic all over the rail net, sending trains on different routes to balance the load. In an independent net, the junction stations need larger switching yard capacity for peak times, and cannot rely upon headquarters to route traffic around them.
The point is that a savings in capacity through centralised load balancing (something the tiered internet promises) is offset by the cost of managing the net. It also presents an achilles' heel, a single weak point that would severely affect performance should it be damaged.
Mind you, I have avoided the subject of preferential treatment, where the transportation company charges different rates based on which passengers are sitting in the train. This would also raise costs as each train would be inspected as soon as it reaches the first junction, taking the time to cross-check if the passengers paid for preferential treatment or not. The head switcher has to field the report from the first junction, then consult his list of preferred customers, then finally calculate the route with the preference weighing in instead of merely by load.
Now that I've considered it more, the call for a tiered internet has nothing to do with managing the network and load balancing, and depends only upon whether the network allows for preferential treatment or not. In other words, they are like conductors who stop a train to check the passengers' tickets and then assign the train a priority based on whether the passengers paid more for preferential treatment or not. In the internet, they inspect every packet upon receipt, passing it along only after checking to see how big a bribe the originator paid. In the end, all passengers/packets are inconvenienced as traffic is held up, and their prices rise due to the wages of the inspector.
To put it differently, unmanaged traffic where the drivers get to decide which road they use themselves is less efficient than a traffic net where a central authority dictates to you which highway you're allowed to take. Of course an unmanaged net needs more throughput capacity overall, but in exchange the traffic doesn't require micromanaging. Part of why highways and trucks beat out rail service is because of that flexibility, of not being at the mercy of the switching stations and schedules.
Or consider an irrigation network with multiple sources and multiple outlets. You could either build all the pipes so that any of them could deliver maximum capacity, or have workers actively controlling the valves to distribute the water across the entire net so that one side doesn't overload. The latter solution doesn't require as robust a pipe, but requires a more complex valve system and somebody controlling it.
It's not because it's "sexy" that I own an iPod, but because it's the easiest to use. The design elements you talk of are truly important, since a device is only useful as long as you can easily access the features you want. Part of my gripe with my current phone is how Motorola and O2 make me jump through hoops to get Google Maps to work, and it still doesn't work right in the end.
Now don't get me wrong, I like my current phone as it does the important things well (in my case phone calls and Bluetooth UMTS modem), but Apple's charm has always been that it gets so many of the niggling details right.
I'm sorry, but using the Wikipedia as a citation? And then because said article doesn't contain the word Iran you consider that proof that she wasn't monitoring it? Either you are naive or dishonest, and I sincerely hope it's the former.
For the record, sir, your insinuation that I was brainwashed because I choose to read news sources you disagree with (in German and French as well as English) is merely insulting. I have taken the time to read the declassified reports, and the speech was dishonest. Even worse was how Colin Powell was fed faulty information and cut out of the loop, turning a once-good man into a dupe.
Now go try to intimidate somebody else. I never liked blowhards like you when I was in the Army, and I do not like you now.
Bravo, sir. I've not seen such chutzpah in presenting untruths in a long time.
Indeed, you willingly parrot the fevered fantasies of the far right, spouting nonsense about restricting rights to own firearms with no proof whatsoever. Never mind that a Republican congress screamed bloody murder in 1999 at his attempts to get Osama bin Laden, never mind that the Bush transition team specifically reduced anti-terror activities simply because Clinton warned about terrorists. Oh, I could go on and on.
But what's the point? Your callous, selfish frat-boy tone undermines your message so effectively I really don't see any need to rebut your baseless assertions any more.
I recommend that you acquaint yourself with the term "stovepiping", with how Cheney derailed the CIA investigation into Iran's nuclear programme by exposing the identity of the lead investegator, a woman we now all know as Valerie Plame. I also recommend that you pay attention to the speech again, to the way it cherry-picked to support a shaky assumption. You would also be wise to note that the intelligence Bush showed before the invasion was heavily redacted to make uncertainties seem like certainties: all caveats were removed, for example, and alternative interpretations deleted whole cloth.
Mr. Bush sent American troops off on a wild goose chase and knowingly misled the public and lawmakers to do it. He squandered a victory in Afghanistan to support his Saddam obsession, and now our success there is evaporating. The callous disregard and exploitation of those who serve that this administration has shown is astounding.
After carefully reading the wording of the statement, I see a neat little trick: after all, if the compiler that Apple uses is GPL-based, then the software is "built with" GPL-covered software without actually containing GPL-covered code. A subtle, potentially misleading choice of words...naughty!
This is a base attempt to get attention, to get some of the bigger press outlets to look at them. I suspect that they are in reality simply resenting that the iPhone buried almost all awareness of the GPL3 release, and are now desperate for attention.
The iPhone does have a massive influence on how tech in the future will work. It is introducing a new interface, a new way of bridging the grey area between mobile communications and the mobile entertainment. The importance of the iPhone lies not only in the device itself, but also in how other manufacturers will react. This is more like how the original Lisa and Macintosh made a new way of handling data popular.
The iPhone is important because it shakes up a complacent market. As the LG Prada shows, the other manufacturers are already scared, and the market is going to change. We may even see more phones like the Jitterbug as other manufacturers take the end user more into consideration.
So yes, it is more important than the GPL v3. It will have more impact on how we use mobile devices, and possibly even in how touchscreen/touchpad interfaces work on normal desktop computers as well...
I posted this elsewhere in the comments, but it does bear repeating that there was a directive issued in 2003 to specifically forbid these sorts of lock-outs. The full legalese is here...
Several GSM phones are sold for prepaid usage, and are "locked" to the SIM card. To put in another SIM card, you have to "unlock" the phone. This means paying a fee to the provider that you bought the prepaid phone from (from a contract point of view, though, as I'm sure you could hack it).
So yes, a GSM phone can be made to lock out your old SIM card. All other manufacturers already sell phones that do this.
These "clever chips" are already banned in the EU, and similar directives forbid many "custom" changes to lock out third party suppliers. See the Waste Electronic and Electric Equipment Directive for more details.
The director's cut returns to the original Philip K. Dick theme about a growing uncertainty about one's own identity. Deckard begins to question whether his job is morally right, and eventually question whether he himself is a replicant. The theme was to reflect the paranoia that grows when hunting infiltrators, of losing the ability to trust your own memories. The link between memories and paranoia was a common theme in Mr. Dick's stories.
This is law in other EU countries as well, but with varying conditions.
Take Germany, for example. There is a tradition in some regions for the bride to pay for her wedding shoes entirely in Pfennige (now cents). Over the decades, inflation has pushed up prices such that the bride could end up bringing hundreds of thousands of coins. It did come to one court case (I think), where the bride-to-be insisted upon the tradition, but the store owner also insisted that a sum that large was unreasonable to pay with that amount since it would take far too much time to tally the coins.
So to my understanding, paying with cash is legal and should be accepted, but using intentionally small denominations could be considered harassment.
I'm sorry, but you just revealed your youth right there. Apparently you have no memory of the commercial Unix workstations that Sun, Silicon Graphics and Hewlett Packard used to offer, or the old days of server wars being between Unix and VAX.
As for not working with Macs, I have been using Macintosh computers since 1985. I've been in Mac-only shops, and in Mac-hostile shops. My current place of work is dominated by an IT boss who extolled the virtue of the AS/400 for solving all of mankind's problems, and now wants to run everything with Domino servers. The man is so hostile to Mac OS X that every request is an uphill battle.
On the main topic, though - why does it matter if it's an 11-year-old kid, a 42-year-old mother of three, a college drop out, or an IT worker on the other end of that mage? The point is "suspension of disbelief". With text filtering out all the nuances, you can imagine the voice of the on-screen character, and see the chat as coming from Ragnar Wormtoter. Voice chat however comes from Jimmy, the kid behind the character, and can be incongruous with the visual of the hulking big bloke with a big hammer.
This has nothing to do with respect, but with maintaining the atmosphere. Not all of us are good enough voice actors to play the role.
Apparently the WSJ author means MS Outlook lock-in, but I'm willing to wager Lotus Notes was meant as well. Many IT departments hang on to it as a way of defending their little empire. Unix and Mac users in fact liked to joke that part of why Windows took over the corporate world lies in how much support it needs, and so choosing it meant ensuring the company would still need you and even give you some underlings.
John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has nailed better than I could here.
So to be a planet, you have to be the baddest badass in your orbit, and clear your path of all those other upstarts in your way? Pluto and Eris, being so far out, will probably never make it then since their orbits are so huge that some punk-ass twerp will always be able to settle in and make itself at home. It will take centuries until Pluto or Eris manages to swing around and pulverise the little creep. The distance between Pluto and Eris is also sufficient enough that they may never cross paths and enter a deathmatch. Things get weird once you get that far out from the star.
First you have to realise that the SMS fees are a problem, and that's what stung the kids in this article. They weren't aware, and nobody warned them--especially not the telcos, who loved the profits these kids were making them.
The price of some unlimited GPRS or UMTS connections is about the same as for unlimited SMS by most telcoms, I would think. I live in Germany, so I really can't say what the US mobile companies charge.
Finally, another factor is getting the bloody client to work correctly. I still can't get GMail to work on my MotoRAZR Vxx, due to issues with O2 Germany. Getting AIM or GTalk to work is a problem I don't know how to solve.
Congratulations on missing the whole point of the article. The kids involved weren't being naughty, are working to pay for the costs incurred, and the parents weren't aware until the first bill hit home.
It's not about the kids wasting money, it's about hidden costs in phone bills and how parents (as well as teens) need to think about getting unlimited plans for their text messaging as well.
Since you posted as an anonymous coward, though, I doubt you will read this reply. Most likely you simply posted in hopes of generating lots of controversy. I suspect you were simply trolling for outrage.
(And no, I'm not going to click on the link. There's a good chance it's NSFW, and I am at work)
I think that's the real problem here, the way kids get used to AIM, MSN and other chat messengers first and then expect SMS to be the same thing. Kids here in Germany get into SMS first, and normally on a prepaid card that they have to refill themselves from their allowance. Different expectations from both the parents and the kids.
Reading through TFA, neither the kids nor the parents were aware that they could rack up such huge fees. Blaming the kids and threatening to spank them is only a sad joke that misses the point: these families got slammed by costs that were hidden in the fine print. After all, most of them switched to an unlimited plan after getting the nasty bill.
I do admit, I just can't get past the way this resembles a Monty Python sketch. I can see it now...
JOHN CLEESE: "You've trespassed upon my property!"
GRAHAM CHAPMAN: "I did not."
CLEESE: "You did! You did! You owe me a toll!"
CHAPMAN: "I wasn't aware that I did. Where did I step on your property?"
CLEESE: "...I won't tell you."
CHAPMAN: "What? Why not?"
CLEESE: "If I told you, then you'd find a route that doesn't cross my property. That would ruin my chances of collecting a toll in the future, now, wouldn't it?"
CHAPMAN: "You are a very silly man and I have no intention of paying."
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the analogy breaks down because I used two different means of transportation. A better version would have been to compare two different switching systems for a common transportation mode: a centrally managed switching network versus a network where every junction is free to make its own decisions. With a centrally managed network, one central station monitors traffic all over the rail net, sending trains on different routes to balance the load. In an independent net, the junction stations need larger switching yard capacity for peak times, and cannot rely upon headquarters to route traffic around them.
The point is that a savings in capacity through centralised load balancing (something the tiered internet promises) is offset by the cost of managing the net. It also presents an achilles' heel, a single weak point that would severely affect performance should it be damaged.
Mind you, I have avoided the subject of preferential treatment, where the transportation company charges different rates based on which passengers are sitting in the train. This would also raise costs as each train would be inspected as soon as it reaches the first junction, taking the time to cross-check if the passengers paid for preferential treatment or not. The head switcher has to field the report from the first junction, then consult his list of preferred customers, then finally calculate the route with the preference weighing in instead of merely by load.
Now that I've considered it more, the call for a tiered internet has nothing to do with managing the network and load balancing, and depends only upon whether the network allows for preferential treatment or not. In other words, they are like conductors who stop a train to check the passengers' tickets and then assign the train a priority based on whether the passengers paid more for preferential treatment or not. In the internet, they inspect every packet upon receipt, passing it along only after checking to see how big a bribe the originator paid. In the end, all passengers/packets are inconvenienced as traffic is held up, and their prices rise due to the wages of the inspector.
To put it differently, unmanaged traffic where the drivers get to decide which road they use themselves is less efficient than a traffic net where a central authority dictates to you which highway you're allowed to take. Of course an unmanaged net needs more throughput capacity overall, but in exchange the traffic doesn't require micromanaging. Part of why highways and trucks beat out rail service is because of that flexibility, of not being at the mercy of the switching stations and schedules.
Or consider an irrigation network with multiple sources and multiple outlets. You could either build all the pipes so that any of them could deliver maximum capacity, or have workers actively controlling the valves to distribute the water across the entire net so that one side doesn't overload. The latter solution doesn't require as robust a pipe, but requires a more complex valve system and somebody controlling it.
The Citröen Xsara Picasso is a pretty cool minivan, and I want a Citröen C1 diesel (very similar to the Toyota Aygo) for my work commute.
The newest iteration of the Renault Twingo, however, isn't as charming as it used to be.
It's not because it's "sexy" that I own an iPod, but because it's the easiest to use. The design elements you talk of are truly important, since a device is only useful as long as you can easily access the features you want. Part of my gripe with my current phone is how Motorola and O2 make me jump through hoops to get Google Maps to work, and it still doesn't work right in the end.
Now don't get me wrong, I like my current phone as it does the important things well (in my case phone calls and Bluetooth UMTS modem), but Apple's charm has always been that it gets so many of the niggling details right.
I'm sorry, but using the Wikipedia as a citation? And then because said article doesn't contain the word Iran you consider that proof that she wasn't monitoring it? Either you are naive or dishonest, and I sincerely hope it's the former.
For the record, sir, your insinuation that I was brainwashed because I choose to read news sources you disagree with (in German and French as well as English) is merely insulting. I have taken the time to read the declassified reports, and the speech was dishonest. Even worse was how Colin Powell was fed faulty information and cut out of the loop, turning a once-good man into a dupe.
Now go try to intimidate somebody else. I never liked blowhards like you when I was in the Army, and I do not like you now.
Bravo, sir. I've not seen such chutzpah in presenting untruths in a long time.
Indeed, you willingly parrot the fevered fantasies of the far right, spouting nonsense about restricting rights to own firearms with no proof whatsoever. Never mind that a Republican congress screamed bloody murder in 1999 at his attempts to get Osama bin Laden, never mind that the Bush transition team specifically reduced anti-terror activities simply because Clinton warned about terrorists. Oh, I could go on and on.
But what's the point? Your callous, selfish frat-boy tone undermines your message so effectively I really don't see any need to rebut your baseless assertions any more.
I recommend that you acquaint yourself with the term "stovepiping", with how Cheney derailed the CIA investigation into Iran's nuclear programme by exposing the identity of the lead investegator, a woman we now all know as Valerie Plame. I also recommend that you pay attention to the speech again, to the way it cherry-picked to support a shaky assumption. You would also be wise to note that the intelligence Bush showed before the invasion was heavily redacted to make uncertainties seem like certainties: all caveats were removed, for example, and alternative interpretations deleted whole cloth.
Mr. Bush sent American troops off on a wild goose chase and knowingly misled the public and lawmakers to do it. He squandered a victory in Afghanistan to support his Saddam obsession, and now our success there is evaporating. The callous disregard and exploitation of those who serve that this administration has shown is astounding.
Captain America is truly dead.
After carefully reading the wording of the statement, I see a neat little trick: after all, if the compiler that Apple uses is GPL-based, then the software is "built with" GPL-covered software without actually containing GPL-covered code. A subtle, potentially misleading choice of words...naughty!
This is a base attempt to get attention, to get some of the bigger press outlets to look at them. I suspect that they are in reality simply resenting that the iPhone buried almost all awareness of the GPL3 release, and are now desperate for attention.
The iPhone does have a massive influence on how tech in the future will work. It is introducing a new interface, a new way of bridging the grey area between mobile communications and the mobile entertainment. The importance of the iPhone lies not only in the device itself, but also in how other manufacturers will react. This is more like how the original Lisa and Macintosh made a new way of handling data popular.
The iPhone is important because it shakes up a complacent market. As the LG Prada shows, the other manufacturers are already scared, and the market is going to change. We may even see more phones like the Jitterbug as other manufacturers take the end user more into consideration.
So yes, it is more important than the GPL v3. It will have more impact on how we use mobile devices, and possibly even in how touchscreen/touchpad interfaces work on normal desktop computers as well...
I posted this elsewhere in the comments, but it does bear repeating that there was a directive issued in 2003 to specifically forbid these sorts of lock-outs. The full legalese is here...
Several GSM phones are sold for prepaid usage, and are "locked" to the SIM card. To put in another SIM card, you have to "unlock" the phone. This means paying a fee to the provider that you bought the prepaid phone from (from a contract point of view, though, as I'm sure you could hack it).
So yes, a GSM phone can be made to lock out your old SIM card. All other manufacturers already sell phones that do this.
These "clever chips" are already banned in the EU, and similar directives forbid many "custom" changes to lock out third party suppliers. See the Waste Electronic and Electric Equipment Directive for more details.
The director's cut returns to the original Philip K. Dick theme about a growing uncertainty about one's own identity. Deckard begins to question whether his job is morally right, and eventually question whether he himself is a replicant. The theme was to reflect the paranoia that grows when hunting infiltrators, of losing the ability to trust your own memories. The link between memories and paranoia was a common theme in Mr. Dick's stories.
This is law in other EU countries as well, but with varying conditions.
Take Germany, for example. There is a tradition in some regions for the bride to pay for her wedding shoes entirely in Pfennige (now cents). Over the decades, inflation has pushed up prices such that the bride could end up bringing hundreds of thousands of coins. It did come to one court case (I think), where the bride-to-be insisted upon the tradition, but the store owner also insisted that a sum that large was unreasonable to pay with that amount since it would take far too much time to tally the coins.
So to my understanding, paying with cash is legal and should be accepted, but using intentionally small denominations could be considered harassment.
I'm sorry, but you just revealed your youth right there. Apparently you have no memory of the commercial Unix workstations that Sun, Silicon Graphics and Hewlett Packard used to offer, or the old days of server wars being between Unix and VAX.
As for not working with Macs, I have been using Macintosh computers since 1985. I've been in Mac-only shops, and in Mac-hostile shops. My current place of work is dominated by an IT boss who extolled the virtue of the AS/400 for solving all of mankind's problems, and now wants to run everything with Domino servers. The man is so hostile to Mac OS X that every request is an uphill battle.
This has nothing to do with respect, but with maintaining the atmosphere. Not all of us are good enough voice actors to play the role.
Apparently the WSJ author means MS Outlook lock-in, but I'm willing to wager Lotus Notes was meant as well. Many IT departments hang on to it as a way of defending their little empire. Unix and Mac users in fact liked to joke that part of why Windows took over the corporate world lies in how much support it needs, and so choosing it meant ensuring the company would still need you and even give you some underlings.
John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has nailed better than I could here.
This subthread is a perfect example of the No True Scotsman logical fallacy...
So to be a planet, you have to be the baddest badass in your orbit, and clear your path of all those other upstarts in your way? Pluto and Eris, being so far out, will probably never make it then since their orbits are so huge that some punk-ass twerp will always be able to settle in and make itself at home. It will take centuries until Pluto or Eris manages to swing around and pulverise the little creep. The distance between Pluto and Eris is also sufficient enough that they may never cross paths and enter a deathmatch. Things get weird once you get that far out from the star.
27% more, eh? Are you sure it isn't really 23%?
Still, nobody, nobody should say to Eris, "say, you been puttin' on mass?"...
First you have to realise that the SMS fees are a problem, and that's what stung the kids in this article. They weren't aware, and nobody warned them--especially not the telcos, who loved the profits these kids were making them.
The price of some unlimited GPRS or UMTS connections is about the same as for unlimited SMS by most telcoms, I would think. I live in Germany, so I really can't say what the US mobile companies charge.
Finally, another factor is getting the bloody client to work correctly. I still can't get GMail to work on my MotoRAZR Vxx, due to issues with O2 Germany. Getting AIM or GTalk to work is a problem I don't know how to solve.
Congratulations on missing the whole point of the article. The kids involved weren't being naughty, are working to pay for the costs incurred, and the parents weren't aware until the first bill hit home.
It's not about the kids wasting money, it's about hidden costs in phone bills and how parents (as well as teens) need to think about getting unlimited plans for their text messaging as well.
Since you posted as an anonymous coward, though, I doubt you will read this reply. Most likely you simply posted in hopes of generating lots of controversy. I suspect you were simply trolling for outrage.
(And no, I'm not going to click on the link. There's a good chance it's NSFW, and I am at work)
I think that's the real problem here, the way kids get used to AIM, MSN and other chat messengers first and then expect SMS to be the same thing. Kids here in Germany get into SMS first, and normally on a prepaid card that they have to refill themselves from their allowance. Different expectations from both the parents and the kids.
Reading through TFA, neither the kids nor the parents were aware that they could rack up such huge fees. Blaming the kids and threatening to spank them is only a sad joke that misses the point: these families got slammed by costs that were hidden in the fine print. After all, most of them switched to an unlimited plan after getting the nasty bill.
I do admit, I just can't get past the way this resembles a Monty Python sketch. I can see it now...
JOHN CLEESE: "You've trespassed upon my property!"
GRAHAM CHAPMAN: "I did not."
CLEESE: "You did! You did! You owe me a toll!"
CHAPMAN: "I wasn't aware that I did. Where did I step on your property?"
CLEESE: "...I won't tell you."
CHAPMAN: "What? Why not?"
CLEESE: "If I told you, then you'd find a route that doesn't cross my property. That would ruin my chances of collecting a toll in the future, now, wouldn't it?"
CHAPMAN: "You are a very silly man and I have no intention of paying."
CLEESE: "THERE! You did it again! Now pay up!"
CHAPMAN: "No. Go away."