Oh the irony is delicious! I'll admit that these kids have some titanium balls to want to take on Microsoft on its own turf and using its own tactics. Maybe for an encore they'll say something bad about Mike Tyson's mother.
But alas, Microsoft has the legal competence and financial resources to massage complicated economic/legal floodgate issues to their benefit, all in the name of free enterprise. When Microsoft writes out its threats, it leaves a nice safety net just in case. This group however lacks such resources.
I think the whole of the DMCA is unconstitutional myself because of the economic residual effects that I believe Congress intended, but even if I didn't I' still agree with you on this.
But at this time, and definitely to our benefit, the government hasn't figured out a way to prevent you from using your brain to think up exploits other than limiting access to knowledge on the subject. Hmm.. I think I just made a circular argument here.
Reporting bugs to the public is a good thing. As a Windows user I more than appreciate every bug report that was made possible by a little reverse engineering.
And yes that knowledge the group created from their effort is theirs. Where there are problems is in the way in which the group handled this. They interpreted Microsoft's decision not to entertain them further as a greenlight or disinterest. This was a stupid mistake. They asked for personal rewards for having this information and sharing it with Microsoft. Their indication was that if Microsoft responded in a timely matter, the group would not release the exploit to the public, but would instead keep it under wraps in proviso Microsoft sponsored the development of a Linux product. This is the blackmail aspect. Had Microsoft complied, the group would not be releasing the exploit. We as the consumer or game developer would be ignorant to this horrible security flaw that could enable software piracy - as they put it.
I really wish these kids spoke with an attorney first and gotten advice from some of the more credible members of the Linux community. What they've done is cool and certainly valuable, but it may prove personally devastating.
Right now, I'm really hoping that either I'm wrong or that Microsoft has developed a sense of humor about these things.
It would surely be worthwhile to see what happens, but we can always make educated predictions.
I've just read over the original statement again, and I notice yet another statement that troubles me:
The software companies who are developing titles for the XBox should be very worried by the lack of protection that Microsoft is offering their work as exploits such as those found by our team pose a serious threat to potential sales due to the possible use of such exploits for software piracy.
Here, the group have described the exploit as a security problem in XBox that would have potential problems for developers. I hope the techies in this forum can enlighten me, but I do not see how the group's exploit is a proof of concept that the XBox has serious security flaws that can be taken advantage of for software piracy. What I see is a group of kids who are attempting to mask their rather selfish activities under the guise of consumer and developer protection. As I understand it, software on the XBox is no more "protected" that any other DVD in the hands of a pirate with a DVD burner. Am I mistaken or misreading anything in this?
How the fuck are you supposed to get the consent of a group of people who can't even agree on which desktop is best and will fork code at the drop of a hat? It is easier to herd cats.
The answer is, you don't. You should not realistically expect any business to fork over its product designs and specs, and greenlight reverse-engineering performed by a third-party. If you are going to release the exploit, just do it; but don't try to turn it into a financial windfall. True, the letter did not specifically mention a request for payment; but you can be assured that these guys expected compensation down the line whether it be in the form of hush money, royalties, or high karma within the Linux community.
I have never heard of anyone *asking* for permission to release an exploit to a Microsoft technology before. It seems that these kids foresaw potential criminal or civil trouble, in which case, they should have had the sense NOT to strongarm Microsoft.
Actually, it is blackmail. Several of the things they request do have a quantifiable monetary value to them, and to others in similar situations. This includes the creation of an authorized product, refund of costs incurred, legal indemnification, and access to product designs and specs. It doesn't matter if they're willing to sign an NDA. Blackmail isn't limited to just the "give me X dollars or I will do something nasty you won't like." Any argument that Microsoft won't be harmed financially due to the release of this exploit is weak because Microsoft doesn't have to show actual financial damages from this. But that's just the civil suit. These guys will have more to worry about from the Justice Department in the criminal case.
This is not a step forward for the Linux community. It is an embarassing set back that could further strengthen arguments against using Linux and supporting the Linux community. It's just damn irresponsible of them.
So the digital certificate could be used to validate the mail I sent really came from me? Oh, I'd just attach the certificate to the email? Oh, there's a central repository where all the email addresses I might use can be linked to the certificate? Oh, how lovely... and who would this repository be available to? Only the government? Oh grand. Sign me up!
I can think of a few innovations I've wanted in a web browser for a long time, none of which involving integrating chat programs, download managers, or embedding premium services within the browser.
If innovation is indeed dead, it's because there's no money in continuing to enhance browser design beyond performance improvements and ancillary features, unless you actually earn revenue from it (Opera) or browser development can be done at near zero dollar cost (Mozilla).
I agree with jdray's sentiments about the Forward button. I'd personally like to the browser to be more forward-looking. I'd like bad links on webpages to dimmed or otherwise invalidated before hand so I'll know not to even bother to click on them.
Isn't that how all great frontier expeditions started out - rich adventurers financing trips to the top of mountains, to remote lands, and now to space?
I don't see a lot of new ground being broken paradigm-wise. We've got open source, closed source, and licensed source models, and then there are probably small variations of each.
There will always be a hot new OS out there. Maybe Amiga is destined to make a comeback in a major way. Linux could very well evolve so much that it no longer resembles UNIX at all. Maybe it already has?
I think the OpenBeOS project is a good contender. It gives consumers a nice alternative to Windows while preserving much of the benefits of Windows. I really hope to see something good come from it.
Within the Windows community there is a growing number of developers and consumers who want smaller more efficient apps, so the next paradigm in desktop computing could be a regressive movement back towards when applications were less bloated. I think this crowd is maybe too eclectic to be a powerful influence on the market though, considering the hardware market will continue improving system performance.
http://www.tinyapps.org/ is a good place to learn more about this.
A colleage of mine calls this current era in computing, lifestyle computing. We're not bound to the desktop, and we use our computers as extension to our social life with a big emphasis on multimedia. I'm not sure how this differs from that last era in computing. It seems about the same, but the idea is that Apple understands that the OS and the computer should be industrial designed to be accessories to our lives. Computers should be more consistent with the way we behave socially and psychologically. I suppose for Microsoft this means they will need to copy more from Apple than ever before; or maybe it will mean that Microsoft will need to abandon the desktop metaphor and go wth something else, like Lifestreams.
Of course, we might consider that the new paradigms in computing are being built on mobile computing platforms. So, while desktop computing will remain on the same path - faster processor, more memory, etc; we'll see more cool developments on PDAs, laptops, and cell phones. I myself am waiting for cyberdecks (a la R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2020);)
I would love to run a Linux box at home if for no other reason than the cool 8-way virtual desktop in the GUI... but I don't think I could find 8 apps to run, one for each virtual desktop.
You don't need Linux for that. Windows XP PowerToys has an applet for that purpose. It doesn't work exactly the way it does in X, but useful.
I've got a stack of homemade Slackware CDs and a store bought copy of SuSe sitting on the shelf. Don't get me wrong. I really like Linux. There was a time when I needed a UNIX environment professionally; and thus, I needed a UNIX computer at home. Solaris for Intel was an OK solution, but Linux is great for that purpose. However, my computing lifestyle involves a heavy absorbtion of many types of multimedia formats as well as MS Office or WordPerfect documents. In order to replicate all the functionality I need, I have to do a lot of downloading and configuring on Linux - something I simply haven't the time for.
In order for me to take another look at Linux, I'd have to have a distribution that targets the multimedia user. SuSe seems pretty strong, but I'll admit, I do get a little intimidated by the SuSe install process in a way that Slackware never did. There are just too many choices. Maybe that Lycoris is what I'm looking for?
In a sidenote. I've just discovered Windows Media Player 9's lossless WMA format. I love it, and I've just converted my travel pack of CDs to WMA instead of MP3. I like my music at bitrates in the area of 900-1200kbps, and WMAL does that. I'd like to learn a litte more about Flac, but I haven't seem any comparisons that lead me to switch. Help?
Yep. I don't care much for oligopolies myself... or any other "poly" that doesn't role off the tongue nicely. Small American cities are really notorious for having oligopolies. I discovered one small city in North Carolina that had a oligopoly in the form of the local power and water companies. This was long ago, but at one point the two did a shakedown of the mayor's office.
But you can't fix prices unless you have some sort of monopoly power, right?
No. Price fixing and monopolization are two independent concepts. In price fixing, a group of companies competing against each other will agree that despite their competition they will still set a minimum price for consumers; thus artificially raising the market price. One company acting in a competitive market cannot be a price-fixer. It is by definition a price taker. Now if that same company is alone in the market, can control barriers to entry, then it could have a monopoly.
You've got a good common sense understanding of it all. Business do get compensated because of the barriers to entry. Overcoming those barriers is factored into the risk of doing business. Barriers to entry do not stem from monopolistic power though. market forces can be barriers, but so can government regulation and even culture. Consider the difficulty British aerospace firms have competing against American aerospace firms for the US military's business. The Telecom Act of 1996 was supposed to lower barriers to entry, but it in fact raised the barriers to entry, especially in the commercial radio market. This is not because of anything Clear Channel or Infinity Broadcasting did as monopolistic companies. It's because the government (albiet due to successful lobbying) drafting regulations that raised the barriers to entry for small indepedent firms. Here is where your concept of monopolies and entry barriers connect though, and I think it's a good example. Infinity, Clear Channel, and that other one (I forget) are able to monopolize radio markets and raise the barriers to entry. In this case, a group of companies share monopoly power cooperatively and engage in price fixing.
What you assume about monopolies and monopolists isn't generally true, but it is certainly true in some very noticeable cases such as radio, computer memory, etc.
Wikipedia either, but it seemed like a good simple primer for someone who had never seen a supply or demand curve before. Anyway, my apologies.
No harm done. I won't judge the quality of the material, but being that it was short vs. the overpriced back-breaking monoithic tombs of knowledge sitting on my bookshelf, Wikipedia is likly simplifying things.:(
what I mean is that econmies of scale cause a company to have monopoly power.
Again, I have to disagree. An economy of scale exists when long-term average total costs decline as output rises. It's a mark of a business that is working efficiently. It can happen, say when a company specializes. I make guns and butter. You make only butter. In time you likely do a better job at making butter than I... unless I somehow hinder you. I think that's where you're involving monopolies. Monopolies arise from barriers to entry, but in a competitive market, economies of scale exist for all players. Those that have diseconomies will eventually exit the market due to their inability to compete. A lot of successful monopolies have achieved economies of scale, but this isn't a requirement to gain a monopoly. Monopolies can in fact have diseconomies of scale. Consider natural monopolies such as public works. I've seen many examples of natural monopolies operating at a loss, and yet continuing (due to government help). Inefficiently run, their costs rise with output production, but the public work is still a monopoly. A monopoly may also exhibit a constant return to scale, wherein average total cost stays the same despite output.
I did mention in a previous post that a business will make a certain profit equivalent to an interest rate that would be received on any other equally risky investment.
I believe at that point or earlier, you were getting into a discussion of zero-profit condition. In respect to the ZPC, I have to agree with you. I do have some problems with ZPC's practicality. I'm really adament that industry-wide price fixing invalidates the condition.
Clearly a monopolist has incentive to compete in order to maintain his monopoly. But a monopolist does not have incentive to have competition.
I should have clarified this. A monopolist does have an incentive to compete. The market demand curve constrains a monopolist's ability to profit from its monopoly power. A monopolist doesn't want to sell at a low price. It wants to sell very high, and if it were the only game in town, the monopolist would expect that it could indeed sell at a much higher price and get away with it. The monopolist's demand curve is downward sloping as opposed to being flat horizontal (competitive business). A monopolist can manipulate its price and output along the demand curve only, not off it. To increase sales, a monopolist must lower its price. It gets less revenue for each unit sold. This is what the effect of having marginal revenue less than product price means. A competitive business gets the market price for each unit sold. I mentioned before that a monopolist isn't good at maximizing profits. On the surface it seems like it is, but the monopolist has to chose the quantity of output that equates its marginal revenue and marginal cost, then find the price n the demand curve that is consistent with the quantity.
Every (non-colluding) business always has a marginal revenue less than the price of its good.
Not true. A competitive business has its price equal to marginal cost. In a monopolist's marginal revenue is less than its price:
P = MR = MC vs. P > MR = MC
with the result of the monopolist's price being greater than marginal cost. Because not all consumers who do not value the product at more than its cost do not buy the product, the quantity sold is below that socially efficient level. My thought it that most slashdotters would have no problem buying, liking, and forgiving MS Office, if the product was sold at marginal cost. At several hundred dollars per copy, it's hard not to notice MS Office's flaws.
Economies of scale are what cause monopolies.
No, It is true that monopolies can develop once a business achieves economies of scale, it is not true that monopolies stem from them. You have to understand what monopolies are in terms of economics, not in terms of the most hated company in your industry.
In a competitive market, businesses don't make any profits
No, you're incorrect. in a competitive market, businesses can and do earn profits without monopolistic behavior. Competing businesses who attempt to compete on price will lower prices based on the minimum profit they are willing to accept before exiting the competitive market. A business would not continue to lower its prices until it reaches marginal return on investment as it would remove the incentive to participate. Go make some lawn furniture and sell it at $1.00 over cost. Continue to do so, and see how long you'll be willing to continue.
Do you know about supply and demand curves? Here's a great explanation [link to Wikipedia]
Yes, I know quite a bit about supply and demand curves; Unfortunately, Wikipedia's 1 page long web definition of the subject wasn't my teacher. I had to rely on my Master's in Economics and years of practical work experience as an economist instead.
But without getting into a pissing contest with you, I will say that you are wrong in saying that a monopolist has no incentive to compete.A monopolist has the incentive because monopolies are inefficient at maximizing profits. A monopolist's marginal revenue is always less than the price of its good. Note, the monopolist's demand curve is downward-sloping. It's marginal revenue curve lies below is demand curve. A competitive business however has marginal revenue equal to the selling price of its product.
I actually use MS's automatic update feature, and I like it. My take on it is that if it's a Microsoft OS patch, it is something that is needed. I've grown to expect security patches and bug fixes, and I don't trust an MS OS that says it doesn't need them... that says alot about my mistrust of MS:)
Business get compensated so much because of the abiity to achieve economies of scale. Monopolies help, but only so far.
There are actually a few economic theories suggesting that monopoly power actually hurts monopolists.
In a competitive market, the market determines the price of the good, whereas in a monopoly, the monopolist determines the price of a good. Consumers have a set cap on what they are willing to pay. In a competitive market, the number of potential consumers of a product is maximized. Every person has the potential to consume the product. In a monopoly, the number of potential consumers declines. Eventually, monopolies have the effect of reducing the total potential consumers available to the product. A consumer can only afford to pay so much. After a time, the monopolist runs into a barrier where it can no longer increase its number of consumers, and so it grows much more slowly or shrinks. Microsoft has been teetering in this position for a while now. Microsoft actually has more economic incentive to be competitive than it does to be monopolistic.
Screw them! I'm still waiting for my personal jet rocket pack to come. And they promised we'd have them by 2000.
We've discussed this before. AI efforts haven't really produced much that the consumer can use. MIT's Media Lab still has a bunch of crap from ten years ago that still isn't ready for primetime.
The Economist should have done more thinking before publishing that article. If consumers aren't ready to adopt it, it can come as much as it wants, but it will never be here. (i.e., Bluetooth, color-shifting t-shirts)
Re:The problem is people take jobs just for the mo
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Communism in and of itself isn't plain evil. Stalinism was evil. Maoism was evil. But consider this, some of the most repressive evil regimes in this world (and in history) are not communist but free-market capitalist. Not all capitalist nations are like Western Europe, Japan, or the US. Many countless more are like Uganda, Somalia, Argentina, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, and Burma. The number of ruined lives and dead bodies vastly outnumbers the horrible things Stalin and Mao did.
Of course you're probably talking about Russia in particular. I've spent a lot of time in post-Soviet Russia as an economist trying to help Russian businesses adapt to western economics. The entire culture has been traumatized by communism. Unfortunately their foray into free market capitalism has been rough. China on the other hand has been remarkably stable. Interestingly enough, China's version of the free market is much more stable and trustworthy than the one we have because of the heavy-handedness of the Chinese government. Go figure.
Re:The problem is people take jobs just for the mo
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If you're just starting out in life, and it sounds like you are, then you can afford to do social work.
Don't assume that a degree is an automatic reprieve from working at McDonald's. In major metropolitan cities across the US, you can still find yourself working in fast food with a degree + years of experience. I recently met guy who was an advertising exec, but who now works as a greeter at Wafflehouse. If you're recent to the workforce (less than 10 years in my opinion), you need a degree. I hope I didn't sound like I was advocating not ever going to college.
If you've been in the workforce for a while you usually build financial responsibilities that prevent you from taking jobs as WalMart or McDonald's, or even in nursing. If your financial aid repayments alone are greater than what you make in social work, you should not be in social work (if you want to repay your debt). I understand your desire to improve the world. I think that's great, just so you understand that those who don't, don't because they can't afford the committment... and not all of them have spent beyond their means.
I didn't saw you were a communist, but you at least share one of Hegel's tenet beliefs - judging work by the impact (and hence value) it has on society.
Re:The problem is people take jobs just for the mo
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The problem here seems to be that there many opinionated college kids out there still living under their parents roof and credit card, so they don't understand the pressures of real adult life.
But, there are those that truly feel that a job should be valued solely by the job's contribution to society. Thus, a teacher, a miner, a lumberjack, or a steel worker, should naturally be paid more than one of their respective managers. What was it we called them back in college...um....ah... oh yeah, communists.
Not that there's anything wrong with that;)
Re:Do a job you actually WANT to do then.
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You just did a complete 180 from your previous statement. If people could always do what they LOVE, then if they loved teaching, they'd already be teaching. Non profit work won't help out people who invested thousands into an education under a realistic expectation that the economy would remain good. If it works for you, then great, but I know doing social work won't pay my bills, and I live pretty modestly.
Using college as a shelter until the economy improves is not an ingenious idea - it's being done right now. There is an interesting economic effect that hiding in college to get that second or third degree has. It pushes up the educational requirements for jobs once the market improves.
For example, you might not be old enough for this, but decades ago, a Bachelor's degree ensured a very good chance at great career transparent of the job field. Then as the 90s came, a Master's degree became necessary in several fields if you wanted to advance. With the economy in the state that it is in, and with so many master's degree holders going back to college and living on financial aid, by the time they come back out onto the market, they will have additional Master's or even PhDs. The market will be filled with 2nd Masters and PhDs all pursuing work that was originally targetted to people holding but one Masters. As a result, education preferences for just getting into the job interview have been artificially increased.
To make it simple. Your degree is worth less today than it was four years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
in case you hadn't noticed, they weren't demanding anything, they were requesting.
There's not a lot of difference between a demand and a request backed by threat. BR
Oh the irony is delicious! I'll admit that these kids have some titanium balls to want to take on Microsoft on its own turf and using its own tactics. Maybe for an encore they'll say something bad about Mike Tyson's mother.
But alas, Microsoft has the legal competence and financial resources to massage complicated economic/legal floodgate issues to their benefit, all in the name of free enterprise. When Microsoft writes out its threats, it leaves a nice safety net just in case. This group however lacks such resources.
I think the whole of the DMCA is unconstitutional myself because of the economic residual effects that I believe Congress intended, but even if I didn't I' still agree with you on this.
But at this time, and definitely to our benefit, the government hasn't figured out a way to prevent you from using your brain to think up exploits other than limiting access to knowledge on the subject. Hmm.. I think I just made a circular argument here.
Reporting bugs to the public is a good thing. As a Windows user I more than appreciate every bug report that was made possible by a little reverse engineering.
And yes that knowledge the group created from their effort is theirs. Where there are problems is in the way in which the group handled this. They interpreted Microsoft's decision not to entertain them further as a greenlight or disinterest. This was a stupid mistake. They asked for personal rewards for having this information and sharing it with Microsoft. Their indication was that if Microsoft responded in a timely matter, the group would not release the exploit to the public, but would instead keep it under wraps in proviso Microsoft sponsored the development of a Linux product. This is the blackmail aspect. Had Microsoft complied, the group would not be releasing the exploit. We as the consumer or game developer would be ignorant to this horrible security flaw that could enable software piracy - as they put it.
I really wish these kids spoke with an attorney first and gotten advice from some of the more credible members of the Linux community. What they've done is cool and certainly valuable, but it may prove personally devastating.
Right now, I'm really hoping that either I'm wrong or that Microsoft has developed a sense of humor about these things.
It would surely be worthwhile to see what happens, but we can always make educated predictions.
I've just read over the original statement again, and I notice yet another statement that troubles me:
The software companies who are developing titles for the XBox should be very worried by the lack of protection that Microsoft is offering their work as exploits such as those found by our team pose a serious threat to potential sales due to the possible use of such exploits for software piracy.
Here, the group have described the exploit as a security problem in XBox that would have potential problems for developers. I hope the techies in this forum can enlighten me, but I do not see how the group's exploit is a proof of concept that the XBox has serious security flaws that can be taken advantage of for software piracy. What I see is a group of kids who are attempting to mask their rather selfish activities under the guise of consumer and developer protection. As I understand it, software on the XBox is no more "protected" that any other DVD in the hands of a pirate with a DVD burner. Am I mistaken or misreading anything in this?
How the fuck are you supposed to get the consent of a group of people who can't even agree on which desktop is best and will fork code at the drop of a hat? It is easier to herd cats.
The answer is, you don't. You should not realistically expect any business to fork over its product designs and specs, and greenlight reverse-engineering performed by a third-party. If you are going to release the exploit, just do it; but don't try to turn it into a financial windfall. True, the letter did not specifically mention a request for payment; but you can be assured that these guys expected compensation down the line whether it be in the form of hush money, royalties, or high karma within the Linux community.
I have never heard of anyone *asking* for permission to release an exploit to a Microsoft technology before. It seems that these kids foresaw potential criminal or civil trouble, in which case, they should have had the sense NOT to strongarm Microsoft.
Actually, it is blackmail. Several of the things they request do have a quantifiable monetary value to them, and to others in similar situations. This includes the creation of an authorized product, refund of costs incurred, legal indemnification, and access to product designs and specs. It doesn't matter if they're willing to sign an NDA. Blackmail isn't limited to just the "give me X dollars or I will do something nasty you won't like." Any argument that Microsoft won't be harmed financially due to the release of this exploit is weak because Microsoft doesn't have to show actual financial damages from this. But that's just the civil suit. These guys will have more to worry about from the Justice Department in the criminal case.
This is not a step forward for the Linux community. It is an embarassing set back that could further strengthen arguments against using Linux and supporting the Linux community. It's just damn irresponsible of them.
So the digital certificate could be used to validate the mail I sent really came from me? Oh, I'd just attach the certificate to the email? Oh, there's a central repository where all the email addresses I might use can be linked to the certificate? Oh, how lovely... and who would this repository be available to? Only the government? Oh grand. Sign me up!
I can think of a few innovations I've wanted in a web browser for a long time, none of which involving integrating chat programs, download managers, or embedding premium services within the browser.
If innovation is indeed dead, it's because there's no money in continuing to enhance browser design beyond performance improvements and ancillary features, unless you actually earn revenue from it (Opera) or browser development can be done at near zero dollar cost (Mozilla).
I agree with jdray's sentiments about the Forward button. I'd personally like to the browser to be more forward-looking. I'd like bad links on webpages to dimmed or otherwise invalidated before hand so I'll know not to even bother to click on them.
Isn't that how all great frontier expeditions started out - rich adventurers financing trips to the top of mountains, to remote lands, and now to space?
I'll take a stab at this.
;)
I don't see a lot of new ground being broken paradigm-wise. We've got open source, closed source, and licensed source models, and then there are probably small variations of each.
There will always be a hot new OS out there. Maybe Amiga is destined to make a comeback in a major way. Linux could very well evolve so much that it no longer resembles UNIX at all. Maybe it already has?
I think the OpenBeOS project is a good contender. It gives consumers a nice alternative to Windows while preserving much of the benefits of Windows. I really hope to see something good come from it.
Within the Windows community there is a growing number of developers and consumers who want smaller more efficient apps, so the next paradigm in desktop computing could be a regressive movement back towards when applications were less bloated. I think this crowd is maybe too eclectic to be a powerful influence on the market though, considering the hardware market will continue improving system performance.
http://www.tinyapps.org/ is a good place to learn more about this.
A colleage of mine calls this current era in computing, lifestyle computing. We're not bound to the desktop, and we use our computers as extension to our social life with a big emphasis on multimedia. I'm not sure how this differs from that last era in computing. It seems about the same, but the idea is that Apple understands that the OS and the computer should be industrial designed to be accessories to our lives. Computers should be more consistent with the way we behave socially and psychologically. I suppose for Microsoft this means they will need to copy more from Apple than ever before; or maybe it will mean that Microsoft will need to abandon the desktop metaphor and go wth something else, like Lifestreams.
Of course, we might consider that the new paradigms in computing are being built on mobile computing platforms. So, while desktop computing will remain on the same path - faster processor, more memory, etc; we'll see more cool developments on PDAs, laptops, and cell phones. I myself am waiting for cyberdecks (a la R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2020)
I would love to run a Linux box at home if for no other reason than the cool 8-way virtual desktop in the GUI ... but I don't think I could find 8 apps to run, one for each virtual desktop.
You don't need Linux for that. Windows XP PowerToys has an applet for that purpose. It doesn't work exactly the way it does in X, but useful.
I've got a stack of homemade Slackware CDs and a store bought copy of SuSe sitting on the shelf. Don't get me wrong. I really like Linux. There was a time when I needed a UNIX environment professionally; and thus, I needed a UNIX computer at home. Solaris for Intel was an OK solution, but Linux is great for that purpose. However, my computing lifestyle involves a heavy absorbtion of many types of multimedia formats as well as MS Office or WordPerfect documents. In order to replicate all the functionality I need, I have to do a lot of downloading and configuring on Linux - something I simply haven't the time for.
In order for me to take another look at Linux, I'd have to have a distribution that targets the multimedia user. SuSe seems pretty strong, but I'll admit, I do get a little intimidated by the SuSe install process in a way that Slackware never did. There are just too many choices. Maybe that Lycoris is what I'm looking for?
In a sidenote. I've just discovered Windows Media Player 9's lossless WMA format. I love it, and I've just converted my travel pack of CDs to WMA instead of MP3. I like my music at bitrates in the area of 900-1200kbps, and WMAL does that. I'd like to learn a litte more about Flac, but I haven't seem any comparisons that lead me to switch. Help?
Yep. I don't care much for oligopolies myself... or any other "poly" that doesn't role off the tongue nicely. Small American cities are really notorious for having oligopolies. I discovered one small city in North Carolina that had a oligopoly in the form of the local power and water companies. This was long ago, but at one point the two did a shakedown of the mayor's office.
:)
Capitalism is beautiful isn't it
But you can't fix prices unless you have some sort of monopoly power, right?
No. Price fixing and monopolization are two independent concepts. In price fixing, a group of companies competing against each other will agree that despite their competition they will still set a minimum price for consumers; thus artificially raising the market price. One company acting in a competitive market cannot be a price-fixer. It is by definition a price taker. Now if that same company is alone in the market, can control barriers to entry, then it could have a monopoly.
You've got a good common sense understanding of it all. Business do get compensated because of the barriers to entry. Overcoming those barriers is factored into the risk of doing business. Barriers to entry do not stem from monopolistic power though. market forces can be barriers, but so can government regulation and even culture. Consider the difficulty British aerospace firms have competing against American aerospace firms for the US military's business. The Telecom Act of 1996 was supposed to lower barriers to entry, but it in fact raised the barriers to entry, especially in the commercial radio market. This is not because of anything Clear Channel or Infinity Broadcasting did as monopolistic companies. It's because the government (albiet due to successful lobbying) drafting regulations that raised the barriers to entry for small indepedent firms. Here is where your concept of monopolies and entry barriers connect though, and I think it's a good example. Infinity, Clear Channel, and that other one (I forget) are able to monopolize radio markets and raise the barriers to entry. In this case, a group of companies share monopoly power cooperatively and engage in price fixing.
What you assume about monopolies and monopolists isn't generally true, but it is certainly true in some very noticeable cases such as radio, computer memory, etc.
Wikipedia either, but it seemed like a good simple primer for someone who had never seen a supply or demand curve before. Anyway, my apologies.
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No harm done. I won't judge the quality of the material, but being that it was short vs. the overpriced back-breaking monoithic tombs of knowledge sitting on my bookshelf, Wikipedia is likly simplifying things.
what I mean is that econmies of scale cause a company to have monopoly power.
Again, I have to disagree. An economy of scale exists when long-term average total costs decline as output rises. It's a mark of a business that is working efficiently. It can happen, say when a company specializes. I make guns and butter. You make only butter. In time you likely do a better job at making butter than I... unless I somehow hinder you. I think that's where you're involving monopolies. Monopolies arise from barriers to entry, but in a competitive market, economies of scale exist for all players. Those that have diseconomies will eventually exit the market due to their inability to compete. A lot of successful monopolies have achieved economies of scale, but this isn't a requirement to gain a monopoly. Monopolies can in fact have diseconomies of scale. Consider natural monopolies such as public works. I've seen many examples of natural monopolies operating at a loss, and yet continuing (due to government help). Inefficiently run, their costs rise with output production, but the public work is still a monopoly. A monopoly may also exhibit a constant return to scale, wherein average total cost stays the same despite output.
I did mention in a previous post that a business will make a certain profit equivalent to an interest rate that would be received on any other equally risky investment. I believe at that point or earlier, you were getting into a discussion of zero-profit condition. In respect to the ZPC, I have to agree with you. I do have some problems with ZPC's practicality. I'm really adament that industry-wide price fixing invalidates the condition.
Clearly a monopolist has incentive to compete in order to maintain his monopoly. But a monopolist does not have incentive to have competition. I should have clarified this. A monopolist does have an incentive to compete. The market demand curve constrains a monopolist's ability to profit from its monopoly power. A monopolist doesn't want to sell at a low price. It wants to sell very high, and if it were the only game in town, the monopolist would expect that it could indeed sell at a much higher price and get away with it. The monopolist's demand curve is downward sloping as opposed to being flat horizontal (competitive business). A monopolist can manipulate its price and output along the demand curve only, not off it. To increase sales, a monopolist must lower its price. It gets less revenue for each unit sold. This is what the effect of having marginal revenue less than product price means. A competitive business gets the market price for each unit sold. I mentioned before that a monopolist isn't good at maximizing profits. On the surface it seems like it is, but the monopolist has to chose the quantity of output that equates its marginal revenue and marginal cost, then find the price n the demand curve that is consistent with the quantity.
Every (non-colluding) business always has a marginal revenue less than the price of its good. Not true. A competitive business has its price equal to marginal cost. In a monopolist's marginal revenue is less than its price:
P = MR = MC vs. P > MR = MC
with the result of the monopolist's price being greater than marginal cost. Because not all consumers who do not value the product at more than its cost do not buy the product, the quantity sold is below that socially efficient level. My thought it that most slashdotters would have no problem buying, liking, and forgiving MS Office, if the product was sold at marginal cost. At several hundred dollars per copy, it's hard not to notice MS Office's flaws.
Hopefully, that cleared the air
Economies of scale are what cause monopolies. No, It is true that monopolies can develop once a business achieves economies of scale, it is not true that monopolies stem from them. You have to understand what monopolies are in terms of economics, not in terms of the most hated company in your industry.
In a competitive market, businesses don't make any profits
No, you're incorrect. in a competitive market, businesses can and do earn profits without monopolistic behavior. Competing businesses who attempt to compete on price will lower prices based on the minimum profit they are willing to accept before exiting the competitive market. A business would not continue to lower its prices until it reaches marginal return on investment as it would remove the incentive to participate. Go make some lawn furniture and sell it at $1.00 over cost. Continue to do so, and see how long you'll be willing to continue.
Do you know about supply and demand curves? Here's a great explanation [link to Wikipedia]
Yes, I know quite a bit about supply and demand curves; Unfortunately, Wikipedia's 1 page long web definition of the subject wasn't my teacher. I had to rely on my Master's in Economics and years of practical work experience as an economist instead.
But without getting into a pissing contest with you, I will say that you are wrong in saying that a monopolist has no incentive to compete.A monopolist has the incentive because monopolies are inefficient at maximizing profits. A monopolist's marginal revenue is always less than the price of its good. Note, the monopolist's demand curve is downward-sloping. It's marginal revenue curve lies below is demand curve. A competitive business however has marginal revenue equal to the selling price of its product.
I actually use MS's automatic update feature, and I like it. My take on it is that if it's a Microsoft OS patch, it is something that is needed. I've grown to expect security patches and bug fixes, and I don't trust an MS OS that says it doesn't need them... that says alot about my mistrust of MS :)
Business get compensated so much because of the abiity to achieve economies of scale. Monopolies help, but only so far.
There are actually a few economic theories suggesting that monopoly power actually hurts monopolists.
In a competitive market, the market determines the price of the good, whereas in a monopoly, the monopolist determines the price of a good. Consumers have a set cap on what they are willing to pay. In a competitive market, the number of potential consumers of a product is maximized. Every person has the potential to consume the product. In a monopoly, the number of potential consumers declines. Eventually, monopolies have the effect of reducing the total potential consumers available to the product. A consumer can only afford to pay so much. After a time, the monopolist runs into a barrier where it can no longer increase its number of consumers, and so it grows much more slowly or shrinks. Microsoft has been teetering in this position for a while now. Microsoft actually has more economic incentive to be competitive than it does to be monopolistic.
Screw them! I'm still waiting for my personal jet rocket pack to come. And they promised we'd have them by 2000.
We've discussed this before. AI efforts haven't really produced much that the consumer can use. MIT's Media Lab still has a bunch of crap from ten years ago that still isn't ready for primetime.
The Economist should have done more thinking before publishing that article. If consumers aren't ready to adopt it, it can come as much as it wants, but it will never be here. (i.e., Bluetooth, color-shifting t-shirts)
Communism in and of itself isn't plain evil. Stalinism was evil. Maoism was evil. But consider this, some of the most repressive evil regimes in this world (and in history) are not communist but free-market capitalist. Not all capitalist nations are like Western Europe, Japan, or the US. Many countless more are like Uganda, Somalia, Argentina, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, and Burma. The number of ruined lives and dead bodies vastly outnumbers the horrible things Stalin and Mao did.
Of course you're probably talking about Russia in particular. I've spent a lot of time in post-Soviet Russia as an economist trying to help Russian businesses adapt to western economics. The entire culture has been traumatized by communism. Unfortunately their foray into free market capitalism has been rough. China on the other hand has been remarkably stable. Interestingly enough, China's version of the free market is much more stable and trustworthy than the one we have because of the heavy-handedness of the Chinese government. Go figure.
If you're just starting out in life, and it sounds like you are, then you can afford to do social work.
Don't assume that a degree is an automatic reprieve from working at McDonald's. In major metropolitan cities across the US, you can still find yourself working in fast food with a degree + years of experience. I recently met guy who was an advertising exec, but who now works as a greeter at Wafflehouse. If you're recent to the workforce (less than 10 years in my opinion), you need a degree. I hope I didn't sound like I was advocating not ever going to college.
If you've been in the workforce for a while you usually build financial responsibilities that prevent you from taking jobs as WalMart or McDonald's, or even in nursing. If your financial aid repayments alone are greater than what you make in social work, you should not be in social work (if you want to repay your debt). I understand your desire to improve the world. I think that's great, just so you understand that those who don't, don't because they can't afford the committment... and not all of them have spent beyond their means.
I didn't saw you were a communist, but you at least share one of Hegel's tenet beliefs - judging work by the impact (and hence value) it has on society.
The problem here seems to be that there many opinionated college kids out there still living under their parents roof and credit card, so they don't understand the pressures of real adult life.
;)
But, there are those that truly feel that a job should be valued solely by the job's contribution to society. Thus, a teacher, a miner, a lumberjack, or a steel worker, should naturally be paid more than one of their respective managers. What was it we called them back in college...um....ah... oh yeah, communists.
Not that there's anything wrong with that
You just did a complete 180 from your previous statement. If people could always do what they LOVE, then if they loved teaching, they'd already be teaching. Non profit work won't help out people who invested thousands into an education under a realistic expectation that the economy would remain good. If it works for you, then great, but I know doing social work won't pay my bills, and I live pretty modestly.
Using college as a shelter until the economy improves is not an ingenious idea - it's being done right now. There is an interesting economic effect that hiding in college to get that second or third degree has. It pushes up the educational requirements for jobs once the market improves.
For example, you might not be old enough for this, but decades ago, a Bachelor's degree ensured a very good chance at great career transparent of the job field. Then as the 90s came, a Master's degree became necessary in several fields if you wanted to advance. With the economy in the state that it is in, and with so many master's degree holders going back to college and living on financial aid, by the time they come back out onto the market, they will have additional Master's or even PhDs. The market will be filled with 2nd Masters and PhDs all pursuing work that was originally targetted to people holding but one Masters. As a result, education preferences for just getting into the job interview have been artificially increased.
To make it simple. Your degree is worth less today than it was four years ago.
I believe you can get your ass kicked for saying that... Ah, Office Space, a venerable fountation of timeless quotes.
'didn't come true, and I don't believe it will.'
... And we have never been at war with Eurasia. ... And we have always been at war with Oceania.