Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs
on
Field Day 2004
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I believe amateur radio is a dying art/hobby.
This gets kicked around a lot on ham forums. Mostly, the most accurate answer is that ham radio is changing. The era of becoming a ham because you want to talk to people around the world has changed. At the same time, there are many young hams who want to learn not because of the hobby aspect as much as the challenge of the radiofrequency theory, science and technical challenge. Quite honestly, there are enough "passengers" in the world and not enough "drivers" (802.11/wifi of today and CB radio of yesteryear is a perfect example of this).
Compare it to the era of the "home computer programmer" of the late 70s and early 80s. Where are they today? People typing in BASIC codes in the latest Byte magazine. A hobby, yes, but not much more. Today's open source developer is a different breed, just as today's new ham operator is. It's a serious professional interest. I know weather spotter hams who have self-educated to levels beyond the local TV weatherman, for instance. While the number of "hobby hams" has declined, today's new hams take the practice to a new level and are pioneering new applications. At some point, we'll discover a hobby application that will probably attract the masses again, but mass interest validate the practice? As long as amateurs are professionally operating disaster control networks, providing trained weather spotting services, and quietly operating other important services, the lack of countless hobbyist users is visible but not critical.
Slashdot readers should know this dynamic by now. The model rocketeer of the 1960s is no longer sufficient; private commercial rocketry is today's "hobby." Typing in 300 lines of BASIC does not make one a developer; learning and contributing to the F/OSS world does. In light of cell networks, packet switching and other technologies, should amateur radio be exempt from this dynamic?
The thanks go mostly to the internet and cell phones. As long as you are content with riding on someone elses network. Care to know what really is going on within the RF? An amateur license will teach you a great foundation necessary for learning all those things you've taken for granted (while one of us is running things).
*scoove*
Re:Pretty cool
on
Field Day 2004
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· Score: 2, Insightful
HAM or an ad hoc WiFi net...
Actually... in our small town ham field day setup, there's both (why not?) Regarding first to be connected, there's much about ad hoc wifi that doesn't play in the real world of disasters. Running a fixed wireless company, I can tell you there's a niche certainly for gigahertz services, but nothing can replace the value of true slow NLOS services.
So while speed might be impressive at times, reliability trumps all in a disaster.
s the implication made that Linux became a fullblown and mature OS overnight?
Exactly. I was first introduced to Linux when it took two 5.25 floppies. Coming from Ultrix and having messed with Minix for a few months, I was shocked at what Linux couldn't do.
We were joking about writing a VMS emulator under Ultrix, and this Linux stuff seemed to be not much more than some PC UNIX mockup to my unsophisticated eyes. I certainly didn't see the potential at the time.
Linux was nothing like Minix. And those that were UNIX geeks in the early 90s probably remember that all the attention and excitement was on BSD/386, not Linux.
So if one thing is clear, it's that Ken Brown didn't learn how to turn on a PC until the past couple of years. Still, it's nice to know that such incapable people with high self-esteem can get hired for such senior positions at the Toqueville Institute...
It's too direct for Microsoft (and too bungled too). Their FUD engine is well greased and is quite honestly self-perceived to be too above this troll trash to be implicated. Not that there aren't moneys from Allen being moved around on the side, but that's not official Microsoft policy. Granted, Microsoft has admitted
to funding Tocqueville but there's a missing beneficiary.
Sun, on the other hand, is fighting for their life though it's receiving little coverage. Linux has decimated Sun's sales, and their missteps with Java have only frustrated efforts to find a solution - any solution. Perhaps some of the settlement money from Microsoft went here instead of directly to Sun?
Consider: Who does having Linux portrayed as stolen property push the Linux base to?
- FreeBSD/OpenBSD/netBSD? Not at all. If it was impossible for Linux to create Linux and therefore Linux is TheftWare, the *BSDs are next in line for accusations and implications.
- SCO? This fossil? The same fossil one of their largest investors (and slush fund source) says should be canned? The fossil that litigation targets like Daimler Chrysler have confessed to not have used for nearly a decade? Doubtful.
- Apple? A more interesting theory, but OS/X != Intel *NIX.
- Microsoft? They're not at all in position to capture the Intel *NIX market. Convert to XP? How?
Solaris, on the other hand, presents an inviting candidate for migration should the F/OSS *NIX's need a commercial home.
Microsoft issued patent licensing demands to amateur radio operators, as well as military and commercial radio technicians around the country, warning them that those "dahs and dots" as expressed using their mouse in numerous training and application programs may be a violation of Microsoft's innovative MultiClick Patented technology.
"We're really looking at this as an opportunity embrace a new user group rather than approach the licensing obligation in any threatening manner," said Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer. "I'm certain we can explain to radio operators that they're not required to license and may be equally satisfied with signals of a uniform length.".....
All kidding aside, I used morse trainers in the late 80s that the length of the mouse click differed the behavior. I can also recall an Apple IIgs shareware football game that based the behavior of a kick or punt on the length of mouse hold as well. Madden football does that as well, if I recall right.
Maybe I'm missing something here. May have to go read the application; certainly there's more to it than this?
Maybe that's why BayStar now wants their money back from SCO?
Not quite. My assessment is that they never expected Darl to go hog wild on the PR front, nor did they expect him to be "bright" enough (in his own parasitic, pathetic way) to realize he was being set up to drive SCO into the ground.
Looking at BayStar's backers, the initial move against OSS was tremendously clever and dangerous. By funding small battles in minor lands, the goal was to poison OSS. Apply a stigma to it, make it look shady, risky and dangerous and corporate America will stick with the institutions of Microsoft, Solaris, Oracle, SCO, etc. (this theory helps explain why Oracle and Sun have appearances of being on the "wrong" side of OSS and may be receiving subpoenas in the matter - Oracle already has).
Many of Groklaw's commentators have difficulty understanding why SCO, BayStar, Boies & crew, Sontag, and many other intelligent (ethics aside) people bet on such a ludicrous case. Sontag's recent copyright to patent morphing attempts, for instance, is terribly weak and Sontag clearly must be aware of it. But this case wasn't initially propped up to be the primary battleground between the proprietary software world and OSS. It was intended to be a lengthly skirmish between a pump & dump effort from a long-dead UNIX vendor and OSS.
What went wrong? They hired the right white-shoe legal firm for the job (Boies), greased the pols (Hatch) and got the right court. What they didn't expect is an effective, organized opposition (e.g. Groklaw) and more so, did not count on losing the traderag spin (you can bet there's been some money spent to protect that message, but you can't stop them from dropping the paid spin once the issue goes mainstream, although there still is the occasional hack for hire out there). Oddly enough, though, the greatest mistake was trusting Darl and Chris to remain stupid and unaware that they were being set up to fail. Darl in particular believed the lies and the thought that he could actually own the empire that controlled what is presently OSS got him. Imagine the power and wealth from being the CEO to own Linux? They shouldn't have underestimated Darl's ability to self-delude, let alone his greed and power drive. The created their own monster and can't control him (though BayStar is now trying to put the proverbial genie back in the bottle). BayStar has a slight problem in this move, though, as it won't immediately kill Darl and instead, may make him feel even more attacked. Having dealt with pump & dump schemers like Darl before, the last thing you want to do is corner him. BayStar should have moved to redirect (e.g. offer another $20 mil or so and slow things down and move the matter off of the front pages of the tech press. Either that, or promote Darl to some "critical" to allow him to focus on building the future super Linux company and "not be distracted from the day to day of nasty legal stuff" - anything to get him out of SCOg).
This truly is terrible news for the anti-OSS coalition. Fighting the main battle on this issue is a historic error. Should Linux be permitted to be decreed "legitimate and safe" through this process, you can expect Microsoft to lose its OS business within 5-10 years (being perhaps relegated to an office suite vendor), Sun left to push high-end AMD or Intel boxes, and Oracle simply to perish (hey Larry, can you say "Post-gres-ql?" I didn't think you could!).
IBM's motivation is tremendously historical. They got screwed by the OS play with Gates the first time around and are salivating at a royalty-free OS that frees them from bundling leverage and other annoyances, let alone the license expense. Although they derive their own benefit, kudos to IBM for escalating the skirmish into an all-out war.
Some sound cards suck and are not supported by Linux
Shouldn't a reliable OS support all cards and options, regardless of who makes them and how good or bad they are? A former PHB of mine made this observation to me once when we were battling a video card he had bought by the crate from Vietnam ($20 for supposedly super high graphic rendering capabilities).
So after we encounter this junk SVGA card refusing to operate properly, the PHB (who didn't want to accept responsibility for having paid $10K for a big box of garbage) said "if that operating system was any good, it would anticipate unknown cards, you know, like probe it and figure it out, and make it work right. Your operating system is junk, not my cards."
Of course, he was talking about Windows NT Workstation. And no, they crashed in 98 and 95 as well... even though the box sidepanel clearly said all those operating systems were supported.
Course, there were at least a dozen misspelled words and typos - that should have been a clue too. And if that wasn't enough, the cards had wire jumpers snaked all over - apparently someone tried fixing a lot of known post-production problems (probably bought the boards from a legit manufacturer who was throwing them out as bad design, and tried to jumper around the problems). According to the PHB, the presence of these wires meant "they had great quality control because unlike the other cards, you can see they've fixed things." Oh, and when you called the international number listed for tech support, I would have sworn we reached a village phone someplace in rural Vietnam...
So per the article writer's problem with soundcards, my suggestion is to send him to PHB re-education camp. I think they have those in Vietnam too. Now if he could just get that soundcard to work in his Mac/Sparcstation/etc...
Ha... actually I think the effect of such legislation would be to send a message that counters their accusation that the US doesn't care about the third world (other than finding ways to exploit it). With a proper PR resource behind it, those opposing it could be appropriately accused of just wanting to exploit the third world.
Really, the outsourcing dilemna gives the US regulators one of three options:
1. keep current domestic work regulations and taxes that make US workers uncompetitive internationally, but require parity via indexing. This either raises the foreign market working conditions to match, or penalizes the business for operating in an environment that does not match domestic requirements. This is the option Congress should pursue if it believes all of its regulations should be kept and levels the playing field at the top.
2. discard domestic work regulations and taxes. Congress admits ADA, OSHA, etc. are worthless and tosses them out. (I'd disagree and doubt Congress would ever pursue this course). This levels the playing field, but at the bottom.
3. default condition: see jobs disappear to other less regulated markets due to lower costs. Current flight reflects the competitive reality of this condition - zero liability (other than instability via reliance upon shakey foreign economies) and financial upside demands all businesses pursue this approach. (I've got friends with small businesses now outsourcing operations to Asia - there is not going to be an IT market in the US in 5 years without one of the former two choices made). Through Congressional inaction (due to both parties being greased by large business), this is the present course and it'll ensure a catastrophy in the US job market and political upheaval within 20 years.
Like Ayn Rand says, you're free to choose any of the three options, but free from the consequence. #3 doesn't look so good for those in power. It'd be interesting to see a smaller party (e.g. Libertarians or Nader) pick up on this to force the largers to content with the matter.
When Pakistan and India take it to the next level...
Why isn't this point made more often? Political stability is why many claim to invest in US companies.
I worked for a mid-sized international telecom carrier in the late 90s/early 2K. Company had a $120 mil. round coming in that was sold (mostly to international investors) and first chunk (about $40 mil) was timed to arrive around mid-November 2000.
On Nov 4 2000, many Americans will recall former VP Al Gore contesting the election. We had a panic telephone call with the various international funds - all of which decided in the next 2-3 days to hold off until the US political instability was gone.
By they time Gore was told that our election system doesn't allow for "tossing out military votes, adding votes in Democratic counties, not adding votes in Republican counties" (the David Boies strategy, who now works for SCO with the same level of disregard for facts), the dot-com/telecom/IT market had changed and was already diving hard. The international funds said they would wait another half-year or more to see how the US market did.
This killed the company. You can't spend 12-18 months developing a major funding round and see it disappear without consequence - it takes too long to put these together and usually companies are in ramp-up phases to create the conditions necessary for such capital commitment. This is similar to the point-of-no-return factor of a jet racing down a runway. There's a point where if you're past it, you are going to get airborne, because there's not enough runway left for you to slow down and taxi. Fly or crash.
Most telecom and dot-com workers close enough to the capital process know whe the bubble burst occured. Yes, both had crazy valuations and such, but many good companies were killed in the Gore dispute. To blame Clinton or the Bush for the effects of Gore's political instability factor are foolish. You simply can't mirror a banana republic political ploy and expect international investors to play in this market. (And to be fair, Bush's own internationalization efforts with respect to Mexico have much the same effect. Seems like nobody believes in the US worker these days... all these 'helpful' government regulations have made us terribly overpriced and uncompetitive).
So what should we expect when the Fortune 1000 places its infrastructure in the hands of instable nations? Methinks much the same. I wouldn't be too confident in any outsourcer's stock - remember there's a tradeoff for any savings. Short term gain, long term wreck may be the consequence of this one.
It would be especially interesting if the NDA/noncompete with the Indian Outsourcing company is weak
This raises a really interesting idea. How about our congress critters pass a Technology Level Playing Field Act with provisions such as:
1. employers that outsource jobs to non-US locations automatically forfit CNDA provisions with US workforce. Rationale: how is the US IT worker competing with the Indian/Chinese/etc. worker? (I'd be interested to learn how effective CNDAs are in China, incidentally. There is no comparable playing field). The company has abandoned the US IT workforce, even with one outsourcing employee, so it cannot hold anticompetitive work contracts in effect which harm the US workforce and keep the US workers out of production.
2. apply index-based labor tariffs. Rationale: implement an employment cost index assessing the cost/employee for US regulatory factors such as health care requirements, social security, employer income tax portion, workmen's compensation, environmental compliance, OSHA compliance, ADA compliance, etc. Measure India, China, etc.'s status with respect to the index, and then factor a per-hour cost for the items they are not providing. Assess this tariff per hour of outsourced labor to the outsourcing company, and place the receipts of the tariff into job training tax credits and such.
This legislation would not only benefit the US workforce, but it would finally show compassion to workers in developing nations by demanding these American and European firms not treat them as low-wage slaves. Intelligent Phillipinos, Indians and Chinese don't appreciate U.S. firms paying off local officials to continue poor working conditions, and in the long term, will breed considerable anti-American resentment (just as the US middle class is also increasingly hostile to the process). This sort of legislation would effect positive developments on both sides of the outsourcing process.
Don't forget Daniel Lyons' (Forbes Magazine) big bold prediction (from here):
SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against IBM. Both sides will declare victory. The Linux community will turn on IBM.
The only surprise here is that someone (Forbes) pays Dan to write this stuff (apparently the New York Times's fantasy journalism team was all filled up). Dan goes on to point out that Linux and VoIP technologies are no different than Pets.com and other marketing fluff:
technologies like Linux and voiceover-IP still involves this crazy notion that companies can make money by giving things away.
This is like Dan calling electricity a "crazy notion" because he listened to some fly-by-night business scheme involving electrical current. Looks like Forbes is got some fat to trim.
Anyone notice the bottom of the Netcraft report (under OS, Web Server and Hosting History for www.sco.com)?
unknown Apache 27-Jan-2004 216.250.128.12 NFT
Linux Apache 12-Dec-2003 216.250.128.12 NFT
Now we know why they were too busy to respond to the judge's discovery order - they were getting their website converted over to another OS (or hiding that the OS was Linux).
Curiously, the netcraft site shows they tried this for a day earlier in December and presumably had problems with the cutover. The full Netcraft report shows an interesting evolution in webservers:
unknown Apache 27-Jan-2004 216.250.128.12 NFT Linux Apache 12-Dec-2003 216.250.128.12 NFT unknown Apache 11-Dec-2003 216.250.128.12 NFT Linux Apache 3-Sep-2003 216.250.128.12 NFT Linux Apache 21-Aug-2003 216.250.140.112 NFT Linux Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.3.2-RC 17-Jun-2003 216.250.140.112 NFT Linux Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.0.3pl1 20-Nov-2002 216.250.140.112 NFT Linux Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.0.3pl1 14-Aug-2002 216.250.140.125 NFT SCO UNIX Netscape-FastTrack/2.01 13-Aug-2002 132.147.210.109 Caldera, Inc. SCO UNIX Netscape-FastTrack/2.01 12-Aug-2002 132.147.210.109 Caldera, Inc.
From SCO to Linux? Linux running as recently as December 2003? Of course, since they own Linux, I guess this is ok...
[Darl] You see the stock yesterday? Kept going down. And hard. I even heard the analysts are onto our scam.
[Bob] Yup. It's getting just plain impossible to dump this stock anymore. What do we do? We got hammered on that 'dog ate our homework' line on our court filing last week. What do you think David? You guys did a bang up job making it look like Gore won Florida when there was no way a recount would ever show that. Hell, half the country still believes that 'selected, not elected' crap.
[Boies] Well I always say, play offense, not defense. We need to get the public back on our side. Control the spin. You know, make us out to be the victim again. It plays into these schmucks capability for pity.
[Darl] I got it! What if we were being attacked by evil hackers again? (laughs)
[Boies] Bingo. What can your geeks whip up quick, Darl?
[Darl] Well they sure ain't coding operating systems and their time spent looking for code violations in Linux has been a big waste. Maybe we could put them on making some sort of johnson or trojan or something that attacks our Internet connection. Bench, you think that'd help our numbers?
[Bob] Might. What'da say Dave?
[Boies] Hell, it'd be perfect! I'd bet it'd not only turn the PR our way, but I could put that half-assed son of Hatch's to business suing Internet service providers for causing our business damage. And if we totally bomb in court with this asshole judge, we'll just claim the whole company imploded cause of the Internet hacks and sue the pants off of every provider.
[Darl] Love it! Hey, let's call it some prophetic name like SCO doom or our doom like those bozos at the church are always yacking about end of world crap. Should get them riled up too. And hey, it might just be true for SCO! To the bank, buddies!
3. AOL will start migrating its dial up subscribers to the Netscape branded service. "Just a name change."
This step appears to already be in the works (ref my previous post; if that doesn't scream TW execs are running things, nothing does). Launch a nonthreatening pilot product that just happens to be the magic solution a year from now when everyone's hot about increasing losses within AOL ops (and tell me, what's going to prevent AOL from sliding further? The king of CD cramming will have a hard time competing on razor-thin margins).
4. Finally, AOL will cease to function as an ISP
Or in corporate-speak, "(PR Newswire - Oct 4 2004)Time Warner today announced the sale of its Netscape business unit to IDT Corporation, in a move that divests the media giant from its remaining telecommunications operations...
All humor aside, what would you do with an AOL? (OK, besides buying Apple with your market cap and killing two birds with one stone - just kidding Apple fans! Really, just teasing!).
AOL is losing money to companies that are offering a cheaper service so now when a customer calls and wants to cancel they can offer them a cheaper service and still keep their customer
This is less than true; granted, AOL's suffered some encroachment on the bottom, but it's not nearly as significant as the destruction from above from broadband availability. Over 80% of the rural broadband customers the company I work for signs up comes from AOL - not from low-cost dialup. Those $5 to $10/mo. Internet users stay with their low-use plans. It's the $22 for AOL + second phone line to use all the included hours (at another $20 with taxes) = $42/month for crummy old AOL that gives consumers a very easy decision going broadband.
Consider AOL's focus the past 10+ years: "unlimited hours." They were never the low price; consumers that wanted a $10 or less service found plenty of local ISP options and in the past 5 years, Netzero, ad-supported dialup and various sub-$10 approaches flooded the market.
Reading AOL's 10Ks, they've been pretty clear that they don't see themselves in this market. Instead, they proclaim more of a value pricing model - lots of hours at a good price. The only problem is that their unlimited buffet quickly became a fare that was unpaletable to an increasing amount of consumers, especially those who spend more time online and were AOL's primary market. Somebody opened up a buffet next door, and for another $10-$20/month (about 50% to 100% the price of that second phone line, so in many cases, the consumer ends up saving money by switching), it's several dozen times the quality.
So I wouldn't expect they perceive this move as a defensive one. Perhaps, in fact, its a low risk (no AOL brand name at stake) move to test the waters on the sub-$10 market where they never have been strong. I'll contradict a previous post - this actually might make sense. After all, AOL's a cash cow and they're going to have to do something with all the dialup foundation to keep it competitive as the dialup market loses most of its upper 80% of consumer. They're going to be left with 100% price-based market.
Move the AOL operations over to the Netscape brand (and rebrand as AOL) and you've got another lease on life. This sounds to me as if non-AOL execs made this call. This is a move 1 year out from cutting over AOL to a low-cost, low-price operation and Netscape (in a rather perverse way) might actually end up being the beginning of the end of AOL.
If Netscape isn't a brand name for a browser, what is it a brand name for?
It may get even more perverse than that. I'd expect some leverage from Microsoft (if it hasn't happened already ) for the bundling of the IE browser into Netscape's pseudo-broadband dialup.
Then you have a complete branding nightmare: your brand doesn't even include your brand. Netscape Internet - with Internet Explorer browser included. Yikes! (I would have paid good money to be a fly on a wall at this strategy meeting - and also have to believe that Scott Adams has been given another two years of material from this crafty move.)
So why not come out with a $9.95 "AOL-Light" The usual answer here - that "light" products end up cannibalizing the primary line - is probably correct. Most AOL users I know first-hand are not heavy Internet users. Sure, it takes god-forever to get anything done, but they're only on for a few emails, a web page or two, and they're off for another day or two.
AOL'd quickly discover more than half of its $22/month or more customer base paying $9.95. Not good.
So, the content play died. Reselling DSL died thanks to RBOC foot dragging and regulatory changes. Forget about forcing cable operators to open up their network - AOL doesn't have the time. And cross-branding AOL content to these folks just doesn't have any appeal, as AOL increasingly has become associated with training wheels for Internet access.
What's left? Quick! while the stock is listed on NASDAQ...
I'm already fed up of pompous pricks making an artificial difference between "engineer" and "programmer".
I think a lot of this comes from "management" getting tired of "artisans" refusing to ship products on a schedule (even acknowedging that very often, the schedule is set by unrealistic managers that have about as much of a clue on development cycles as would a North American farmer planting soybeans in late August).
Having spent most of my career between the two camps, I've seen a lot of executives get beyond frustrated with even the most mediocre programmer refusing to understand business requirements, instead pursuing greater and greater perfection and subsequently getting paralyzed in the process.
I think this probably contributes to management desiring to falsely perceive technology development as a manufacturing process (and likewise this treatment further encourages the programming folk to believe they're artisans in a guild, refusing the pressures of deadlines). Neither are dealing with the reality very well.
So... tossing assembly line and guild models out the window, is there a conceptual approach that works?
In a sense, it's knowing that you're not the only one totally annoyed with wide-scale merchant abuse that makes it easier to deal with it.
As time goes by, more and more often I'm thinking of going back to all-cash.
Having recently moved from the big city to small town America, that's been a wonderful change. When your grocer, banker, etc. all know you personally, they're more accountable for doing a good job.
Still, what does one do with these god-awful cellular companies? I'd be tempted to use a pre-paid if the suckers actually worked outside of the metro.
*scoove*
Re:Sad state of affairs...
on
Stealth Inflation
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I see no reason why I can't charge back any company/utility that bills me erroneously for the time that I must spend in finding the error
Might be a good basis for a small claims action (IANAL - how about one out there?).
I've had an ongoing battle with Alltel cellular over a similar overcharge matter to that described in the article. Signed up for 1200 minute plan, got a 600 minute plan and a whopper bill. Paid the bill and requested the credit only to be billed the credit amount.
This happened three times, and having passed Accounting 101 back in college, I still can't figure out how one bills a credit. The memo on the bill said "CREDIT" but little details like pluses and minuses make a big difference (apparently Alltel's system required someone to input a negative number for it to be recognized as money owed back to the customer).
They never did figure it out and ended up owing close to a grand by the time I cancelled. I guess it's a great business model - steal as much money as possible before the customer notices. When they leave you, refuse to hand it back and let them realize the cost of an attorney is more than the value of what they've stolen. It happens all the time in the carrier/wholesale telecom business - so much that most telcos have to have a full time carrier audit person (or more) that gets to review and discover all the "mistakes."
Happens all the time. Perhaps the small claims law needs to be revised up to $2500 - its too easy for an Alltel to double the $500 cap for most small claims courts and force it to expensive litigation.
it makes it easy for big corporations with deep pockets to keep the little guy from being a nuisance/competitor
It's much more than that. Often, "big corporations" aren't the licensees of the data; smaller entities are (such as is the case in many state data distribution contracts, e.g. DMV databases which are auctioned off like radio spectrum in an irresponsible manner). Subsequently, the "evil big corporation" matter is a red herring. We need to keep the eye on the fundamental - the government's aspiration to implement a Stationer's register system that requires the authority of the crown in order to access public information. Imagine the absolute power politicians will have in defining who can and cannot see public records.
Per the original post's critique link:
H.R. 3261...would create a new federal property right in online and offline databases (collections of information), and give the federal courts power to police the use of information in databases.
This is much more than a theft of public information (again, mirroring the FCC's approach to spectrum auctions). Much of this government information is necessary for ensuring compliance. Imagine, for instance, if driving laws were maintained in a Federal database, but access to that database required a $25,000 annual fee.
Failure to have access to this database would result in recurring noncompliance; e.g. making normal citizens recurring lawbreakers.
Certainly many politicians aspire to extend a political system that ensures all citizens are lawbreakers and subsequently dependents upon the system. Concealing public information which is necessary for legal compliance is a terrible move towards tyranny.
H.R. 3261 would allow federal courts to impose stiff penalties if someone uses information from a database that a corporation claims to own.
Almost sounds like it was written by Kafka:
"I'm sorry sir, but to divulge what crime you have been charged with, absent proper licensing and permitting of your access to the Federal crimes database, would be a crime of itself. Certainly you wouldn't wish to compound matters, would you?"
If the market is sooo "crowded", then why am i STILL paying upwards of $50 for barely on cable internet?
Because that's pretty much what it costs (and actually, that's well less of cost if you're sustaining file transfers frequently).
Seriously, why does anyone think $50 for 3 Mbps/1 Mbps cable modem service is high? Heck, I pay more monthly for very poor cell service (that routinely drops calls and can barely reach half of the area I travel, even though it's never 100 miles out of a top 50 metropolitan area).
My satellite TV bill is also more than $50. Same with my electric bill. Comparitively, broadband service is a steal, especially when you factor you're desiring access to an international data network on a time-shared basis, customer support, billing & collections, etc.
If $50 is too much, you'd be best to stick to dialup.
I don't see a problem at all with govt stepping in where a need exists.
I do. Government lacks any optimizing mechanism that encourages them to be efficient in the delivery of a service. Rather than face extinction as a consequence of inefficiency, poor service, high costs, etc., the government has the unique immunity from accountability in that it can continually confiscate property to fund its incompetence.
And right now broadband is stalled because nobody wants to provide a level of service that will kickstart new applications.
It's stalled? Where? Even in fly-over country, countless options exist and anyone that wishes to pay a reasonable price can obtain it. In fact, I'm still not sold on the "broadband in every pot" demand claims - I'm posting from a community of 980 residents more than an hour from a major metro, and while $35 broadband is available to every household, less than 10% of households subscribe. $7.95 limited hour dialup suffices for much of the masses. Oh sure, they'd take it for free, but I don't see many of the same people willing to work for free...
Instead broadband providers are cutting back on bandwidth, reducing functionality, and even talking about usage metering!
Only the ones who gave away a ludicrous all-you-can-eat buffet for 1/10th their cost. Let's talk about a reality here - not the fiction of unlimited fiber and free capacity the deluded talk of. The Internet is a time-share of an international network. The closer you get to requiring more dedicated use and less shared use (e.g. sustained MP3 file transfers consuming 3 Mbps consistently), the more you need to either pay for a dedicated 3 Mbps of network, or else reduce your consumption.
Red Lobster recently lost millions on an all-you-can-eat shrimp deal. They never figured so many Americans would be such pigs, chowing down on plate after plate of shrimp. Are they "evil capitalists" for raising the price, or limiting the number of shrimp? Or are you going to tell me that all Americans have a right to unlimited free shrimp along with their free broadband?
Where the money comes from is not an issue to the competition.
This simply doesn't wash. How about you let me raid your personal bank account, take your money and use it to put you out of business? It does matter where it comes from, and when it is provided to the government, it should only be via the consent of the contributor.
Look at the USPS, they are competing with FedEx and UPS.
As usual, revisionist history doesn't compute. FedEx and UPS emerged to provide service where the postal service had completely failed. "Letters sent quickly and reliably? Why would we do that? It'd take work!"
There is nothing the government does that isn't done better by honest, hard-working people.
If a municipality wants to offer net access in a community and *compete* with the other providers, why should they be denied?
For the same reason you would oppose someone being hired at work with your own money (with virtually no limit to how much they can spend, as they're free to confiscate from others paychecks if they need more money), operating with the purpose of running you out of your job.
Fair competition is appropriate and motivates everyone. But how is it fair to have competition that steals your money with government authority, can arrest, jail you and seize your property if you resist, and then can operate as ineptly as possible only to command more moneys to make up for their incompetence?
If you want to compete, then do so. Leave the government out of your power grab.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe amateur radio is a dying art/hobby.
This gets kicked around a lot on ham forums. Mostly, the most accurate answer is that ham radio is changing. The era of becoming a ham because you want to talk to people around the world has changed. At the same time, there are many young hams who want to learn not because of the hobby aspect as much as the challenge of the radiofrequency theory, science and technical challenge. Quite honestly, there are enough "passengers" in the world and not enough "drivers" (802.11/wifi of today and CB radio of yesteryear is a perfect example of this).
Compare it to the era of the "home computer programmer" of the late 70s and early 80s. Where are they today? People typing in BASIC codes in the latest Byte magazine. A hobby, yes, but not much more. Today's open source developer is a different breed, just as today's new ham operator is. It's a serious professional interest. I know weather spotter hams who have self-educated to levels beyond the local TV weatherman, for instance. While the number of "hobby hams" has declined, today's new hams take the practice to a new level and are pioneering new applications. At some point, we'll discover a hobby application that will probably attract the masses again, but mass interest validate the practice? As long as amateurs are professionally operating disaster control networks, providing trained weather spotting services, and quietly operating other important services, the lack of countless hobbyist users is visible but not critical.
Slashdot readers should know this dynamic by now. The model rocketeer of the 1960s is no longer sufficient; private commercial rocketry is today's "hobby." Typing in 300 lines of BASIC does not make one a developer; learning and contributing to the F/OSS world does. In light of cell networks, packet switching and other technologies, should amateur radio be exempt from this dynamic?
The thanks go mostly to the internet and cell phones. As long as you are content with riding on someone elses network. Care to know what really is going on within the RF? An amateur license will teach you a great foundation necessary for learning all those things you've taken for granted (while one of us is running things).
*scoove*
HAM or an ad hoc WiFi net...
Actually... in our small town ham field day setup, there's both (why not?) Regarding first to be connected, there's much about ad hoc wifi that doesn't play in the real world of disasters. Running a fixed wireless company, I can tell you there's a niche certainly for gigahertz services, but nothing can replace the value of true slow NLOS services.
So while speed might be impressive at times, reliability trumps all in a disaster.
*scoove*
s the implication made that Linux became a fullblown and mature OS overnight?
Exactly. I was first introduced to Linux when it took two 5.25 floppies. Coming from Ultrix and having messed with Minix for a few months, I was shocked at what Linux couldn't do.
We were joking about writing a VMS emulator under Ultrix, and this Linux stuff seemed to be not much more than some PC UNIX mockup to my unsophisticated eyes. I certainly didn't see the potential at the time.
Linux was nothing like Minix. And those that were UNIX geeks in the early 90s probably remember that all the attention and excitement was on BSD/386, not Linux.
So if one thing is clear, it's that Ken Brown didn't learn how to turn on a PC until the past couple of years. Still, it's nice to know that such incapable people with high self-esteem can get hired for such senior positions at the Toqueville Institute...
*scoove*
Any further ideas?
Sun.
It's too direct for Microsoft (and too bungled too). Their FUD engine is well greased and is quite honestly self-perceived to be too above this troll trash to be implicated. Not that there aren't moneys from Allen being moved around on the side, but that's not official Microsoft policy. Granted, Microsoft has admitted
to funding Tocqueville but there's a missing beneficiary.
Sun, on the other hand, is fighting for their life though it's receiving little coverage. Linux has decimated Sun's sales, and their missteps with Java have only frustrated efforts to find a solution - any solution. Perhaps some of the settlement money from Microsoft went here instead of directly to Sun?
Consider: Who does having Linux portrayed as stolen property push the Linux base to?
- FreeBSD/OpenBSD/netBSD? Not at all. If it was impossible for Linux to create Linux and therefore Linux is TheftWare, the *BSDs are next in line for accusations and implications.
- SCO? This fossil? The same fossil one of their largest investors (and slush fund source) says should be canned? The fossil that litigation targets like Daimler Chrysler have confessed to not have used for nearly a decade? Doubtful.
- Apple? A more interesting theory, but OS/X != Intel *NIX.
- Microsoft? They're not at all in position to capture the Intel *NIX market. Convert to XP? How?
Solaris, on the other hand, presents an inviting candidate for migration should the F/OSS *NIX's need a commercial home.
*scoove*
Microsoft issued patent licensing demands to amateur radio operators, as well as military and commercial radio technicians around the country, warning them that those "dahs and dots" as expressed using their mouse in numerous training and application programs may be a violation of Microsoft's innovative MultiClick Patented technology.
.....
"We're really looking at this as an opportunity embrace a new user group rather than approach the licensing obligation in any threatening manner," said Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer. "I'm certain we can explain to radio operators that they're not required to license and may be equally satisfied with signals of a uniform length."
All kidding aside, I used morse trainers in the late 80s that the length of the mouse click differed the behavior. I can also recall an Apple IIgs shareware football game that based the behavior of a kick or punt on the length of mouse hold as well. Madden football does that as well, if I recall right.
Maybe I'm missing something here. May have to go read the application; certainly there's more to it than this?
*scoove*
Maybe that's why BayStar now wants their money back from SCO?
Not quite. My assessment is that they never expected Darl to go hog wild on the PR front, nor did they expect him to be "bright" enough (in his own parasitic, pathetic way) to realize he was being set up to drive SCO into the ground.
Looking at BayStar's backers, the initial move against OSS was tremendously clever and dangerous. By funding small battles in minor lands, the goal was to poison OSS. Apply a stigma to it, make it look shady, risky and dangerous and corporate America will stick with the institutions of Microsoft, Solaris, Oracle, SCO, etc. (this theory helps explain why Oracle and Sun have appearances of being on the "wrong" side of OSS and may be receiving subpoenas in the matter - Oracle already has).
Many of Groklaw's commentators have difficulty understanding why SCO, BayStar, Boies & crew, Sontag, and many other intelligent (ethics aside) people bet on such a ludicrous case. Sontag's recent copyright to patent morphing attempts, for instance, is terribly weak and Sontag clearly must be aware of it. But this case wasn't initially propped up to be the primary battleground between the proprietary software world and OSS. It was intended to be a lengthly skirmish between a pump & dump effort from a long-dead UNIX vendor and OSS.
What went wrong? They hired the right white-shoe legal firm for the job (Boies), greased the pols (Hatch) and got the right court. What they didn't expect is an effective, organized opposition (e.g. Groklaw) and more so, did not count on losing the traderag spin (you can bet there's been some money spent to protect that message, but you can't stop them from dropping the paid spin once the issue goes mainstream, although there still is the occasional hack for hire out there). Oddly enough, though, the greatest mistake was trusting Darl and Chris to remain stupid and unaware that they were being set up to fail. Darl in particular believed the lies and the thought that he could actually own the empire that controlled what is presently OSS got him. Imagine the power and wealth from being the CEO to own Linux? They shouldn't have underestimated Darl's ability to self-delude, let alone his greed and power drive. The created their own monster and can't control him (though BayStar is now trying to put the proverbial genie back in the bottle). BayStar has a slight problem in this move, though, as it won't immediately kill Darl and instead, may make him feel even more attacked. Having dealt with pump & dump schemers like Darl before, the last thing you want to do is corner him. BayStar should have moved to redirect (e.g. offer another $20 mil or so and slow things down and move the matter off of the front pages of the tech press. Either that, or promote Darl to some "critical" to allow him to focus on building the future super Linux company and "not be distracted from the day to day of nasty legal stuff" - anything to get him out of SCOg).
This truly is terrible news for the anti-OSS coalition. Fighting the main battle on this issue is a historic error. Should Linux be permitted to be decreed "legitimate and safe" through this process, you can expect Microsoft to lose its OS business within 5-10 years (being perhaps relegated to an office suite vendor), Sun left to push high-end AMD or Intel boxes, and Oracle simply to perish (hey Larry, can you say "Post-gres-ql?" I didn't think you could!).
IBM's motivation is tremendously historical. They got screwed by the OS play with Gates the first time around and are salivating at a royalty-free OS that frees them from bundling leverage and other annoyances, let alone the license expense. Although they derive their own benefit, kudos to IBM for escalating the skirmish into an all-out war.
*scoove*
Some sound cards suck and are not supported by Linux
Shouldn't a reliable OS support all cards and options, regardless of who makes them and how good or bad they are? A former PHB of mine made this observation to me once when we were battling a video card he had bought by the crate from Vietnam ($20 for supposedly super high graphic rendering capabilities).
So after we encounter this junk SVGA card refusing to operate properly, the PHB (who didn't want to accept responsibility for having paid $10K for a big box of garbage) said "if that operating system was any good, it would anticipate unknown cards, you know, like probe it and figure it out, and make it work right. Your operating system is junk, not my cards."
Of course, he was talking about Windows NT Workstation. And no, they crashed in 98 and 95 as well... even though the box sidepanel clearly said all those operating systems were supported.
Course, there were at least a dozen misspelled words and typos - that should have been a clue too. And if that wasn't enough, the cards had wire jumpers snaked all over - apparently someone tried fixing a lot of known post-production problems (probably bought the boards from a legit manufacturer who was throwing them out as bad design, and tried to jumper around the problems). According to the PHB, the presence of these wires meant "they had great quality control because unlike the other cards, you can see they've fixed things." Oh, and when you called the international number listed for tech support, I would have sworn we reached a village phone someplace in rural Vietnam...
So per the article writer's problem with soundcards, my suggestion is to send him to PHB re-education camp. I think they have those in Vietnam too. Now if he could just get that soundcard to work in his Mac/Sparcstation/etc...
*scoove*
And shame on me for not proofing my own post... grr! Should be:
Like Ayn Rand says, you're free to choose any of the three options, but not free from the consequence.
*scoove*
You must be a member of AlQueda.
Ha... actually I think the effect of such legislation would be to send a message that counters their accusation that the US doesn't care about the third world (other than finding ways to exploit it). With a proper PR resource behind it, those opposing it could be appropriately accused of just wanting to exploit the third world.
Really, the outsourcing dilemna gives the US regulators one of three options:
1. keep current domestic work regulations and taxes that make US workers uncompetitive internationally, but require parity via indexing. This either raises the foreign market working conditions to match, or penalizes the business for operating in an environment that does not match domestic requirements. This is the option Congress should pursue if it believes all of its regulations should be kept and levels the playing field at the top.
2. discard domestic work regulations and taxes. Congress admits ADA, OSHA, etc. are worthless and tosses them out. (I'd disagree and doubt Congress would ever pursue this course). This levels the playing field, but at the bottom.
3. default condition: see jobs disappear to other less regulated markets due to lower costs. Current flight reflects the competitive reality of this condition - zero liability (other than instability via reliance upon shakey foreign economies) and financial upside demands all businesses pursue this approach. (I've got friends with small businesses now outsourcing operations to Asia - there is not going to be an IT market in the US in 5 years without one of the former two choices made). Through Congressional inaction (due to both parties being greased by large business), this is the present course and it'll ensure a catastrophy in the US job market and political upheaval within 20 years.
Like Ayn Rand says, you're free to choose any of the three options, but free from the consequence. #3 doesn't look so good for those in power. It'd be interesting to see a smaller party (e.g. Libertarians or Nader) pick up on this to force the largers to content with the matter.
*scoove*
When Pakistan and India take it to the next level...
Why isn't this point made more often? Political stability is why many claim to invest in US companies.
I worked for a mid-sized international telecom carrier in the late 90s/early 2K. Company had a $120 mil. round coming in that was sold (mostly to international investors) and first chunk (about $40 mil) was timed to arrive around mid-November 2000.
On Nov 4 2000, many Americans will recall former VP Al Gore contesting the election. We had a panic telephone call with the various international funds - all of which decided in the next 2-3 days to hold off until the US political instability was gone.
By they time Gore was told that our election system doesn't allow for "tossing out military votes, adding votes in Democratic counties, not adding votes in Republican counties" (the David Boies strategy, who now works for SCO with the same level of disregard for facts), the dot-com/telecom/IT market had changed and was already diving hard. The international funds said they would wait another half-year or more to see how the US market did.
This killed the company. You can't spend 12-18 months developing a major funding round and see it disappear without consequence - it takes too long to put these together and usually companies are in ramp-up phases to create the conditions necessary for such capital commitment. This is similar to the point-of-no-return factor of a jet racing down a runway. There's a point where if you're past it, you are going to get airborne, because there's not enough runway left for you to slow down and taxi. Fly or crash.
Most telecom and dot-com workers close enough to the capital process know whe the bubble burst occured. Yes, both had crazy valuations and such, but many good companies were killed in the Gore dispute. To blame Clinton or the Bush for the effects of Gore's political instability factor are foolish. You simply can't mirror a banana republic political ploy and expect international investors to play in this market. (And to be fair, Bush's own internationalization efforts with respect to Mexico have much the same effect. Seems like nobody believes in the US worker these days... all these 'helpful' government regulations have made us terribly overpriced and uncompetitive).
So what should we expect when the Fortune 1000 places its infrastructure in the hands of instable nations? Methinks much the same. I wouldn't be too confident in any outsourcer's stock - remember there's a tradeoff for any savings. Short term gain, long term wreck may be the consequence of this one.
*scoove*
It would be especially interesting if the NDA/noncompete with the Indian Outsourcing company is weak
This raises a really interesting idea. How about our congress critters pass a Technology Level Playing Field Act with provisions such as:
1. employers that outsource jobs to non-US locations automatically forfit CNDA provisions with US workforce. Rationale: how is the US IT worker competing with the Indian/Chinese/etc. worker? (I'd be interested to learn how effective CNDAs are in China, incidentally. There is no comparable playing field). The company has abandoned the US IT workforce, even with one outsourcing employee, so it cannot hold anticompetitive work contracts in effect which harm the US workforce and keep the US workers out of production.
2. apply index-based labor tariffs. Rationale: implement an employment cost index assessing the cost/employee for US regulatory factors such as health care requirements, social security, employer income tax portion, workmen's compensation, environmental compliance, OSHA compliance, ADA compliance, etc. Measure India, China, etc.'s status with respect to the index, and then factor a per-hour cost for the items they are not providing. Assess this tariff per hour of outsourced labor to the outsourcing company, and place the receipts of the tariff into job training tax credits and such.
This legislation would not only benefit the US workforce, but it would finally show compassion to workers in developing nations by demanding these American and European firms not treat them as low-wage slaves. Intelligent Phillipinos, Indians and Chinese don't appreciate U.S. firms paying off local officials to continue poor working conditions, and in the long term, will breed considerable anti-American resentment (just as the US middle class is also increasingly hostile to the process). This sort of legislation would effect positive developments on both sides of the outsourcing process.
Don't forget Daniel Lyons' (Forbes Magazine) big bold prediction (from here):
SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against IBM. Both sides will declare victory. The Linux community will turn on IBM.
The only surprise here is that someone (Forbes) pays Dan to write this stuff (apparently the New York Times's fantasy journalism team was all filled up). Dan goes on to point out that Linux and VoIP technologies are no different than Pets.com and other marketing fluff:
technologies like Linux and voiceover-IP still involves this crazy notion that companies can make money by giving things away.
This is like Dan calling electricity a "crazy notion" because he listened to some fly-by-night business scheme involving electrical current. Looks like Forbes is got some fat to trim.
*scoove*
Anyone notice the bottom of the Netcraft report (under OS, Web Server and Hosting History for www.sco.com)?
unknown Apache 27-Jan-2004 216.250.128.12 NFT
Linux Apache 12-Dec-2003 216.250.128.12 NFT
Now we know why they were too busy to respond to the judge's discovery order - they were getting their website converted over to another OS (or hiding that the OS was Linux).
Curiously, the netcraft site shows they tried this for a day earlier in December and presumably had problems with the cutover. The full Netcraft report shows an interesting evolution in webservers:
unknown Apache 27-Jan-2004 216.250.128.12 NFT
Linux Apache 12-Dec-2003 216.250.128.12 NFT
unknown Apache 11-Dec-2003 216.250.128.12 NFT
Linux Apache 3-Sep-2003 216.250.128.12 NFT
Linux Apache 21-Aug-2003 216.250.140.112 NFT
Linux Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.3.2-RC 17-Jun-2003 216.250.140.112 NFT
Linux Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.0.3pl1 20-Nov-2002 216.250.140.112 NFT
Linux Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.0.3pl1 14-Aug-2002 216.250.140.125 NFT
SCO UNIX Netscape-FastTrack/2.01 13-Aug-2002 132.147.210.109 Caldera, Inc.
SCO UNIX Netscape-FastTrack/2.01 12-Aug-2002 132.147.210.109 Caldera, Inc.
From SCO to Linux? Linux running as recently as December 2003? Of course, since they own Linux, I guess this is ok...
[Darl] You see the stock yesterday? Kept going down. And hard. I even heard the analysts are onto our scam.
[Bob] Yup. It's getting just plain impossible to dump this stock anymore. What do we do? We got hammered on that 'dog ate our homework' line on our court filing last week. What do you think David? You guys did a bang up job making it look like Gore won Florida when there was no way a recount would ever show that. Hell, half the country still believes that 'selected, not elected' crap.
[Boies] Well I always say, play offense, not defense. We need to get the public back on our side. Control the spin. You know, make us out to be the victim again. It plays into these schmucks capability for pity.
[Darl] I got it! What if we were being attacked by evil hackers again? (laughs)
[Boies] Bingo. What can your geeks whip up quick, Darl?
[Darl] Well they sure ain't coding operating systems and their time spent looking for code violations in Linux has been a big waste. Maybe we could put them on making some sort of johnson or trojan or something that attacks our Internet connection. Bench, you think that'd help our numbers?
[Bob] Might. What'da say Dave?
[Boies] Hell, it'd be perfect! I'd bet it'd not only turn the PR our way, but I could put that half-assed son of Hatch's to business suing Internet service providers for causing our business damage. And if we totally bomb in court with this asshole judge, we'll just claim the whole company imploded cause of the Internet hacks and sue the pants off of every provider.
[Darl] Love it! Hey, let's call it some prophetic name like SCO doom or our doom like those bozos at the church are always yacking about end of world crap. Should get them riled up too. And hey, it might just be true for SCO! To the bank, buddies!
3. AOL will start migrating its dial up subscribers to the Netscape branded service. "Just a name change."
This step appears to already be in the works (ref my previous post; if that doesn't scream TW execs are running things, nothing does). Launch a nonthreatening pilot product that just happens to be the magic solution a year from now when everyone's hot about increasing losses within AOL ops (and tell me, what's going to prevent AOL from sliding further? The king of CD cramming will have a hard time competing on razor-thin margins).
4. Finally, AOL will cease to function as an ISP
Or in corporate-speak, "(PR Newswire - Oct 4 2004)Time Warner today announced the sale of its Netscape business unit to IDT Corporation, in a move that divests the media giant from its remaining telecommunications operations...
All humor aside, what would you do with an AOL? (OK, besides buying Apple with your market cap and killing two birds with one stone - just kidding Apple fans! Really, just teasing!).
*scoove*
AOL is losing money to companies that are offering a cheaper service so now when a customer calls and wants to cancel they can offer them a cheaper service and still keep their customer
This is less than true; granted, AOL's suffered some encroachment on the bottom, but it's not nearly as significant as the destruction from above from broadband availability. Over 80% of the rural broadband customers the company I work for signs up comes from AOL - not from low-cost dialup. Those $5 to $10/mo. Internet users stay with their low-use plans. It's the $22 for AOL + second phone line to use all the included hours (at another $20 with taxes) = $42/month for crummy old AOL that gives consumers a very easy decision going broadband.
Consider AOL's focus the past 10+ years: "unlimited hours." They were never the low price; consumers that wanted a $10 or less service found plenty of local ISP options and in the past 5 years, Netzero, ad-supported dialup and various sub-$10 approaches flooded the market.
Reading AOL's 10Ks, they've been pretty clear that they don't see themselves in this market. Instead, they proclaim more of a value pricing model - lots of hours at a good price. The only problem is that their unlimited buffet quickly became a fare that was unpaletable to an increasing amount of consumers, especially those who spend more time online and were AOL's primary market. Somebody opened up a buffet next door, and for another $10-$20/month (about 50% to 100% the price of that second phone line, so in many cases, the consumer ends up saving money by switching), it's several dozen times the quality.
So I wouldn't expect they perceive this move as a defensive one. Perhaps, in fact, its a low risk (no AOL brand name at stake) move to test the waters on the sub-$10 market where they never have been strong. I'll contradict a previous post - this actually might make sense. After all, AOL's a cash cow and they're going to have to do something with all the dialup foundation to keep it competitive as the dialup market loses most of its upper 80% of consumer. They're going to be left with 100% price-based market.
Move the AOL operations over to the Netscape brand (and rebrand as AOL) and you've got another lease on life. This sounds to me as if non-AOL execs made this call. This is a move 1 year out from cutting over AOL to a low-cost, low-price operation and Netscape (in a rather perverse way) might actually end up being the beginning of the end of AOL.
Interesting move, Time Warner...
*scoove*
If Netscape isn't a brand name for a browser, what is it a brand name for?
It may get even more perverse than that. I'd expect some leverage from Microsoft (if it hasn't happened already ) for the bundling of the IE browser into Netscape's pseudo-broadband dialup.
Then you have a complete branding nightmare: your brand doesn't even include your brand. Netscape Internet - with Internet Explorer browser included. Yikes! (I would have paid good money to be a fly on a wall at this strategy meeting - and also have to believe that Scott Adams has been given another two years of material from this crafty move.)
So why not come out with a $9.95 "AOL-Light" The usual answer here - that "light" products end up cannibalizing the primary line - is probably correct. Most AOL users I know first-hand are not heavy Internet users. Sure, it takes god-forever to get anything done, but they're only on for a few emails, a web page or two, and they're off for another day or two.
AOL'd quickly discover more than half of its $22/month or more customer base paying $9.95. Not good.
So, the content play died. Reselling DSL died thanks to RBOC foot dragging and regulatory changes. Forget about forcing cable operators to open up their network - AOL doesn't have the time. And cross-branding AOL content to these folks just doesn't have any appeal, as AOL increasingly has become associated with training wheels for Internet access.
What's left? Quick! while the stock is listed on NASDAQ...
*scoove*
I'm already fed up of pompous pricks making an artificial difference between "engineer" and "programmer".
I think a lot of this comes from "management" getting tired of "artisans" refusing to ship products on a schedule (even acknowedging that very often, the schedule is set by unrealistic managers that have about as much of a clue on development cycles as would a North American farmer planting soybeans in late August).
Having spent most of my career between the two camps, I've seen a lot of executives get beyond frustrated with even the most mediocre programmer refusing to understand business requirements, instead pursuing greater and greater perfection and subsequently getting paralyzed in the process.
I think this probably contributes to management desiring to falsely perceive technology development as a manufacturing process (and likewise this treatment further encourages the programming folk to believe they're artisans in a guild, refusing the pressures of deadlines). Neither are dealing with the reality very well.
So... tossing assembly line and guild models out the window, is there a conceptual approach that works?
*scoove*
what would Jesus fly?
because transportation is a moral issue...
(especially to some people)
*scoove*
Argh, this pisses me off more than I can say...
In a sense, it's knowing that you're not the only one totally annoyed with wide-scale merchant abuse that makes it easier to deal with it.
As time goes by, more and more often I'm thinking of going back to all-cash.
Having recently moved from the big city to small town America, that's been a wonderful change. When your grocer, banker, etc. all know you personally, they're more accountable for doing a good job.
Still, what does one do with these god-awful cellular companies? I'd be tempted to use a pre-paid if the suckers actually worked outside of the metro.
*scoove*
I see no reason why I can't charge back any company/utility that bills me erroneously for the time that I must spend in finding the error
Might be a good basis for a small claims action (IANAL - how about one out there?).
I've had an ongoing battle with Alltel cellular over a similar overcharge matter to that described in the article. Signed up for 1200 minute plan, got a 600 minute plan and a whopper bill. Paid the bill and requested the credit only to be billed the credit amount.
This happened three times, and having passed Accounting 101 back in college, I still can't figure out how one bills a credit. The memo on the bill said "CREDIT" but little details like pluses and minuses make a big difference (apparently Alltel's system required someone to input a negative number for it to be recognized as money owed back to the customer).
They never did figure it out and ended up owing close to a grand by the time I cancelled. I guess it's a great business model - steal as much money as possible before the customer notices. When they leave you, refuse to hand it back and let them realize the cost of an attorney is more than the value of what they've stolen. It happens all the time in the carrier/wholesale telecom business - so much that most telcos have to have a full time carrier audit person (or more) that gets to review and discover all the "mistakes."
Happens all the time. Perhaps the small claims law needs to be revised up to $2500 - its too easy for an Alltel to double the $500 cap for most small claims courts and force it to expensive litigation.
*scoove*
it makes it easy for big corporations with deep pockets to keep the little guy from being a nuisance/competitor
...would create a new federal property right in online and offline databases (collections of information), and give the federal courts power to police the use of information in databases.
It's much more than that. Often, "big corporations" aren't the licensees of the data; smaller entities are (such as is the case in many state data distribution contracts, e.g. DMV databases which are auctioned off like radio spectrum in an irresponsible manner). Subsequently, the "evil big corporation" matter is a red herring. We need to keep the eye on the fundamental - the government's aspiration to implement a Stationer's register system that requires the authority of the crown in order to access public information. Imagine the absolute power politicians will have in defining who can and cannot see public records.
Per the original post's critique link:
H.R. 3261
This is much more than a theft of public information (again, mirroring the FCC's approach to spectrum auctions). Much of this government information is necessary for ensuring compliance. Imagine, for instance, if driving laws were maintained in a Federal database, but access to that database required a $25,000 annual fee.
Failure to have access to this database would result in recurring noncompliance; e.g. making normal citizens recurring lawbreakers.
Certainly many politicians aspire to extend a political system that ensures all citizens are lawbreakers and subsequently dependents upon the system. Concealing public information which is necessary for legal compliance is a terrible move towards tyranny.
H.R. 3261 would allow federal courts to impose stiff penalties if someone uses information from a database that a corporation claims to own.
Almost sounds like it was written by Kafka:
"I'm sorry sir, but to divulge what crime you have been charged with, absent proper licensing and permitting of your access to the Federal crimes database, would be a crime of itself. Certainly you wouldn't wish to compound matters, would you?"
Incidentally, I see that Rep. Billy Tauzin, known as the loyal Representative from BellSouth, is a cosponsor of this bill. Good rule of thumb: if Billy's involved, it's probably not on the level.
*scoove*
If the market is sooo "crowded", then why am i STILL paying upwards of $50 for barely on cable internet?
Because that's pretty much what it costs (and actually, that's well less of cost if you're sustaining file transfers frequently).
Seriously, why does anyone think $50 for 3 Mbps/1 Mbps cable modem service is high? Heck, I pay more monthly for very poor cell service (that routinely drops calls and can barely reach half of the area I travel, even though it's never 100 miles out of a top 50 metropolitan area).
My satellite TV bill is also more than $50. Same with my electric bill. Comparitively, broadband service is a steal, especially when you factor you're desiring access to an international data network on a time-shared basis, customer support, billing & collections, etc.
If $50 is too much, you'd be best to stick to dialup.
*scoove*
I don't see a problem at all with govt stepping in where a need exists.
I do. Government lacks any optimizing mechanism that encourages them to be efficient in the delivery of a service. Rather than face extinction as a consequence of inefficiency, poor service, high costs, etc., the government has the unique immunity from accountability in that it can continually confiscate property to fund its incompetence.
And right now broadband is stalled because nobody wants to provide a level of service that will kickstart new applications.
It's stalled? Where? Even in fly-over country, countless options exist and anyone that wishes to pay a reasonable price can obtain it. In fact, I'm still not sold on the "broadband in every pot" demand claims - I'm posting from a community of 980 residents more than an hour from a major metro, and while $35 broadband is available to every household, less than 10% of households subscribe. $7.95 limited hour dialup suffices for much of the masses. Oh sure, they'd take it for free, but I don't see many of the same people willing to work for free...
Instead broadband providers are cutting back on bandwidth, reducing functionality, and even talking about usage metering!
Only the ones who gave away a ludicrous all-you-can-eat buffet for 1/10th their cost. Let's talk about a reality here - not the fiction of unlimited fiber and free capacity the deluded talk of. The Internet is a time-share of an international network. The closer you get to requiring more dedicated use and less shared use (e.g. sustained MP3 file transfers consuming 3 Mbps consistently), the more you need to either pay for a dedicated 3 Mbps of network, or else reduce your consumption.
Red Lobster recently lost millions on an all-you-can-eat shrimp deal. They never figured so many Americans would be such pigs, chowing down on plate after plate of shrimp. Are they "evil capitalists" for raising the price, or limiting the number of shrimp? Or are you going to tell me that all Americans have a right to unlimited free shrimp along with their free broadband?
Where the money comes from is not an issue to the competition.
This simply doesn't wash. How about you let me raid your personal bank account, take your money and use it to put you out of business? It does matter where it comes from, and when it is provided to the government, it should only be via the consent of the contributor.
Look at the USPS, they are competing with FedEx and UPS.
As usual, revisionist history doesn't compute. FedEx and UPS emerged to provide service where the postal service had completely failed. "Letters sent quickly and reliably? Why would we do that? It'd take work!"
There is nothing the government does that isn't done better by honest, hard-working people.
*scoove*
If a municipality wants to offer net access in a community and *compete* with the other providers, why should they be denied?
For the same reason you would oppose someone being hired at work with your own money (with virtually no limit to how much they can spend, as they're free to confiscate from others paychecks if they need more money), operating with the purpose of running you out of your job.
Fair competition is appropriate and motivates everyone. But how is it fair to have competition that steals your money with government authority, can arrest, jail you and seize your property if you resist, and then can operate as ineptly as possible only to command more moneys to make up for their incompetence?
If you want to compete, then do so. Leave the government out of your power grab.
*scoove*