"A Journey to the Center of Yahoo" - Yahoo is ever conscious of Google and determined to match it, but in the long run its plans for search seem quite different.
Last year, Yahoo overtook Hotmail to become the world's most-used free e-mail service. Its new e-mail system, now running in a limited beta version and scheduled for release next year, applies technology called Ajax, discussed in a previous column, to mimic the speed and power of a normal desktop program.
When I tried the beta release of the new mail program, I was amazed that I could, for instance, quickly view the contents of an e-mail message without opening it, via a "preview pane" like Outlook's - while operating over a normal Web browser...
What's this all about? After talking with the chief executive, Terry S. Semel, and other officials, I came away with two big impressions. One is that while Yahoo is ever conscious of Google and determined to match it head to head in familiar keyword search, in the long run its plans for search seem quite different from Google's. The other is that Yahoo views the very scale and sprawl of its operations - the seemingly random assemblage of sites and functions, the 200 million active users in more than 20 countries - as a crucial competitive advantage.
The awareness of Google came through in nearly every conversation...
The idea of money as a source of social memory was also crucial for John Locke who figures prominently in our story as the philosopher who inaugurated the modern age of democratic revolutions. Locke was obsessed with money's role both in establishing a progressive social order and in subverting it as its criminal antithesis. Indeed he believed that money launched humanity from the state of nature onto the road to civil government. As long as men's possessions were limited to perishable products, the scope for property was restricted. Money, by offering
a durable store of value convertible against all useful things, unleashed the potential for property accumulation and for the intergenerational transmission of inequality. For Locke then, money was indispensable to that development of cultural memory on which civilisation depends.
First, let's define what a currency is, because most textbooks don't teach what money is. They only explain its functions, that is, what money does. I define money, or currency, as
an agreement within a community to use something as a medium of exchange. It's therefore not a thing, it's only an agreement--like a marriage, like a political party, like a business deal. And most of the time, it's done unconsciously. Nobody's polled about whether you want to use dollars. We're living in this money world like fish in water, taking it completely for granted.
Typically, it's both those things; a store of value and a medium of exchange. While economists often include 'a unit of account'.
keith hart i think should have been one of the speakers, here's an excerpt from "the memory bank":
The idea of money as a source of social memory was also crucial for John Locke, who figures prominently in our story as the philosopher who inaugurated the modern age of democratic revolutions. Locke was obsessed with money's role both in establishing a progressive social order and in subverting it as its criminal antithesis. Indeed, he believed that money launched humanity from the state of nature onto the road to civil government. As long as men's possessions were limited to perishable products, the scope for property was restricted. Money, by offering a durable store of value convertible against all useful things, unleashed the potential for property accumulation and for the intergenerational transmission of inequality. For Locke, then, money was indispensable to that development of cultural memory on which civilization depends.
the us marine corps' recommended reading list for "Doctrine, Training, and Tactics" has ender's game for corporal-sargeant! no word yet on shadow of the hegemon for secretary of state:D
dan kohn wrote a nice essay ("steal this essay 1") about why when the marginal cost to produce something is zero, the property regime must be rethought. bradford delong, a berkeley economist (and occasional wired contributor:) in conjunction with froomkin wrote a more detailed piece here. oh and delong also presented with lawrence summers (former treasury secretary, now president of harvard) this stuff at the 2001 annual federal reserve symposium in jackson hole, including an interesting proposal:
"New institutions and new kinds of institutions--perhaps even some that have been tried before, like the French government's purchase and placing in the public domain of the first photographic patents in the early nineteenth century (see Kremer (1998))--may well be necessary to achieve the fourfold objectives of (a) price equal to marginal cost, (b) entrepreneurial energy, (c) accelerating the cumulative process of research, and (d) providing appropriate financial incentives for research and development. The work of Harvard economist Michael Kremer (1998, 2000), both with respect to the possibility of public purchase of patents at auction and of shifting some public research and development funding from effort-oriented to result-oriented processes (that is, holding contests for private companies to develop vaccines instead of funding research directly), is especially intriguing in its attempts to develop institutions that have all the advantages of market competition, natural monopoly, and public provision."
Lessig:...Coase's arguments reflected the state of the art at the time. Property was the best way to allocate spectrum in 1959. But it's the wrong answer today. Not because property does no good -- in fact, it does a great deal of good. This should not be taken to imply that administrative allocations are inevitably worse -- a market has costs, and if those costs exceed the value, then markets result in misallocation. Coase's insight -- most prescient -- is that spectrum is not in its nature rivalrous. It's not a thing at all. Colors, sounds correspond to frequency.
create your own money -- community currencies!
on
The Future of Money
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
i read one of the panelists books awhile back (actually after a reference on slashdot:), the future of money by bernard lietaer. his main point is that "money is an agreement," which under that definition simplies the commonly understood definition -- a unit of account, a store of value, a means of exchange. so the scarcity of money in a society is a scarcity of agreement (echoed in dostoevsky's dream of ridiculous man btw, "if only we all agreed, it could all be arranged at once.")
from there he talks about how to create monetary systems that foster more agreement, creating money on demand with no inflationary consequences, such as Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) and HOURS. he also talks about demurrage currencies (used after WWI in austria--the worgl experiment--with interesting speculation that if it had been allowed to succeed, WWII may never have occurred!) and commodity buffer stocks originally advocated by keynes following WWII at bretton woods as the basis for the international monetary system (gold with the US dollar as reference currency was chosen instead--the white plan--and i think it was nixon who took us off the gold standard to finance the vietnam war more easily).
anyway, his point is that fractional reserve fiat based currencies are good for some things, but not suited for others (kind of like operating systems:) and that there'd be fewer financial and economic catastrophes if 'alternative' currencies were promoted and in some cases legalized to fill gaps not serviced by 'traditional' money. in the US, for example, i think the federal reserve's monetary policy 'levers' are increasingly blunt tools to regulate business cycles and the economic environment. having myriad interoperating systems of currencies could provide for a more stable and balanced system. one of the more interesting non-fiction books i've read in the past few years!
also btw, that same poster who dropped the lietaer book on me also had an interesting post on dee hock oh and, another cool take on money is keith hart's the memory bank. sorry to see he's not on the panel.
IBM has said they want to turn computing into a utility (kind of like how the the weather simulations were conducted in "permutation city":) so having a nation-wide wireless network (alongside its global services division) seems like just another step down the road... to world domination, j/k!
ironically tho, the very idea of mimicking a utility would appear to make government (federal, state or municipal) more suited to its delivery -- like how the road and highway system is administered in the US or perhaps a pseudo-public venture like the US postal service, which still leaves room for private competition.
the altruistically anarchic model for wireless network expansion is ideal and i hope it continues! but it's naive to think private entities would be content to provide equipment (as literally shareware) for an emerging wireless network and not seek to run (and monetize) them.
local, state or federal government i think would be wise to take the initiative and make sure providing computing utility does not become an entirely private venture (they might even contract with cometa:) as well as take steps to protect personal and community networks already existing.
The new manufacturing technology enabled by the 300-mm technology also provides significant benefits from an environmental perspective. The chips manufactured in Fab11X will require less water and generate fewer emissions per chip than other fabs. Water and chemical use will be more efficient. When compared to a 200-mm facility Fab 11X will produce 48 percent less volatile organic compound emissions, use 42 percent less ultra pure water and will use approximately 40 percent less energy.
maybe mcfarlane should go back and read spawn #10. and maybe dave sim could reprise the story/allegory to miracleman if and when it ever starts a new run! (i'm thinking a revolutionary-cum-dictator story arc - with some essays on feminism, homosexuality and animal rights sprinkled in, keke:)
not to disparage wilson (the divide and harvest are faves) but often (sadly:) choice of sci-fi is governed by cover-art. thankfully, the chronoliths has one of the best, stephan martiniere!
in the opening sequence! the movie still sucked tho:)
gov't patent buy-outs [x-post]
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 1
patent buy-outs i think is an interesting way to encourage innovation while at the same time promote develoment. basically, it's just the government buying patents and placing them in the public domain. kind of like lawrence lessig's "creative commons." j.bradford delong of berkeley and larry summers (of harvard:) say,
"like the French government's purchase and placing in the public domain of the first photographic patents in the early nineteenth century... The work of Harvard economist Michael Kremer (
1998, 2000), both with respect to the possibility of public purchase of patents at auction and of shifting some public research and development funding from effort-oriented to result-oriented processes (that is, holding contests for private companies to develop vaccines instead of funding research directly), is especially intriguing in its attempts to develop institutions that have all the advantages of market competition, natural monopoly, and public provision."
there was also an EE times story on this recently with some details on their broadband gaming service they're going to unveil: "Okamoto also said that Sony will roll out broadband gaming features and services for the Playstation 2 this year, working with partners such as America Online, iMode, Telewest and Vodaphone. Those services will use a so-called Dynamic Network Authorization System for copyright management. The system is based on a disk ID that is read by a DNAS server, he said."
yeah the guy who reviewed the universe in a nutshell had this to say:
"The anthropic principle is one of the more remarkable swindles in physics. Indeed it is metaphysics, and that is the essence of the problem for most physicists in accepting it. The anthropic logic is either immensely subtle, by arguing that we, via our mere existence, control the cosmos, or unabashedly naive, by setting aside any physics explanations that any ultimate theory of physics might reasonably be expected to deliver. Metaphysics lacks predictive power, the very core of physics. The anthropic principle is an extreme expression of our ignorance."
i like this version of the participatory anthropic principle (PAP). sweet, sweet CRAP.
Slashdot Mirror
that's kinda the premise of greg egan's _luminous_ (in the eponymous short story book)
also it may be that quantum computation need occur in the 'multiverse', cf. david deutsch
oh and gregory chaitin on undecidable propositions & randomness, viz. omega :P cheers!
http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html
semi-interesting...y _id=8625931
http://economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?stor
here's jim larus and galen hunt talking about their project.
[:)]
EOM
Well maybe not in the US as a whole, but it is occuring in certain municipalities like Provo and Spokane.
the us marine corps' recommended reading list for "Doctrine, Training, and Tactics" has ender's game for corporal-sargeant! no word yet on shadow of the hegemon for secretary of state :D
dan kohn wrote a nice essay ("steal this essay 1") about why when the marginal cost to produce something is zero, the property regime must be rethought. bradford delong, a berkeley economist (and occasional wired contributor :) in conjunction with froomkin wrote a more detailed piece here. oh and delong also presented with lawrence summers (former treasury secretary, now president of harvard) this stuff at the 2001 annual federal reserve symposium in jackson hole, including an interesting proposal:
"New institutions and new kinds of institutions--perhaps even some that have been tried before, like the French government's purchase and placing in the public domain of the first photographic patents in the early nineteenth century (see Kremer (1998))--may well be necessary to achieve the fourfold objectives of (a) price equal to marginal cost, (b) entrepreneurial energy, (c) accelerating the cumulative process of research, and (d) providing appropriate financial incentives for research and development. The work of Harvard economist Michael Kremer (1998, 2000), both with respect to the possibility of public purchase of patents at auction and of shifting some public research and development funding from effort-oriented to result-oriented processes (that is, holding contests for private companies to develop vaccines instead of funding research directly), is especially intriguing in its attempts to develop institutions that have all the advantages of market competition, natural monopoly, and public provision."
Lessig: ...Coase's arguments reflected the state of the art at the time. Property was the best way to allocate spectrum in 1959. But it's the wrong answer today. Not because property does no good -- in fact, it does a great deal of good. This should not be taken to imply that administrative allocations are inevitably worse -- a market has costs, and if those costs exceed the value, then markets result in misallocation. Coase's insight -- most prescient -- is that spectrum is not in its nature rivalrous. It's not a thing at all. Colors, sounds correspond to frequency.
i read one of the panelists books awhile back (actually after a reference on slashdot :), the future of money by bernard lietaer. his main point is that "money is an agreement," which under that definition simplies the commonly understood definition -- a unit of account, a store of value, a means of exchange. so the scarcity of money in a society is a scarcity of agreement (echoed in dostoevsky's dream of ridiculous man btw, "if only we all agreed, it could all be arranged at once.")
:) and that there'd be fewer financial and economic catastrophes if 'alternative' currencies were promoted and in some cases legalized to fill gaps not serviced by 'traditional' money. in the US, for example, i think the federal reserve's monetary policy 'levers' are increasingly blunt tools to regulate business cycles and the economic environment. having myriad interoperating systems of currencies could provide for a more stable and balanced system. one of the more interesting non-fiction books i've read in the past few years!
from there he talks about how to create monetary systems that foster more agreement, creating money on demand with no inflationary consequences, such as Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) and HOURS. he also talks about demurrage currencies (used after WWI in austria--the worgl experiment--with interesting speculation that if it had been allowed to succeed, WWII may never have occurred!) and commodity buffer stocks originally advocated by keynes following WWII at bretton woods as the basis for the international monetary system (gold with the US dollar as reference currency was chosen instead--the white plan--and i think it was nixon who took us off the gold standard to finance the vietnam war more easily).
anyway, his point is that fractional reserve fiat based currencies are good for some things, but not suited for others (kind of like operating systems
also btw, that same poster who dropped the lietaer book on me also had an interesting post on dee hock oh and, another cool take on money is keith hart's the memory bank. sorry to see he's not on the panel.
IBM has said they want to turn computing into a utility (kind of like how the the weather simulations were conducted in "permutation city" :) so having a nation-wide wireless network (alongside its global services division) seems like just another step down the road... to world domination, j/k!
:) as well as take steps to protect personal and community networks already existing.
ironically tho, the very idea of mimicking a utility would appear to make government (federal, state or municipal) more suited to its delivery -- like how the road and highway system is administered in the US or perhaps a pseudo-public venture like the US postal service, which still leaves room for private competition.
the altruistically anarchic model for wireless network expansion is ideal and i hope it continues! but it's naive to think private entities would be content to provide equipment (as literally shareware) for an emerging wireless network and not seek to run (and monetize) them.
local, state or federal government i think would be wise to take the initiative and make sure providing computing utility does not become an entirely private venture (they might even contract with cometa
at least from the intel press release :D
The new manufacturing technology enabled by the 300-mm technology also provides significant benefits from an environmental perspective. The chips manufactured in Fab11X will require less water and generate fewer emissions per chip than other fabs. Water and chemical use will be more efficient. When compared to a 200-mm facility Fab 11X will produce 48 percent less volatile organic compound emissions, use 42 percent less ultra pure water and will use approximately 40 percent less energy.
neal stephenson wrote about his 'round the world vacation in wired 4.12: Mother Earth Mother Board about getting (transcontinental fibre :) laid!
that is all :D
maybe mcfarlane should go back and read spawn #10. and maybe dave sim could reprise the story/allegory to miracleman if and when it ever starts a new run! (i'm thinking a revolutionary-cum-dictator story arc - with some essays on feminism, homosexuality and animal rights sprinkled in, keke :)
not to disparage wilson (the divide and harvest are faves) but often (sadly :) choice of sci-fi is governed by cover-art. thankfully, the chronoliths has one of the best, stephan martiniere!
in the opening sequence! the movie still sucked tho :)
one way might be to start a LETS, like the kind in victoria.
there was also an EE times story on this recently with some details on their broadband gaming service they're going to unveil: "Okamoto also said that Sony will roll out broadband gaming features and services for the Playstation 2 this year, working with partners such as America Online, iMode, Telewest and Vodaphone. Those services will use a so-called Dynamic Network Authorization System for copyright management. The system is based on a disk ID that is read by a DNAS server, he said."
Go Taco!
yeah the guy who reviewed the universe in a nutshell had this to say:
"The anthropic principle is one of the more remarkable swindles in physics. Indeed it is metaphysics, and that is the essence of the problem for most physicists in accepting it. The anthropic logic is either immensely subtle, by arguing that we, via our mere existence, control the cosmos, or unabashedly naive, by setting aside any physics explanations that any ultimate theory of physics might reasonably be expected to deliver. Metaphysics lacks predictive power, the very core of physics. The anthropic principle is an extreme expression of our ignorance."
i like this version of the participatory anthropic principle (PAP). sweet, sweet CRAP.