The government is not stopping you from cutting a deal with the owners of utility poles (usually the electric company) and running your own cable to people's homes. There isn't a law against it."
I'm pretty sure you're wrong on this. As a utility the electric co. is highly regulated and I'd bet most communities don't allow them to rent their poles to the highest bidder. Many municipalities grant monopolies to cable providers giving them exclusive rights to run cable over public right-of-ways (streets, etc). So even if the Electric co rents you a pole, good luck running cable without crossing any streets.
"What stops another company from springing up to provide cable internet services for cheaper? Answer - government intervention."
Uh...no. Without government intervention, there would be no cable providers. Why? Because they would have to get permission from--and probably pay rent to--EVERY SINGLE PROPERTY OWNER whose land their cable crosses. We're talking thousands of contracts per town, it would take years and cost a fortune.
Assuming one company succeeded in this, a competitor would have to be out their minds to want to go through the same process and build their own very expensive infrastructure in order to compete against an entrenched entity that already owns 100 percent of the market.
The only sane implementation is for government to own the infrastructure and contract with cable co's to provide service. That could include installation and maintenance if you don't believe government is competent to do this.
...it's insane. You can get a Dell laptop with a 15" screen and a core duo processor for that. HP must be planning some big kickbacks to some public officials to unload these dogs.
I hated it the first time I saw it too, but now if I see it while flipping channels I can't take my eyes off it. I agree the Baron--and Sting--are way over the top, but Lynch did an incredible job of creating an alternate universe.
"I can't see getting a "We're Bill Gates fans, so we want to give him a bunch of money" line item through most corporate budget committees."
No, but you can get a "If we get audited and caught with pirated software they'll sue our pants off" line through. No company with any brains uses pirated software...I realize that doesn't rule out all of them.
I honestly think MS is shooting themselves in the foot by DRMing Office. Suppose I have Office at work, and I want to put it on my home machine. If I have a choice of spending a couple hundred bucks or installing Open Office for free, I'll grumble a little but try Open Office. Once I find Open Office does what I need, I'll start questioning why we need to be paying for Office at work. So DRM is negative marketing. Thanks for promoting open source, Microsoft!
Yeah, let's spend a trillion dollars sending soldiers to get their limbs blown off, then another mind boggling fortune to develop new limbs for them. I'm all for medical advances, but in this case prevention sure beats the cure.
Sounds like what they're going for is something akin to Tom Cruise's computer interface in Minority Report. But even if that's true, saying that the device is not capable of monitoring your living room is pure BS. If it can see your gestures, it has to be able to see you.
So he's basically saying "Trust us, even though I'm lying to you as I type this". Man am I glad I dumped Comcast last year. Considering 99 percent of what's on TV is crap, I haven't really missed it.
I have to disagree, I don't think Apple would be where it is if Steve weren't a royal prick. I don't know the guy, just going by reputation. Dicks don't compromise, and they don't hesitate to push people to get what they want. I'm not saying that being a dick in itself is the key to success, but having a genius for product design and PR combined with the ability to push people to deliver EXACTLY what you want is what makes him a success.
There are a variety of leadership styles to get that kind of performance from your people, it just happens that being a dick works for Steve. You can't separate being a dick from being a leader in his case, as intimidation and secrecy are key components of his leadership style.
"The bigger question would be how do you determine the value of the IP to assess it for taxation."
I agree, assessing intellectual property values would be a huge PIA.
On the other hand, a simple, flat, renewal fee would have the same effect. Or perhaps a sliding scale, so that the longer you hold a copyright the more expensive it becomes. Copyrights that weren't producing revenues would be released, and Disney could keep Mickey forever. Might not generate the billions in tax revenues that the author envisions, but it would get more works in to the public domain.
From the summary, "So, if you combine their work and our work, the speed at which you can innovate and get things done is just dramatically more rapid
Isn't the first rule of project management that, beyond a certain point, this doesn't work? Throwing more people on a project just makes it harder to coordinate and convolutes the process (see Vista). I mean, it's not like MS or Yahoo is hurting for resources or personnel, are they really going to get leaner and faster by merging?
That's not completely true. It's a lot cheaper to cover Britney's latest melt down than to spend weeks or even months digging up a story about corporate or government malfeasance. Throw in the fact that you'll be pissing off somebody powerful and maybe even a sponsor, and there's very little incentive for our media outlets to do any actual journalism. Networks and newspapers used to be run by people who cared about news, now they're just another revenue source in a mega-corporation. So the bottom line is all that matters.
CNN has a policy that they have to approve anything that is published by their employees. That's prior restraint, also known censorship. It's not illegal, it's not a violation of the first amendment, but it is the definition of censorship. Yes, the employees can choose to quit and then publish whatever they want, but at that point they are no longer employees. As long as they are employees, CNN's position is that they have the right to censor anything they publish.
Let's assume China has a policy of censoring whatever their citizens publish. Does that mean if a Chinese citizen is able to emigrate to Australia and publish whatever he wants, that China does not practice censorship?
You are correct that nothing was censored in this case, but the tag is appropriate, as CNN is asserting that their employees must submit to censorship if they want to stay employed.
"All that is vanishing increasingly with more and more" of our manufacturing base offshored to China and other low-wage countries. There, fixed that for you.
Just curious, what Socialist policies are you talking about? I honestly can't think of any Federal policy implemented since Reagan was elected that I would describe as socialist. Unless you want to count No Child Left Behind. As for your point about the military spread to the four corners, I agree, it's ridiculous.
I had a couple friends there too. One covered the story for AP--he was still in college, was huge break for him--the other worked at the Hyatt, hearing his story just about froze the blood in my veins. I'd never heard about the engineers OKing the design changes.
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The government is not stopping you from cutting a deal with the owners of utility poles (usually the electric company) and running your own cable to people's homes. There isn't a law against it."
I'm pretty sure you're wrong on this. As a utility the electric co. is highly regulated and I'd bet most communities don't allow them to rent their poles to the highest bidder. Many municipalities grant monopolies to cable providers giving them exclusive rights to run cable over public right-of-ways (streets, etc). So even if the Electric co rents you a pole, good luck running cable without crossing any streets.
"What stops another company from springing up to provide cable internet services for cheaper? Answer - government intervention."
Uh...no. Without government intervention, there would be no cable providers. Why? Because they would have to get permission from--and probably pay rent to--EVERY SINGLE PROPERTY OWNER whose land their cable crosses. We're talking thousands of contracts per town, it would take years and cost a fortune.
Assuming one company succeeded in this, a competitor would have to be out their minds to want to go through the same process and build their own very expensive infrastructure in order to compete against an entrenched entity that already owns 100 percent of the market.
The only sane implementation is for government to own the infrastructure and contract with cable co's to provide service. That could include installation and maintenance if you don't believe government is competent to do this.
...it's insane. You can get a Dell laptop with a 15" screen and a core duo processor for that. HP must be planning some big kickbacks to some public officials to unload these dogs.
I hated it the first time I saw it too, but now if I see it while flipping channels I can't take my eyes off it. I agree the Baron--and Sting--are way over the top, but Lynch did an incredible job of creating an alternate universe.
The stats are posted here. Have your credit card and social security number ready!
"I can't see getting a "We're Bill Gates fans, so we want to give him a bunch of money" line item through most corporate budget committees."
No, but you can get a "If we get audited and caught with pirated software they'll sue our pants off" line through. No company with any brains uses pirated software...I realize that doesn't rule out all of them.
I honestly think MS is shooting themselves in the foot by DRMing Office. Suppose I have Office at work, and I want to put it on my home machine. If I have a choice of spending a couple hundred bucks or installing Open Office for free, I'll grumble a little but try Open Office. Once I find Open Office does what I need, I'll start questioning why we need to be paying for Office at work. So DRM is negative marketing. Thanks for promoting open source, Microsoft!
Yeah, let's spend a trillion dollars sending soldiers to get their limbs blown off, then another mind boggling fortune to develop new limbs for them. I'm all for medical advances, but in this case prevention sure beats the cure.
Sounds like what they're going for is something akin to Tom Cruise's computer interface in Minority Report. But even if that's true, saying that the device is not capable of monitoring your living room is pure BS. If it can see your gestures, it has to be able to see you.
So he's basically saying "Trust us, even though I'm lying to you as I type this". Man am I glad I dumped Comcast last year. Considering 99 percent of what's on TV is crap, I haven't really missed it.
Holy crap! Cooler than the Batmobile, and 130+ MPG! Sign me up!
Good observation, wish I had mod points.
I have to disagree, I don't think Apple would be where it is if Steve weren't a royal prick. I don't know the guy, just going by reputation. Dicks don't compromise, and they don't hesitate to push people to get what they want. I'm not saying that being a dick in itself is the key to success, but having a genius for product design and PR combined with the ability to push people to deliver EXACTLY what you want is what makes him a success.
There are a variety of leadership styles to get that kind of performance from your people, it just happens that being a dick works for Steve. You can't separate being a dick from being a leader in his case, as intimidation and secrecy are key components of his leadership style.
Good point. How about a simple exception for GPL, or perhaps creating a different class of non-profit copyright?
"The bigger question would be how do you determine the value of the IP to assess it for taxation."
I agree, assessing intellectual property values would be a huge PIA.
On the other hand, a simple, flat, renewal fee would have the same effect. Or perhaps a sliding scale, so that the longer you hold a copyright the more expensive it becomes. Copyrights that weren't producing revenues would be released, and Disney could keep Mickey forever. Might not generate the billions in tax revenues that the author envisions, but it would get more works in to the public domain.
Thanks for pointing that out, I got a little sloppy there.
...beer!
Via trucks, like in the old days. Before they installed all these newfangled tubes!
From the summary, "So, if you combine their work and our work, the speed at which you can innovate and get things done is just dramatically more rapid
Isn't the first rule of project management that, beyond a certain point, this doesn't work? Throwing more people on a project just makes it harder to coordinate and convolutes the process (see Vista). I mean, it's not like MS or Yahoo is hurting for resources or personnel, are they really going to get leaner and faster by merging?
So you're saying the reason we're seeing new antibiotic-resistant strains of diseases is because God hates us?
"I didn't know that it was legal for a company to control the private lives of it's employees"
That train left a long time ago. Ever heard of drug testing?
"but one of the fundamental American rights is the right to be an idiot."
I'm pretty sure that's the one right that W won't be trying to take from us any time soon.
That's not completely true. It's a lot cheaper to cover Britney's latest melt down than to spend weeks or even months digging up a story about corporate or government malfeasance. Throw in the fact that you'll be pissing off somebody powerful and maybe even a sponsor, and there's very little incentive for our media outlets to do any actual journalism. Networks and newspapers used to be run by people who cared about news, now they're just another revenue source in a mega-corporation. So the bottom line is all that matters.
CNN has a policy that they have to approve anything that is published by their employees. That's prior restraint, also known censorship. It's not illegal, it's not a violation of the first amendment, but it is the definition of censorship. Yes, the employees can choose to quit and then publish whatever they want, but at that point they are no longer employees. As long as they are employees, CNN's position is that they have the right to censor anything they publish.
Let's assume China has a policy of censoring whatever their citizens publish. Does that mean if a Chinese citizen is able to emigrate to Australia and publish whatever he wants, that China does not practice censorship?
You are correct that nothing was censored in this case, but the tag is appropriate, as CNN is asserting that their employees must submit to censorship if they want to stay employed.
"All that is vanishing increasingly with more and more" of our manufacturing base offshored to China and other low-wage countries. There, fixed that for you.
Just curious, what Socialist policies are you talking about? I honestly can't think of any Federal policy implemented since Reagan was elected that I would describe as socialist. Unless you want to count No Child Left Behind. As for your point about the military spread to the four corners, I agree, it's ridiculous.
... they have the suspender-wearing Wilford Brimley-type Unix admin from Dilbert.
I had a couple friends there too. One covered the story for AP--he was still in college, was huge break for him--the other worked at the Hyatt, hearing his story just about froze the blood in my veins. I'd never heard about the engineers OKing the design changes.