I wonder what your definition of socialist is, then. If socialism fundamentally means that the government regulates and controls all aspects of economic behavior, and owns those economic assets deemed "essential", we're pretty close to that, and getting closer all the time. (As opposed to communism, where government directly controls all economic behavior, or fascism, where government indirectly controls economic behavior via regulation and control, but now ownership.) Granted, we are really a fascist economy rather than a socialist economy, but with GM and so forth, that line's getting mighty thin.
Why are technology and energy sources incompatible with commercialization and profit opportunity? Do large distances or time frames suddenly change human nature?
You are missing something important. The reason NASA is able to fund only part of the development costs (unlike the many billions they flushed on Constellation) is that these vehicles are designed to also meet the needs of non-NASA customers. In effect, NASA is paying part of the development costs to get a vehicle that they can use, and the companies involved are paying the rest to be able to serve both NASA and non-NASA customers. While profit motives don't make everything work, they make most things work, far better than top-down control does. I'm not sure how, after the disaster of 20th century communism, fascism and social democracy, somehow it is markets who are seen as having failed. It's takes phenomenal ignorance of history and economics to make that argument.
While space travel capability may be a public good, both space ships and actual travel are not, being both rivalrous and excludable. So COTS seems like an ideal answer to your objection: the capability/technology are subsidized, while the vehicles and transportation using them are at the whim of the market.
It did a pretty good job of laying out why MS has failed to keep up with the leading edge of the industry, and why they will need radical cultural change to ever catch up. In particular, the article avoided overblown hystrionics, for example not claiming MS is dead, but pointing out that MS has become like IBM in how it operates.
Cable / satellite don't always show the things you want, or when you want. Even DVRs only help a little, because it depends on you knowing what you will want to watch later.
Netflix streaming has a poor selection (for my tastes anyway), and Amazon is only slightly better, and even then only if you are willing to pay to rent on top of the Prime membership. You can get a broader selection on disk from Netflix, but not on a whim.
Hulu has a terrible selection as well. When you want to pick up a show from the beginning, and it's been playing for a while, they have only a few episodes of most shows, even on the paid side.
You can get a lot from Apple, but expensively (about double the DVD cost to see a TV season). And even then, they don't have a long tail for those who prefer more obscure stuff. Probably because content providers are afraid Apple will do to them what Apple did to the music industry.
But you can get anything you want, even foreign or obscure material, by torrent easier than you can get Finding Nemo. So the bottom line is content providers suck at giving people what they want when they want it. Until they stop sucking or get disintermediated, there will not be a convenient and legal way to get content.
Identity should be inherent in connectivity and access. Anonymity should be a service. But since implementing automated identity and webs of trust means starting with redesigning the IP layer, and then redesigning from there on up, it's not going to happen any time soon, even if it would dramatically ease problems like spam and DDoS attacks. It would simply be so expensive and time-consuming as to be a poor return on investment. And of course, trying to graft on identity and trust runs into the problems others have noted above. Maybe the next planet to build an Internet will do it right.
The model of education used in the IS for the last 100 years or so is no longer sufficient. Online courses will be part of whatever the new system will be, but only a part.
I think it would be an excellent idea to harden our infrastructure and make our social and political systems for responding to change more resilient. That does not mean that spinning tales of disaster that can only be averted through legislation is anything other than hyperbole, though. I have yet to see anything about this cybersecurity bill that does not involve centralization (reducing resilience) or regulation (reducing diversity and thus making attacks more effective because more widespread), and so far nothing that really looks like it would actually harden our information infrastructure in any meaningful way.
I think you should ask the Syrian rebels whether or not you are correct. They seem to be successfully overthrowing a totalitarian state at the moment. (Not to say that what follows won't be as bad or worse, but the argument that government superiority in numbers and equipment automatically equates to success ignores the very real moral component.)
Unlikely. I tend to like Apple's stuff, but there's a reason I have a Roku instead of an AppleTV. I am a gadget nerd, not an Apple nerd. It's just that Apple tends to make a lot of really good gadgets.
I have an iPhone 4. The screen is almost perfect on size: I can reach the whole screen with my thumb, most of it comfortably, while holding it in my palm. But it's a little too thin: it tends to get gripped too loosely because there's no depth to fill the hollow behind it. But the trend is larger screens and thinner devices. Hopefully not everyone will jump on that trend.
Actually, there very likely wouldn't have been as long as the shooter's expectation was that the audience would be armed. Shooters are much less likely to go where they expect to face armed resistence, so it's possible that a common habit of carrying weapons in public would reduce such shootings.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do you conclude that there is not considerable concern for safety and backup?
Define your terms, then. What is "socialist" to you? In what ways does the Obama administration not follow the pattern of what you deem socialist?
I wonder what your definition of socialist is, then. If socialism fundamentally means that the government regulates and controls all aspects of economic behavior, and owns those economic assets deemed "essential", we're pretty close to that, and getting closer all the time. (As opposed to communism, where government directly controls all economic behavior, or fascism, where government indirectly controls economic behavior via regulation and control, but now ownership.) Granted, we are really a fascist economy rather than a socialist economy, but with GM and so forth, that line's getting mighty thin.
Why are technology and energy sources incompatible with commercialization and profit opportunity? Do large distances or time frames suddenly change human nature?
You are missing something important. The reason NASA is able to fund only part of the development costs (unlike the many billions they flushed on Constellation) is that these vehicles are designed to also meet the needs of non-NASA customers. In effect, NASA is paying part of the development costs to get a vehicle that they can use, and the companies involved are paying the rest to be able to serve both NASA and non-NASA customers. While profit motives don't make everything work, they make most things work, far better than top-down control does. I'm not sure how, after the disaster of 20th century communism, fascism and social democracy, somehow it is markets who are seen as having failed. It's takes phenomenal ignorance of history and economics to make that argument.
You are correct: you do not understand. Try fixing that.
While space travel capability may be a public good, both space ships and actual travel are not, being both rivalrous and excludable. So COTS seems like an ideal answer to your objection: the capability/technology are subsidized, while the vehicles and transportation using them are at the whim of the market.
http://www.mulereturns.com/
An now that M.U.L.E. is getting ported to modern platforms, I can finally have no further use for one.
All corporate dress is an iterative prisoner's dilemma. The first day, wear suit and tie. After that, dress like your boss.
It did a pretty good job of laying out why MS has failed to keep up with the leading edge of the industry, and why they will need radical cultural change to ever catch up. In particular, the article avoided overblown hystrionics, for example not claiming MS is dead, but pointing out that MS has become like IBM in how it operates.
Wow, what complete and utter FUD! Except that none of that is true, good points.
Netflix streaming has a poor selection (for my tastes anyway), and Amazon is only slightly better, and even then only if you are willing to pay to rent on top of the Prime membership. You can get a broader selection on disk from Netflix, but not on a whim.
Hulu has a terrible selection as well. When you want to pick up a show from the beginning, and it's been playing for a while, they have only a few episodes of most shows, even on the paid side.
You can get a lot from Apple, but expensively (about double the DVD cost to see a TV season). And even then, they don't have a long tail for those who prefer more obscure stuff. Probably because content providers are afraid Apple will do to them what Apple did to the music industry.
But you can get anything you want, even foreign or obscure material, by torrent easier than you can get Finding Nemo. So the bottom line is content providers suck at giving people what they want when they want it. Until they stop sucking or get disintermediated, there will not be a convenient and legal way to get content.
Just to be clear, this does not allow users to run Java apps on their phones. It makes it easier for Java developers to port Java apps, though.
And I've been in such a situation. And I'm not now.
My relationship to work is individual, not collective. Mind your own business.
Identity should be inherent in connectivity and access. Anonymity should be a service. But since implementing automated identity and webs of trust means starting with redesigning the IP layer, and then redesigning from there on up, it's not going to happen any time soon, even if it would dramatically ease problems like spam and DDoS attacks. It would simply be so expensive and time-consuming as to be a poor return on investment. And of course, trying to graft on identity and trust runs into the problems others have noted above. Maybe the next planet to build an Internet will do it right.
The model of education used in the IS for the last 100 years or so is no longer sufficient. Online courses will be part of whatever the new system will be, but only a part.
I think it would be an excellent idea to harden our infrastructure and make our social and political systems for responding to change more resilient. That does not mean that spinning tales of disaster that can only be averted through legislation is anything other than hyperbole, though. I have yet to see anything about this cybersecurity bill that does not involve centralization (reducing resilience) or regulation (reducing diversity and thus making attacks more effective because more widespread), and so far nothing that really looks like it would actually harden our information infrastructure in any meaningful way.
But the American population is larger and better armed than the Syrian population, so it's probably a wash.
I think you should ask the Syrian rebels whether or not you are correct. They seem to be successfully overthrowing a totalitarian state at the moment. (Not to say that what follows won't be as bad or worse, but the argument that government superiority in numbers and equipment automatically equates to success ignores the very real moral component.)
I bought a Mophie JuicePack, so I essentially did that.
Unlikely. I tend to like Apple's stuff, but there's a reason I have a Roku instead of an AppleTV. I am a gadget nerd, not an Apple nerd. It's just that Apple tends to make a lot of really good gadgets.
I have an iPhone 4. The screen is almost perfect on size: I can reach the whole screen with my thumb, most of it comfortably, while holding it in my palm. But it's a little too thin: it tends to get gripped too loosely because there's no depth to fill the hollow behind it. But the trend is larger screens and thinner devices. Hopefully not everyone will jump on that trend.
Actually, there very likely wouldn't have been as long as the shooter's expectation was that the audience would be armed. Shooters are much less likely to go where they expect to face armed resistence, so it's possible that a common habit of carrying weapons in public would reduce such shootings.