This article reminds me of how my left-handed friends describe the tools they face in real life. The right-handed never notice that things are geared for them. For the left-handed, it's very noticable.
Now there really are a large majority of right-handed persons on earth, but the gender balance is 50-50. So when you are designing games that appeal to young males, but seem odd and obviously sexist to young femails, you turn off (or just marginalize) potentially half of your paying audience.
Wait, you say! Games are geared toward males because that is overwhelmingly who play games. Could that be a chicken-and-egg thing, even if true? If so many popular games weren't so obviously geared toward male sensibility and away from female sensibility, perhaps that breakdown of gamer gender demographics wouldn't be so pronounced.
How do tools get built for lefties? Either because left-handed people demand it, or by empathy on the part of right-handed tool builders. 'If I were left-handed, how would this tool work for me? Hmm..not very well. I'd better make an adjustment.' So too with game designers. If you want to capture the other 50% of the market, can you empathize with that other half? Can you think about how they view those images and gameplay strategies?
Interesting article from that perspective. It's good to remember how others think.
According to the article, many Americans think relaxing the rules of media ownership will be a good thing, or it won't make much of a difference. Here's why it will make a difference, and why diversity of media ownership is a good thing:
All media has a point-of-view. Each media outlet does have a point of view, some conservative, some progressive, some liberal, some off-the-wall. Mostly conservative nowadays, because of being controlled by large megacorps that are by definition conservative in their approach. But there is a point-of-view.
OK, so what if you are in a market with several media choices (newspapers, TV stations, radio stations)? Then you get a variety of political positions being pushed at you. You can pick and choose among those points-of-view and then make up your own mind. Reading all sides helps you come closer to reality. In contrast, if one company owns your local newspaper and your local TV station and your local radio outlets, you get only one viewpoint. If the owner of that company is extreme in his or her viewpoint, you get your news slanted in just that direction -- and no other viewpoint.
If you are Web-savvy, you can escape this trap, but most people get their news as it is fed to them, spoonful by spoonful. Look at how many people think CNN provides an unbiased viewpoint, the facts. Look at how many people think Fox is unbiased. The more control is put over the media by any one company, the worse this will get. Can you imagine a world where the only news it was possible to get came from AOL-Time Warner, or Fox, or any one source?
Heh, that was fun. But although I took your challenge and legitimately read the article slowly and carefully from start to finish, and laughed when I got to that last paragraph and saw what the deal was, I did not yawn.
Goes to show that just because yawning is contagious, your challenge made me resist the feeling easily. I wasn't even tempted to yawn, or had to suppress one. It just didn't happen. Sorry. Yeah, I know off-topic. Here ya go: Ender would have yawned.
...where they think it belongs. Note these quotes from the article:
" The auction service operator said a letter received Friday from the attorney's office claims PayPal violated a part of the law that prohibits transmission of funds known to have been derived from a criminal offense or intended to be used to promote or support unlawful activity."
Oooh, sounds scary! Those evil PayPal people are criminals, huh? Well, let's see the details:
"EBay, San Jose, said the attorney's office offered a complete settlement of all possible claims and charges covering a purported amount of earnings PayPal derived from online gambling merchants between Oct. 26, 2001, and July 31, 2002, plus interest."
Ah, so we're talking about gambling! Sure, let's keep that revenue with the state-run lotteries, and riverboat casinos. We don't want to share our gambling takings with anyone else. So let's crack down on non-government gambling sites. What's that? "Online" gambling sites? Why that's the magic combination: the evils of the online world, and the evils of gambling. Let's get a big stick to use on them:
"Hey, look, we got this here PATRIOT act we can use on 'em!"
"PATRIOT act? They ain't terrorists."
"They are terrorizing our bottom line, it'll work."
Really? Wow, I must have missed it when America did this: "Smart 1's primary objective is to test new technologies that can advance future planetary exploration. The craft is using an innovative form of propulsion - an ion thruster - that will take it on a 15-month spiral to the Moon. "
I totally forgot about all those cool ion drive Apollo missions.
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"These classifiers already come in many forms. There are POP3 proxies, IMAP proxies, mail file processors, and even classifiers built directly into mail clients. I use PopFile (a naïve Bayesian classifier in a POP3 proxy) at home with great success. Some work better than others, but with a little training, they all seem to work pretty well. Unfortunately, they have a common shortcoming: They don't cause the spammers any pain."
What is the goal?:
"And we all want to cause spammers pain."
How do they want to accomplish this pain?:
"None of these classifiers are capable of causing the spammers any pain because the spammer is long gone by the time the classifier has the opportunity to process the message. What we need is a way to use the classifier against the spammer while the spammer is still connected."
This is brilliant. If all you do is clean up after the spammers when they are long gone, there is little motivation for them to stop. So what if they've dumped a bunch of garbage in your in-box? They don't stick around to see you clean up. But this idea hits them while they are in the process of spamming you.
That's the key: Make it harder/more unpleasant/less cost-effective for the spammers and you discourage them from spamming. Hit the source, not the results.
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"Let me guess, you were the arsehole who had the porche parked in the school lot."
Bzzzt! Wrong, try again.
"Did you see the old beat up Ford Escort with a different color fender, no muffler, and a broken windshield?"
Ding! Ding! Ding! We've got a winner! That would have been me.
"The guy that owned the Escort (and I know him well) would have sold his self-respect for a tuna-freakin-fish sandwich. That guy had LESS than $20/mo for food, toiletries, and beer. You wouldn't survive a week in that guys shoes. $20/mo means another case of mac-n-cheese."
No excuse. You find other ways of making money rather than blatantly leeching off society and contributing to a problem that is despised. If you sell out for a price, regardless of circumstances, it means you sold out. Some people hold their integrity in high esteem and will find some other way to make the necessary money.
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It sure doesn't take much to compromise a person's self-respect or integrity. $20/month in exchange for contributing to a problem that everyone hates, and knowing full well that everyone hates it? They sold out cheap.
It's sort of like the trend for journalist majors to wind up in PR jobs for corporations doing nasty things. The lure of extra money covers over any hesitation they might have in moving from a supposedly neutral position to one that shills for money.
But $20/month? Man, that's some cheap principles. How about we pay them $21/month to turn against the spammers?
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"Apple is a company that controls around 3% of the computer market..."
sigh OK, he said, drawing a deep breath, let's try this one more time. The 3% figure is derived from a subset of PC pollsters polling PC sales outlets that also may or may not carry some Apple equipment. Of that subset of reality, 3% is quoted back, and journalists run with it ever since, causing PC fanboys to gleefully shout, "You Apple fanatics only got 3% of the market. Talk to the hand!"
What is reality? Not sure. But let's now add in sales from the Apple retail stores. Oh yeah, let's throw in Apple web sales. Oh, and don't forget that Apple users routinely keep their machines longer than the Windows Users Uh Oh A New Version Came Out and I Have to Upgrade crowd. That's right, if you want to figure market share, you need to figure what is actually out in the marketplace. Not just what was sold from CompUSA that month.
But I realize this requires imagination and independent thought, and thus most computer journalists are exempt.
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" Because with standing regulations they then have to turn around and resell the lines to their competitors for less than it costs them (SBC) to install and maintain them. Said competitors then turn around and sell those lines to SBC's largest customers cheaper than SBC can. Why would they want to give them the chance? This isn't the monopoly of yesteryear where they were the only telco in town. The others just don't want to put the investment into their own lines...it's cheaper to leech. I can't blame them. It's good economics. But you can't blame SBC for not offering any other veins for them to suck dry."
Indeed, things are more complex than I indicated, and you well point out one of the complexities. But my point is that SBC wants to return to the monopoly situation of yesteryear, and was hoping this legislation would help things move in that direction. Having attempted to get DSL service from an ILEC, and seeing how horrible their service was, I shudder to think of them being the only game in town.
" Other states that favor level fields where everyone who uses the new lines has to pay for the new lines, not just the ones who put them in the ground."
I've not read of this situation. If it is as you say it is, that's not a bad thing at all. Can you point to a URL that talks about this? Personally whenever an ILEC cries about "level playing field" I find they mean a field where they are the only realistic game in town. But I am perfectly willing to be educated otherwise.
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" Quit spinning the issue. It's simple. Without a guarantee of a monopoly on their own network, there is no incentive to improve the network."
Of course I was spinning. See the title of the thread. That's the point: when faced with corporate PR spin, you have to spin in the other direction in order to get reality. Did I spin too far? Well, it is certainly a more complex issue than my deliberatly flippant comment makes it out to be, and I freely admit that.
But I disagree with your contention that only a guarantee of a monopoly gives incentive to improve the network. It's is precisely when there is not a monopoly that we see competition forcing improvement. Given a monopoly situation, we have stagnation. That was basically the situation that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was trying to address, and that is why competitors were allowed in to SBC networks.
SBC still makes plenty of money and can compete as much as they want. If they decide to not move forward in broadband, they are hurting themselves as well as the consumer. But to think that if they get their monopoly back that this time things would be different, well that seems naive. Those of us stuck with only one cable choice, for instance, know just how often service "improves" because of that monopoly...
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When faced with corporate PR talk, it is helpful to have a handy interpreter nearby to translate into normal English:
"SBC-Kansas president Randy Tomlin had said that without the legislation, SBC wouldn't invest in expansive broadband deployment in the state. The company only offers the service in 24 Kansas communities.
"The big losers today are the people of Kansas," said a visibly angry Tomlin as he read a prepared statement following the meeting. "They lost the opportunity to keep pace with other states when it comes to telecommunications access."
OK, let's see what we have here:
The Kansas legislature voted against allowing SBC to cut off competitors who wanted to compete against them in DSL service. Free market types kept saying that it's their lines and why should they have to share them? The answer is because without government regulation, the consumer would be faced with a monopoly situation that would be anti-competitive and anti-consumer. Let's see if SBC agrees:
SBC wouldn't invest in expansive broadband deployment in the state. -- Translation: We lost and we are taking our toys and going home. Oh wait, we are home. Well we won't do any more investment because we care about the consume-- er, because we care about our profits above all.
"The big losers today are the people of Kansas" -- Translation: The big winners today are the people of Kansas.
"They lost the opportunity to keep pace with other states" -- Translation: Other states that are also under attack from the incumbent Bells.
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My first introduction to the online world was on a BBS. It was the early-to-mid 80s, I had my first paying job as a microcomputer (as opposed to that stuffy MIS department in the basement of the company that used, ugh, mainframes) programmer (MS BASIC compiler, and then Turbo Pascal, woo hoo!). Here I was with a spiffy IBM PC on my desk and a 300 baud modem and time on my hands.
I found a list of BBS systems in some computer magazine and I thought, 'Huh? What's this about?' So I dialed one, probably in the midwest, and the world of the BBS opened up to me. Wow, files! For free? Cool!
I later discovered a BBS in Petaluma, California run by Vern Buerg (His current web site, not the original BBS) and his wife Julie. That was the first time I began to use message boards, play football contests, make friends online. I hung around there most every day and understood the ability to create an online community.
The Web came along later and opened this concept up to the world. But in my mind it all began with the BBS and watching those text lines crawling across my screen at 300 baud. Oh yeah, and seeing FIDO show up in ASCII art. Cute doggie!:)
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" Because libraries lack the technological capability to block the Internet in any narrowly tailored fashion, CIPA's "technology protection measure" requirement effectively forces them to use commercial blocking software. Commercial blocking software is, however, ill-suited to the requirements of the First Amendment. First, the current market does not offer products designed to filter out only the low-value speech barred by CIPA. As a consequence, the blocking software currently available on the market purposefully blocks far broader categories that include protected speech. Second, companies that produce blocking software have little incentive to tailor their products narrowly. To the contrary, because underblocking, not overblocking, generates complaints, these companies have strong economic incentives to design their software to block in an overbroad fashion. Third, commercial blocking software companies can, and in some instances do, use criteria that systematically discriminate against certain viewpoints. As a consequence, CIPA's "technology protection measure" requirement forces libraries to regulate speech in manner that is systematically overbroad and that can involve viewpoint discrimination."
So libraries are de-facto forced to use commercial blockers. Commerical blockers block more sites than they should. They have economic incentives to block more sites than they should. And they have little consequence if they block sites that they personally just don't care for, if they idealogically oppose a site.
You could hardly ask for a more ham-handed solution to the problem.
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"There are enough hungry people we don't need bourgeois pseudo intellectuals in SoHo sipping a 5 dollar latte and reading neoconservative websites while a homeless family digs pizza crusts out of a trashbin."
Indeed, if you paint such a black-and-white picture your point is clear. The reality is often in many shades of grey. Why do you assume that only "bourgeois pseudo intellectuals" would benefit from this? Isn't it possible that this movement will grow to the point that it will one day make it possible for someone poor enough to own a hand-me-down computer but cannot affort monthly access charges to be able to get online and get some of the same advantages in knowledge as those SoHo poseurs?
"Feed people, not networks," you say. Certainly. But why can't you do both?
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I dunno. Seems to me that putting your email address on any accessible list is just asking for more spam, not less. Yes, yes, I know, the laws are written to allow you to take the spammers to court and even get court costs reimbursed. But how likely is it that of all the spam you get that you'll have the time and energy to go after them, all the way through the court system? Maybe a few highly-motivated persons will do a few representative cases, and some spammers will pay a fine, and that's about it. They will just chalk it down to the cost of doing business.
A more serious reason for not liking this is highlighted in this quote from the article:
"Antispam activists, including the 16,000-member Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, charge that opt-out lists unfairly put the onus on consumers to remove themselves from spam databases that they didn't want to join in the first place."
Exactly! Why should I put my name on a list that says, uh, let's say that I don't want to be slapped on my face as I walk down the street. Well, excuse me, but if I get assaulted, there are existing laws that take effect. Why do I need a new law? Just enforce the existing law. And why should I be forced to say I don't want spam when that is the default condition of 99.9993% of the population?
From the NY Times article, two quotes that explain it all:
"Crucial exhibitors began dropping out, some going out of business themselves, and others scaled back the elaborate booths that had been a staple of the dot-com era. And as Key3Media's business began looking tenuous this fall, some exhibitors became reluctant to commit to shows even six months away."
Business cycles go up and down, and the smart business will prepare for these down cycles. After all, you cannnot assume that good times will continue indefinitely. There does come a time when companies will hesitate to spend the money to exhibit. Did Key3Media plan accordingly?
" Key3 Media -- built up in the late 1990's as the technology boom was reaching its crest -- around the same time accumulated substantial debt, making it especially difficult to operate when the downturn in technology became sustained."
Oops. Yet another victim of boom mentality. It seems they jumped in with both feet when the feeding was good, did the usual VC thinking of growth, growth, growth at the expense of debt, debt, debt, and now find themselves hurting when the inevitable down cycle occurs.
Comdex provided me with a lot of fun memories. I hope it continues just so we have a place to go poke buttons and admire large screens in person. But it helps when the owners of the show (no longer Shelley Adelson) are focused on the show, not soley on the bottom line and growth for growth's sake.
"If one is composting the humanure from orphanages in Haiti where intestinal parasites are endemic, then extra precautions must be taken to ensure maximum pathogen death."
If you're grabbing human manure from Haitian orphans, you've got bigger issues than some possible pathogens...
When I was a kid on vacation back in the early 70s, there was a beach bar that had various games installed. Pinball, mechanical bowling type games, and the like. But they also had this funny electronic game with paddles -- Pong.
Now I wasn't really supposed to be in the bar at my age, but my dad would go for an evening cocktail and I would tag along and ask the bartender nicely if I could just hang out by the Pong machine. He usually relented and that was it. I had my own video game before anyone knew what they were!
What great fun that little game was to me! I got really good at it (as kids always do) and would take great delight at setting the paddles just right so the ball would bounce back and forth endlessly. Then I would stand back and admire the way I found just the right touch to beat the alogrithm. It was also fun to see the reaction of adults when they noticed that the game with no one in front of it was in an endless loop on its own. Then I would go back, nudge a paddle, and off we went.
Thank you Nolan Bushnell. You made my summer memorable for more than just the beach and the sun. You opened my eyes to the power of electronics. A career as a programmer later followed.
"Why should members of the public be ignored just because they have speechwriters, of a sort?"
For the same reason we don't allow students to hand in boilerplate exam papers just because they agree with everything in the boilerplate: You want to see what the student actually knows and thinks.
So too in this situation. If you get a letter to the editor written by the speechwriter, how can you know if that really expresses the opinion of the person emailing it? It could be that the person doesn't really agree, but was sent it by an organization he or she trusts and just passed it on to cooperate.
I found the following two quotes of interest in the NYT article:
"Editors say some readers simply do not understand the ethical issues of sending a letter written by someone else. "They had no idea that they were bending any sort of rules whatsoever or that they were trying to put one over on us," Ms. Clotfelter said. "I e-mailed back and forth with one woman who was distressed that we wouldn't print her letter because it was really how she felt."
OK, that is how the lady felt, but it wasn't her letter. If she really felt that strongly about something, she should put her own words down. Even if a boilerplate version is thrust under her nose, write about it in her own words. I don't care how carefully crafted a letter someone else has written for you, it isn't your letter. It may express the same thoughts, but not in just the way you would express them.
"Others defend their use of form letters. "I've seen the same thing from the other side," said Trevor D. Carlson, who signed one of the pro-Bush form letters to The Press Democrat."
ROFL! Oh, so then it's OK. After all, we all know that if the other side does it it must be OK to do it too.
Slashdot Mirror
Now there really are a large majority of right-handed persons on earth, but the gender balance is 50-50. So when you are designing games that appeal to young males, but seem odd and obviously sexist to young femails, you turn off (or just marginalize) potentially half of your paying audience.
Wait, you say! Games are geared toward males because that is overwhelmingly who play games. Could that be a chicken-and-egg thing, even if true? If so many popular games weren't so obviously geared toward male sensibility and away from female sensibility, perhaps that breakdown of gamer gender demographics wouldn't be so pronounced.
How do tools get built for lefties? Either because left-handed people demand it, or by empathy on the part of right-handed tool builders. 'If I were left-handed, how would this tool work for me? Hmm..not very well. I'd better make an adjustment.' So too with game designers. If you want to capture the other 50% of the market, can you empathize with that other half? Can you think about how they view those images and gameplay strategies?
Interesting article from that perspective. It's good to remember how others think.
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All media has a point-of-view. Each media outlet does have a point of view, some conservative, some progressive, some liberal, some off-the-wall. Mostly conservative nowadays, because of being controlled by large megacorps that are by definition conservative in their approach. But there is a point-of-view.
OK, so what if you are in a market with several media choices (newspapers, TV stations, radio stations)? Then you get a variety of political positions being pushed at you. You can pick and choose among those points-of-view and then make up your own mind. Reading all sides helps you come closer to reality. In contrast, if one company owns your local newspaper and your local TV station and your local radio outlets, you get only one viewpoint. If the owner of that company is extreme in his or her viewpoint, you get your news slanted in just that direction -- and no other viewpoint.
If you are Web-savvy, you can escape this trap, but most people get their news as it is fed to them, spoonful by spoonful. Look at how many people think CNN provides an unbiased viewpoint, the facts. Look at how many people think Fox is unbiased. The more control is put over the media by any one company, the worse this will get. Can you imagine a world where the only news it was possible to get came from AOL-Time Warner, or Fox, or any one source?
We may yet find out what that would be like...
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Goes to show that just because yawning is contagious, your challenge made me resist the feeling easily. I wasn't even tempted to yawn, or had to suppress one. It just didn't happen. Sorry. Yeah, I know off-topic. Here ya go: Ender would have yawned.
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" The auction service operator said a letter received Friday from the attorney's office claims PayPal violated a part of the law that prohibits transmission of funds known to have been derived from a criminal offense or intended to be used to promote or support unlawful activity."
Oooh, sounds scary! Those evil PayPal people are criminals, huh? Well, let's see the details:
"EBay, San Jose, said the attorney's office offered a complete settlement of all possible claims and charges covering a purported amount of earnings PayPal derived from online gambling merchants between Oct. 26, 2001, and July 31, 2002, plus interest."
Ah, so we're talking about gambling! Sure, let's keep that revenue with the state-run lotteries, and riverboat casinos. We don't want to share our gambling takings with anyone else. So let's crack down on non-government gambling sites. What's that? "Online" gambling sites? Why that's the magic combination: the evils of the online world, and the evils of gambling. Let's get a big stick to use on them:
"Hey, look, we got this here PATRIOT act we can use on 'em!"
"PATRIOT act? They ain't terrorists."
"They are terrorizing our bottom line, it'll work."
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Really? Wow, I must have missed it when America did this:
"Smart 1's primary objective is to test new technologies that can advance future planetary exploration. The craft is using an innovative form of propulsion - an ion thruster - that will take it on a 15-month spiral to the Moon. "
I totally forgot about all those cool ion drive Apollo missions.
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"These classifiers already come in many forms. There are POP3 proxies, IMAP proxies, mail file processors, and even classifiers built directly into mail clients. I use PopFile (a naïve Bayesian classifier in a POP3 proxy) at home with great success. Some work better than others, but with a little training, they all seem to work pretty well. Unfortunately, they have a common shortcoming: They don't cause the spammers any pain."
What is the goal?:
"And we all want to cause spammers pain."
How do they want to accomplish this pain?:
"None of these classifiers are capable of causing the spammers any pain because the spammer is long gone by the time the classifier has the opportunity to process the message. What we need is a way to use the classifier against the spammer while the spammer is still connected."
This is brilliant. If all you do is clean up after the spammers when they are long gone, there is little motivation for them to stop. So what if they've dumped a bunch of garbage in your in-box? They don't stick around to see you clean up. But this idea hits them while they are in the process of spamming you.
That's the key: Make it harder/more unpleasant/less cost-effective for the spammers and you discourage them from spamming. Hit the source, not the results.
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Bzzzt! Wrong, try again.
"Did you see the old beat up Ford Escort with a different color fender, no muffler, and a broken windshield?"
Ding! Ding! Ding! We've got a winner! That would have been me.
"The guy that owned the Escort (and I know him well) would have sold his self-respect for a tuna-freakin-fish sandwich. That guy had LESS than $20/mo for food, toiletries, and beer. You wouldn't survive a week in that guys shoes. $20/mo means another case of mac-n-cheese."
No excuse. You find other ways of making money rather than blatantly leeching off society and contributing to a problem that is despised. If you sell out for a price, regardless of circumstances, it means you sold out. Some people hold their integrity in high esteem and will find some other way to make the necessary money.
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It's sort of like the trend for journalist majors to wind up in PR jobs for corporations doing nasty things. The lure of extra money covers over any hesitation they might have in moving from a supposedly neutral position to one that shills for money.
But $20/month? Man, that's some cheap principles. How about we pay them $21/month to turn against the spammers?
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sigh OK, he said, drawing a deep breath, let's try this one more time. The 3% figure is derived from a subset of PC pollsters polling PC sales outlets that also may or may not carry some Apple equipment. Of that subset of reality, 3% is quoted back, and journalists run with it ever since, causing PC fanboys to gleefully shout, "You Apple fanatics only got 3% of the market. Talk to the hand!"
What is reality? Not sure. But let's now add in sales from the Apple retail stores. Oh yeah, let's throw in Apple web sales. Oh, and don't forget that Apple users routinely keep their machines longer than the Windows Users Uh Oh A New Version Came Out and I Have to Upgrade crowd. That's right, if you want to figure market share, you need to figure what is actually out in the marketplace. Not just what was sold from CompUSA that month.
But I realize this requires imagination and independent thought, and thus most computer journalists are exempt.
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Indeed, things are more complex than I indicated, and you well point out one of the complexities. But my point is that SBC wants to return to the monopoly situation of yesteryear, and was hoping this legislation would help things move in that direction. Having attempted to get DSL service from an ILEC, and seeing how horrible their service was, I shudder to think of them being the only game in town.
" Other states that favor level fields where everyone who uses the new lines has to pay for the new lines, not just the ones who put them in the ground."
I've not read of this situation. If it is as you say it is, that's not a bad thing at all. Can you point to a URL that talks about this? Personally whenever an ILEC cries about "level playing field" I find they mean a field where they are the only realistic game in town. But I am perfectly willing to be educated otherwise.
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Of course I was spinning. See the title of the thread. That's the point: when faced with corporate PR spin, you have to spin in the other direction in order to get reality. Did I spin too far? Well, it is certainly a more complex issue than my deliberatly flippant comment makes it out to be, and I freely admit that.
But I disagree with your contention that only a guarantee of a monopoly gives incentive to improve the network. It's is precisely when there is not a monopoly that we see competition forcing improvement. Given a monopoly situation, we have stagnation. That was basically the situation that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was trying to address, and that is why competitors were allowed in to SBC networks.
SBC still makes plenty of money and can compete as much as they want. If they decide to not move forward in broadband, they are hurting themselves as well as the consumer. But to think that if they get their monopoly back that this time things would be different, well that seems naive. Those of us stuck with only one cable choice, for instance, know just how often service "improves" because of that monopoly...
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"SBC-Kansas president Randy Tomlin had said that without the legislation, SBC wouldn't invest in expansive broadband deployment in the state. The company only offers the service in 24 Kansas communities.
"The big losers today are the people of Kansas," said a visibly angry Tomlin as he read a prepared statement following the meeting. "They lost the opportunity to keep pace with other states when it comes to telecommunications access."
OK, let's see what we have here:
The Kansas legislature voted against allowing SBC to cut off competitors who wanted to compete against them in DSL service. Free market types kept saying that it's their lines and why should they have to share them? The answer is because without government regulation, the consumer would be faced with a monopoly situation that would be anti-competitive and anti-consumer. Let's see if SBC agrees:
SBC wouldn't invest in expansive broadband deployment in the state. -- Translation: We lost and we are taking our toys and going home. Oh wait, we are home. Well we won't do any more investment because we care about the consume-- er, because we care about our profits above all.
"The big losers today are the people of Kansas" -- Translation: The big winners today are the people of Kansas.
"They lost the opportunity to keep pace with other states" -- Translation: Other states that are also under attack from the incumbent Bells.
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I found a list of BBS systems in some computer magazine and I thought, 'Huh? What's this about?' So I dialed one, probably in the midwest, and the world of the BBS opened up to me. Wow, files! For free? Cool!
I later discovered a BBS in Petaluma, California run by Vern Buerg (His current web site, not the original BBS) and his wife Julie. That was the first time I began to use message boards, play football contests, make friends online. I hung around there most every day and understood the ability to create an online community.
The Web came along later and opened this concept up to the world. But in my mind it all began with the BBS and watching those text lines crawling across my screen at 300 baud. Oh yeah, and seeing FIDO show up in ASCII art. Cute doggie! :)
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So libraries are de-facto forced to use commercial blockers. Commerical blockers block more sites than they should. They have economic incentives to block more sites than they should. And they have little consequence if they block sites that they personally just don't care for, if they idealogically oppose a site.
You could hardly ask for a more ham-handed solution to the problem.
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Indeed, if you paint such a black-and-white picture your point is clear. The reality is often in many shades of grey. Why do you assume that only "bourgeois pseudo intellectuals" would benefit from this? Isn't it possible that this movement will grow to the point that it will one day make it possible for someone poor enough to own a hand-me-down computer but cannot affort monthly access charges to be able to get online and get some of the same advantages in knowledge as those SoHo poseurs?
"Feed people, not networks," you say. Certainly. But why can't you do both?
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A more serious reason for not liking this is highlighted in this quote from the article:
"Antispam activists, including the 16,000-member Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, charge that opt-out lists unfairly put the onus on consumers to remove themselves from spam databases that they didn't want to join in the first place."
Exactly! Why should I put my name on a list that says, uh, let's say that I don't want to be slapped on my face as I walk down the street. Well, excuse me, but if I get assaulted, there are existing laws that take effect. Why do I need a new law? Just enforce the existing law. And why should I be forced to say I don't want spam when that is the default condition of 99.9993% of the population?
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"Crucial exhibitors began dropping out, some going out of business themselves, and others scaled back the elaborate booths that had been a staple of the dot-com era. And as Key3Media's business began looking tenuous this fall, some exhibitors became reluctant to commit to shows even six months away."
Business cycles go up and down, and the smart business will prepare for these down cycles. After all, you cannnot assume that good times will continue indefinitely. There does come a time when companies will hesitate to spend the money to exhibit. Did Key3Media plan accordingly?
" Key3 Media -- built up in the late 1990's as the technology boom was reaching its crest -- around the same time accumulated substantial debt, making it especially difficult to operate when the downturn in technology became sustained."
Oops. Yet another victim of boom mentality. It seems they jumped in with both feet when the feeding was good, did the usual VC thinking of growth, growth, growth at the expense of debt, debt, debt, and now find themselves hurting when the inevitable down cycle occurs.
Comdex provided me with a lot of fun memories. I hope it continues just so we have a place to go poke buttons and admire large screens in person. But it helps when the owners of the show (no longer Shelley Adelson) are focused on the show, not soley on the bottom line and growth for growth's sake.
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If you're grabbing human manure from Haitian orphans, you've got bigger issues than some possible pathogens...
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Now I wasn't really supposed to be in the bar at my age, but my dad would go for an evening cocktail and I would tag along and ask the bartender nicely if I could just hang out by the Pong machine. He usually relented and that was it. I had my own video game before anyone knew what they were!
What great fun that little game was to me! I got really good at it (as kids always do) and would take great delight at setting the paddles just right so the ball would bounce back and forth endlessly. Then I would stand back and admire the way I found just the right touch to beat the alogrithm. It was also fun to see the reaction of adults when they noticed that the game with no one in front of it was in an endless loop on its own. Then I would go back, nudge a paddle, and off we went.
Thank you Nolan Bushnell. You made my summer memorable for more than just the beach and the sun. You opened my eyes to the power of electronics. A career as a programmer later followed.
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For the same reason we don't allow students to hand in boilerplate exam papers just because they agree with everything in the boilerplate: You want to see what the student actually knows and thinks.
So too in this situation. If you get a letter to the editor written by the speechwriter, how can you know if that really expresses the opinion of the person emailing it? It could be that the person doesn't really agree, but was sent it by an organization he or she trusts and just passed it on to cooperate.
"Editors say some readers simply do not understand the ethical issues of sending a letter written by someone else. "They had no idea that they were bending any sort of rules whatsoever or that they were trying to put one over on us," Ms. Clotfelter said. "I e-mailed back and forth with one woman who was distressed that we wouldn't print her letter because it was really how she felt."
OK, that is how the lady felt, but it wasn't her letter. If she really felt that strongly about something, she should put her own words down. Even if a boilerplate version is thrust under her nose, write about it in her own words. I don't care how carefully crafted a letter someone else has written for you, it isn't your letter. It may express the same thoughts, but not in just the way you would express them.
"Others defend their use of form letters. "I've seen the same thing from the other side," said Trevor D. Carlson, who signed one of the pro-Bush form letters to The Press Democrat."
ROFL! Oh, so then it's OK. After all, we all know that if the other side does it it must be OK to do it too.
Moral thinking? Perish the thought!
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