Actually I never did say that governmnt running things is bad. I said that other countries have better government regulation.
Take South Korea for instance: the government took a large part in making sure the infrastructure (wrt broadband) was available to all people. They even subsidized it in order to help private industry accomplish this mission. South Korea is the most wired country in the world (with Japan in second and way ahead of the US).
The problem with America is all the rangling at the FCC and all the special interests by big telco money. This is where the government needs to step in and put its foot down but it can't because politicians are bought out.
Let me see the countries that were mentioned in the article: Japan, France, Finland, Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong... control over telecom? owns telecom?
You're almost right in one respect, but I don't think it's how you intended it to be. The reason why many of these places are successful are NOT because the government owns the telecoms but because the government regulation is better. The reason why we've failed here is because if big money interests that have bought lobbyists and support in the FCC. It's not that they own the networks, it's that they have better regulation.
And what about Salesforce.com? I'm not a big user from it, but from what I do it hold a lot of valuable information for a company and is completely online.
Just because there's no precedent for office software doesn't mean it won't happen eventually. The way it'll happen is when companies can't afford to NOT work online for collaboration reasons and understand that being stuck in a non-shared, desktop space is hampering their operations.
One thing I'd take notice when juxtaposing their two opinion is their target audience. Forbes is clearly making a financial opinion on the short and mid term with respect to concrete affects on Sun's and Microsoft's revenue coming from these office products. Infoworld talks about the technological part of it and how this may be an industry shift. Forbes' target audience is the investor while infoworld's is techies. Just read the content and you can tell they are geared for very different audiences.
So, in a sense, they both may be right. This is big wrt the tech world because of a big name merger and having the ability to use office products on the web. This is probably NOT big when it comes to Sun's stock price and the revenue that Microsoft makes off of Office in the short and mid term.
It was a couple of seasoned professionals who spearheaded this groundbreaking idea of synergizing several different technologies to create a best-of-practice enterprise solution.
when you want to pause it or watch a scene over? what if you missed what someone said?! what if it's all coming out in french and you can't figure out how to change the language until 5 mins later? what if what if what if?!?!
Doesn't this defy a BIG point of DVDs in that they're meant to be played over and over?
My theory is that people are the same whether they are poor or rich. If you were generous, helped charity, and helped people when you were poor then you're more likely to do it when you're rich. It just means that instead of just helping out physically you may make big donations and financially support centers. If you were stingy while you were poor, you're goign to be stingy when you're rich. After all, it's a life-guiding philosophy that determines how you react.
Standing up for your morals takes bravery and courage, not money. Nor is courage something money can buy. If you don't have to balls to stand up for what's right when you're poor, why would you suddenly have the balls when you're rich?
I read an article in Time about one of the top people in Google (was there back in '99) and it said that whenever she came across an issue similar to this she usually just referenced the CIA world fact book and went with whatever they had to avoid these kind of issues.
"Google shouldn't be the arbiter on languages. Just include anything considered legitimate by a third-party source, such as the CIA World Fact Book, she says. "We don't want to make a large geopolitical statement by accident."
I see your point but I don't accept it. If one cannot stand up for their morals when they live a modest life, how can you expect them to once they are wealthy and powerful?
If I were to throw a guess out there, it would be that google is going to try to walk before it runs. If you look at gmail or google talk, both of them were pretty minimalist in terms of features they offered. They pretty much put the core functionality out there and added more as they went along. If they were indeed putting an office suite out there, I imagine they will start with barebones word processing, spreadsheets and an online calendar without all the bells and whistles. This way they can get very valuable input without it coming crashing down completely such as user experience, user feedback, bandwidth issues, etc. I doubt that the first thing we'll see will be anything close to Microsoft Office.
I think the business community will be wary of using this, initially, for security reasons. I'm guessing that this will most likely be initially adopted by consumers (ie geeks). But I think that's been the case for any new technologies. After time, when the technology has been show to be robust and secure, the business community will begin to adopt it.
"the success of those haves somewhat depends on the existence of have-nots"
A common misconception; free trade economics is not a zero sum game.
I didn't mean to imply that it was a zero sum game. My comments were more based on the psychological, not the tangible, reasons why such a utopian society cannot exist; That is not all people can/would accept being equal to everyone else. Call it greed or pride, my belief is that you will always people who will want to be better and have more than others. Without the existence of a have-not, how can you define a have? This is why I point out the dependency.
Note there is a big difference between have not and have not as much. If the have mores have more than the have not as muches is that really so terrible ?
It's not so terrible, but is it utopian? If the haves don't have to work at all, but the have nots still have to work 8 hour days, whose utopia is that? Not everybody's.
You do bring up interesting points, though, about haves vs have-not-as-much's.
I'm glad you made this point because it's related to my initial reaction to this thread. I'm not a communist or socialist, but I believe that as long as we live in a society where there are haves and have-nots and that the success of those haves somewhat depends on the existence of have-nots, that we will continue to live in a non-utopian society (well, not for everyone).
That's a bit of a simplified view of the picture isn't it? As the article stated, increased traffic leads to more business and more businesses. Both of these contribute to the local economy which help funds the local taxes. The price of land and homes in the nearby will be raised due to the influx of new jobs and businesses. The local owners of homes will see the price of their homes increase even more.
The thing is Mountain View is complaining because they're seeing potential revenue that they aren't going to get. And their reasons for complaining aren't in reference to infrastructure but retirement liabilities. Big companies and municipalities have conflicts like this all the time.
I was going to make a comment about that exact part of the article. It really an interesting choice of words. The setup would not "cost" the county anything. That $3 million is potential tax revenue "not gained." I don't think this is a matter of semantics because using the word "lost" gives the impression that the tax payer is losing money by this development instead of not gaining revenue if they built on local land.
Slashdot Mirror
Fingerprints would be a bitch though.
Actually I never did say that governmnt running things is bad. I said that other countries have better government regulation.
Take South Korea for instance: the government took a large part in making sure the infrastructure (wrt broadband) was available to all people. They even subsidized it in order to help private industry accomplish this mission. South Korea is the most wired country in the world (with Japan in second and way ahead of the US).
The problem with America is all the rangling at the FCC and all the special interests by big telco money. This is where the government needs to step in and put its foot down but it can't because politicians are bought out.
Interesting read. Thanks for it. :)
Would you trust Larry Ellison??
What are you talking about????
Let me see the countries that were mentioned in the article: Japan, France, Finland, Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong... control over telecom? owns telecom?
You're almost right in one respect, but I don't think it's how you intended it to be. The reason why many of these places are successful are NOT because the government owns the telecoms but because the government regulation is better. The reason why we've failed here is because if big money interests that have bought lobbyists and support in the FCC. It's not that they own the networks, it's that they have better regulation.
Read up on Jack Thompson here.
...and 75% of those web sites are "worthless" blogs full of people's crap about their mundane lives.
Dang. Does it do your taxes for you too??
And what about Salesforce.com? I'm not a big user from it, but from what I do it hold a lot of valuable information for a company and is completely online.
Just because there's no precedent for office software doesn't mean it won't happen eventually. The way it'll happen is when companies can't afford to NOT work online for collaboration reasons and understand that being stuck in a non-shared, desktop space is hampering their operations.
One thing I'd take notice when juxtaposing their two opinion is their target audience. Forbes is clearly making a financial opinion on the short and mid term with respect to concrete affects on Sun's and Microsoft's revenue coming from these office products. Infoworld talks about the technological part of it and how this may be an industry shift. Forbes' target audience is the investor while infoworld's is techies. Just read the content and you can tell they are geared for very different audiences.
So, in a sense, they both may be right. This is big wrt the tech world because of a big name merger and having the ability to use office products on the web. This is probably NOT big when it comes to Sun's stock price and the revenue that Microsoft makes off of Office in the short and mid term.
It was a couple of seasoned professionals who spearheaded this groundbreaking idea of synergizing several different technologies to create a best-of-practice enterprise solution.
when you want to pause it or watch a scene over? what if you missed what someone said?! what if it's all coming out in french and you can't figure out how to change the language until 5 mins later? what if what if what if?!?!
Doesn't this defy a BIG point of DVDs in that they're meant to be played over and over?
You can afford it, but are you likely to?
:)
Me thinks you don't speak from experience.
My theory is that people are the same whether they are poor or rich. If you were generous, helped charity, and helped people when you were poor then you're more likely to do it when you're rich. It just means that instead of just helping out physically you may make big donations and financially support centers. If you were stingy while you were poor, you're goign to be stingy when you're rich. After all, it's a life-guiding philosophy that determines how you react.
Standing up for your morals takes bravery and courage, not money. Nor is courage something money can buy. If you don't have to balls to stand up for what's right when you're poor, why would you suddenly have the balls when you're rich?
Please RTFA. Thank you.
Managing Google's Idea Factory
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_4
I see your point but I don't accept it. If one cannot stand up for their morals when they live a modest life, how can you expect them to once they are wealthy and powerful?
If I were to throw a guess out there, it would be that google is going to try to walk before it runs. If you look at gmail or google talk, both of them were pretty minimalist in terms of features they offered. They pretty much put the core functionality out there and added more as they went along. If they were indeed putting an office suite out there, I imagine they will start with barebones word processing, spreadsheets and an online calendar without all the bells and whistles. This way they can get very valuable input without it coming crashing down completely such as user experience, user feedback, bandwidth issues, etc. I doubt that the first thing we'll see will be anything close to Microsoft Office.
Lacking infrastructure?
There is a greater availability and usage of broadband now. I imagine that makes a difference in these sorts of applications.
I think the business community will be wary of using this, initially, for security reasons. I'm guessing that this will most likely be initially adopted by consumers (ie geeks). But I think that's been the case for any new technologies. After time, when the technology has been show to be robust and secure, the business community will begin to adopt it.
Why the hell would I want to surf to my word processor?
I don't have to download and install ANY software. I just go to a URL and it's already running.
It starts faster because I don't have to download and install it whereever I go, whatever machine I'm on.
It doesn't matter where I am, what machine I'm on, I have access to all my documents. No more copying, emailing to yourself, and forgetting things.
Sharing and online collaboration with groups is seamless.
Sure, but surely attorneys have a voice in which cases they take, don't they? Johnny Cochran wasn't forced into taking OJ as his client.
I didn't mean to imply that it was a zero sum game. My comments were more based on the psychological, not the tangible, reasons why such a utopian society cannot exist; That is not all people can/would accept being equal to everyone else. Call it greed or pride, my belief is that you will always people who will want to be better and have more than others. Without the existence of a have-not, how can you define a have? This is why I point out the dependency.
It's not so terrible, but is it utopian? If the haves don't have to work at all, but the have nots still have to work 8 hour days, whose utopia is that? Not everybody's.
You do bring up interesting points, though, about haves vs have-not-as-much's.
I'm glad you made this point because it's related to my initial reaction to this thread. I'm not a communist or socialist, but I believe that as long as we live in a society where there are haves and have-nots and that the success of those haves somewhat depends on the existence of have-nots, that we will continue to live in a non-utopian society (well, not for everyone).
That's a bit of a simplified view of the picture isn't it? As the article stated, increased traffic leads to more business and more businesses. Both of these contribute to the local economy which help funds the local taxes. The price of land and homes in the nearby will be raised due to the influx of new jobs and businesses. The local owners of homes will see the price of their homes increase even more.
The thing is Mountain View is complaining because they're seeing potential revenue that they aren't going to get. And their reasons for complaining aren't in reference to infrastructure but retirement liabilities. Big companies and municipalities have conflicts like this all the time.
I was going to make a comment about that exact part of the article. It really an interesting choice of words. The setup would not "cost" the county anything. That $3 million is potential tax revenue "not gained." I don't think this is a matter of semantics because using the word "lost" gives the impression that the tax payer is losing money by this development instead of not gaining revenue if they built on local land.