Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “paranormal” as “not scientifically explainable; supernatural.”
Within the Challenge, this means that at the time your application is submitted and approved, your claim will be considered paranormal for the duration. If, after testing, it is decided that your ability is either scientifically explainable or will be someday, you needn’t worry. If the JREF has agreed to test you, then your claim is paranormal.
I'm sure that if a bunch of scientists came along and said "we have statistically significant evidence of precognition, and not a damn clue how it works", the Randi foundation would jump at the chance to test them.
I don't believe for a second that these people actually do have any legit evidence, but on the off chance that they are for real then this will be a massive breakthrough. Of course, it will be explainable by science in time, and perhaps "supernatural" is a poor choice of word, but if you read through the entire FAQ you'll see that the foundation sound entirely reasonable, and I don't doubt that they would be willing to test something on the basis that it runs quite counter to currently accepted theory.
Their aim (and one that I applaud) seems to be to either disprove paranormal claims, or to prove them in a scientific manner. Sure, doing so will, by definition, destroy their 'paranormal' status, but it could also revolutionise scientific thinking. As I said though, it's probably a moot point, since I see no reason to believe this paper any more than the thousands that came before it.
Well we don't know any current mechanism by which people can perceive the future (assuming that everyday extrapolation is not included, I guess - there's no mystery about the fact that I can tell a flying ball will soon hit the ground), so wouldn't that mean that if evidence is found for an ability to sense the future, that implies ESP under your definition?
I haven't yet had a chance to read the paper fully (it's 50 or so pages), but if they are actually that confident in their evidence that precognition has been found, the James Randi Foundation has a million dollars waiting for them.
Cost could be a sensible reason to go with a console. Obviously there are often multiple 'correct' choices, and it depends on the specific task, but consoles tend to have a decent power/price ratio, especially later in their lifespan, as well as low noise and all the nice TV interface bits included as standard.
A few years back I grabbed an original Xbox to use as a media centre - this was well after the 360 was out, so I got console & DVD remote for about £35 total; it's still running today, streaming iPlayer and the like, although it's showing its age a little. I imagine the PS3 will be able to handle most HD media for the next decade or so, so when a relatively quiet, small, integrated box like the PS3 slim drops to $100 or so it'll give a 'proper' PC a good run for its money.
You hit the nail on the head, and it's not just gaming that the article is wrong about - I've been using Macs for a good few years, and I can categorically say that the assertion that "small products are about $20. Utilities run in the $50-60 range" is bullshit.
Looking along my dock for non-bundled applications, I see Cyberduck (FTP), Skype, Firefox, NeoOffice (Mac-native port of OpenOffice), Adobe CS4, VirtualBox, SketchUp, Aperture, Steam, and Mathematica. Anything in that list that could remotely come under the heading of "small product" or "utility" was free. The games on steam cost exactly the same on either OS, although I do have a Windows partition for those that are unsupported on OSX. The only non-gaming applications that actually cost anything are the "big ticket" items - the Adobe suite, Aperture and Mathematica - and those of us who actually need to pay for them seem to be in the minority anyway, so I don't think any of those have anything to fear from $5 apps encroaching on their market.
This theoretical market for minor applications, sold independently for $20+, simply does not exist in my experience. Sure, there's the odd thing out there, just like there is for Windows, but as you said, if anything they'll benefit from increased exposure.
As far as I can tell, you are somewhat misunderstanding the intent of net neutrality. The ISPs' customers are the end users, not the content providers - nobody has ever intended to stop the ISP from differentiating themselves by offering the end user a package at (say) 10Mbps for $10/month or 50Mbps for $25/month or whatever. If they start offering a 100Mbps package, that doesn't mean they have to start providing that bandwidth to everyone, just to those end users who pay for it.
What net neutrality does is prevent them from selling a package that offers "100Mbps access to Google owned sites, and 10Mbps access to everything else", for example. That was my point with the "nothing you can do about it" comment - you, as an end user, can currently pay more and get faster internet service to all sites; at its heart, that's what net neutrality is. If the ISPs start signing contracts to only prioritise content from Google (for example), then we can easily fall into a system where it's impossible even to pay for fast access to other sites, because everything outside the 'walled garden' is being throttled by the ISP. To return to the mail analogy: you, the end user, couldn't change the fact that Amazon signed a contract with FedEx stating that only Amazon customers may pay for expedited shipping, and customers of all other stores must pay only for ground shipping.
To reiterate: all that net neutrality means is that identical packets are treated identically. If ISPs want to implement time-based, bandwidth-based or transfer-based billing (or any combination thereof), that's fine, so long as it's implemented identically for all packets, regardless of origin. Different users buy different packages, there's none of this "raising the bandwidth for everybody" that you mentioned. The only thing they can't do is implement one billing structure for content from one provider, and a separate billing structure for content from another provider.
ISPs are welcome to differentiate themselves by offering higher bandwidth, or lower latency, or whatever - precisely analogous to shipping companies choosing to offer first class, or expedited, or high-weight deliveries.
What your hypothetical "mail neutrality" law would (in an ideal world) do is prevent FedEx from signing a deal which says "Amazon purchases will arrive within 48 hours, all others will take three weeks, and there's nothing you can do about it". Even then, the already stretched analogy would only make sense if you had to sign a contract so only FedEx delivered your mail that year, and only one or two mail service options were available to most customers.
I did RTFA; BT is renting space on Content Connect to any content provider that wants to pay, and providing its services to any ISP under the BT Wholesale umbrella. BT Wholesale has every reason to start cutting backbone bandwidth and slowing connections to those sites who choose not to be part of the system.
It's not until an ISP actually begins throttling connections to sources other than the CDN that there's a Net Neutrality issue, and in that case, it's the throttling, not the CDN, that is the problem.
The issue is that the throttling needn't be overt (although BT actually state in the BBC article that ISPs are welcome to throttle other sites) - if the most popular content is already on the CDN, they can simply cut back on what they spend on the backbone connection. Suddenly you've got 1000 users, all on 20Mbps last-mile connections, sharing 50Mbps of actual backbone bandwidth because the ISP wants to save money on the backbone, degrade the experience of all the sites outside the CDN, and push as many providers as possible to rent space on the CDN. The effect is that the connection to the outside internet is throttled, but the ISP can simply claim that the users are being load balanced onto the backbone - there's no way to ban them from overselling (and reasonable overselling has legitimate efficiency benefits anyway), after all.
Even worse, imagine if many ISPs start doing this. Content providers, as well as paying for upstream bandwidth, need to pay multiple CDN fees if they want the users to get their sites at a reasonable speed.
If the ISP was simply using the CDN to automatically cache the highest traffic content, you'd be absolutely right about the win-win scenario. There'd be no conflict of interests, they'd save money on bandwidth, the users would have increased access speeds, and the content providers would save money. As is stands, though, it's a walled garden waiting to happen.
Time based or demand based charging isn't the issue here. If they want to charge more at peak time than the middle of the night I'll hear them out.
The issue is artificially delaying an identical 1MB of data, at the same time of day, over the same network (insert any more 'identical' caveats you feel necessary) purely because one content provider paid their protection money and the other didn't.
It's the specific implementation that's the issue. To paraphrase what I said in a few other posts: when it's the ISP doing the caching there's nothing to stop them from throttling content from providers who don't pay to be included - in fact, there's a decent business incentive pushing them to do exactly that - it rapidly changes from an upgrade to 'protection money', a problem that did not exist with non-ISP cache servers.
If they were not an ISP, they wouldn't have the power to artificially degrade services that aren't on their caching servers, so it wouldn't be a problem. If they were caching high-traffic content to save themselves bandwidth (rather than caching content only from those who pay a fee), there wouldn't be an incentive for them to artificially degrade other services, so there wouldn't be a problem. The way they are doing this provides every incentive for them to cripple connections to content providers who don't pay up, that's the problem! A BT spokesperson even mentioned that as a possibility to the BBC, saying that while they would not do it at the wholesale level, they are happy for the ISPs to throttle non-"Content Connect" content if they so choose.
You're paying the ISP for the transfer of bits. Those bits are identical (aside from certain peering and QoS issues) whether they are from Facebook, YouTube or Slashdot - if ISPs start charging for identical bits based purely on their origin, it allows them to extort money from all content providers by simply threatening to slow down or block their traffic if they don't pay up.
If you started paying Facebook a fee, that would be for the services provided by Facebook, not for the data transferred from their server to your computer. It's an apples to oranges comparison.
As I've mentioned in a couple of other posts, the problem is this: there's nothing to stop BT from throttling all traffic except that on the 'premium' cache servers.
Just to clarify after re-reading my post: even if the service is similar to that provided by Akamai, there's a significant conflict of interest when that service is provided by an ISP. They have the power and the motive to simply throttle all connections except those who pay to be part of the 'upgraded' service - a protection racket, basically. Akamai and the like never had the power to do this, so it wasn't an issue.
I'd say it's a CDN with a significant conflict of interest. There's nothing to stop BT from throttling content from providers who don't pay to be included, for instance - in fact, there's a decent business incentive pushing them to do exactly that - it rapidly changes from an upgrade to 'protection money', a problem that did not exist with non-ISP CDNs.
The articles seem somewhat unclear. Although it talks about local content caching, the BBC article also refers to a BT spokesperson explaining that "BT would not throttle or discriminate against other video services on the network, but did not rule out that ISPs using the network could do so.".
There's also the very real risk that with paid content caching done at the ISP level, the backbone connection to the wider internet will be neglected (or deliberately crippled) - the end result is ISP contracts being sold with an AOL-style walled garden of sites available from the caching servers and the connection to the actual internet being provided at extra cost or reduced speed. Sites wanting the widest reach are then forced to pay to be included in the cache, or be cut off from those customers who didn't pay extra for "full internet" access.
I believe you're slightly misinformed. There are three broad "classes" of internet connection in Britain: Firstly, there's cable, provided by Virgin Media - phone, TV and net traffic all go over their fibre/copper, so BT's services don't apply there. I couldn't find a figure for how many subscribers they have, but they are a very large company so I'd imagine the number is not insignificant.
Secondly, there's BT Wholesale. This uses BT's infrastructure, linked to BT equipment at the local exchange, and resold to consumers via retail ISPs (including BT's own retail division). These retail ISPs are the ones covered by Content Connect. Five years ago this covered almost all users in Britain, and even now BT Wholesale products have many millions of users, but their reach is declining.
The final category is LLU, or 'Local Loop Unbundled' services. These are the ones that require a BT line (in order to connect you to the local exchange), but then hook that line into the ISPs own equipment when it gets there. Ofcom forced BT to accommodate the LLU equipment in their exchanges. This entirely bypasses BT Wholesale (so no Content Connect), meaning that the retail ISP takes home more of the profit, which is why it's becoming more popular with the big ISPs who can afford to install their own DSL hardware at a decent number of exchanges. Services from Sky, TalkTalk, Be, and others use LLU equipment where available but fall back to a BT Wholesale product for those users connected to exchanges where their equipment has not been installed.
If you click the 'More' tab, there's a note which reads "This website uses OpenSource video content. (c) copyright 2006, Blender Foundation / Netherlands Media Art Institute / www.elephantsdream.org". BT do tend to be hypocritical asshats, but they appear to be following the terms of the license in this case.
Neither of these things generate any revenue though - they actually cost a small amount in bandwidth and CPU time. One of the main reasons that a top result on Google or a Facebook fan page with hundreds of thousands of followers is considered to be worth something is precisely because it can't be bought. Sure, they can provide a lot of eyeballs for the sidebar ads, but those don't have anything like the cachet attached to those things that people actually visit the sites for.
That still hinges on the assumption that targeted marketing is so beneficial that it's worth all these billions of dollars. Maybe it is, maybe I'm wrong - I'm just some guy and I'm arguing with billionaires here, after all - but it looks to me like they're building something of a house of cards that'll come tumbling down if the companies purchasing the ads ever manage to quantitatively assess their impact.
Why the hell does an investment bank, who normally act as a "service provider" want to take a direct stake in a Social networking company ?
Well theoretically Facebook's "product" is demographic data for marketing purposes - Goldman Sachs obviously think this is a profitable segment. What I've said before, and will say again, is that I'll never truly believe that marketing data can provide that much value. Obviously some very successful people think differently, so it may well be that I'm just outright wrong, but when I look at the value of Google and Facebook, who might provide slightly better ways to convince people to buy your product, and compare those valuations to those of the companies who actually make popular, profitable and tangible products, it just seems like there's something not quite right here. Bubble 2.0, perhaps?
To an extent it's true. If American Airlines no longer show up on comparison sites, I'd say it's very likely that it'll be harder to compare prices - the rest of their statement follows from that fact, but it somewhat hinges on the fact that people treat airline tickets as a commodity item (within a given route and class, obviously). If all you see is a price comparison, chances are you'll pick the cheapest and doesn't matter who gets you there. It's certainly the way I used to think, but having happened to do the same long haul run on a few different carriers this year I was quite surprised at the magnitude of difference in the experience. It's hard to succeed as the "more expensive but better service" airline if all people see are numbers. On the other hand, though, it's hard to succeed as the "expensive and crap" airline if all people see are numbers.
There are definite merits to Expedia's argument. Although the airlines have multiple reasons to dislike the comparison sites, and the published reason might sound reasonable (and even beneficial to the consumer), cutting out the middle man is only a good idea if the middle man isn't providing a beneficial service. In this case, greater access to information is the service, and I think we probably do want that to be available. By taking away the commissions, you take away the possibility for comparison right across the market.
Although I agree that users should have backups in place (and, as I mentioned in another post, any suggestions for a simple bit of cross-platform software that archives into an open format would be helpful), simply saying "It's free, you have no right to bitch" is disingenuous. Yes, in an ideal world one should have a signed contract laying out their precise rights, and yes, any normal free email account has an EULA that basically says "We are not responsible if our service breaks into your house, tars and feathers your spouse, and paints your dog blue", but that does not instantly absolve them from all responsibility in the eyes of their users, wherever they may stand legally. To a reasonable person, there is an expectation of reliability even in a free email service - even if a class action suit wouldn't have a leg to stand on, there's still the (often equally powerful) court of public opinion to deal with.
Although I also prefer Gmail, you're being extremely naive if you think any remotely hosted and controlled service is immune to issues of this nature. This should be as good a reminder as any for all of us to set up local backups for our email services.
On that note, does anyone have any recommendations for backup software/file formats? I seem to remember that last time I looked into the issue there seemed to be some lack of standardisation when looking for an open 'email archive' format to use.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, absolutely, but the rules state:
Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “paranormal” as “not scientifically explainable; supernatural.”
Within the Challenge, this means that at the time your application is submitted and approved, your claim will be considered paranormal for the duration. If, after testing, it is decided that your ability is either scientifically explainable or will be someday, you needn’t worry. If the JREF has agreed to test you, then your claim is paranormal.
I'm sure that if a bunch of scientists came along and said "we have statistically significant evidence of precognition, and not a damn clue how it works", the Randi foundation would jump at the chance to test them.
I don't believe for a second that these people actually do have any legit evidence, but on the off chance that they are for real then this will be a massive breakthrough. Of course, it will be explainable by science in time, and perhaps "supernatural" is a poor choice of word, but if you read through the entire FAQ you'll see that the foundation sound entirely reasonable, and I don't doubt that they would be willing to test something on the basis that it runs quite counter to currently accepted theory.
Their aim (and one that I applaud) seems to be to either disprove paranormal claims, or to prove them in a scientific manner. Sure, doing so will, by definition, destroy their 'paranormal' status, but it could also revolutionise scientific thinking. As I said though, it's probably a moot point, since I see no reason to believe this paper any more than the thousands that came before it.
Well we don't know any current mechanism by which people can perceive the future (assuming that everyday extrapolation is not included, I guess - there's no mystery about the fact that I can tell a flying ball will soon hit the ground), so wouldn't that mean that if evidence is found for an ability to sense the future, that implies ESP under your definition?
I haven't yet had a chance to read the paper fully (it's 50 or so pages), but if they are actually that confident in their evidence that precognition has been found, the James Randi Foundation has a million dollars waiting for them.
Out of interest, was his supervisor, in fact, an idiot?
Cost could be a sensible reason to go with a console. Obviously there are often multiple 'correct' choices, and it depends on the specific task, but consoles tend to have a decent power/price ratio, especially later in their lifespan, as well as low noise and all the nice TV interface bits included as standard.
A few years back I grabbed an original Xbox to use as a media centre - this was well after the 360 was out, so I got console & DVD remote for about £35 total; it's still running today, streaming iPlayer and the like, although it's showing its age a little. I imagine the PS3 will be able to handle most HD media for the next decade or so, so when a relatively quiet, small, integrated box like the PS3 slim drops to $100 or so it'll give a 'proper' PC a good run for its money.
You hit the nail on the head, and it's not just gaming that the article is wrong about - I've been using Macs for a good few years, and I can categorically say that the assertion that "small products are about $20. Utilities run in the $50-60 range" is bullshit.
Looking along my dock for non-bundled applications, I see Cyberduck (FTP), Skype, Firefox, NeoOffice (Mac-native port of OpenOffice), Adobe CS4, VirtualBox, SketchUp, Aperture, Steam, and Mathematica. Anything in that list that could remotely come under the heading of "small product" or "utility" was free. The games on steam cost exactly the same on either OS, although I do have a Windows partition for those that are unsupported on OSX. The only non-gaming applications that actually cost anything are the "big ticket" items - the Adobe suite, Aperture and Mathematica - and those of us who actually need to pay for them seem to be in the minority anyway, so I don't think any of those have anything to fear from $5 apps encroaching on their market.
This theoretical market for minor applications, sold independently for $20+, simply does not exist in my experience. Sure, there's the odd thing out there, just like there is for Windows, but as you said, if anything they'll benefit from increased exposure.
As far as I can tell, you are somewhat misunderstanding the intent of net neutrality. The ISPs' customers are the end users, not the content providers - nobody has ever intended to stop the ISP from differentiating themselves by offering the end user a package at (say) 10Mbps for $10/month or 50Mbps for $25/month or whatever. If they start offering a 100Mbps package, that doesn't mean they have to start providing that bandwidth to everyone, just to those end users who pay for it.
What net neutrality does is prevent them from selling a package that offers "100Mbps access to Google owned sites, and 10Mbps access to everything else", for example. That was my point with the "nothing you can do about it" comment - you, as an end user, can currently pay more and get faster internet service to all sites; at its heart, that's what net neutrality is. If the ISPs start signing contracts to only prioritise content from Google (for example), then we can easily fall into a system where it's impossible even to pay for fast access to other sites, because everything outside the 'walled garden' is being throttled by the ISP. To return to the mail analogy: you, the end user, couldn't change the fact that Amazon signed a contract with FedEx stating that only Amazon customers may pay for expedited shipping, and customers of all other stores must pay only for ground shipping.
To reiterate: all that net neutrality means is that identical packets are treated identically. If ISPs want to implement time-based, bandwidth-based or transfer-based billing (or any combination thereof), that's fine, so long as it's implemented identically for all packets, regardless of origin. Different users buy different packages, there's none of this "raising the bandwidth for everybody" that you mentioned. The only thing they can't do is implement one billing structure for content from one provider, and a separate billing structure for content from another provider.
ISPs are welcome to differentiate themselves by offering higher bandwidth, or lower latency, or whatever - precisely analogous to shipping companies choosing to offer first class, or expedited, or high-weight deliveries.
What your hypothetical "mail neutrality" law would (in an ideal world) do is prevent FedEx from signing a deal which says "Amazon purchases will arrive within 48 hours, all others will take three weeks, and there's nothing you can do about it". Even then, the already stretched analogy would only make sense if you had to sign a contract so only FedEx delivered your mail that year, and only one or two mail service options were available to most customers.
I did RTFA; BT is renting space on Content Connect to any content provider that wants to pay, and providing its services to any ISP under the BT Wholesale umbrella. BT Wholesale has every reason to start cutting backbone bandwidth and slowing connections to those sites who choose not to be part of the system.
It's not until an ISP actually begins throttling connections to sources other than the CDN that there's a Net Neutrality issue, and in that case, it's the throttling, not the CDN, that is the problem.
The issue is that the throttling needn't be overt (although BT actually state in the BBC article that ISPs are welcome to throttle other sites) - if the most popular content is already on the CDN, they can simply cut back on what they spend on the backbone connection. Suddenly you've got 1000 users, all on 20Mbps last-mile connections, sharing 50Mbps of actual backbone bandwidth because the ISP wants to save money on the backbone, degrade the experience of all the sites outside the CDN, and push as many providers as possible to rent space on the CDN. The effect is that the connection to the outside internet is throttled, but the ISP can simply claim that the users are being load balanced onto the backbone - there's no way to ban them from overselling (and reasonable overselling has legitimate efficiency benefits anyway), after all.
Even worse, imagine if many ISPs start doing this. Content providers, as well as paying for upstream bandwidth, need to pay multiple CDN fees if they want the users to get their sites at a reasonable speed.
If the ISP was simply using the CDN to automatically cache the highest traffic content, you'd be absolutely right about the win-win scenario. There'd be no conflict of interests, they'd save money on bandwidth, the users would have increased access speeds, and the content providers would save money. As is stands, though, it's a walled garden waiting to happen.
Time based or demand based charging isn't the issue here. If they want to charge more at peak time than the middle of the night I'll hear them out.
The issue is artificially delaying an identical 1MB of data, at the same time of day, over the same network (insert any more 'identical' caveats you feel necessary) purely because one content provider paid their protection money and the other didn't.
It's the specific implementation that's the issue. To paraphrase what I said in a few other posts: when it's the ISP doing the caching there's nothing to stop them from throttling content from providers who don't pay to be included - in fact, there's a decent business incentive pushing them to do exactly that - it rapidly changes from an upgrade to 'protection money', a problem that did not exist with non-ISP cache servers.
If they were not an ISP, they wouldn't have the power to artificially degrade services that aren't on their caching servers, so it wouldn't be a problem. If they were caching high-traffic content to save themselves bandwidth (rather than caching content only from those who pay a fee), there wouldn't be an incentive for them to artificially degrade other services, so there wouldn't be a problem. The way they are doing this provides every incentive for them to cripple connections to content providers who don't pay up, that's the problem! A BT spokesperson even mentioned that as a possibility to the BBC, saying that while they would not do it at the wholesale level, they are happy for the ISPs to throttle non-"Content Connect" content if they so choose.
You're paying the ISP for the transfer of bits. Those bits are identical (aside from certain peering and QoS issues) whether they are from Facebook, YouTube or Slashdot - if ISPs start charging for identical bits based purely on their origin, it allows them to extort money from all content providers by simply threatening to slow down or block their traffic if they don't pay up.
If you started paying Facebook a fee, that would be for the services provided by Facebook, not for the data transferred from their server to your computer. It's an apples to oranges comparison.
As I've mentioned in a couple of other posts, the problem is this: there's nothing to stop BT from throttling all traffic except that on the 'premium' cache servers.
Just to clarify after re-reading my post: even if the service is similar to that provided by Akamai, there's a significant conflict of interest when that service is provided by an ISP. They have the power and the motive to simply throttle all connections except those who pay to be part of the 'upgraded' service - a protection racket, basically. Akamai and the like never had the power to do this, so it wasn't an issue.
I'd say it's a CDN with a significant conflict of interest. There's nothing to stop BT from throttling content from providers who don't pay to be included, for instance - in fact, there's a decent business incentive pushing them to do exactly that - it rapidly changes from an upgrade to 'protection money', a problem that did not exist with non-ISP CDNs.
The articles seem somewhat unclear. Although it talks about local content caching, the BBC article also refers to a BT spokesperson explaining that "BT would not throttle or discriminate against other video services on the network, but did not rule out that ISPs using the network could do so.".
There's also the very real risk that with paid content caching done at the ISP level, the backbone connection to the wider internet will be neglected (or deliberately crippled) - the end result is ISP contracts being sold with an AOL-style walled garden of sites available from the caching servers and the connection to the actual internet being provided at extra cost or reduced speed. Sites wanting the widest reach are then forced to pay to be included in the cache, or be cut off from those customers who didn't pay extra for "full internet" access.
I believe you're slightly misinformed. There are three broad "classes" of internet connection in Britain: Firstly, there's cable, provided by Virgin Media - phone, TV and net traffic all go over their fibre/copper, so BT's services don't apply there. I couldn't find a figure for how many subscribers they have, but they are a very large company so I'd imagine the number is not insignificant.
Secondly, there's BT Wholesale. This uses BT's infrastructure, linked to BT equipment at the local exchange, and resold to consumers via retail ISPs (including BT's own retail division). These retail ISPs are the ones covered by Content Connect. Five years ago this covered almost all users in Britain, and even now BT Wholesale products have many millions of users, but their reach is declining.
The final category is LLU, or 'Local Loop Unbundled' services. These are the ones that require a BT line (in order to connect you to the local exchange), but then hook that line into the ISPs own equipment when it gets there. Ofcom forced BT to accommodate the LLU equipment in their exchanges. This entirely bypasses BT Wholesale (so no Content Connect), meaning that the retail ISP takes home more of the profit, which is why it's becoming more popular with the big ISPs who can afford to install their own DSL hardware at a decent number of exchanges. Services from Sky, TalkTalk, Be, and others use LLU equipment where available but fall back to a BT Wholesale product for those users connected to exchanges where their equipment has not been installed.
If you click the 'More' tab, there's a note which reads "This website uses OpenSource video content. (c) copyright 2006, Blender Foundation / Netherlands Media Art Institute / www.elephantsdream.org". BT do tend to be hypocritical asshats, but they appear to be following the terms of the license in this case.
Neither of these things generate any revenue though - they actually cost a small amount in bandwidth and CPU time. One of the main reasons that a top result on Google or a Facebook fan page with hundreds of thousands of followers is considered to be worth something is precisely because it can't be bought. Sure, they can provide a lot of eyeballs for the sidebar ads, but those don't have anything like the cachet attached to those things that people actually visit the sites for.
That still hinges on the assumption that targeted marketing is so beneficial that it's worth all these billions of dollars. Maybe it is, maybe I'm wrong - I'm just some guy and I'm arguing with billionaires here, after all - but it looks to me like they're building something of a house of cards that'll come tumbling down if the companies purchasing the ads ever manage to quantitatively assess their impact.
Why the hell does an investment bank, who normally act as a "service provider" want to take a direct stake in a Social networking company ?
Well theoretically Facebook's "product" is demographic data for marketing purposes - Goldman Sachs obviously think this is a profitable segment. What I've said before, and will say again, is that I'll never truly believe that marketing data can provide that much value. Obviously some very successful people think differently, so it may well be that I'm just outright wrong, but when I look at the value of Google and Facebook, who might provide slightly better ways to convince people to buy your product, and compare those valuations to those of the companies who actually make popular, profitable and tangible products, it just seems like there's something not quite right here. Bubble 2.0, perhaps?
To an extent it's true. If American Airlines no longer show up on comparison sites, I'd say it's very likely that it'll be harder to compare prices - the rest of their statement follows from that fact, but it somewhat hinges on the fact that people treat airline tickets as a commodity item (within a given route and class, obviously). If all you see is a price comparison, chances are you'll pick the cheapest and doesn't matter who gets you there. It's certainly the way I used to think, but having happened to do the same long haul run on a few different carriers this year I was quite surprised at the magnitude of difference in the experience. It's hard to succeed as the "more expensive but better service" airline if all people see are numbers. On the other hand, though, it's hard to succeed as the "expensive and crap" airline if all people see are numbers.
There are definite merits to Expedia's argument. Although the airlines have multiple reasons to dislike the comparison sites, and the published reason might sound reasonable (and even beneficial to the consumer), cutting out the middle man is only a good idea if the middle man isn't providing a beneficial service. In this case, greater access to information is the service, and I think we probably do want that to be available. By taking away the commissions, you take away the possibility for comparison right across the market.
Although I agree that users should have backups in place (and, as I mentioned in another post, any suggestions for a simple bit of cross-platform software that archives into an open format would be helpful), simply saying "It's free, you have no right to bitch" is disingenuous. Yes, in an ideal world one should have a signed contract laying out their precise rights, and yes, any normal free email account has an EULA that basically says "We are not responsible if our service breaks into your house, tars and feathers your spouse, and paints your dog blue", but that does not instantly absolve them from all responsibility in the eyes of their users, wherever they may stand legally. To a reasonable person, there is an expectation of reliability even in a free email service - even if a class action suit wouldn't have a leg to stand on, there's still the (often equally powerful) court of public opinion to deal with.
Although I also prefer Gmail, you're being extremely naive if you think any remotely hosted and controlled service is immune to issues of this nature. This should be as good a reminder as any for all of us to set up local backups for our email services.
On that note, does anyone have any recommendations for backup software/file formats? I seem to remember that last time I looked into the issue there seemed to be some lack of standardisation when looking for an open 'email archive' format to use.