We cant even start using the new ipv6 protocol. I dont think we are there yet.
I've been to IPv6 summits. I've also served as the senior technology officer for several telecom companies (one of which was a very first CIX-W router connected ISP and frustration to Paul Vixie in our rather unique connection to the early Santa Clara peer point).
Through my experience, I've advocated IPv6, yet I've found significant resistance from nearly all sectors of business (except from South Korean and South American investors - go figure). Some of the problems IPv6 plans (and this "new infrastructure" pipe dream) face include:
zero customer demand: dot-com was great for us geeks pushing ideas before their time. Fortunately or not, its demise meant a return to financial foundations. If customers don't demand it, there's no reason to work on it today. If it's the next great thing, then get customers understanding it! (Thought: How do we do this for IPv6? I can think of a thousand technical explanations for why this is. My customers would tell me they expect me to do these things already at no additional cost to them. Absent additional capital, it ain't happening in today's telecom market). Lacking a killer ap that only works in IPv6 land, the finance people won't back any infrastructure upgrade. Here's the rule: either make money or save money. IPv6... well, it adds features without really making or saving money. Guess what the CFO will decide? New features don't quite present well in any capital budget analysis (and rightfully so).
State of the consumer market: Let's be honest for a second. While we dream of IPv6 efficiencies, the world out there is clinging onto Windows 98, first edition. They're stuck in the IP dark ages (hell, I had a discussion today with a Fortune 500 senior manager who thought dialup optimization was the same thing as broadband. *sigh* It's the Dilbert PHB "etch and sketch" laptop all over again!). These are people that can't understand their kids P2P and the five trojans pushing out spam are why their broadband is slow. These are the people that refuse to use antivirus, personal firewalls and spyware detection. Do you expect them to understand the nuances of better IP networks? QoS? Mobile IP? Dream on...
We've forgotten our dirty bastard heritage: Don't forget, TCP/IP was the the dark horse protocol. OSI was the committees pick, yet nasty old ad hoc IP ended up winning out. NSFNET and the Baby Bell NAP plan connected by ANS was Al Gore's dream for a monopoly-powered Internet, which also flopped. A brutish commercial ISP network launched by the early CIX won out. Rarely does the committee solution prevail. Technology is one of the few areas where natural selection tends to ignore the best intentions of the wealthy and powerful elites.
Don't think I'm not wild about IPv6. I geek out and run it over AX.25 amateur networks for fun (what better way to learn a protocol). Yet the days of getting capital markets worked up in a frenzy, ready to throw hundreds of millions at network replacement are gone. Unless this latest dream is based on new tax revenues from all of us (which only creates messes like the original unaccountable NSFNET regionals), it won't go anywhere.
Could it be any more vague? Sounds like a webserver to me.
I just read through the patent and I'd be amazed if it didn't cover WAIS. I implemented Brewster Kahle's WAIS server (Wide Area Information Services, based on Z39.50 protocol) on high-speed networks back in the late 1980s through 1991, putting a campus newspaper, campus phone directory and a collection of wave files onto the DecStation 2000 running the server.
It appears that the patent office must believe more in time travel than intellectual property registrations given the wealth of prior art available. Or perhaps the perspective I read that they're "the department of information, not information retrieval" was correct; e.g. USPTO blindly approves the applications and leaves it up to the courts to decide if they actually have any merit. IANAL but several IP atty associates have given me this perspective and explained that one does not want the USPTO rejecting anything as a bureaucratic clerk should not make law -- a court should (!!!).
Unfortunately, this overloads the already taxed court system (district court here taking 12-18 months to get a date for civil litigation; 2.5 to 3 years for appealate court beyond that, meaning any civil action will likely take you five years to see a dollar starting from the day you file litigation, and assuming you have rapid discovery). It puts companies in limbo, causes hard working technology employees to be at constant risk (which they'll naturally migrate to other types of employment) and leaves the US uncompetitive.
Nothing like a five-year time table to block up technology development. Guess the trial attorneys have ensured that the Chinese and Indians will lap US technology development, eh?
Hasn't this sort of thing been tried before and failed miserably?
Yes, but according to CueCat's official website, we should hang on to our devices:
If you have a Cue Cat, save it. The patents and technology created by DigitalConvergence will again be available for business and consumer use.
As I'm certain they're not talking about the evil open source drivers that came along and ruined their attempts to spy on all those scans. Perhaps it has something to do with these Digital Convergence patents lying out there in wait:
US 6,836.799: Method and apparatus for tracking user profile and habits on a global network
US 6,643,692: Method for controlling a computer using an embedded unique code in the content of video tape media
Don't forget...
The dream was to connect items in the physical world to the Internet, automatically. In January that dream hit a bump in the road and the servers were taken offline. They will scan again...
And why would anyone buy $1k-$2k gaming machine when their speciality $400 system can push more polys and has nearly the same rendering abilities, uses any peripheral you want, makes online gaming a breeze, isn't going to get you an email virus, and has a wider selection of games?
Because people don't game because of the video card, the performance of the platform, etc., they game because it's fulfilling a solution for the work at hand.
For instance, if I want to engage in a multiplayer game with my son, we jump onto a console unit. The TV area is the entertainment area of the house, and this activity fits right in. Naturally, the successful games made for consoles support this role. But if I'm feeling antisocial and want to go blow off steam building empires, nuking or shooting things, there's no way in hell I'd sit in the family room on the console and play C&C, Halflife, etc. I'm headed to my private space (my home office, which has my workstations), closing the door and playing the game I want. I'm certainly not going to buy a console unit for my office - it'd be absurd. Nor am I buying a PC for the entertainment area. But apparently game manufacturers have lost sight of how their customers use their products, as well as where and why.
The day you show me a successful console RTS, it'll certainly not be a single player thing. And no gameboy handheld device is going to be immersive enough for my solitary gaming interests!
What economic sense does that make?
The same sense that we still have $25K motorcycles that seat one when $15K Hyundi would also get you and three friends to the very same destination.
Wireless is by nature a less reliable medium, because it's passing through air and trees and walls -- as opposed to copper
Not entirerly true. For years, the majority of AT&T's long distance network backbone (Long Lines) was wireless. When old timers refer to the "Bell standard", they're referring to a rock-solid telephone network that actually ran mostly over microwave long-distance transmission facilities. When engineered in point-to-point configurations where each endpoint is a known quantity, wireless (aka microwave) has nearly identical reliability to modern fiber transmission systems.
Point-multipoint wireless (e.g. cellular last-mile) is a totally different animal in that you have your subscriber endpoint that is often mobile and nearly always at locations you have never engineered for. Your cell engineering becomes an estimate for coverage rather than actual end-to-end engineering, and subsequently has issues with fade and interference from objects, terrain, etc.
That said, if you're looking for reliable last-mile rural service, consider fixed wireless. Properly engineered, it will match any cable or fiber system.
Yes, and depending on how the writes are being spread across the media, the device could last a day or years.
Excellent issue. We've replaced flash drives on most of our embedded systems with microdrives for this very issue. Configured with a typical embedded Linux load for routing purposes, they tend to last about one year with no local logging.
*scoove*
Re:Not too far from the truth!
on
Dutch Pass iPod Tax
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I get more and more discusted by these MAFIA organisations, who are somehow legalised by the Dutch government.
Don't get sick from it. Quit giving them money.
As an ISP's technology and security officer, I've had to deal with numerous Harry Potter intellectual property owner demands. These people have repeatedly disregarded the actual law, e.g. notification through registered agent and specified process, and routinely strong-arm ISPs as follows:
o provide an IP address that was the alleged offender, without naming the file, evidence that the file was their property, nor the actual TIME of the event. As if the whole damn Internet is static IPs! (we have 60% of our customer base obtaining dynamic allocations via PPPoE, so a single IP address is meaningless without other data).
o demand immediate termination of the customer using that IP address. Per the previous point, this would most likely shut down a completely unrelated customer, causing them serious impairment to their business and subjecting the ISP to liability (not to mention lost revenues). This, btw, is probably how all the 85-year-old grandmas are getting named in RIAA/MPAA DMCA suits. Someone please give them an Internet for Dummies class quick.
o demand naming the customer's name, business, address, etc. Again, this is not in compliance with the law that they clearly are aware of yet disregard (if they are so willing to ignore the law, why should file sharers care either?)
o threaten your upstream NSP with legal emails saying if you don't comply with their demand, the upstream must shut your entire network off. Usually they provide 48 hours until they claim they'll escalate it.
Our response has always been legal back to them (that is the only language these people understand). We remind them of the law, the registered agent they ignored, the liability they now may possess having ignored that, and a CLEAR specification of the information required in order for us to identify the alleged party. We send the reply via email and cc to registered mail (very much recommended as it puts them on notice that you're tracking this). Be sure to do this on your attorney's letterhead (sent from your attorney) as this means you're being advised by someone who ought to know the law. Finally, make sure you notify your upstream provider of all of this communication, along with language from your attorney that reminds them that they may be liable should any harm come to your network given how you have complied with the law in your response. As always, if you can push a matter out of some clerical techie's hands and into an upper manager (who is probably fearful of screwing up), you're more likely to prevail.
But back to the point: if you want to keep this RIAA and MPAA nonsense up, keep spending money on their movies, books, music, etc. My son is a big Harry Potter fan, but our family will not spend one dime on anything related to that franchise due to them being placed on my ban list. If an inquiry can cause lost legitimate sales, it'll get their attention. Right now, they believe they have nothing to lose.
Which, of course, our elected officials wouldn't know or care about.
You nailed that on the head. Probably one of the biggest disappointments I had that helped wake me up was meeting Represenative Daub (former R, Nebraska) a few years ago. I was all hyped up about meeting "such an important person who must know so much to deal with such important things" - right? Damn, what a disappointment! The best description is like when you're watching a movie and some famous actor has to pretend he's doing something technical, like conducting an orchestra or snowboarding or something. You're totally let down when you discover THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL THEY'RE DOING AT ALL.
Congresspersons are overwhelmingly that way. Perhaps that's why they get caught making stuff up so often. Like our Senator Harkin (D, Iowa), who was telling people he was a combat pilot in Viet Nam and had lots of fierce air battles. Turns out he was an overglorified mechanic shutting planes to Japan. Oops. I've met him too and was equally underwhelmed.
It must take a special sort of person who wants all the attention but in reality has to push favors (ala bills and influence) to earn their keep...
In a lot of cases, I'm afraid it's more than a common sense issue. Congress is a very influence oriented place, often manifesting in significant special interest motivation and what most of us would call blatent corruption. I've been told from my politically active friends that it is nearly impossible to make it to a US Senate seat without being "sponsored", and for the rare once-in-a-lifetime unsponsored Senator who makes it, they either are turned around in two terms and converted by the perks of membership, or end up not making reelection.
I get a bit annoyed at some of the less aware/.ers that immediately get on the evil Republicans/corporate conspiracy rant (part of the annoyance was my own idiocy in college sharing the same perspective - seeing Congressional races up front, and then seeing it from the boardroom of a Washington DC corporation, very much changed that). I'm of the same party, but would gladly throw Santorum out, along with Hatch, McCain (who got rolled by lobbyists on the crooked campaign reform) and many others who sold out long ago.
Santorum probably believes he is representing his constituents, which would be what we would want of a Senator. Unfortunately, his staffers have a screening mechanism that usually requires a certain amount of financial support to pass. Santorum is fed information from only those immediate to him. His staffers know money is good, so they make sure their customer (e.g. Accuweather) is not opposed in their viewpoint. Santorum goes off like a good scout and pitches this bill. Regardless of Santorum's intent, if he's not wise enough to know that those around him will be bought for less than he costs, he has no business working for us as a Senator.
The real problem with this approach is that if there isn't an equally strong alternate special interest who can fund the opposition, the absurd special interest law usually makes it. Look at the recording and film industries efforts to make illegal film recording suffer a sentence worse than manslaughter. Lacking a well funded (and contributing) counter-lobby, the law slips right in. Insert cash, out comes your bill.
Back to political orientation and the Halliburton conspiracy crowd, the worst thing for all of us is to fall into the traps of buying the PR shoved out by both camps. Corruption is like parasites and both parties get them. If you really love your party, then clean it up first and out-compete the right/left/whoever you don't like. Lacking the baggage of parasitic inefficiency, a party ought to do extremely well.
Senator Santorum's bill would probably cause a measurable loss of life, given that numerous spotters such as myself rely upon NWS's Internet-accessible data to assist us in our spotting activities.
I just returned from spotting in extreme southwest Iowa (and am actually headed back out, as we have flash flooding to assess). I'm a trained weather spotter (not a chaser, mind you) and am an amateur radio operator. I'm one of two active spotters covering the far southwest-most county. Unlike spotting in a major metro (where I was first active), rural spotting often requires you work without a lot of coordination from net control at the NWS offices. We have to move to cover the storm, and this requires we watch NWS radar data very closely - both to allow us to be positioned to get a good view of activity (e.g. the north of most typical Midwestern supercells is a great place for hail but not for visibility - get southeast of it!), and to cover our backsides when things suddenly change and we're too close to the action.
I've used Intellicast, Accuweather and other sites. Their free data is delayed, poor, lacking sufficient detail, and simply not usable. As I donate annual training, several thousand dollars of equipment, radios, mobile broadband Internet, and my time, I'm not about to also purchase a subscription to Accuweather just so I can assist NWS and save lives. (A note about the NWS XML example: I've actually prototyped an XML to APRS relay of NWS data that uses their XML feeds - it's not just webpages we require!)
The people that will suffer will be those of you who are not weather aware and count on the quiet volunteers out there watching your back. Santorum's bill might prohibit our access to open source information and provide a handful of investors with financial gain, but it'll be someone's grandma in a rural community who will pay for that gain.
Please email your Senators on this bill and let them know that open source information is our property. Your weather spotters and ultimately our communities depend on this access.
Why is it that Slashdotters so often have trouble seeing the big picture?
We do. We just recognize the infallibly of men, historically and experientially, and the exceptional ability of men in power to rationalize anything to stay in power. Those who don't are the sheep for those that are.
John Milton (of Paradise Lost fame) wrote about this in the 1600s in a little essay called Areopagitica. Back then, the King of England rationalized prior restraint on the printing presses under the rationalization that without such restraint, someone might print a falsehood and god forbid the harm that might cause innocent people. Milton correctly pointed out that nobody knows what is a falsehood from a truth unless we let them "grapple" with each other in an open process.
Those who deal with information technology security know the corrolary to this is very true. Security by obscurity never works. Security through open exposure of ideas to numerous different perspectives results in the discovery of flaws in the idea and the eventual development of stronger security mechanisms. Read Bruce Schneier's newsletter or books to get a foundation here - I'd definitely recommend Bruce's Secrets & Lies (apologies for the Amazon link) as a good start here.
The scientific community has also embraced this approach ala peer review of ideas. They require new ideas to be openly communicated through the process of publishing them in appropriate journals, and then subject them to criticism. Followers of the cold fusion debate can confirm my thoughts here - those who short circuit the process usually have an ulterior motive (power, money or hot chicks... your pick!).
So why do Canadian liberals reject this process? Only because the process discovers truth, and this is clearly an undesired product. Naturally, you'll see this same dynamic in the debate of ideas. For instance, most liberals are unable to express rational thought in any dialog and resort to name calling, intimidation and other techniques perfected by their national socialist brethern. Ideas and the discovery of truth are counterproductive to their goals.
There comes a point where we all have to decide whether we're sheep, wolves or shepherds...
If they can't afford service from a lousy and bloated and monopolistic private ISP then they have every right to use their tax money to develop the infrastructure.
Your assumption is that all private companies are lousy, bloated and monopolistic. Why not have the government nationalize the entire economy? Assuming you were referring primarily to incumbant LECs and cable operators, I'll agree with you that they are in most cases lousy, bloated and monopolistic. Except do you understand how they got that way? Governmental authorization and de facto monopoly establishment.
Study franchise law in telecommunications and you'll have an eye-opening experience. Or get exposed to your state's public utilities commission politics. You'll quickly discover that the following observation is completely untrue:
A government shall not prevent a private enterprise from competing
Completely incorrect. The government (state, Federal and to some degrees local) is quite active in this manner and very much controls who it permits to operate as its local communication infrastructure partners. Some examples:
- city/community level control: Franchise deals are made to establish a single monopoly provider of cable, phone, etc. The city gets a legal kick back from the revenues and the franchisee gets a guarantee that the city won't let anyone else compete through those precious right-of-ways. Other competitors are kept out simply by being denied access.
- county level control: out in our parts, a county zoning administrator who shall remain nameless prohibits the construction of communication towers of any type without paying excessive fees to her department. The fees, engineering requirements, etc. are such that a steep barrier to entry has been created ruling out all but the large telcos.
- state level: expensive to administer tax models are applied and other regulations that require the purchase of a $10 million taxing and billing package. State laws are watered down on collocation requirements between ILECs and CLECs, causing CLECs to be stalled for 2-3 years in litigation. US West (now Qwest) successfully kept Teleport Communications Group from connecting networks for several years. When finally forced by the court to permit collocation, US West found a loophole: it could not be required to provide collocation if it didn't have space. Suddenly, hundreds of US West employees had their desks moved to a chilled collocation facility in order to lock up the space and again prevent Teleport from connecting. More than five years later, Teleport (purchased by AT&T) had burnt through capital by sitting idle fighting nusiance legal issues. Other state regulations permit ILECs to cross-subsidize from monopoly businesses to competitive ones, further ensuring no competition will survive in their markets. The state gets the assurance that the tired ILEC will continue to be their partner (they know that the ILEC will preserve the status quo, and status quos mean predictable revenue sources for governments).
- federal level: Numerous Federal requirements raise the cost of doing business, or provide subsidy for the elite crowd of carriers. For instance, US Senator Tom Harkin's bloated agriculture bill promised hundreds of millions to help provide broadband to rural US communities. The reality is that the rules were written (through the "assistance" of ILEC lobbyists) to ensure that only the old monopoly networks could get the money. Much has been unallocated, except for when the ILECs want low interest money for expansion.
- international level: Care to compete with PTTs in most countries? Forget about it. They represent a huge cash cow for most governments and the governments rarely like to share it. VoIP is increasingly being regarded as illegal traffic.
To say the government doesn't prevent a private enterprise from competing is to be completely out of phase. Telecom is a huge target for taxation due to its recognition as an economic necessity. Where there's guaranteed money, you'll always find the tax man right behind.
What free market? The government given monopoly in cable and telephone? Where in the US is there anything approaching a free market in broadband
Phat_Tony, you nailed something that other slashdotters need to pick up on. There is no free market for telecom in the US, but do you know why?
Telecom is a highly inelastic demand product. Raise telephone rates $2 and people still have to have their phone. You wanna go without one? Fires, break ins, etc. are a bitch when you can't call 911. Take a basic micro econ class in college and you'll discover that telecom is an extremely interesting target of taxation authorities because of its inelastic demand (if you have a family member in government dealing with taxation, ask them and they'll confirm. Inelastic products are the primary target of taxation efforts).
Lessig is a nice guy, but a useful fool in this case. He suffers from hanging out with too many government officials and seeks to be liked by them all. I guess we all face this decision of "being liked or being right."
For those of you playing along at home, study Iowa Telecom. In the financial world, they're not much more than a penny stock play ([per Boardwatch, their valuation methodology is smoke and mirrors). Yet they were able to get the Iowa Public Utilities Commission to permit a $3.50 per month per subscriber cross-subsidy from their monopoly service to their competitive one. What all this techno-jargon means is that by promising government officials more tax money, they got to break a basic rule of monopolies: thou shalt not steal from the monopoly pot and put the money into the competitive business pot.
A good example of why this is bad is as follows: I've got the monopoly on electrical service in your town. You own a grocery store. I decide groceries are interesting and start my own. Since I don't have a clue, my expenses are higher than yours. So instead of competing, I get the town mayor to allow me to apply a $10.00 per month fee on electrical service as a "grocery subsidy" - meaning all 50,000 people in town get to give me $10 bucks which I give to my grocery business. Now I've got a half million dollars a month being stolen from anybody that has to have electrical service and given to my failing grocery business. Do you want to compete with me? Best of all, if you refuse to subsidize me, I shut your power off. I get to take $10 from the grocery owner each month to crush his business. It's the modern equivalent of Mongols raping the wives and killing the children.
The mayor lets me do this because I let him collect a fee on top of this. This pays for his pet project, the new community swimming pool, which he's convinced will ensure his reelection. Even if I eventually fail, I've ruined your grocery business and poisoned the market sufficiently so that nobody will ever compete with me.
Boys and girls, it's all about power and stealing your money. I got my wakeup call in 1995 dealing with gambling industry elites who were "giving free Internet to little towns." There's never, ever a free lunch. You have no idea the price you're going to pay. Often, your soul is not enough.
If you believe for a second it's about being nice to you and giving you free Internet, you're the biggest sucker out there. Government and big business is a serious sport. Wake up and look at who's putting the money behind the efforts you're idealistically supporting.
I'm going to have to check "The Voluntary City" out - sounds very interesting. I concur with your free rider perspective as well; in many cases, the cost of permitting free riders is less than the administrative overhead cost typical with government operation (ala 70%-80% as is found in the case of income redistribution program administration).
An interesting oversimplification of this concept is the "free will offering" model at fund raising events, such as church suppers. You'll typically find that free will models (that allow the donor to contribute whatever they feel is appropriate) will out-perform specified donations (e.g. $5 per person). At our church's last spaghetti supper, I watched one after another donate $20 for a couple. Families often ate for $20 as well. Poor families came in and ate for $5 or $10, but that was infrequent. There was a self-imposed pressure to not be greedy.
And if one or two people eat and refuse to contribute, there must be a reason - inability to pay, whatever. In that case, the free will mechanism has just contributed an additional benefit by subsidizing those who cannot afford the service.
But (wireless internet) is an area of infrastructure that doesn't lend itself well to a Free Market approach
jafac: As a 4-digit slashdotter, I'm shocked that you'd make this assumption. I must be missing something. Where did you come to this conclusion?
Try walking in my shoes for a second... I *do* this for a living. Cover 9 counties in a rural part of the US that is about as rural as can be. Our small company capitalized a network that carries 12 Mbps to 45 Mbps redundantly, sees a realistic four-nines uptime, engineers bandwidth using PPPoE, has differentiated tiers of service, etc. We carry bank VPNs, extensive VoIP and enable numerous remote access workers to connect to their workplaces from home. On top of that, we have many typical home and small business users.
Our average community population is 800 households. There's more in a city block than in one of our towns. We have small but well trained staff of engineers.
The competition includes independent monopolies that have added $3.50 "broadband surcharge" fees on top of every phone line in order to suck more blood out of their monopoly into their competitive side. Bad news is it still doesn't work. In my home town, only a half dozen DSL customers vs. my 184 wireless customers (it doesn't help that they feed the entire town with a fractional 512, when I'm carrying 12 Mbps licensed 6 GHz on a redundant feed to an upstream DS3). Sorry to digress on the geek talk, but I want to make sure we're understood that this isn't a half-assed mom and pop with a 802.11 AP on a stick doing DHCP on a NATted DSL line.
So explain to me where this is supposed to be impossible? I guess I didn't mention we did it with private investments of less than a million dollars? We didn't use one cent of tax money. We've in the black for a half year and will retire debt in four. Try that for any government administered program.
We also hire locally, support the schools in our communities, provide complimentary access to our first responders, and do a whole bunch with our communities. Of course, we also live here. In my state, the few municipals are in hot water for blowing millions of dollars and still running in the red. Course, I don't have an office like theirs, nor do I have all the perks. My ten-year-old Accord pales in comparison to the company leased Lexus SUV one nearby municipal manager drives.
Fill me in on what I'm missing. My communities, employees, customers and I must be doing something wrong...
Oh and to you VCs out there needing a broadband cluestick. Quit going for the glass and brass. I've watched all four VC-funded wireless broadband efforts in our region fail. Nice resumes, except how the heck is someone supposed to have the drive when they're making six-figures and have a large staff, plus consultants? Yea, you hire lots of suits too. But I'll betcha they can't go from their finance hat (which I can run with the best of them) to configuring servers and cisco routers, or selling to the small town grocery store. Can't be afraid of getting your hands dirty. They're a fish out of water. If you're looking for financial viability in this market, you need to think low overhead.
I do not own a car or have children; should my tax dollars go to fund roads and schools I do not use? I did not want our military to invade Iraq.
I have two kids in school. I support killing extremists in Iraq and demonstrating to Islam that it will either moderate or die, just as Christianity, Judiasm, and Mormonism learned.
Yet I agree with you. I'm furious that you're required to support things you are morally opposed to, or do not see any benefit from and wish not to support. I'm personally digusted that my money goes to support meth abusers I know that buy groceries with food stamps so they can have money for more meth. It is clear I'm helping to enable their abuse. Why should I be forced to be an enabler?
We need a different model for taxation. User fees for everything that works into that model. Line-item contributions for everything else. Money goes directly to the agency. Fire the IRS and much of the Federal and state administrative overhead.
Notice the words nine-times slips in to seem reasonable:
We can build a playground, too, if we like.
Simply untrue. The problem is that it is WHETHER OR NOT YOU LIKE. If the elected representatives determine it, then you are contributing your money whether or not you like it. And if you refuse, you'll be taken to jail (or worse). Taking you at your "if we like" suggestion, that would be how an elected government should work. Line-item support on your tax return for government programs you choose to contribute to.
Using your playground example, I'll tell you exactly how it works in my small town. Our community of about 1,000 just expanded the playground last year. The city clerk's desk had a contribution jar. It raised $20,000 through donations which we donated to. Our small town bank, grocery and several other businesses donated more. No tax was imposed and no community member forced to support the playground expansion against his or her will. We've also funded a brand new fire station in this manner and generally work together to support projects without shooting people that disagree. Several town suppers, a Harley raffle and other efforts also helped raise money for the fire station. Now we're looking at a new ambulance in the same manner.
Coincidentally, I run a 30-market broadband company. My small town is one of our markets. We pay for use of the water towers and own our own towers. Our service is reliable and affordable, with a 130 kbps entry level product at $19.95 a month, and our 700 kbps at $39.95. We've built it without a single cent of "public" money.
Just east of us 30 miles is a community that got $10 million in RUS grant money for fiber to the home. They require 90% market penetration with $220 per customer per month to make the numbers work. They are trying to figure out how to exclude cable and wireless competition in order to get a monopoly to attain 90%. I have been specifically told that the community leaders do not want our wireless there as it would take too many customers away from their monopoly - especially at the value rates we provide. Their community will be forced to take the service provided at whatever it costs the municipal. I can guarantee they do not work as efficiently as we do as well.
What's their rational? After all, it's hard to believe someone would be so opposed to letting their community benefit from competitors keeping prices down and quality up. They state that fiber is faster and better for the community. They believe (without sound data) that having fiber will cause countless large technology businesses to up and move to town, boosting tax rolls. Already all US citizens have helped pay for the $10 million given to them, and they're going to suck more out of all of us. Considering they have to use consultants from out of state and are buying the wrong equipment, you can bet a dime or two is leaving your pocket for this disaster. All of this scheme for more tax dollars. Oh, and nice salaries and perks for the municipal managers.
If you disagree with me, you need to think long and hard about why that is. Deep down, are you lazy and just want to suck off of your neighbor's hard work? Be honest, many people do. Just say you're a lazy thief and we'll respect you a hell of a lot more than if you pretend to be some progressivist, relativistic moron who can't see his ideas conflict and goals are unreachable through his proposed means.
I'll confess that I sure as hell thought that way for ten years out of high school. Student loans, Pell grants, food stamps, whatever - after all, I needed it. What's wrong with that?
Bottom line: Before you solve the problem for those of us who already get it, please put the browser down, get out and find out from those who know. My state has yet to have a successful municipal in spite of giving 100% of the RUS money to these guys and the tired old monopolies, and the dirty truth is that they end up providing very poor service at high rates, while driv
The CIX, at the outset, wasn't a "fight against a monopoly".
On the surface, very true. But the reality of the politics of NSFNET regionals, engaging in NSFNET connectivity, etc. was very different. All had the perspective of demanding the door be closed after they joined the club.
Many regionals operated commercial traffic in complete disregard to AUP. Rather than pay for their leased circuits to which they serviced commercial and educational accounts, they often required their higher ed clients pay for the circuits (at state taxpayer expense). They made use of university faculty, university office facilities, university health care insurance and benefits, university computer staff, university operations facilities and university computers and routers. All while selling commercial service. I actually sat with a client once listening to the regional's pitch: "Of course, you're not supposed to use this for commercial use. But nobody will notice!"
Forcing connectivity to the NSF often resulted in the complete opposition by your respective regional. They did not want competition while they expanded into the commercial sector. In our case, it took a well connected US Senator and several school district customers to force the NSF to comply with its rules (and this still took nearly a year to deal with every hurdle the NSF would discover on the very last day of each deadline).
Read up on the NSF's NAP proposal in case you have any doubt. This was an attempt to give the regional Bells the monopoly on running peer points (with real competitive advantage to the RBOCs on the retail side). Of course, my perspective is from working for a university that was a supplier for a regional, as well as building one of the first competitors to our regional and participating on the CIX side. I'm sure my perspective has some bias, so take that into mind!
I should have chosen my words more carefully! I have little to no reference points on how progressive the church is on dress codes, social rules, etc. (though I can tell you there was a pretty decent microbrewery in SLC, as well as no shortage of good coffee loaded with caffeine, so I think it depends on who you're talking with per that whole side).
And any time you start talking about how free or liberal one is in their thinking, you're setting yourself up for a futile argument. My family comes from Amish country in Ohio and those folks are some of the most free people in some respects, while extremely restricted in others. I think a lot has to deal with priorities as to where you place the structure and restriction in your life.
So please don't take my limited outsider perspective to be any statement on church freedoms. I'll go back to my small country church and keep my trap shut!
Wow. I don't see many apologists outside the Church who write such artful defenses.
Hope I didn't come across as a Mormon apologist! I just hoped to share some observations I've had as someone who is outside of the faith who has worked with a few people from it. I spent a few years working with one of the largest retailers in the state, as well as some technology people, and had very positive impressions on how much the open paradigm was embraced.
In fact, at a late night coffee with Bill Washburn one night (at a conference we were both at), I asked him if he had read much Covey (as he was clearly one who practiced the concepts). He nearly dropped his coffee cup and immediately asked me why I made the comment. Turns out he grew up with Covey, and from the following dialog, it became more clear how the early open-system influence affected the culture.
Certainly, I've had non-Mormon friends flee Salt Lake City due to what they perceived as the career limitations applied to those outside the faith, and there probably is some truth there as well.
I guess my primary motivation was letting the/. crowd know that there's much to be appreciated and painting Mormons as all being like dear Darl is rather false. Pros and cons to everything, as always - take the best from each if you can!
And yes, I think Hatch is a twit. Many do. Appears the only ones who don't write big enough checks, and Hatch must do the right things for him. Think of him as a terribly overpriced call girl and that'll help understand his role in society.
*scoove* (ok... i won't hide anonymously on this thread!)
I am still waiting for MS to let SCO completely self destruct, then buy their "IP" at a bargain
I've been wondering about this as well, though really see the SCO deal as more of a trial balloon and not the actual mother of all battles for open source.
It really doesn't seem like Microsoft's approach (remember how many billions they have and the pride that comes with the wealth and dominance). A proxy battle is more interesting as a means of testing the waters and seeing how the open source world responds. Where are they resiliant, and where are they weak? Toss pathetic little SCO and their delusionary CEO at them (much in the manner Hillary Clinton is 'endorsing' Kerry/Edwards). How often have they acquired a weak product and threw it in the competitive pool prematurely, fully knowing it wouldn't swim - only to come back in version 3 or 4 and destroy the competition (after having learned all they needed).
In this respect, the more interesting game is the one not being played - the game of omissions, unmoved pieces, etc. Where is F/OSS weak and scrambling? You can bet Microsoft is designating many millions to carefully observing this battle - their dominance depends on it.
Microsoft does not play to lose. They won't let SCO hit the real IP issues - rather have them throw items like ELF, JFS and header similarities that you know will fail. This is textbook Art of War.
Sun can't make the transition to low-margin products without damaging the remainder of their high-margin ones
Clayton Christensen has got to be mildly amused at Sun's disposition (and probably wondering why McNealy didn't fork out the $12 bucks to buy his rather significant book).
This is classic high-margin "focusing and developing your product line's evolution on your top 5% customers" as well as a clear non-response to Clayton's "trivial technology" via Sun's insistence that Linux could not do what Solaris does.
In the mid-90s, I began predicting Sun's demise when we encountered their Netra Internet "server" fiasco. Sun took a Sparc5, completely crippled its OS, removed its video card (serial or network interface - progressive, eh?), and then made misrepresentations as to what software was included. For instance, it was billed as a web server - but in actuality, it had a FTP server and a copy of Mosaic client software for download. Wala... it was "serving up web software."
Having bought several dozens of these based on Sun's misrepresentations, the only salvation was to buy video cards, full Solaris licenses (with a C compiler which was also excluded from the Netra) and make them a Sparc5 once again (at well over the cost of simply purchasing a Sparc5). Not only was the Sun product manager's response mystifying (blaming the customer for having unique and special needs - what, running http as falsely advertised?), but even more amusing was that no Sun support group had any awareness of this product.
More revealing, however, was that Netra was a stillborne attempt to enter lower margin (ala 40%?) products without threatening the cash cow. It failed miserably and I would expect some of the behind-the-scenes politics might explain why support knew nothing of the product and why it was permitted to leave Sun crippled to the point of unusability. Shortly after my public criticism, it was pulled.
I encountered similar high-marginosis several years later when Sun was pushed as a required platform for numerous Lucent products. The gifted Linux and FreeBSD work of an company employee allowed several thousand dollars worth of Intel hardware to replace quarter-million dollar Sun servers.
As Bruce writes, I'd suggest Sun's high-margin cash-cow myopia goes back well into the early 90s, when according to Clayton's theory, the time to respond to Linux and *BSD was immediate. It'd be interesting if others have Sun experiences, especially with respect to any lower-margin product introductions/failures, that might further illustrate Sun's trouble.
*scoove*
Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs
on
Field Day 2004
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· Score: 2, Informative
Open source can change some of those things, but as far as hardware goes you still need someone willing to put up considerable amounts of money for manufacturing.
Let me provide some suggestions. I work with F/OSS development for network security and wireless applications, and have spent a few years working with low-cost embedded systems that support Linux. With a Linux kernel and OS in a small box, there's not much you can't do per amateur/wireless development.
My current favorite foundation is:
o RouterBoard from Mikrotik of Latvia. Pentium 233/266 performance, very low cost ($300ish), dual PCMCIA slots, dual Ethernet (in one of the two models), microPCI slot (wonderful!), and compactflash slot. Hardware watchdog and other goodies built in are things normally found on much more expensive embedded system boards.
o IBM/Hitachi Microdrive: My base development systems runs with a 1 GB Microdrive with Debian on it, though I've got a 4 GB setup with Gentoo and use the 370 MB version for production loads. Routerboard has a Debian developers kit available for download on the site, including watchdog control. Avoid compactflash/CF (Microdrive fits the CF profile but is an actual spinning device) unless you're certain you're going to have minimal writes over time, as they will eventually cease to write and become somewhat worthless (in my experience, low-write use lasts about one year).
o Debian or Gentoo for development environment: there are some embedded distributions out there but they're intended for when you're ready to reduce to your final low-profile image. Both these distros give you a good amount of control over what is going into your system. Embedded Gentoo will be nice eventually (with cross-compile support) but isn't there yet.
o Python: Not to start any language wars (or distro wars per above), but Python is a great place for amateur developers to work in. Frameworks like Twisted allow you to focus on your code and build upon the networking smarts of others. I haven't tried yet, but I keep eyeballing Shtoom for an amateur project as well.
*scoove*
Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs
on
Field Day 2004
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'm a young ham...when the FCC takes away your frequencies so someone can check their Email from their blackberry device I don't want to hear you bitching!
Did you ever imagine that there might be a reason for not letting you run commercial services over your amateur frequency?
RF is a scarcity model universe (and concepts such as UWB only 'help themselves' to those frequencies with an alleged 'limited' impact to other frequencies and services). Licensees such as AT&T have paid heavily for PCS, cellular, etc. and hope to recover their investment over time. Having amateurs offering free commercial service would cause real issues for the political longevity of amateur bands. Instead, consider amateur frequencies to be your laboratory, as well as a community for interaction with other amateurs from a non-commercial perspective (just pretend there's a big GPL license (apologies to GPL for my analogy!) and anything you do using it is commercially prohibited, but doesn't prevent you from putting your development to work later on in a commercial band if authorized).
RF also has territorial challenges as well, namely that a radio wave does not like to stay in a politically defined boundry. That's why Technician class licenses aren't allowed to operate on HF, for instance. There is a lot you can goof up internationally if you aren't trained, aware and responsible.
Use ham radio for new things or we're gonna die!
I wish folks would quit pretending they're the only ones to discover that innovation is important, and instead go find those who are innovating (or invent something yourself) and contribute. It's about as absurd as me saying "We have to quit exclusively relying upon Microsoft for all of the world's operating systems! Quick, someone's gotta innovate!" Hmmm... open source much?
Hams are innovating. Applications such as PSK-31 (and other weak signal, high-efficiency digital modes over HF), extreme gigahertz microwave, software-based repeaters, VoIP trunking of repeaters, etc. are all examples of this. There's plenty of room to contribute as well, as the application of open source approaches to amateur radio are really wide open. From what I've seen, there's a new class of software-aware (and open source inclined) hams emerging as the application-centric hams of yesteryear decline. It's pretty clear this is "pioneering" stage (similar to hams of the 1920s-30s) and will open up to tomorrow's early adopters and the mass user appeal further down the road.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been to IPv6 summits. I've also served as the senior technology officer for several telecom companies (one of which was a very first CIX-W router connected ISP and frustration to Paul Vixie in our rather unique connection to the early Santa Clara peer point).
Through my experience, I've advocated IPv6, yet I've found significant resistance from nearly all sectors of business (except from South Korean and South American investors - go figure). Some of the problems IPv6 plans (and this "new infrastructure" pipe dream) face include:
Don't think I'm not wild about IPv6. I geek out and run it over AX.25 amateur networks for fun (what better way to learn a protocol). Yet the days of getting capital markets worked up in a frenzy, ready to throw hundreds of millions at network replacement are gone. Unless this latest dream is based on new tax revenues from all of us (which only creates messes like the original unaccountable NSFNET regionals), it won't go anywhere.
*scoove*
Could it be any more vague? Sounds like a webserver to me.
I just read through the patent and I'd be amazed if it didn't cover WAIS. I implemented Brewster Kahle's WAIS server (Wide Area Information Services, based on Z39.50 protocol) on high-speed networks back in the late 1980s through 1991, putting a campus newspaper, campus phone directory and a collection of wave files onto the DecStation 2000 running the server.
It appears that the patent office must believe more in time travel than intellectual property registrations given the wealth of prior art available. Or perhaps the perspective I read that they're "the department of information, not information retrieval" was correct; e.g. USPTO blindly approves the applications and leaves it up to the courts to decide if they actually have any merit. IANAL but several IP atty associates have given me this perspective and explained that one does not want the USPTO rejecting anything as a bureaucratic clerk should not make law -- a court should (!!!).
Unfortunately, this overloads the already taxed court system (district court here taking 12-18 months to get a date for civil litigation; 2.5 to 3 years for appealate court beyond that, meaning any civil action will likely take you five years to see a dollar starting from the day you file litigation, and assuming you have rapid discovery). It puts companies in limbo, causes hard working technology employees to be at constant risk (which they'll naturally migrate to other types of employment) and leaves the US uncompetitive.
Nothing like a five-year time table to block up technology development. Guess the trial attorneys have ensured that the Chinese and Indians will lap US technology development, eh?
*scoove*
Yes, but according to CueCat's official website, we should hang on to our devices:
If you have a Cue Cat, save it. The patents and technology created by DigitalConvergence will again be available for business and consumer use.
As I'm certain they're not talking about the evil open source drivers that came along and ruined their attempts to spy on all those scans. Perhaps it has something to do with these Digital Convergence patents lying out there in wait:
Don't forget...
The dream was to connect items in the physical world to the Internet, automatically.
In January that dream hit a bump in the road and the servers were taken offline.
They will scan again...
And why would anyone buy $1k-$2k gaming machine when their speciality $400 system can push more polys and has nearly the same rendering abilities, uses any peripheral you want, makes online gaming a breeze, isn't going to get you an email virus, and has a wider selection of games?
Because people don't game because of the video card, the performance of the platform, etc., they game because it's fulfilling a solution for the work at hand.
For instance, if I want to engage in a multiplayer game with my son, we jump onto a console unit. The TV area is the entertainment area of the house, and this activity fits right in. Naturally, the successful games made for consoles support this role. But if I'm feeling antisocial and want to go blow off steam building empires, nuking or shooting things, there's no way in hell I'd sit in the family room on the console and play C&C, Halflife, etc. I'm headed to my private space (my home office, which has my workstations), closing the door and playing the game I want. I'm certainly not going to buy a console unit for my office - it'd be absurd. Nor am I buying a PC for the entertainment area. But apparently game manufacturers have lost sight of how their customers use their products, as well as where and why.
The day you show me a successful console RTS, it'll certainly not be a single player thing. And no gameboy handheld device is going to be immersive enough for my solitary gaming interests!
What economic sense does that make?
The same sense that we still have $25K motorcycles that seat one when $15K Hyundi would also get you and three friends to the very same destination.
Wireless is by nature a less reliable medium, because it's passing through air and trees and walls -- as opposed to copper
Not entirerly true. For years, the majority of AT&T's long distance network backbone (Long Lines) was wireless. When old timers refer to the "Bell standard", they're referring to a rock-solid telephone network that actually ran mostly over microwave long-distance transmission facilities. When engineered in point-to-point configurations where each endpoint is a known quantity, wireless (aka microwave) has nearly identical reliability to modern fiber transmission systems.
Point-multipoint wireless (e.g. cellular last-mile) is a totally different animal in that you have your subscriber endpoint that is often mobile and nearly always at locations you have never engineered for. Your cell engineering becomes an estimate for coverage rather than actual end-to-end engineering, and subsequently has issues with fade and interference from objects, terrain, etc.
That said, if you're looking for reliable last-mile rural service, consider fixed wireless. Properly engineered, it will match any cable or fiber system.
*scoove*
Yes, and depending on how the writes are being spread across the media, the device could last a day or years.
Excellent issue. We've replaced flash drives on most of our embedded systems with microdrives for this very issue. Configured with a typical embedded Linux load for routing purposes, they tend to last about one year with no local logging.
*scoove*
I get more and more discusted by these MAFIA organisations, who are somehow legalised by the Dutch government.
Don't get sick from it. Quit giving them money.
As an ISP's technology and security officer, I've had to deal with numerous Harry Potter intellectual property owner demands. These people have repeatedly disregarded the actual law, e.g. notification through registered agent and specified process, and routinely strong-arm ISPs as follows:
o provide an IP address that was the alleged offender, without naming the file, evidence that the file was their property, nor the actual TIME of the event. As if the whole damn Internet is static IPs! (we have 60% of our customer base obtaining dynamic allocations via PPPoE, so a single IP address is meaningless without other data).
o demand immediate termination of the customer using that IP address. Per the previous point, this would most likely shut down a completely unrelated customer, causing them serious impairment to their business and subjecting the ISP to liability (not to mention lost revenues). This, btw, is probably how all the 85-year-old grandmas are getting named in RIAA/MPAA DMCA suits. Someone please give them an Internet for Dummies class quick.
o demand naming the customer's name, business, address, etc. Again, this is not in compliance with the law that they clearly are aware of yet disregard (if they are so willing to ignore the law, why should file sharers care either?)
o threaten your upstream NSP with legal emails saying if you don't comply with their demand, the upstream must shut your entire network off. Usually they provide 48 hours until they claim they'll escalate it.
Our response has always been legal back to them (that is the only language these people understand). We remind them of the law, the registered agent they ignored, the liability they now may possess having ignored that, and a CLEAR specification of the information required in order for us to identify the alleged party. We send the reply via email and cc to registered mail (very much recommended as it puts them on notice that you're tracking this). Be sure to do this on your attorney's letterhead (sent from your attorney) as this means you're being advised by someone who ought to know the law. Finally, make sure you notify your upstream provider of all of this communication, along with language from your attorney that reminds them that they may be liable should any harm come to your network given how you have complied with the law in your response. As always, if you can push a matter out of some clerical techie's hands and into an upper manager (who is probably fearful of screwing up), you're more likely to prevail.
But back to the point: if you want to keep this RIAA and MPAA nonsense up, keep spending money on their movies, books, music, etc. My son is a big Harry Potter fan, but our family will not spend one dime on anything related to that franchise due to them being placed on my ban list. If an inquiry can cause lost legitimate sales, it'll get their attention. Right now, they believe they have nothing to lose.
Which, of course, our elected officials wouldn't know or care about.
You nailed that on the head. Probably one of the biggest disappointments I had that helped wake me up was meeting Represenative Daub (former R, Nebraska) a few years ago. I was all hyped up about meeting "such an important person who must know so much to deal with such important things" - right? Damn, what a disappointment! The best description is like when you're watching a movie and some famous actor has to pretend he's doing something technical, like conducting an orchestra or snowboarding or something. You're totally let down when you discover THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL THEY'RE DOING AT ALL.
Congresspersons are overwhelmingly that way. Perhaps that's why they get caught making stuff up so often. Like our Senator Harkin (D, Iowa), who was telling people he was a combat pilot in Viet Nam and had lots of fierce air battles. Turns out he was an overglorified mechanic shutting planes to Japan. Oops. I've met him too and was equally underwhelmed.
It must take a special sort of person who wants all the attention but in reality has to push favors (ala bills and influence) to earn their keep...
Unfortunately, common sense isn't so common.
/.ers that immediately get on the evil Republicans/corporate conspiracy rant (part of the annoyance was my own idiocy in college sharing the same perspective - seeing Congressional races up front, and then seeing it from the boardroom of a Washington DC corporation, very much changed that). I'm of the same party, but would gladly throw Santorum out, along with Hatch, McCain (who got rolled by lobbyists on the crooked campaign reform) and many others who sold out long ago.
In a lot of cases, I'm afraid it's more than a common sense issue. Congress is a very influence oriented place, often manifesting in significant special interest motivation and what most of us would call blatent corruption. I've been told from my politically active friends that it is nearly impossible to make it to a US Senate seat without being "sponsored", and for the rare once-in-a-lifetime unsponsored Senator who makes it, they either are turned around in two terms and converted by the perks of membership, or end up not making reelection.
I get a bit annoyed at some of the less aware
Santorum probably believes he is representing his constituents, which would be what we would want of a Senator. Unfortunately, his staffers have a screening mechanism that usually requires a certain amount of financial support to pass. Santorum is fed information from only those immediate to him. His staffers know money is good, so they make sure their customer (e.g. Accuweather) is not opposed in their viewpoint. Santorum goes off like a good scout and pitches this bill. Regardless of Santorum's intent, if he's not wise enough to know that those around him will be bought for less than he costs, he has no business working for us as a Senator.
The real problem with this approach is that if there isn't an equally strong alternate special interest who can fund the opposition, the absurd special interest law usually makes it. Look at the recording and film industries efforts to make illegal film recording suffer a sentence worse than manslaughter. Lacking a well funded (and contributing) counter-lobby, the law slips right in. Insert cash, out comes your bill.
Back to political orientation and the Halliburton conspiracy crowd, the worst thing for all of us is to fall into the traps of buying the PR shoved out by both camps. Corruption is like parasites and both parties get them. If you really love your party, then clean it up first and out-compete the right/left/whoever you don't like. Lacking the baggage of parasitic inefficiency, a party ought to do extremely well.
Senator Santorum's bill would probably cause a measurable loss of life, given that numerous spotters such as myself rely upon NWS's Internet-accessible data to assist us in our spotting activities.
I just returned from spotting in extreme southwest Iowa (and am actually headed back out, as we have flash flooding to assess). I'm a trained weather spotter (not a chaser, mind you) and am an amateur radio operator. I'm one of two active spotters covering the far southwest-most county. Unlike spotting in a major metro (where I was first active), rural spotting often requires you work without a lot of coordination from net control at the NWS offices. We have to move to cover the storm, and this requires we watch NWS radar data very closely - both to allow us to be positioned to get a good view of activity (e.g. the north of most typical Midwestern supercells is a great place for hail but not for visibility - get southeast of it!), and to cover our backsides when things suddenly change and we're too close to the action.
I've used Intellicast, Accuweather and other sites. Their free data is delayed, poor, lacking sufficient detail, and simply not usable. As I donate annual training, several thousand dollars of equipment, radios, mobile broadband Internet, and my time, I'm not about to also purchase a subscription to Accuweather just so I can assist NWS and save lives. (A note about the NWS XML example: I've actually prototyped an XML to APRS relay of NWS data that uses their XML feeds - it's not just webpages we require!)
The people that will suffer will be those of you who are not weather aware and count on the quiet volunteers out there watching your back. Santorum's bill might prohibit our access to open source information and provide a handful of investors with financial gain, but it'll be someone's grandma in a rural community who will pay for that gain.
Please email your Senators on this bill and let them know that open source information is our property. Your weather spotters and ultimately our communities depend on this access.
Why is it that Slashdotters so often have trouble seeing the big picture?
We do. We just recognize the infallibly of men, historically and experientially, and the exceptional ability of men in power to rationalize anything to stay in power. Those who don't are the sheep for those that are.
John Milton (of Paradise Lost fame) wrote about this in the 1600s in a little essay called Areopagitica. Back then, the King of England rationalized prior restraint on the printing presses under the rationalization that without such restraint, someone might print a falsehood and god forbid the harm that might cause innocent people. Milton correctly pointed out that nobody knows what is a falsehood from a truth unless we let them "grapple" with each other in an open process.
Those who deal with information technology security know the corrolary to this is very true. Security by obscurity never works. Security through open exposure of ideas to numerous different perspectives results in the discovery of flaws in the idea and the eventual development of stronger security mechanisms. Read Bruce Schneier's newsletter or books to get a foundation here - I'd definitely recommend Bruce's Secrets & Lies (apologies for the Amazon link) as a good start here.
The scientific community has also embraced this approach ala peer review of ideas. They require new ideas to be openly communicated through the process of publishing them in appropriate journals, and then subject them to criticism. Followers of the cold fusion debate can confirm my thoughts here - those who short circuit the process usually have an ulterior motive (power, money or hot chicks... your pick!).
So why do Canadian liberals reject this process? Only because the process discovers truth, and this is clearly an undesired product. Naturally, you'll see this same dynamic in the debate of ideas. For instance, most liberals are unable to express rational thought in any dialog and resort to name calling, intimidation and other techniques perfected by their national socialist brethern. Ideas and the discovery of truth are counterproductive to their goals.
There comes a point where we all have to decide whether we're sheep, wolves or shepherds...
*scoove*
Several fallacies to address:
If they can't afford service from a lousy and bloated and monopolistic private ISP then they have every right to use their tax money to develop the infrastructure.
Your assumption is that all private companies are lousy, bloated and monopolistic. Why not have the government nationalize the entire economy? Assuming you were referring primarily to incumbant LECs and cable operators, I'll agree with you that they are in most cases lousy, bloated and monopolistic. Except do you understand how they got that way? Governmental authorization and de facto monopoly establishment.
Study franchise law in telecommunications and you'll have an eye-opening experience. Or get exposed to your state's public utilities commission politics. You'll quickly discover that the following observation is completely untrue:
A government shall not prevent a private enterprise from competing
Completely incorrect. The government (state, Federal and to some degrees local) is quite active in this manner and very much controls who it permits to operate as its local communication infrastructure partners. Some examples:
- city/community level control: Franchise deals are made to establish a single monopoly provider of cable, phone, etc. The city gets a legal kick back from the revenues and the franchisee gets a guarantee that the city won't let anyone else compete through those precious right-of-ways. Other competitors are kept out simply by being denied access.
- county level control: out in our parts, a county zoning administrator who shall remain nameless prohibits the construction of communication towers of any type without paying excessive fees to her department. The fees, engineering requirements, etc. are such that a steep barrier to entry has been created ruling out all but the large telcos.
- state level: expensive to administer tax models are applied and other regulations that require the purchase of a $10 million taxing and billing package. State laws are watered down on collocation requirements between ILECs and CLECs, causing CLECs to be stalled for 2-3 years in litigation. US West (now Qwest) successfully kept Teleport Communications Group from connecting networks for several years. When finally forced by the court to permit collocation, US West found a loophole: it could not be required to provide collocation if it didn't have space. Suddenly, hundreds of US West employees had their desks moved to a chilled collocation facility in order to lock up the space and again prevent Teleport from connecting. More than five years later, Teleport (purchased by AT&T) had burnt through capital by sitting idle fighting nusiance legal issues. Other state regulations permit ILECs to cross-subsidize from monopoly businesses to competitive ones, further ensuring no competition will survive in their markets. The state gets the assurance that the tired ILEC will continue to be their partner (they know that the ILEC will preserve the status quo, and status quos mean predictable revenue sources for governments).
- federal level: Numerous Federal requirements raise the cost of doing business, or provide subsidy for the elite crowd of carriers. For instance, US Senator Tom Harkin's bloated agriculture bill promised hundreds of millions to help provide broadband to rural US communities. The reality is that the rules were written (through the "assistance" of ILEC lobbyists) to ensure that only the old monopoly networks could get the money. Much has been unallocated, except for when the ILECs want low interest money for expansion.
- international level: Care to compete with PTTs in most countries? Forget about it. They represent a huge cash cow for most governments and the governments rarely like to share it. VoIP is increasingly being regarded as illegal traffic.
To say the government doesn't prevent a private enterprise from competing is to be completely out of phase. Telecom is a huge target for taxation due to its recognition as an economic necessity. Where there's guaranteed money, you'll always find the tax man right behind.
What free market? The government given monopoly in cable and telephone? Where in the US is there anything approaching a free market in broadband
Phat_Tony, you nailed something that other slashdotters need to pick up on. There is no free market for telecom in the US, but do you know why?
Telecom is a highly inelastic demand product. Raise telephone rates $2 and people still have to have their phone. You wanna go without one? Fires, break ins, etc. are a bitch when you can't call 911. Take a basic micro econ class in college and you'll discover that telecom is an extremely interesting target of taxation authorities because of its inelastic demand (if you have a family member in government dealing with taxation, ask them and they'll confirm. Inelastic products are the primary target of taxation efforts).
Lessig is a nice guy, but a useful fool in this case. He suffers from hanging out with too many government officials and seeks to be liked by them all. I guess we all face this decision of "being liked or being right."
For those of you playing along at home, study Iowa Telecom. In the financial world, they're not much more than a penny stock play ([per Boardwatch, their valuation methodology is smoke and mirrors). Yet they were able to get the Iowa Public Utilities Commission to permit a $3.50 per month per subscriber cross-subsidy from their monopoly service to their competitive one. What all this techno-jargon means is that by promising government officials more tax money, they got to break a basic rule of monopolies: thou shalt not steal from the monopoly pot and put the money into the competitive business pot.
A good example of why this is bad is as follows: I've got the monopoly on electrical service in your town. You own a grocery store. I decide groceries are interesting and start my own. Since I don't have a clue, my expenses are higher than yours. So instead of competing, I get the town mayor to allow me to apply a $10.00 per month fee on electrical service as a "grocery subsidy" - meaning all 50,000 people in town get to give me $10 bucks which I give to my grocery business. Now I've got a half million dollars a month being stolen from anybody that has to have electrical service and given to my failing grocery business. Do you want to compete with me? Best of all, if you refuse to subsidize me, I shut your power off. I get to take $10 from the grocery owner each month to crush his business. It's the modern equivalent of Mongols raping the wives and killing the children.
The mayor lets me do this because I let him collect a fee on top of this. This pays for his pet project, the new community swimming pool, which he's convinced will ensure his reelection. Even if I eventually fail, I've ruined your grocery business and poisoned the market sufficiently so that nobody will ever compete with me.
Boys and girls, it's all about power and stealing your money. I got my wakeup call in 1995 dealing with gambling industry elites who were "giving free Internet to little towns." There's never, ever a free lunch. You have no idea the price you're going to pay. Often, your soul is not enough.
If you believe for a second it's about being nice to you and giving you free Internet, you're the biggest sucker out there. Government and big business is a serious sport. Wake up and look at who's putting the money behind the efforts you're idealistically supporting.
Bob -
I'm going to have to check "The Voluntary City" out - sounds very interesting. I concur with your free rider perspective as well; in many cases, the cost of permitting free riders is less than the administrative overhead cost typical with government operation (ala 70%-80% as is found in the case of income redistribution program administration).
An interesting oversimplification of this concept is the "free will offering" model at fund raising events, such as church suppers. You'll typically find that free will models (that allow the donor to contribute whatever they feel is appropriate) will out-perform specified donations (e.g. $5 per person). At our church's last spaghetti supper, I watched one after another donate $20 for a couple. Families often ate for $20 as well. Poor families came in and ate for $5 or $10, but that was infrequent. There was a self-imposed pressure to not be greedy.
And if one or two people eat and refuse to contribute, there must be a reason - inability to pay, whatever. In that case, the free will mechanism has just contributed an additional benefit by subsidizing those who cannot afford the service.
Scoove, if I may reword your statement...
Bob... you did a great job. Thanks.
*scoove*
But (wireless internet) is an area of infrastructure that doesn't lend itself well to a Free Market approach
jafac: As a 4-digit slashdotter, I'm shocked that you'd make this assumption. I must be missing something. Where did you come to this conclusion?
Try walking in my shoes for a second... I *do* this for a living. Cover 9 counties in a rural part of the US that is about as rural as can be. Our small company capitalized a network that carries 12 Mbps to 45 Mbps redundantly, sees a realistic four-nines uptime, engineers bandwidth using PPPoE, has differentiated tiers of service, etc. We carry bank VPNs, extensive VoIP and enable numerous remote access workers to connect to their workplaces from home. On top of that, we have many typical home and small business users.
Our average community population is 800 households. There's more in a city block than in one of our towns. We have small but well trained staff of engineers.
The competition includes independent monopolies that have added $3.50 "broadband surcharge" fees on top of every phone line in order to suck more blood out of their monopoly into their competitive side. Bad news is it still doesn't work. In my home town, only a half dozen DSL customers vs. my 184 wireless customers (it doesn't help that they feed the entire town with a fractional 512, when I'm carrying 12 Mbps licensed 6 GHz on a redundant feed to an upstream DS3). Sorry to digress on the geek talk, but I want to make sure we're understood that this isn't a half-assed mom and pop with a 802.11 AP on a stick doing DHCP on a NATted DSL line.
So explain to me where this is supposed to be impossible? I guess I didn't mention we did it with private investments of less than a million dollars? We didn't use one cent of tax money. We've in the black for a half year and will retire debt in four. Try that for any government administered program.
We also hire locally, support the schools in our communities, provide complimentary access to our first responders, and do a whole bunch with our communities. Of course, we also live here. In my state, the few municipals are in hot water for blowing millions of dollars and still running in the red. Course, I don't have an office like theirs, nor do I have all the perks. My ten-year-old Accord pales in comparison to the company leased Lexus SUV one nearby municipal manager drives.
Fill me in on what I'm missing. My communities, employees, customers and I must be doing something wrong...
Oh and to you VCs out there needing a broadband cluestick. Quit going for the glass and brass. I've watched all four VC-funded wireless broadband efforts in our region fail. Nice resumes, except how the heck is someone supposed to have the drive when they're making six-figures and have a large staff, plus consultants? Yea, you hire lots of suits too. But I'll betcha they can't go from their finance hat (which I can run with the best of them) to configuring servers and cisco routers, or selling to the small town grocery store. Can't be afraid of getting your hands dirty. They're a fish out of water. If you're looking for financial viability in this market, you need to think low overhead.
I do not own a car or have children; should my tax dollars go to fund roads and schools I do not use? I did not want our military to invade Iraq.
I have two kids in school. I support killing extremists in Iraq and demonstrating to Islam that it will either moderate or die, just as Christianity, Judiasm, and Mormonism learned.
Yet I agree with you. I'm furious that you're required to support things you are morally opposed to, or do not see any benefit from and wish not to support. I'm personally digusted that my money goes to support meth abusers I know that buy groceries with food stamps so they can have money for more meth. It is clear I'm helping to enable their abuse. Why should I be forced to be an enabler?
We need a different model for taxation. User fees for everything that works into that model. Line-item contributions for everything else. Money goes directly to the agency. Fire the IRS and much of the Federal and state administrative overhead.
Notice the words nine-times slips in to seem reasonable:
We can build a playground, too, if we like.
Simply untrue. The problem is that it is WHETHER OR NOT YOU LIKE. If the elected representatives determine it, then you are contributing your money whether or not you like it. And if you refuse, you'll be taken to jail (or worse). Taking you at your "if we like" suggestion, that would be how an elected government should work. Line-item support on your tax return for government programs you choose to contribute to.
Using your playground example, I'll tell you exactly how it works in my small town. Our community of about 1,000 just expanded the playground last year. The city clerk's desk had a contribution jar. It raised $20,000 through donations which we donated to. Our small town bank, grocery and several other businesses donated more. No tax was imposed and no community member forced to support the playground expansion against his or her will. We've also funded a brand new fire station in this manner and generally work together to support projects without shooting people that disagree. Several town suppers, a Harley raffle and other efforts also helped raise money for the fire station. Now we're looking at a new ambulance in the same manner.
Coincidentally, I run a 30-market broadband company. My small town is one of our markets. We pay for use of the water towers and own our own towers. Our service is reliable and affordable, with a 130 kbps entry level product at $19.95 a month, and our 700 kbps at $39.95. We've built it without a single cent of "public" money.
Just east of us 30 miles is a community that got $10 million in RUS grant money for fiber to the home. They require 90% market penetration with $220 per customer per month to make the numbers work. They are trying to figure out how to exclude cable and wireless competition in order to get a monopoly to attain 90%. I have been specifically told that the community leaders do not want our wireless there as it would take too many customers away from their monopoly - especially at the value rates we provide. Their community will be forced to take the service provided at whatever it costs the municipal. I can guarantee they do not work as efficiently as we do as well.
What's their rational? After all, it's hard to believe someone would be so opposed to letting their community benefit from competitors keeping prices down and quality up. They state that fiber is faster and better for the community. They believe (without sound data) that having fiber will cause countless large technology businesses to up and move to town, boosting tax rolls. Already all US citizens have helped pay for the $10 million given to them, and they're going to suck more out of all of us. Considering they have to use consultants from out of state and are buying the wrong equipment, you can bet a dime or two is leaving your pocket for this disaster. All of this scheme for more tax dollars. Oh, and nice salaries and perks for the municipal managers.
If you disagree with me, you need to think long and hard about why that is. Deep down, are you lazy and just want to suck off of your neighbor's hard work? Be honest, many people do. Just say you're a lazy thief and we'll respect you a hell of a lot more than if you pretend to be some progressivist, relativistic moron who can't see his ideas conflict and goals are unreachable through his proposed means.
I'll confess that I sure as hell thought that way for ten years out of high school. Student loans, Pell grants, food stamps, whatever - after all, I needed it. What's wrong with that?
Bottom line: Before you solve the problem for those of us who already get it, please put the browser down, get out and find out from those who know. My state has yet to have a successful municipal in spite of giving 100% of the RUS money to these guys and the tired old monopolies, and the dirty truth is that they end up providing very poor service at high rates, while driv
The CIX, at the outset, wasn't a "fight against a monopoly".
On the surface, very true. But the reality of the politics of NSFNET regionals, engaging in NSFNET connectivity, etc. was very different. All had the perspective of demanding the door be closed after they joined the club.
Many regionals operated commercial traffic in complete disregard to AUP. Rather than pay for their leased circuits to which they serviced commercial and educational accounts, they often required their higher ed clients pay for the circuits (at state taxpayer expense). They made use of university faculty, university office facilities, university health care insurance and benefits, university computer staff, university operations facilities and university computers and routers. All while selling commercial service. I actually sat with a client once listening to the regional's pitch: "Of course, you're not supposed to use this for commercial use. But nobody will notice!"
Forcing connectivity to the NSF often resulted in the complete opposition by your respective regional. They did not want competition while they expanded into the commercial sector. In our case, it took a well connected US Senator and several school district customers to force the NSF to comply with its rules (and this still took nearly a year to deal with every hurdle the NSF would discover on the very last day of each deadline).
Read up on the NSF's NAP proposal in case you have any doubt. This was an attempt to give the regional Bells the monopoly on running peer points (with real competitive advantage to the RBOCs on the retail side). Of course, my perspective is from working for a university that was a supplier for a regional, as well as building one of the first competitors to our regional and participating on the CIX side. I'm sure my perspective has some bias, so take that into mind!
*scoove*
religion is anything but "open thinking"
I should have chosen my words more carefully! I have little to no reference points on how progressive the church is on dress codes, social rules, etc. (though I can tell you there was a pretty decent microbrewery in SLC, as well as no shortage of good coffee loaded with caffeine, so I think it depends on who you're talking with per that whole side).
And any time you start talking about how free or liberal one is in their thinking, you're setting yourself up for a futile argument. My family comes from Amish country in Ohio and those folks are some of the most free people in some respects, while extremely restricted in others. I think a lot has to deal with priorities as to where you place the structure and restriction in your life.
So please don't take my limited outsider perspective to be any statement on church freedoms. I'll go back to my small country church and keep my trap shut!
*scoove*
Wow. I don't see many apologists outside the Church who write such artful defenses.
/. crowd know that there's much to be appreciated and painting Mormons as all being like dear Darl is rather false. Pros and cons to everything, as always - take the best from each if you can!
Hope I didn't come across as a Mormon apologist! I just hoped to share some observations I've had as someone who is outside of the faith who has worked with a few people from it. I spent a few years working with one of the largest retailers in the state, as well as some technology people, and had very positive impressions on how much the open paradigm was embraced.
In fact, at a late night coffee with Bill Washburn one night (at a conference we were both at), I asked him if he had read much Covey (as he was clearly one who practiced the concepts). He nearly dropped his coffee cup and immediately asked me why I made the comment. Turns out he grew up with Covey, and from the following dialog, it became more clear how the early open-system influence affected the culture.
Certainly, I've had non-Mormon friends flee Salt Lake City due to what they perceived as the career limitations applied to those outside the faith, and there probably is some truth there as well.
I guess my primary motivation was letting the
And yes, I think Hatch is a twit.
Many do. Appears the only ones who don't write big enough checks, and Hatch must do the right things for him. Think of him as a terribly overpriced call girl and that'll help understand his role in society.
*scoove*
(ok... i won't hide anonymously on this thread!)
I am still waiting for MS to let SCO completely self destruct, then buy their "IP" at a bargain
I've been wondering about this as well, though really see the SCO deal as more of a trial balloon and not the actual mother of all battles for open source.
It really doesn't seem like Microsoft's approach (remember how many billions they have and the pride that comes with the wealth and dominance). A proxy battle is more interesting as a means of testing the waters and seeing how the open source world responds. Where are they resiliant, and where are they weak? Toss pathetic little SCO and their delusionary CEO at them (much in the manner Hillary Clinton is 'endorsing' Kerry/Edwards). How often have they acquired a weak product and threw it in the competitive pool prematurely, fully knowing it wouldn't swim - only to come back in version 3 or 4 and destroy the competition (after having learned all they needed).
In this respect, the more interesting game is the one not being played - the game of omissions, unmoved pieces, etc. Where is F/OSS weak and scrambling? You can bet Microsoft is designating many millions to carefully observing this battle - their dominance depends on it.
Microsoft does not play to lose. They won't let SCO hit the real IP issues - rather have them throw items like ELF, JFS and header similarities that you know will fail. This is textbook Art of War.
*scoove*
Sun can't make the transition to low-margin products without damaging the remainder of their high-margin ones
Clayton Christensen has got to be mildly amused at Sun's disposition (and probably wondering why McNealy didn't fork out the $12 bucks to buy his rather significant book).
This is classic high-margin "focusing and developing your product line's evolution on your top 5% customers" as well as a clear non-response to Clayton's "trivial technology" via Sun's insistence that Linux could not do what Solaris does.
In the mid-90s, I began predicting Sun's demise when we encountered their Netra Internet "server" fiasco. Sun took a Sparc5, completely crippled its OS, removed its video card (serial or network interface - progressive, eh?), and then made misrepresentations as to what software was included. For instance, it was billed as a web server - but in actuality, it had a FTP server and a copy of Mosaic client software for download. Wala... it was "serving up web software."
Having bought several dozens of these based on Sun's misrepresentations, the only salvation was to buy video cards, full Solaris licenses (with a C compiler which was also excluded from the Netra) and make them a Sparc5 once again (at well over the cost of simply purchasing a Sparc5). Not only was the Sun product manager's response mystifying (blaming the customer for having unique and special needs - what, running http as falsely advertised?), but even more amusing was that no Sun support group had any awareness of this product.
More revealing, however, was that Netra was a stillborne attempt to enter lower margin (ala 40%?) products without threatening the cash cow. It failed miserably and I would expect some of the behind-the-scenes politics might explain why support knew nothing of the product and why it was permitted to leave Sun crippled to the point of unusability. Shortly after my public criticism, it was pulled.
I encountered similar high-marginosis several years later when Sun was pushed as a required platform for numerous Lucent products. The gifted Linux and FreeBSD work of an company employee allowed several thousand dollars worth of Intel hardware to replace quarter-million dollar Sun servers.
As Bruce writes, I'd suggest Sun's high-margin cash-cow myopia goes back well into the early 90s, when according to Clayton's theory, the time to respond to Linux and *BSD was immediate. It'd be interesting if others have Sun experiences, especially with respect to any lower-margin product introductions/failures, that might further illustrate Sun's trouble.
*scoove*
Open source can change some of those things, but as far as hardware goes you still need someone willing to put up considerable amounts of money for manufacturing.
Let me provide some suggestions. I work with F/OSS development for network security and wireless applications, and have spent a few years working with low-cost embedded systems that support Linux. With a Linux kernel and OS in a small box, there's not much you can't do per amateur/wireless development.
My current favorite foundation is:
o RouterBoard from Mikrotik of Latvia. Pentium 233/266 performance, very low cost ($300ish), dual PCMCIA slots, dual Ethernet (in one of the two models), microPCI slot (wonderful!), and compactflash slot. Hardware watchdog and other goodies built in are things normally found on much more expensive embedded system boards.
o IBM/Hitachi Microdrive: My base development systems runs with a 1 GB Microdrive with Debian on it, though I've got a 4 GB setup with Gentoo and use the 370 MB version for production loads. Routerboard has a Debian developers kit available for download on the site, including watchdog control. Avoid compactflash/CF (Microdrive fits the CF profile but is an actual spinning device) unless you're certain you're going to have minimal writes over time, as they will eventually cease to write and become somewhat worthless (in my experience, low-write use lasts about one year).
o Debian or Gentoo for development environment: there are some embedded distributions out there but they're intended for when you're ready to reduce to your final low-profile image. Both these distros give you a good amount of control over what is going into your system. Embedded Gentoo will be nice eventually (with cross-compile support) but isn't there yet.
o Python: Not to start any language wars (or distro wars per above), but Python is a great place for amateur developers to work in. Frameworks like Twisted allow you to focus on your code and build upon the networking smarts of others. I haven't tried yet, but I keep eyeballing Shtoom for an amateur project as well.
*scoove*
I'm a young ham...when the FCC takes away your frequencies so someone can check their Email from their blackberry device I don't want to hear you bitching!
Did you ever imagine that there might be a reason for not letting you run commercial services over your amateur frequency?
RF is a scarcity model universe (and concepts such as UWB only 'help themselves' to those frequencies with an alleged 'limited' impact to other frequencies and services). Licensees such as AT&T have paid heavily for PCS, cellular, etc. and hope to recover their investment over time. Having amateurs offering free commercial service would cause real issues for the political longevity of amateur bands. Instead, consider amateur frequencies to be your laboratory, as well as a community for interaction with other amateurs from a non-commercial perspective (just pretend there's a big GPL license (apologies to GPL for my analogy!) and anything you do using it is commercially prohibited, but doesn't prevent you from putting your development to work later on in a commercial band if authorized).
RF also has territorial challenges as well, namely that a radio wave does not like to stay in a politically defined boundry. That's why Technician class licenses aren't allowed to operate on HF, for instance. There is a lot you can goof up internationally if you aren't trained, aware and responsible.
Use ham radio for new things or we're gonna die!
I wish folks would quit pretending they're the only ones to discover that innovation is important, and instead go find those who are innovating (or invent something yourself) and contribute. It's about as absurd as me saying "We have to quit exclusively relying upon Microsoft for all of the world's operating systems! Quick, someone's gotta innovate!" Hmmm... open source much?
Hams are innovating. Applications such as PSK-31 (and other weak signal, high-efficiency digital modes over HF), extreme gigahertz microwave, software-based repeaters, VoIP trunking of repeaters, etc. are all examples of this. There's plenty of room to contribute as well, as the application of open source approaches to amateur radio are really wide open. From what I've seen, there's a new class of software-aware (and open source inclined) hams emerging as the application-centric hams of yesteryear decline. It's pretty clear this is "pioneering" stage (similar to hams of the 1920s-30s) and will open up to tomorrow's early adopters and the mass user appeal further down the road.
*scoove*