Excellent points, but I don't see the same considerate methodology in the last section of your post.
It's not so much that a donation like that implies a want to get rid of "the man," but rather as a contribution towards maintaining "fair" business practices and preventing monopolistic practices.
Take one of the previous headliners as an example: One man wants to take a standard concept (auctions on Ebay and other sites) recieve a patent for it under another situation (the fact that it is done online). I may be missing some points that lean the case more in his favor, but What if I had patented the concept of a multi-chain convenience store? Then any two (or more)companies that get together would have to pay royalties to me for simply putting it down on paper first.
This is a VERY simple example, but it's a simple, clear-cut issue. The aggressive use of patents and intellectual property lawsuits in generic situations have prevented others from entering competition. I don't know about you, but this seems like an extremely negative trend that can lead only to monopolistic situations.
Or, if anyone remembers this from Gibson books, we'll begin using digitized representations of ourselves. Considering the fact that the videophones won't require an incredibly high picture resolution, this shouldn't be too hard.
Imagine: instead of just having a personalized answering machine message, you have a beautiful icy Fjord behind you and bear a striking resemblance to Daniel Day Lewis;p
If you want to argue between the two, then I'll just merge the two topics together:
With the deregulation of so many areas of the telecommunications industry, businesses began doing again just what they were doing before....being aggressive in ways that would allow them to eliminate the competition, and become the big company that nobody would choose anyone else over.
I hear everyone complain about how AT&T is a big bad company, but even more agressive than them has been Verizon.
-Bell Atlantic originally was seven baby bells that merged in '94. -BA acquired NYNEX (which was comprised of New York Telephone and New England Telephone) in '97. -BA and GTE merged into Verizon in 2000. And that's just up to their creation.
Since then, Verizon has been acquiring wireless, broadband companies like mad, and doesn't seem likely to stop working against competition.
Kind of funny that since the LECs were deregulated, everything has been going back to a few big companies.
I agree with your point that the government played a role in this, but every one of their business decisions was theirs. Rarely, in fact, does the government intervene any more (except for the Worldcom/Sprint merger).
The actions of these companies seem pretty much natural in our agressive corporate world. It sucks fat donkey-balls too.
Most corporate business-people seem to think that having a few big companies would be best for us too. Just check out what Tim Kraskey of YankeeTek Ventures had to say:
"We have never addressed the issue of how we aregoing to get real competition in the local markets.Maybe what we need is for AT&T to merge with BellSouth, WorldCom to merge with Verizon, and Sprint tomerge with SBC. Now, that might cause some realchange. But don't count on it." http://www.broadbandpub.com/broadbandworld/v 3n2/ru n.pdf
I think he's insane.
Now, was the phrase "You're so wrong, it's amazing." really necessary?
In my area, the two LECs (Local Exchange Carriers) are Verizon (evil!{my opinion}) and SWB (not as evil anymore{my opinion}).
When I or friends have tried to obtain broadband service from companies other than these, we come up against a brick wall: although smaller companies have the ability to provide dsl service in our area, they actually have to lease the lines from these LECs (verizon and southwestern bell).
It took weeks sometimes just for the LEC to have the access on their end set up, and any time there was a technical problem, we'd have to speak to both sides, where each party generally needed cooperation and information from the other. Needless to say, this was not something that was easy to get accomplished and it totally ruined my (and others) experience. On monday, I'm ordering broadband at my new residence, and guess what? I'm going to be getting it through one of the big boys. The reason, the hassle of trying to get service through two companies that are in competition with eachother is too painstaking.
Re:Hasn't this been around for a while?
on
Microsoft News Update
·
· Score: 2, Funny
"Apparently, you can also crash a Windows box by pouring beer into the fan outlet of the power supply. Code to be posted soon"
Great!! I was able to get the desired results once, but since then have been unable to duplicate the effect. I have had no problem, however, with Microsoft's integrated equivelant.
I wonder how much more viable this is over existing implementations in the us. I remember waiting for over a year for cable because local fiber lines rendered DSL impossible for my apartment. To my dismay, once cable became available in Dallas, most apartment complexes had already been talked into restricting internet access to dial-up of DirectTV internet access.
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Excellent points, but I don't see the same considerate methodology in the last section of your post.
It's not so much that a donation like that implies a want to get rid of "the man," but rather as a contribution towards maintaining "fair" business practices and preventing monopolistic practices.
Take one of the previous headliners as an example: One man wants to take a standard concept (auctions on Ebay and other sites) recieve a patent for it under another situation (the fact that it is done online). I may be missing some points that lean the case more in his favor, but What if I had patented the concept of a multi-chain convenience store? Then any two (or more)companies that get together would have to pay royalties to me for simply putting it down on paper first.
This is a VERY simple example, but it's a simple, clear-cut issue. The aggressive use of patents and intellectual property lawsuits in generic situations have prevented others from entering competition. I don't know about you, but this seems like an extremely negative trend that can lead only to monopolistic situations.
Or, if anyone remembers this from Gibson books, we'll begin using digitized representations of ourselves. Considering the fact that the videophones won't require an incredibly high picture resolution, this shouldn't be too hard.
;p
Imagine: instead of just having a personalized answering machine message, you have a beautiful icy Fjord behind you and bear a striking resemblance to Daniel Day Lewis
If you want to argue between the two, then I'll just merge the two topics together:
v 3n2/ru n.pdf
With the deregulation of so many areas of the telecommunications industry, businesses began doing again just what they were doing before....being aggressive in ways that would allow them to eliminate the competition, and become the big company that nobody would choose anyone else over.
I hear everyone complain about how AT&T is a big bad company, but even more agressive than them has been Verizon.
-Bell Atlantic originally was seven baby bells that merged in '94.
-BA acquired NYNEX (which was comprised of New York Telephone and New England Telephone) in '97.
-BA and GTE merged into Verizon in 2000.
And that's just up to their creation.
Since then, Verizon has been acquiring wireless, broadband companies like mad, and doesn't seem likely to stop working against competition.
Kind of funny that since the LECs were deregulated, everything has been going back to a few big companies.
I agree with your point that the government played a role in this, but every one of their business decisions was theirs. Rarely, in fact, does the government intervene any more (except for the Worldcom/Sprint merger).
The actions of these companies seem pretty much natural in our agressive corporate world. It sucks fat donkey-balls too.
Most corporate business-people seem to think that having a few big companies would be best for us too. Just check out what Tim Kraskey of YankeeTek Ventures had to say:
"We have never addressed the issue of how we aregoing to get real competition in the local markets.Maybe what we need is for AT&T to merge with BellSouth, WorldCom to merge with Verizon, and Sprint tomerge with SBC. Now, that might cause some realchange. But don't count on it."
http://www.broadbandpub.com/broadbandworld/
I think he's insane.
Now, was the phrase "You're so wrong, it's amazing." really necessary?
In my area, the two LECs (Local Exchange Carriers) are Verizon (evil!{my opinion}) and SWB (not as evil anymore{my opinion}).
When I or friends have tried to obtain broadband service from companies other than these, we come up against a brick wall: although smaller companies have the ability to provide dsl service in our area, they actually have to lease the lines from these LECs (verizon and southwestern bell).
It took weeks sometimes just for the LEC to have the access on their end set up, and any time there was a technical problem, we'd have to speak to both sides, where each party generally needed cooperation and information from the other. Needless to say, this was not something that was easy to get accomplished and it totally ruined my (and others) experience. On monday, I'm ordering broadband at my new residence, and guess what? I'm going to be getting it through one of the big boys. The reason, the hassle of trying to get service through two companies that are in competition with eachother is too painstaking.
"Apparently, you can also crash a Windows box by pouring beer into the fan outlet of the power supply. Code to be posted soon" Great!! I was able to get the desired results once, but since then have been unable to duplicate the effect. I have had no problem, however, with Microsoft's integrated equivelant.
Correction: "or" This was through "exclusive rights" deals with the cable and phone companies.
I wonder how much more viable this is over existing implementations in the us. I remember waiting for over a year for cable because local fiber lines rendered DSL impossible for my apartment. To my dismay, once cable became available in Dallas, most apartment complexes had already been talked into restricting internet access to dial-up of DirectTV internet access.