I never said that regulation of the phone companies was a bad thing, but I also don't want regulation of everything and anything that people think poses the risk of a monopoly.
And just to play devil's advocate a little more: do you think the cable companies would have sat idly by while the phone companies were raising prices? In other words regulation of access providers is not really taking into account that the very access these companies deny may be granted by others that see an open path for competition. The phone companies would have eventually come around to the fact that the access that they were withholding was getting more and more outdated...
This is the EXACT quote that I'd cut from the article, and yours would have been pretty much the reply that I would have posted!
maybe I'll add something to it.
I was a physics major, and a lot of the reason why I chose it, was to answer these very questions. Sadly, by saying what he did, the author implies that there's some sort of driving force behind the universe - in other words we are destined to be here. Unless the author stopped at Classical Mechanics, he'd have realized that the idea of destiny is thrown out the window with Quantum Mechanics...
but then again, I stopped at the BS level...physics is a bitch.
italics are quotes from the article...
(pardon the length, the author is wordier than Jon Katz...)
There is deep confusion about the idea of "regulation" within our political culture and about its relationship to innovation and the Internet.
[snip]
This attitude is profoundly mistaken. It betrays an extraordinary ignorance about the history of the Internet, and this ignorance threatens to undermine the innovation that the Internet has made possible. Innovation has always depended upon a certain kind of regulation; the greatest examples of innovation in our recent past evince this reliance. And unless we begin to see the relationship between this type of rule and the innovation it promotes, we are likely to kill the promise of the Internet.
In my view, the benefit has been the Internet. Though the Internet proper was initially a network among universities, had it not been for the ability of ordinary consumers to connect to the Internet, that network would have gone nowhere. (Universities are fun, but they aren't enough to fuel commercial revolutions.) Ordinary consumers connected to the Net across phone lines. And had it not been for the open-access rules that the government imposed upon telephones, the telephone companies would most likely have behaved just as every network owner in history has behaved--to control access and use architecture to minimize competition. If it hadn't been as cheap to dial a local bulletin-board system (BBS) as it was to dial a local friend; had the Baby Bells kept the power to force customers to a Baby Bell ISP; had the government not insisted that competitors be connected and had it not policed pricing to ensure nondiscrimination--had it not, in short, used the power of law to force a competitive neutrality onto the telephone system, the telephone system would not have inspired the extraordinary innovation that it did.
To sum it all up, this man is talking about how he thinks regulation had been a Good Thing for the Internet, and how the telephone companies would have ruined what we have now. IMO, he's got a lot of things mixed up.
The Author seems to think that the concept of regulation is of one type only - government taking care of the little guy (you and me), protecting us from Big Corporations. What he doesn't grasp, is that regulation done for the sake of killing monopolies != all Internet regulation.
The 20 somethings that he mentions in the beginning of the article bring up the slippery-slope argument, that if you start regulating broad-band, satellites, and other networks will go next...This is a good point - one that he doesn't grasp.
If there's to be any regulation at all, it should be done because of wrong-doings that are currently on the books, not because some political hack doesn't like how the 'net infrastructure is shaping up. Users have a lot of choices as far as connectivity goes right now (at least in developed areas). This man's suggestions are short-sighted and misinformed...
ok, I'd moderated up the post that's currently at the top - but I don't think it goes far enough, so I'm writing this. I'm sure this'll get moderated to a troll...
There seems to be a large underlying theme with a lot of/.'ers, and geeks in general, that things should be free regardless of how justified. A little while back, buy.com mistakenly offered usually expensive monitors for a fraction of their true cost. Buy.com having realized this, put the price back to normal, and denied many of the orders. Geeks were outraged. With any mention of the RIAA and mp3's,/.'ers become livid, and begin to spout off the injustices of the capitalistic world.
Now the latest installment of "The Man Trying To Screw The Little Guy", is this Netpliance fiasco. I'll admit, I was considereing buying one (or two) after the smoke cleared, but upon their change of policy, I shrugged it off, and silently congratulated the guy's who'd gotten 'em prior to the change.
Am I upset? hell no!. I'm a realist, and I think logically. This was bound to happen!!!
You know, with so many trolls bypassing/. moderators by moderatring their own posts, trying to write directly to the top of the screen, one would think that/. moderation is out of date.
There seems to be a big push to get the/. moderation protocol away from trolls and into the hands of insightful posters. Any thoughts (maybe we could have an insightful post next week?) people?
This is by far, the biggest thing that's keeping me chained to using windows.
Quake3 is out for linux, Pine's great for e-mail, Communicator is acceptable as a browser, but there is an emtpy void where the multi-media apps come in. I haven't been able to find anything for wav file editting like Sound Forge, or a sequencing program as good as VST, or a multitracker as good as SAW. (all of these are personal preference I'm sure). Plus, from my understanding, there's no plug-in architecture like MS's DirectX that allows for effects plugins to be compatible with virtually all of these programs (well, except for SAW)... When these apps are carried over to Linux like Photoshop was (Gimp), MS will be a distant memory...the likeliness of this however is a sign that I'll be using MS stuff for a while to come:(
OK, hear me out before you mark me as a troll and/or flamebait.
There are many people that argue big business is putting out mom-n-pop stores unfairly. Not only in the book industry, but in regular goods; stores like Wal-Mart, Tower Records, and Blockbuster.
Now, I'll be the first one to say that the above-mentioned treatment is unfair (the big online book-sellers getting the goods first), but in the big picture, is there really a problem with these big companies? If I can go to B&N and buy myself a book for several dollars cheaper than I can at a mom-n-pop, I'm not gonna think twice about it. If I can go to Wal-Mart, and get myself a lawn mower for less money, same thing. Of course there's unfair trade practices, which I'm generally against, but business is business, and the lowest bidder gets mine.
To those that argue that the purchase money isn't working locally, I would disagree - the amount of money spent is being offset by the large workforce that these companies have. So yeah, while a refrigerator split between ma' and pa' is a big chunk of change, there's an even bigger chunk to be had by 30-40 employees working at the bigger stores.
Specialty stores will always exist if there's a need for 'em. I buy records (you know, vinyl?), all the time, putting my money into an industry that should have tanked about a decade ago...
But I digress, if geeks are supposed to be libertarians, you should be able to see this all pretty clearly w/o me.
(BTW, if you have stories of unfair practices by said companies, please post them - I'm always open to learning:).
Folks, instead of keeping your heads in the ass of "make all music free", realize that artists need to eat.
This internet thing, and the OSS mov't is new to most people...especally those that have lots of money invested in the "old" way of doing things. It takes time for ppl to get used to it..this is a good start.
The article itself is very useful in explaning how the system works, and it gives wannabe programmers (me), the ability to see how something is reverse engineered (it really took away a lot of the mysticism IMO).
to those geeks that are going to argue that religion: is the opiate of the masses or religion has caused more problems than anything else or religion requires no thought, and is therefore a blind faith
I suggest you look at your own beliefs, and ask yourself the following questions:
1. why am I an atheist? 2. how much actual study have I done on the subject of atheism (and the proofs therein)? 3. how do I know there isn't a God? 4. how much of my belief system comes from my parents?
what I'm trying to show you, is that science/atheism is a faith as well. We don't know what happened before the big bang (science can't answer that yet), and our basis of belief is pretty close to the possibility of a God (for He could have just started it all off with the big bang, and left us on our own. Many religious people have thought long and hard about the existance of God...while they are the majority (religious people), I would hazard a guess that the same percentage of atheists blindly believe what they do as well...
I attended ucla as a physics major while this project was still under way, and took a more basic, introduction to computer modelling of plasma systems. The professor doing a lot of the work in this field is John Dawson. Along with him, and IIRC, more in charge of the computer systems, is Victor Decyk. Decyck taught half of the class, although he was technically a TA. He explained the progression away from high $$ "super computers", such as Crays, and the usefulness of clusters.
I also had the honor of working at JPL, where Decyk was a part-time scientist in the computing/analysis department for the Experimental Measurment Devices group. If you look up something like "computer plasma modelling" on the 'net, you'll very likely find papers by these two...very interesting high-powered stuff - the mind boggles at just how much the computer is crunching when you realize that a large number of the plasma particles are interrelated spatially.
data is data...right now it's a jumble of bits that's simply unidentifiable by a human. That's how both parties should get the data - then they're equal. If Mitnick decrypts his data, so should the gov't be able to...
This was a legal case, and as much as anyone may be against what happened to Mitnick, certain aspects of the law need to be followed. Would you all be so vehemently against the gov't if this was the case of a real terrorist?
There's no room for "yeah, but he's one of us" when you're arguing about the law...corrupt govt's are really into that...
not to be nit-picky or anything, but to my knowledge, re-posting copyrighted information like this is illegal...nothing that'll be pursued, but really, how hard is it to just go and enter the login info manually?
From the posts that I've seen so far, it seems like many people are forgetting when this took place.
20 years is a long time as far as computer technology goes - that's patently obvious. But at the same time, it's also a long time for a sector of the economy which was just beginning to see the light of day (yes, they had computers, and computer programs before that yada yada yada - PC's are different though).
Thinking about it, would the OSS model have even taken shape if Bill Gates (and his ilk) had just given away their product? Very likely not.
OSS is a logical progression, and slamming BG just 'cus you like linux is shortsighted.
High School sci-fi curriculum
on
Childhood's End
·
· Score: 2
Generally in HS lit classes, you don't walk away having learned something, or having been profoundly affected.
Thankfully, I took the sci-fi class that was offered, and read the following literary gems: 1. childhoods end 2. fahrenheit 451 3. brave new world 4. 1984 (optional extra credit)
it should have been a class in politics! I learned more from those books about societal skepticism, and conformity than in my US gov't class. childhood's end also had me reading more Clarke books later on, with the Rama series now being my favorite...
Prof. Lederman, I have recently graduated from UCLA with a BS in physics. I came into the program with a gleam in my eye when it came to physics, and left with a ho-hum attitude towards the organized teaching of the subject (I still love learning how the universe works however). The reason? Professors incapable of teaching at an undergraduate level, or at all.
Don't get me wrong, it is without a doubt in my mind, that I was taught by some of the most brilliant minds at my college, who understood topics that would make my head spin. At the same time however, they were unable to grasp the simple fact that their methods of teaching weren't understandable by most of the students.
UCLA is not alone in this trend, speaking with a PhD from the UK, the situation is the same there. It seems that no research university understands the need for teaching professors how to teach.
So lets get this straight, someone doesn't feel the need to learn computers, or is put off by them, is by default lazy? Buying books that make the task simple is somehow cheating? could the same thing be said of yourself if you don't want to learn an interest of theirs?
The person that you mentioned in your original post is someone that doesn't grasp the "difficulty" of the task he has put before you. therefore, he needs someone to do it for him. But he doesn't need (hopefully) someone to actually market the products, or come up with a prodiuct to market in the first place.
I see your point, but something that I neglected to bring up was, that programming and sysadmin'ing for you and I is not that difficult. Just as being a salesman, or an art designer isn't diffucult for another person(s).
Our difficulty with those things doesn't necessarily make us lazy and oafish does it?
Slashdot Mirror
you may want to re-read what I wrote.
I never said that regulation of the phone companies was a bad thing, but I also don't want regulation of everything and anything that people think poses the risk of a monopoly.
And just to play devil's advocate a little more: do you think the cable companies would have sat idly by while the phone companies were raising prices? In other words regulation of access providers is not really taking into account that the very access these companies deny may be granted by others that see an open path for competition.
The phone companies would have eventually come around to the fact that the access that they were withholding was getting more and more outdated...
This is the EXACT quote that I'd cut from the article, and yours would have been pretty much the reply that I would have posted!
maybe I'll add something to it.
I was a physics major, and a lot of the reason why I chose it, was to answer these very questions. Sadly, by saying what he did, the author implies that there's some sort of driving force behind the universe - in other words we are destined to be here.
Unless the author stopped at Classical Mechanics, he'd have realized that the idea of destiny is thrown out the window with Quantum Mechanics...
but then again, I stopped at the BS level...physics is a bitch.
[snip]
This attitude is profoundly mistaken. It betrays an extraordinary ignorance about the history of the Internet, and this ignorance threatens to undermine the innovation that the Internet has made possible. Innovation has always depended upon a certain kind of regulation; the greatest examples of innovation in our recent past evince this reliance. And unless we begin to see the relationship between this type of rule and the innovation it promotes, we are likely to kill the promise of the Internet.
In my view, the benefit has been the Internet. Though the Internet proper was initially a network among universities, had it not been for the ability of ordinary consumers to connect to the Internet, that network would have gone nowhere. (Universities are fun, but they aren't enough to fuel commercial revolutions.) Ordinary consumers connected to the Net across phone lines. And had it not been for the open-access rules that the government imposed upon telephones, the telephone companies would most likely have behaved just as every network owner in history has behaved--to control access and use architecture to minimize competition. If it hadn't been as cheap to dial a local bulletin-board system (BBS) as it was to dial a local friend; had the Baby Bells kept the power to force customers to a Baby Bell ISP; had the government not insisted that competitors be connected and had it not policed pricing to ensure nondiscrimination--had it not, in short, used the power of law to force a competitive neutrality onto the telephone system, the telephone system would not have inspired the extraordinary innovation that it did.
To sum it all up, this man is talking about how he thinks regulation had been a Good Thing for the Internet, and how the telephone companies would have ruined what we have now. IMO, he's got a lot of things mixed up. The Author seems to think that the concept of regulation is of one type only - government taking care of the little guy (you and me), protecting us from Big Corporations. What he doesn't grasp, is that regulation done for the sake of killing monopolies != all Internet regulation. The 20 somethings that he mentions in the beginning of the article bring up the slippery-slope argument, that if you start regulating broad-band, satellites, and other networks will go next...This is a good point - one that he doesn't grasp.If there's to be any regulation at all, it should be done because of wrong-doings that are currently on the books, not because some political hack doesn't like how the 'net infrastructure is shaping up. Users have a lot of choices as far as connectivity goes right now (at least in developed areas). This man's suggestions are short-sighted and misinformed...
with the assumption that the moderation that I gave would go away...
and if having a differing opinion == full of shit in your opinion, I'm glad you're not in any sort of political power.
ok, I'd moderated up the post that's currently at the top - but I don't think it goes far enough, so I'm writing this. I'm sure this'll get moderated to a troll...
/.'ers, and geeks in general, that things should be free regardless of how justified. /.'ers become livid, and begin to spout off the injustices of the capitalistic world.
There seems to be a large underlying theme with a lot of
A little while back, buy.com mistakenly offered usually expensive monitors for a fraction of their true cost. Buy.com having realized this, put the price back to normal, and denied many of the orders. Geeks were outraged.
With any mention of the RIAA and mp3's,
Now the latest installment of "The Man Trying To Screw The Little Guy", is this Netpliance fiasco.
I'll admit, I was considereing buying one (or two) after the smoke cleared, but upon their change of policy, I shrugged it off, and silently congratulated the guy's who'd gotten 'em prior to the change.
Am I upset? hell no!. I'm a realist, and I think logically. This was bound to happen!!!
there is no free lunch folks
You know, with so many trolls bypassing /. moderators by moderatring their own posts, trying to write directly to the top of the screen, one would think that /. moderation is out of date.
/. moderation protocol away from trolls and into the hands of insightful posters. Any thoughts (maybe we could have an insightful post next week?) people?
There seems to be a big push to get the
[sorry, couldn't resist]
This is by far, the biggest thing that's keeping me chained to using windows.
:(
Quake3 is out for linux, Pine's great for e-mail, Communicator is acceptable as a browser, but there is an emtpy void where the multi-media apps come in. I haven't been able to find anything for wav file editting like Sound Forge, or a sequencing program as good as VST, or a multitracker as good as SAW.
(all of these are personal preference I'm sure).
Plus, from my understanding, there's no plug-in architecture like MS's DirectX that allows for effects plugins to be compatible with virtually all of these programs (well, except for SAW)...
When these apps are carried over to Linux like Photoshop was (Gimp), MS will be a distant memory...the likeliness of this however is a sign that I'll be using MS stuff for a while to come
-lev
OK, hear me out before you mark me as a troll and/or flamebait.
:).
There are many people that argue big business is putting out mom-n-pop stores unfairly. Not only in the book industry, but in regular goods; stores like Wal-Mart, Tower Records, and Blockbuster.
Now, I'll be the first one to say that the above-mentioned treatment is unfair (the big online book-sellers getting the goods first), but in the big picture, is there really a problem with these big companies?
If I can go to B&N and buy myself a book for several dollars cheaper than I can at a mom-n-pop, I'm not gonna think twice about it. If I can go to Wal-Mart, and get myself a lawn mower for less money, same thing. Of course there's unfair trade practices, which I'm generally against, but business is business, and the lowest bidder gets mine.
To those that argue that the purchase money isn't working locally, I would disagree - the amount of money spent is being offset by the large workforce that these companies have. So yeah, while a refrigerator split between ma' and pa' is a big chunk of change, there's an even bigger chunk to be had by 30-40 employees working at the bigger stores.
Specialty stores will always exist if there's a need for 'em. I buy records (you know, vinyl?), all the time, putting my money into an industry that should have tanked about a decade ago...
But I digress, if geeks are supposed to be libertarians, you should be able to see this all pretty clearly w/o me.
(BTW, if you have stories of unfair practices by said companies, please post them - I'm always open to learning
well, there goes any up moderation I would have gotten...
is here
is here
this is OT, but why is it that all geeks think everyone else is stupid?
think about it, I'd say 90% of the population thinks everyone is stupid - do the math, someone's gotta be wrong.
humbleness is good.
I've said this before as an AC:
Signal11, do you have a subscription to a magazine called "just enough lingo to make idiots think you're smart"?
'cus from this post, and the one about SSH, it's obvious that you're just borrowing all of your opinions from those more in the know...
humbleness is a good thing Signal11
Folks, instead of keeping your heads in the ass of "make all music free", realize that artists need to eat.
This internet thing, and the OSS mov't is new to most people...especally those that have lots of money invested in the "old" way of doing things. It takes time for ppl to get used to it..this is a good start.
The article itself is very useful in explaning how the system works, and it gives wannabe programmers (me), the ability to see how something is reverse engineered (it really took away a lot of the mysticism IMO).
to those geeks that are going to argue that religion:
is the opiate of the masses
or
religion has caused more problems than anything else
or
religion requires no thought, and is therefore a blind faith
I suggest you look at your own beliefs, and ask yourself the following questions:
1. why am I an atheist?
2. how much actual study have I done on the subject of atheism (and the proofs therein)?
3. how do I know there isn't a God?
4. how much of my belief system comes from my parents?
what I'm trying to show you, is that science/atheism is a faith as well. We don't know what happened before the big bang (science can't answer that yet), and our basis of belief is pretty close to the possibility of a God (for He could have just started it all off with the big bang, and left us on our own.
Many religious people have thought long and hard about the existance of God...while they are the majority (religious people), I would hazard a guess that the same percentage of atheists blindly believe what they do as well...
why do you want to be right so badly?
-lev (an atheist)
I attended ucla as a physics major while this project was still under way, and took a more basic, introduction to computer modelling of plasma systems. The professor doing a lot of the work in this field is John Dawson. Along with him, and IIRC, more in charge of the computer systems, is Victor Decyk.
Decyck taught half of the class, although he was technically a TA. He explained the progression away from high $$ "super computers", such as Crays, and the usefulness of clusters.
I also had the honor of working at JPL, where Decyk was a part-time scientist in the computing/analysis department for the Experimental Measurment Devices group.
If you look up something like "computer plasma modelling" on the 'net, you'll very likely find papers by these two...very interesting high-powered stuff - the mind boggles at just how much the computer is crunching when you realize that a large number of the plasma particles are interrelated spatially.
I'm sorry, I wasn't informed that you were the .sig monitor on /.
actually, it was overheard by a relative on talk radio - they then paraphrased it...this would explain my lack of credits.
As far as my intelligence/wit goes, I freely admit that I am ignorrant to many things, but, I do know how to spell 'intelligence'.
he keeps the data encrypted.
data is data...right now it's a jumble of bits that's simply unidentifiable by a human. That's how both parties should get the data - then they're equal. If Mitnick decrypts his data, so should the gov't be able to...
This was a legal case, and as much as anyone may be against what happened to Mitnick, certain aspects of the law need to be followed. Would you all be so vehemently against the gov't if this was the case of a real terrorist?
There's no room for "yeah, but he's one of us" when you're arguing about the law...corrupt govt's are really into that...
not to be nit-picky or anything, but to my knowledge, re-posting copyrighted information like this is illegal...nothing that'll be pursued, but really, how hard is it to just go and enter the login info manually?
someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
From the posts that I've seen so far, it seems like many people are forgetting when this took place.
20 years is a long time as far as computer technology goes - that's patently obvious. But at the same time, it's also a long time for a sector of the economy which was just beginning to see the light of day (yes, they had computers, and computer programs before that yada yada yada - PC's are different though).
Thinking about it, would the OSS model have even taken shape if Bill Gates (and his ilk) had just given away their product? Very likely not.
OSS is a logical progression, and slamming BG just 'cus you like linux is shortsighted.
Generally in HS lit classes, you don't walk away having learned something, or having been profoundly affected.
Thankfully, I took the sci-fi class that was offered, and read the following literary gems:
1. childhoods end
2. fahrenheit 451
3. brave new world
4. 1984 (optional extra credit)
it should have been a class in politics! I learned more from those books about societal skepticism, and conformity than in my US gov't class.
childhood's end also had me reading more Clarke books later on, with the Rama series now being my favorite...
highly suggested reading!
in my excitement, I forgot to ask the professor what he thinks should be done about this situation...
:).
wow, feels good to get a 5
Prof. Lederman, I have recently graduated from UCLA with a BS in physics. I came into the program with a gleam in my eye when it came to physics, and left with a ho-hum attitude towards the organized teaching of the subject (I still love learning how the universe works however). The reason? Professors incapable of teaching at an undergraduate level, or at all.
Don't get me wrong, it is without a doubt in my mind, that I was taught by some of the most brilliant minds at my college, who understood topics that would make my head spin. At the same time however, they were unable to grasp the simple fact that their methods of teaching weren't understandable by most of the students.
UCLA is not alone in this trend, speaking with a PhD from the UK, the situation is the same there. It seems that no research university understands the need for teaching professors how to teach.
The 11 dimensions thing is valid - it's a theory followed by Hawking and others when referring to string theory.
This deja.com thread has more info on it (doing a more rigorous search would probably get you even more information).
So lets get this straight, someone doesn't feel the need to learn computers, or is put off by them, is by default lazy? Buying books that make the task simple is somehow cheating?
could the same thing be said of yourself if you don't want to learn an interest of theirs?
The person that you mentioned in your original post is someone that doesn't grasp the "difficulty" of the task he has put before you. therefore, he needs someone to do it for him. But he doesn't need (hopefully) someone to actually market the products, or come up with a prodiuct to market in the first place.
I see your point, but something that I neglected to bring up was, that programming and sysadmin'ing for you and I is not that difficult. Just as being a salesman, or an art designer isn't diffucult for another person(s).
Our difficulty with those things doesn't necessarily make us lazy and oafish does it?