But when we now go after the very, very high users, the ones who camp on the network all day long every day doing things that--who knows what they're doing--those are the--
here's what Seidenberg would have said if, you know, he wasn't talking as the face of a publicly traded company:
But when we now go after the very, very high users, the ones who camp on the network all day long every day downloading porn
does that make it clearer what he's talking about? he's not talking about checking your email, or IMing or any of the low bandwidth applications you mention. he's talking about constant, high bandwidth usage and that's video. and Seidenberg is thinking porn, but he doesn't want to say that.
the interviewer actually interrupts him/bails him out by saying
It's video, right? I mean, it's video.
so actually, since Verizon never advertised anything like unlimited wireless internet, his claim is pretty reasonable. he's saying that people like paying a flat fee for usage, but that flat fee isn't fair for the most active users since they degrade everyone else's service and strain the network. so those people will either pay more or have their service throttled back.
well you still haven't heard about Verizon's cap. because there's no cap on Fios. he was talking about maybe, in the future, throttling wireless data users.
Verizon and FIOS will give it to you sideways, and you will smile and like it.
as many other people have pointed out, the throttling quote has nothing to do with FIOS. it's about wireless. here's the full quote:
So what we will do is put in reasonable data plans, and we've done this. We've just introduced a $30 data plan that does with every one of our BlackBerrys or smart phones, a 10 (dollar) or a $30 data plan that covers the majority of people who feel that's a fair price. I get to use it for 30, 40 hours and I pay a certain rate. But when we now go after the very, very high users, the ones who camp on the network all day long every day doing things that -- who knows what they're doing -- those are the --
(I'm guessing he was trying to keep from saying the word "porn".)
But those are the people we will throttle and we will find them and we will charge them something else.
not talking about throttling FIOS. Probably because they're not so worried about capacity on their FIOS network.
now you are probably right that Verizon (and all the majors) work very hard to keep competitors out. And that's hardball and it's nasty and deplorable and it's pretty much the way business works (and has worked) in this country. Maybe Seidenberg is a huge a**hole and it's very possible that he and Verizon's board sacrifice kittens (only the cutest, most trusting kittens) to their lord Cthulhu in order to maintain their profit margin.
but you know what, FIOS is a damn sight better than any other product on the market and it has been for years. Uptime is amazing, throughput is amazing, no bandwidth throttling. I am very satisfied customer.
Though I guess that just means that I like it sideways.
This is the entire human history of ignoring the loud and obnoxious rabble and jamming what needs to be done down the throats of the scared, huddled masses
Thus, I can sever ties with them, also at my choosing.
did it ever occur to you that the reason you have so much freedom and flexibility to make and sever contracts at will is because of government protections? that companies do not want you to sever ties with them. they do not want to offer a superior product than their competitors. the only thing they want is the money you earned through your productive labor.
and it turns out that absent regulation, it's cheaper to keep all competitors out than to innovate. They can get maximum profits by offering the shittiest product that will do the work and make sure you cannot access any other product.
Government can't do anything to corporations that the people couldn't. It just so happens that most people are apathetic and expect someone else to do it for them. That allows corrupt government officials to write regulations that will do nothing but benefit a few large corporations.
this is a very funny thing to say. but it reveals a clear disconnect in the conversation.
you see "Government" as something other than "the people" when they are essentially the same thing. The people want clean drinking water (though they don't need it to be so pristine that fragile over-bred creatures could live in it for extended periods of time). The government makes laws and regulations to prevent contamination of drinking water. The people don't want their children seeing naked boobies on tv or listening to hate-speech over the radio, so the government makes the FCC to regulate those things.
What you're suggesting is akin to an anarchic form of government where whenever individuals face an issue, they rally a large enough body of people into a sort of ad-hoc government and go after the problem. From an economics standpoint, this is incredibly unproductive because when people are rallying to a cause they're not doing their work. From a business standpoint, this is untenable because the rules are subject to constant and unpredictable change (the only rule is mob rule). From a consumer protection standpoint this is bad because usually by the time the problem gets confronted it's already too late (the forest is already chopped down and the perpetrators have fled). From a representation standpoint this is bad because it gives a much stronger voice to the unproductive portions of society.
The current system is not perfect, but it does address all these problems. It gives a strong voice to individuals. It provides a consistent framework withing which businesses can operate. And, through regulations, it provides protection and preemptive relief from excesses.
Have you seen the stock prices of the large insurance companies after the health care "reform" bill was passed?
I am not an expert, but I checked out the stock prices of a couple large insurance companies since the reform bill passed and they're doing about as well as the DOW. Which would suggest that their stock prices are benefiting from investors optimistic view of the economy as a whole, and not from any specific thing in the health reform legislation.
the report doesn't actually say that companies should not spend money on compliance. the summary says that, sure, but this is slashdot.
the paper says that the costs to companies of IP theft is far larger than for data leaks.
since companies cannot spend less on compliance, clearly the point is to get them to spend more on IP security. Which might be why Microsoft and RSA commissioned the paper in the first place. Now they can go into corporate board rooms and say "Yes, you already spend $X millions on security, but this report shows why you should spend $2X millions more on our new and improved security!"
Enterprises devote 80% of their security budgets to two priorities: compliance and securing sensitive corporate information, with the same percentage (about 40%) devoted to each.
So, the same amount of money is being spent between compliance and securing IP.
The paper suggests that companies should put more emphasis on the securing IP (trade secrets, etc.) and less on compliance. (Even after taking into consideration the penalties and punishments of a compliance failure)
It should also be pointed out that by compliance they mean all efforts to secure other people's information. So not just federal requirements, but also contractual obligations, and private lawsuits and PR problems that such security failures would entail.
from the paper:
We identified two kinds of information that have clear and tangible value. Proprietary company secrets generate revenue, increase profits, and maintain competitive advantage. In addition, custodial data such as customer, medical, and payment card information has value because regulation or contracts make it toxic when spilled and costly to clean up. We explain each below.
Re:Pound and a half and its too heavy?
on
iPad Review
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I suppose you're trying to be funny, but let's do an experiment.
lift your arm up and hold it there for 30 minutes.
the iPad could weigh zero pounds, but it's still a tablet and so suffers from the "gorilla arm" phenomenon of being impossible to use for extended periods.
the iPhone would have the same problem, but it's designed to be used for a couple minutes and then put away in your pocket/purse.
I'm pretty sure this case isn't all that far reaching.
Certainly the treatment, even if its naturally occurring, would still be patentable. Sure, they wouldn't likely be able to win a lawsuit against a guy whose body was producing their treatment (ala Monsanto), but they could definitely win against another pharma producing and selling their patented treatment in vats. Which is what they want the patent for anyways.
The allele thing is probably similar. They could still patent the assembly of the pieces in a particular order for the purposes of making medicine. And that would probably hold up just fine even after this ruling.
Basically every abstraction away from genes would need its own ruling.
Only one respondent reported paying for access to research materials covered by a patent
sounds to me like 1 out of 381 research labs were using patented genes. either the patented genes aren't all that interesting (possible) or the researchers are actively choosing not to research those genes to avoid the patent issues.
It's unclear to me why the lawyers are the ones you blame and not, say, the executives at Myriad. Or the Congress men and women who worship at the feet of the IP industry.
without patents there is no monetary incentive for identifying the function of a gene
If you figure out the function of a gene you can then make a drug to suppress or improve the function of the gene. Or whatever else. And that drug will be, wait for it, patentable! And when that patent comes out and the FDA approves the drug, it's gonna be kinda obvious to people who should know what the drug you're patenting does to what genes and why.
Perhaps what you mean to say is that without patents, when private industry figures out the function of a gene they will keep it to themselves. But that still doesn't make much sense. Unless you're going to take that information and make a treatment out of it, you're not going to be able to monetize it. (And as soon as you make a treatment, you're going to have to explain to the FDA how that treatment works.)
You could, I suppose, make a treatment and not patent it (like a trade secret). But then you're running the extreme risk of having someone else steal/recreate your discovery and patent your medicine out from under you.
Regardless, the motive to research the function of genes is that if you can figure out what a gene does (and it does something useful), you can develop patentable treatments that manipulate that gene. Patenting the gene is just the icing on the cake.
now, I have read a lot of Heinlen, and he's written some good stuff, but he was a jerk. while his work can provide a nice entry point to thinking about the human condition, please don't use his writing as the source of knowledge about humanity.
My first reaction on hearing about the lawsuits against Yelp was to lump it in with the idea of suing Google because you don't like your search position. But the more I read from the Yelp side of this, the shadier their practices seem. And this article, while pretty fluffy, did nothing to improve Yelp's standing in my eyes.
In fact, it made me think that beyond everything else, Yelp just doesn't get it. Stoppelman sure doesn't:
When a consumer encounters a business’s page, the reviews they’re seeing aren’t necessarily every review that’s been written about the business. It’s a selection of those reviews. It ensures that the consumer sees generally useful, trustworthy information that gives them a good idea of what to expect when they patronize that business.
So they have an "algorithm" that randomly and seemingly arbitrarily changes what reviews are visible on a business's page. Great, I am sure there are plenty of other sites that follow a similar approach. But there's nothing in there about any kind of system to ensure that their "algorithm" isn't abusive. There's no mention of oversight, nor of feedback. It'd be interesting to hear a general outline of how this "algorithm" does its thing.
Of course, he follows up with this:
The more that we explain about the algorithm, the less effective it becomes.
Which makes it sound like either the "algorithm" isn't all that complicated or they don't exactly know how the algorithm works and they fired the guy who wrote it. On second thought, this just makes it sounds like they're making the whole "algorithm" thing up. Maybe "the algorithm" is twenty interns sitting in the basement sifting through reviews about coffee houses and dry cleaners.
Any way I think about it, I cannot imagine using their service or trusting the reviews I read on Yelp.
I know exactly what you mean! I feel the same way about the telephone!
Sure you can use it to keep up with friends and family who live far away, but that's what letters are for. If you have real friends, they wont need this contrivance to maintain their friendship with you. And think about all the things you'll be able to talk about as if they were new if they come to visit. Ah the joys of limited connectivity!
And I mean, talk about annoying! I know that as soon as I install one in my house, it's gonna start ringing, interrupting work, interrupting dinner, interrupting sleep. And nine times out of ten it's going to be someone I don't know trying to sell me something I don't need. And what do you want to bet that the phone company isn't listening in?
That's why I say,
lose the telephone, you're (sic) life will improve
While I agree with the general sense of your post, I do think one should be able to apply a general rule of thumb without losing their geek cred. One need not be overly familiar with the particular ins-and-outs of the state of Washington's annual budget in order to comment intelligently on the issue.
If the government has to borrow money, it could have a negative effect, because it borrowed money from people who would have otherwise spent the money on potentially more valuable projects
Except that in recessions, the guys with the loot tend to get very conservative, because they don't know just how bad things are going to be. They hesitate to make new investments and pull back on investments that they are already committed to. Thus making a bad situation worse. Governments can overcome this by issuing bonds (which conservative investors love) and pump that money back into the economy by way of salaries, benefits and (as you point out) infrastructure investments.
The opposite holds true, that in boom times when private money is flowing freely, governments should focus on reducing their debt burden so that they can cushion the blow for the next downturn.
I feel like it's safe to say that in a recession, cutting government spending is a clear negative (Scared investors wont fill the void) and should be avoided.
except it turns out your wife/roommate asked them to come into your home to do some work that no one who lived there was willing to do.
your problem isn't with the "intruder", it's with the person who asked the "intruder" into your home without telling you first.
most of the people who come to this country aren't coming here because they love sleeping 12-to-a-bed, getting exploited by their employers, and living under constant threat of deportation.
they come here because American companies come to their towns and offer them jobs and wages that they cannot get in their own country.
if you had any decency or understanding you'd be threatening to shoot the american owners and operators of the businesses that are taking advantage of these desperate people.
the Soviet Union was a Totalitarian state. That they held to the precepts of Marxism does not make them any less totalitarian. They could have as easily been capitalist.
there are as many successful countries with socialistic elements as there are successful countries.
you may wish that you live in a society where no one expects anything of you and you are free to do as you please, but I assure you that there is no place on earth like that.
Slashdot Mirror
yes but when he talks about throttling high capacity users, he's talking explicitly about wireless plans
please calm down.
here's what Seidenberg said:
But when we now go after the very, very high users, the ones who camp on the network all day long every day doing things that--who knows what they're doing--those are the--
here's what Seidenberg would have said if, you know, he wasn't talking as the face of a publicly traded company:
But when we now go after the very, very high users, the ones who camp on the network all day long every day downloading porn
does that make it clearer what he's talking about? he's not talking about checking your email, or IMing or any of the low bandwidth applications you mention. he's talking about constant, high bandwidth usage and that's video. and Seidenberg is thinking porn, but he doesn't want to say that.
the interviewer actually interrupts him/bails him out by saying
It's video, right? I mean, it's video.
so actually, since Verizon never advertised anything like unlimited wireless internet, his claim is pretty reasonable. he's saying that people like paying a flat fee for usage, but that flat fee isn't fair for the most active users since they degrade everyone else's service and strain the network. so those people will either pay more or have their service throttled back.
well you still haven't heard about Verizon's cap. because there's no cap on Fios. he was talking about maybe, in the future, throttling wireless data users.
What we really need is 10-20 cables running down the middle of the street,
and, obviously, flying cars.
Verizon and FIOS will give it to you sideways, and you will smile and like it.
as many other people have pointed out, the throttling quote has nothing to do with FIOS. it's about wireless. here's the full quote:
So what we will do is put in reasonable data plans, and we've done this. We've just introduced a $30 data plan that does with every one of our BlackBerrys or smart phones, a 10 (dollar) or a $30 data plan that covers the majority of people who feel that's a fair price. I get to use it for 30, 40 hours and I pay a certain rate.
But when we now go after the very, very high users, the ones who camp on the network all day long every day doing things that -- who knows what they're doing -- those are the --
(I'm guessing he was trying to keep from saying the word "porn".)
But those are the people we will throttle and we will find them and we will charge them something else.
not talking about throttling FIOS. Probably because they're not so worried about capacity on their FIOS network.
now you are probably right that Verizon (and all the majors) work very hard to keep competitors out. And that's hardball and it's nasty and deplorable and it's pretty much the way business works (and has worked) in this country. Maybe Seidenberg is a huge a**hole and it's very possible that he and Verizon's board sacrifice kittens (only the cutest, most trusting kittens) to their lord Cthulhu in order to maintain their profit margin.
but you know what, FIOS is a damn sight better than any other product on the market and it has been for years. Uptime is amazing, throughput is amazing, no bandwidth throttling. I am very satisfied customer.
Though I guess that just means that I like it sideways.
np
This is the entire human history of ignoring the loud and obnoxious rabble and jamming what needs to be done down the throats of the scared, huddled masses
fixed that for you. only half meant as a joke.
Thus, I can sever ties with them, also at my choosing.
did it ever occur to you that the reason you have so much freedom and flexibility to make and sever contracts at will is because of government protections? that companies do not want you to sever ties with them. they do not want to offer a superior product than their competitors. the only thing they want is the money you earned through your productive labor.
and it turns out that absent regulation, it's cheaper to keep all competitors out than to innovate. They can get maximum profits by offering the shittiest product that will do the work and make sure you cannot access any other product.
Government can't do anything to corporations that the people couldn't. It just so happens that most people are apathetic and expect someone else to do it for them. That allows corrupt government officials to write regulations that will do nothing but benefit a few large corporations.
this is a very funny thing to say. but it reveals a clear disconnect in the conversation.
you see "Government" as something other than "the people" when they are essentially the same thing. The people want clean drinking water (though they don't need it to be so pristine that fragile over-bred creatures could live in it for extended periods of time). The government makes laws and regulations to prevent contamination of drinking water. The people don't want their children seeing naked boobies on tv or listening to hate-speech over the radio, so the government makes the FCC to regulate those things.
What you're suggesting is akin to an anarchic form of government where whenever individuals face an issue, they rally a large enough body of people into a sort of ad-hoc government and go after the problem. From an economics standpoint, this is incredibly unproductive because when people are rallying to a cause they're not doing their work. From a business standpoint, this is untenable because the rules are subject to constant and unpredictable change (the only rule is mob rule). From a consumer protection standpoint this is bad because usually by the time the problem gets confronted it's already too late (the forest is already chopped down and the perpetrators have fled). From a representation standpoint this is bad because it gives a much stronger voice to the unproductive portions of society.
The current system is not perfect, but it does address all these problems. It gives a strong voice to individuals. It provides a consistent framework withing which businesses can operate. And, through regulations, it provides protection and preemptive relief from excesses.
Have you seen the stock prices of the large insurance companies after the health care "reform" bill was passed?
I am not an expert, but I checked out the stock prices of a couple large insurance companies since the reform bill passed and they're doing about as well as the DOW. Which would suggest that their stock prices are benefiting from investors optimistic view of the economy as a whole, and not from any specific thing in the health reform legislation.
the report doesn't actually say that companies should not spend money on compliance. the summary says that, sure, but this is slashdot.
the paper says that the costs to companies of IP theft is far larger than for data leaks.
since companies cannot spend less on compliance, clearly the point is to get them to spend more on IP security. Which might be why Microsoft and RSA commissioned the paper in the first place. Now they can go into corporate board rooms and say "Yes, you already spend $X millions on security, but this report shows why you should spend $2X millions more on our new and improved security!"
Enterprises devote 80% of their security budgets to two priorities: compliance and securing sensitive corporate information, with the same percentage (about 40%) devoted to each.
So, the same amount of money is being spent between compliance and securing IP.
The paper suggests that companies should put more emphasis on the securing IP (trade secrets, etc.) and less on compliance. (Even after taking into consideration the penalties and punishments of a compliance failure)
It should also be pointed out that by compliance they mean all efforts to secure other people's information. So not just federal requirements, but also contractual obligations, and private lawsuits and PR problems that such security failures would entail.
from the paper:
We identified two kinds of information that have clear and tangible value.
Proprietary company secrets generate revenue, increase profits, and maintain competitive advantage. In addition,
custodial data such as customer, medical, and payment card information has value because regulation or contracts
make it toxic when spilled and costly to clean up. We explain each below.
I suppose you're trying to be funny, but let's do an experiment.
lift your arm up and hold it there for 30 minutes.
the iPad could weigh zero pounds, but it's still a tablet and so suffers from the "gorilla arm" phenomenon of being impossible to use for extended periods.
the iPhone would have the same problem, but it's designed to be used for a couple minutes and then put away in your pocket/purse.
I'm pretty sure this case isn't all that far reaching.
Certainly the treatment, even if its naturally occurring, would still be patentable. Sure, they wouldn't likely be able to win a lawsuit against a guy whose body was producing their treatment (ala Monsanto), but they could definitely win against another pharma producing and selling their patented treatment in vats. Which is what they want the patent for anyways.
The allele thing is probably similar. They could still patent the assembly of the pieces in a particular order for the purposes of making medicine. And that would probably hold up just fine even after this ruling.
Basically every abstraction away from genes would need its own ruling.
Only one respondent reported paying for access to research materials covered by a patent
sounds to me like 1 out of 381 research labs were using patented genes. either the patented genes aren't all that interesting (possible) or the researchers are actively choosing not to research those genes to avoid the patent issues.
fine, but wouldn't that make the patent for the method of selective breeding that led to their GM plants?
claiming to have a patent on the process of pollination is a bit much, IMHO.
It's unclear to me why the lawyers are the ones you blame and not, say, the executives at Myriad. Or the Congress men and women who worship at the feet of the IP industry.
I'm sorry, this is a very poor argument.
without patents there is no monetary incentive for identifying the function of a gene
If you figure out the function of a gene you can then make a drug to suppress or improve the function of the gene. Or whatever else. And that drug will be, wait for it, patentable! And when that patent comes out and the FDA approves the drug, it's gonna be kinda obvious to people who should know what the drug you're patenting does to what genes and why.
Perhaps what you mean to say is that without patents, when private industry figures out the function of a gene they will keep it to themselves. But that still doesn't make much sense. Unless you're going to take that information and make a treatment out of it, you're not going to be able to monetize it. (And as soon as you make a treatment, you're going to have to explain to the FDA how that treatment works.)
You could, I suppose, make a treatment and not patent it (like a trade secret). But then you're running the extreme risk of having someone else steal/recreate your discovery and patent your medicine out from under you.
Regardless, the motive to research the function of genes is that if you can figure out what a gene does (and it does something useful), you can develop patentable treatments that manipulate that gene. Patenting the gene is just the icing on the cake.
this.
Grok this and you will understand all human life.
now, I have read a lot of Heinlen, and he's written some good stuff, but he was a jerk. while his work can provide a nice entry point to thinking about the human condition, please don't use his writing as the source of knowledge about humanity.
My first reaction on hearing about the lawsuits against Yelp was to lump it in with the idea of suing Google because you don't like your search position. But the more I read from the Yelp side of this, the shadier their practices seem. And this article, while pretty fluffy, did nothing to improve Yelp's standing in my eyes.
In fact, it made me think that beyond everything else, Yelp just doesn't get it. Stoppelman sure doesn't:
When a consumer encounters a business’s page, the reviews they’re seeing aren’t necessarily every review that’s been written about the business. It’s a selection of those reviews. It ensures that the consumer sees generally useful, trustworthy information that gives them a good idea of what to expect when they patronize that business.
So they have an "algorithm" that randomly and seemingly arbitrarily changes what reviews are visible on a business's page. Great, I am sure there are plenty of other sites that follow a similar approach. But there's nothing in there about any kind of system to ensure that their "algorithm" isn't abusive. There's no mention of oversight, nor of feedback. It'd be interesting to hear a general outline of how this "algorithm" does its thing.
Of course, he follows up with this:
The more that we explain about the algorithm, the less effective it becomes.
Which makes it sound like either the "algorithm" isn't all that complicated or they don't exactly know how the algorithm works and they fired the guy who wrote it. On second thought, this just makes it sounds like they're making the whole "algorithm" thing up. Maybe "the algorithm" is twenty interns sitting in the basement sifting through reviews about coffee houses and dry cleaners.
Any way I think about it, I cannot imagine using their service or trusting the reviews I read on Yelp.
I know exactly what you mean! I feel the same way about the telephone!
Sure you can use it to keep up with friends and family who live far away, but that's what letters are for. If you have real friends, they wont need this contrivance to maintain their friendship with you. And think about all the things you'll be able to talk about as if they were new if they come to visit. Ah the joys of limited connectivity!
And I mean, talk about annoying! I know that as soon as I install one in my house, it's gonna start ringing, interrupting work, interrupting dinner, interrupting sleep. And nine times out of ten it's going to be someone I don't know trying to sell me something I don't need. And what do you want to bet that the phone company isn't listening in?
That's why I say,
lose the telephone, you're (sic) life will improve
While I agree with the general sense of your post, I do think one should be able to apply a general rule of thumb without losing their geek cred. One need not be overly familiar with the particular ins-and-outs of the state of Washington's annual budget in order to comment intelligently on the issue.
If the government has to borrow money, it could have a negative effect, because it borrowed money from people who would have otherwise spent the money on potentially more valuable projects
Except that in recessions, the guys with the loot tend to get very conservative, because they don't know just how bad things are going to be. They hesitate to make new investments and pull back on investments that they are already committed to. Thus making a bad situation worse. Governments can overcome this by issuing bonds (which conservative investors love) and pump that money back into the economy by way of salaries, benefits and (as you point out) infrastructure investments.
The opposite holds true, that in boom times when private money is flowing freely, governments should focus on reducing their debt burden so that they can cushion the blow for the next downturn.
I feel like it's safe to say that in a recession, cutting government spending is a clear negative (Scared investors wont fill the void) and should be avoided.
except it turns out your wife/roommate asked them to come into your home to do some work that no one who lived there was willing to do.
your problem isn't with the "intruder", it's with the person who asked the "intruder" into your home without telling you first.
most of the people who come to this country aren't coming here because they love sleeping 12-to-a-bed, getting exploited by their employers, and living under constant threat of deportation.
they come here because American companies come to their towns and offer them jobs and wages that they cannot get in their own country.
if you had any decency or understanding you'd be threatening to shoot the american owners and operators of the businesses that are taking advantage of these desperate people.
nice link, thanks!
the Soviet Union was a Totalitarian state. That they held to the precepts of Marxism does not make them any less totalitarian. They could have as easily been capitalist.
there are as many successful countries with socialistic elements as there are successful countries.
you may wish that you live in a society where no one expects anything of you and you are free to do as you please, but I assure you that there is no place on earth like that.