Influence buying and peddling are what the pseudo-copyright ecosystem folks are all about. Go ahead, look at how the RIAA, the MPAA, and the other EIA/TIA working groups give campaign contributions to federal and state representatives. Then tell me about free fucking speech.
You, too, need to look at llccp.net to understand how the last mile can be done and make broadband selection vendor-neutral, and pay back municipalities for the infrastructure-- yet be business positive.
I don't care if the genie is out of the bottle in terms of embedded (and buried!) costs by the telcos. I'm not a stockholder, and that's the only party that the telcos care about these days-- certainly not their customers.
It's like the price of oil going up this afternoon. A leap from $2 to $2.45 used to be justified because we were at war, or there was a Nigerian pipeline explosion, or some other ruse that speculators quibbled caused the supply/demand slope to tip. These were lies, and now the speculators jerk up the price of oil simply because they can. The telcos are no different in their protectionism and their fealty ONLY to stockholders.
Telcos got the monopoly because they were a public service, and they're a service no more. Change the deal? Based on the bribery and plain deceit of companies like MCI and Enron? The megaBell of AT&T???? No f'ing way. In my mind, the telcos are plainly criminals, and poster-boys for corporate malaise.
Look at the CPUs that have been forced out of the market, and the litigation against Intel as an indicator that it's not a free market. It's dominated by Intel. The largest fine in the history of the world has been leveled against Intel. More than Microsoft, or AT&T, or anyone else.
The Itanium itself was a way to coopt HP's PA-RISC chip. The UltraSparc is almost toast. MIPS? How many more, like the Moto/IBM PowerPC chip? Relegated to game machines via cell technology?
No.... the microprocessor market is rife with the dominating characteristics that make Intel appear as though a monopoly. Yes, there are other historical reasons why Intel got there, but they behave in monopolistic practices.
Monopolies are market dominations by one company, hence the root 'mono'. Utilities were given the ability to dominate in exchange for rate oversight and planning. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were thousands of power companies, phone companies, and far fewer natural gas and water/sewer companies (most were co-ops).
The current corruption and co-opting of politicians has reduced local control of utilities to national policy, and so the telcos have focused their efforts to that target. 'Free market' has become a meaningless term. Competition is a good thing, and monopolies are inherently a bad thing without controls. Those controls have been essentially unraveled over the past 20yrs.
Cable companies used to require franchise agreements and oversight. Now, they do what they want and unbelievably, don't have to share their lines like telcos do. So the telcos deployed DSL to get around the 'share' problem. Gutless wonders in Washington sold control down the river.
Further: corruption in one domain doesn't justify corruption in an other domain. Market leaders are not necessarily monopolies, either. In communications/telephony in US today, however, the competition is far too slim and needs to be brought back to local control with local objectives and local oversight. It's not bureaucracy, it's good government.
Monopolies inevitably become excessive. Free markets are just another buzzword for leave me alone, I want to suck as much out of something as I can without regulation or pesky rules to get in my way.
The states comprised 47 different authorities that the monopolies had to deal with, so they lobbied moving things to a federal level so they only had one jurisdiction to bribe. Now the state utility authorities are almost toothless when it comes to regulating the re-formed giants that are Verizon, Quest, AT&T, etc.
These guys are very interested in TOTAL domination of their markets and they know they have the cost barrier points in their favor, signed-sealed-and-delivered by the FCC and the Congress. After all, they PAID FOR IT. Go ahead, check out the records of how much the utilities have spent on lobbying and campaign contributions (yes, legal bribes).
And personally, I believe the 'free market' is a sham for 'do what I want cause I got the gold'. Utilities were granted many qualities in exchange for a monopoly. Now that monopoly has turned against us, almost uniformly.
Instead, make infrastructure part of building codes and get community builders mandated to run decent fiber (not FiOS) drops to each residence.
Doctorow makes a great point about the abuse and monopolistic attitude that telcos have had for decades-- all bought and paid for at the Legislative Market. These stinking thieves do indeed put out capital for infrastructure, but they're only beholden to shareholders, not ratepayers in their captive markets.
Maybe you haven't seen the tattoos.... markers of a society gone berserk with hate. Perhaps being queer, black or a different color, or perhaps a different political persuasion, or a unionist, or maybe someone with a disease means nothing to you, or your liberty.
We agree that when you're out in public, your whereabouts can be recorded. However, adding a GPS unknowingly to a vehicle isn't covered here. That's the whole point.
And yes, there is no specific right to privacy in the constitution. Now learn about how privacy is imbued by the first, second, fourth, fifth, and fourteenth amendments.
I should have qualified which set of conditions my statements were about, but as the jurisdiction of the court is the State of Wisconsin, it doesn't actually apply to me as I'm in another state.
And while we would agree with your sig statement, liberty is a very personal quality. The Wisconsin court erred. They should be ashamed..... of course that never happens.
The right to free association also imbues privacy of that association. Such tracking without probable cause violates privacy, free speech, due process, and is high in calories.
Police have a right to follow me, as I have a right to make it difficult for them to do so without probable cause. My presence is my business, and not theirs.
Vista indeed lacked drivers for lots of gear. It also in one swoop, made lots of applications that were compatible with XP SP2 incompatible. Worse, it pestered users to death with unnecessary messages, and had several glaring holes that needed to be fixed right away.
People aren't stupid, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Vista had no extra real value, and that's a decided design flaw-- along with the rest of the problems: lack of drivers, big security holes right off the bat, lots of backwards compatibility issues with software that worked well under user mode models initiated in XP SP2, and a litany of lies about what Vista-compatible really means.
It was a disaster. Heads should have rolled. The insular, not-invented-here culture of Microsoft caused user huge subsequent problems. Windows 7 cures some of those ills just by being a known quantity and having ostensible compatibility and drivers out of the box. It has, perhaps, usable value where the value between XP and Vista was dubious, and performance tests clearly showed that XP 32-bit vs Vista 32-bit was at best a wash.
So was it a bad design? Yeah. And worse, they lied about it. This version will be scrutinized like no other. People are pissed. Microsoft has about one chance here, or the slippery slope that they're on will continue to elevate in angular inclination. In one year, that's not a problem, in five years, it's a new career.
And we would agree that Mr Loose and Fast architected one of the buggiest and more irresponsible pieces of junk ever foisted on an unsuspecting public.
No matter, it's up to others to punish Microsoft. You and I must deal with the reality of supporting those that made the Windows selection. W7 might work. It's better than the sharp stick in the eye that is Vista.
Take a look at Microsoft's 10K. Read the press and talk to large organizational users; query about Vista adoption rates.
Look at the 10Ks, look at the results you'll get. Draw a line. Vista is a flagship product that's roiling. Netbooks, advances in competition, and other matters of fact are costing Microsoft dearly. That's why WIndows 7 will be out, post haste. The three year cycle is dead. Long live the three year cycle hubris. May it rot. When you start believing your own propaganda, life gets worse.
Others would disagree with your assessment, as in the marketplace which almost uniformly rejected Vista as bloated, incompatible, buggy, and not the post-XP replacement it should have been. The media was correctly responsible in calling Vista the Aporkolypse.
What would blatant, even anarchistic openness do that's bad? We're a nation of critics now. Whether seemingly entitled by degree or simply desire, we all get Free Assembly and Free Speech.
Where atty/client relationships are concerned, there are already many constraints as to what can be publicly published. The court of public opinion has always had a voice, and that voice has been listened to and acknowledged. That acknowledgement might be bending or swaying to those opinions, or in many cases (thank heavens) not.
The discipline enforced on SCOTA and other judiciary is important. Bring in cameras. Do YouTube when/where privacy isn't compromised. Talk about it. Blog it. Blogging is a lot like writing a column; it's opinion. Journalists will (hopefully) adhere to a different set of ethics that among other things, requires balance.
If you're a judge, your opinion's already published. And there are reams of law books and sources of online information that track the courts. What I'd like to see: if you litigate, and settle out of court, I'd like to know how you settled. It would keep the courts a lot cleaner and bereft of mindless litigation. If you take it to court, you must tell the court of your settlement to the complaint filed.
The airlines do this all the time, where one carrier raises prices, then maybe one or two follow to see if it can stick.
Murdoch won't be permitted to make it stick. The actual value of his journalistic endeavors is pretty poor-- especially in the post financial crisis meltdown. Add in the dubious qualities of Fox Network, and the only possibility he has is to take other Fox media and put it onto Hulu and hope.
Murdoch lives in fantasyland, along with a lot of other old media publishers.
Yes, and we're human and used to not having to use magnifying glasses to read 2pt text. Face it: it's not an HDTV. I carry around a few things now. I'm used to schlepping gear. Others won't do it. Hell, there are still lots of people that don't use cell/mobiles altogether.
I can break out my notebook and get whatever I want, including free VoIP just about anywhere these days in the US (within reason, of course). The problem is that with a new hammer, everything looks like a nail. The cell phone isn't a nail, and the iPhone makes a crappy reader. Those that might stoop to use it in such a way are robbing others of better and more convenient form factors.
You're imposing your own standards, and foolishly, when you say that people don't want a separate reader device. I certainly do. You don't, so you exclude everyone by your statement. That's pretty silly. I want to prop up a reader on my patio and read the paper in the morning while I eat my bagel or yogurt or whatever.
A reader is tougher to lose (albeit easier to crack, probably). Battery life can be longer because there's more geometry to the device. A phone, prior a device held to one's ear, has been modded to the point of deception. Certainly there will be people that sacrifice the convenience of the form factor for its poor quality reproduction of media and its handiness, but it's a sacrifice nonetheless. We can and should do better.
The whole philosophy seems to smack of undying narcissism. It's ok to fear death; it's part of western culture, and key to survival. As we experience life individually and only marginally as a collective (civility as bad as it is), it's understandable that living forever seems like a good idea. We're here as an accident of our birth. Disembodied, we might evolve, but we're not designed for 400 years of life. Who knows what kind of cyber-insanity might evolve. I'm leaving it up to my kids to figure it out, as it was left up to me to figure it out.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent up.
Influence buying and peddling are what the pseudo-copyright ecosystem folks are all about. Go ahead, look at how the RIAA, the MPAA, and the other EIA/TIA working groups give campaign contributions to federal and state representatives. Then tell me about free fucking speech.
Your power company might be ok....
But then, you don't live in Houston, or Southern California, or NYC, or Cleveland, or Miami, (etc etc).
Local utilities (not national consolidated monopolies) often do server their clientele right and for the right reasons.
Choice is important. The temptation to abuse one's monopoly is a very difficult one to avoid.
You, too, need to look at llccp.net to understand how the last mile can be done and make broadband selection vendor-neutral, and pay back municipalities for the infrastructure-- yet be business positive.
I don't care if the genie is out of the bottle in terms of embedded (and buried!) costs by the telcos. I'm not a stockholder, and that's the only party that the telcos care about these days-- certainly not their customers.
It's like the price of oil going up this afternoon. A leap from $2 to $2.45 used to be justified because we were at war, or there was a Nigerian pipeline explosion, or some other ruse that speculators quibbled caused the supply/demand slope to tip. These were lies, and now the speculators jerk up the price of oil simply because they can. The telcos are no different in their protectionism and their fealty ONLY to stockholders.
Telcos got the monopoly because they were a public service, and they're a service no more. Change the deal? Based on the bribery and plain deceit of companies like MCI and Enron? The megaBell of AT&T???? No f'ing way. In my mind, the telcos are plainly criminals, and poster-boys for corporate malaise.
But it failed.
Look at the CPUs that have been forced out of the market, and the litigation against Intel as an indicator that it's not a free market. It's dominated by Intel. The largest fine in the history of the world has been leveled against Intel. More than Microsoft, or AT&T, or anyone else.
The Itanium itself was a way to coopt HP's PA-RISC chip. The UltraSparc is almost toast. MIPS? How many more, like the Moto/IBM PowerPC chip? Relegated to game machines via cell technology?
No.... the microprocessor market is rife with the dominating characteristics that make Intel appear as though a monopoly. Yes, there are other historical reasons why Intel got there, but they behave in monopolistic practices.
We disagree in part.
Monopolies are market dominations by one company, hence the root 'mono'. Utilities were given the ability to dominate in exchange for rate oversight and planning. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were thousands of power companies, phone companies, and far fewer natural gas and water/sewer companies (most were co-ops).
The current corruption and co-opting of politicians has reduced local control of utilities to national policy, and so the telcos have focused their efforts to that target. 'Free market' has become a meaningless term. Competition is a good thing, and monopolies are inherently a bad thing without controls. Those controls have been essentially unraveled over the past 20yrs.
Cable companies used to require franchise agreements and oversight. Now, they do what they want and unbelievably, don't have to share their lines like telcos do. So the telcos deployed DSL to get around the 'share' problem. Gutless wonders in Washington sold control down the river.
Further: corruption in one domain doesn't justify corruption in an other domain. Market leaders are not necessarily monopolies, either. In communications/telephony in US today, however, the competition is far too slim and needs to be brought back to local control with local objectives and local oversight. It's not bureaucracy, it's good government.
Oh that's BS and you know it.
Monopolies inevitably become excessive. Free markets are just another buzzword for leave me alone, I want to suck as much out of something as I can without regulation or pesky rules to get in my way.
The states comprised 47 different authorities that the monopolies had to deal with, so they lobbied moving things to a federal level so they only had one jurisdiction to bribe. Now the state utility authorities are almost toothless when it comes to regulating the re-formed giants that are Verizon, Quest, AT&T, etc.
These guys are very interested in TOTAL domination of their markets and they know they have the cost barrier points in their favor, signed-sealed-and-delivered by the FCC and the Congress. After all, they PAID FOR IT. Go ahead, check out the records of how much the utilities have spent on lobbying and campaign contributions (yes, legal bribes).
Uh, no.
See several projects, including http://www.llccp.net/asp/Site/LLCCP/AboutLLCCP/Introduction/index.asp among others.
And personally, I believe the 'free market' is a sham for 'do what I want cause I got the gold'. Utilities were granted many qualities in exchange for a monopoly. Now that monopoly has turned against us, almost uniformly.
Instead, make infrastructure part of building codes and get community builders mandated to run decent fiber (not FiOS) drops to each residence.
Doctorow makes a great point about the abuse and monopolistic attitude that telcos have had for decades-- all bought and paid for at the Legislative Market. These stinking thieves do indeed put out capital for infrastructure, but they're only beholden to shareholders, not ratepayers in their captive markets.
And that's the reason this device shouldn't be used: safety.
Oh, gosh, let's run upstairs and unchain Billy and Jane because the house is on fire again.
The rest of the debate is easier, IMHO: you get more flies with honey with vinegar.
Maybe you haven't seen the tattoos.... markers of a society gone berserk with hate. Perhaps being queer, black or a different color, or perhaps a different political persuasion, or a unionist, or maybe someone with a disease means nothing to you, or your liberty.
Lucky you. Walk on. You can pass.
Uh, no.
If they wanted privacy, they should have put a curtain around it.
It's a public place, a public camera. There is no probable cause here.
I think you're chucking your sense of liberty. First it's IDs, then it's little yellow stars on your chest. Never forget.
We agree that when you're out in public, your whereabouts can be recorded. However, adding a GPS unknowingly to a vehicle isn't covered here. That's the whole point.
And yes, there is no specific right to privacy in the constitution. Now learn about how privacy is imbued by the first, second, fourth, fifth, and fourteenth amendments.
Uh, no.
I should have qualified which set of conditions my statements were about, but as the jurisdiction of the court is the State of Wisconsin, it doesn't actually apply to me as I'm in another state.
And while we would agree with your sig statement, liberty is a very personal quality. The Wisconsin court erred. They should be ashamed..... of course that never happens.
NO.
The right to free association also imbues privacy of that association. Such tracking without probable cause violates privacy, free speech, due process, and is high in calories.
Police have a right to follow me, as I have a right to make it difficult for them to do so without probable cause. My presence is my business, and not theirs.
We disagree.
Vista indeed lacked drivers for lots of gear. It also in one swoop, made lots of applications that were compatible with XP SP2 incompatible. Worse, it pestered users to death with unnecessary messages, and had several glaring holes that needed to be fixed right away.
People aren't stupid, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Vista had no extra real value, and that's a decided design flaw-- along with the rest of the problems: lack of drivers, big security holes right off the bat, lots of backwards compatibility issues with software that worked well under user mode models initiated in XP SP2, and a litany of lies about what Vista-compatible really means.
It was a disaster. Heads should have rolled. The insular, not-invented-here culture of Microsoft caused user huge subsequent problems. Windows 7 cures some of those ills just by being a known quantity and having ostensible compatibility and drivers out of the box. It has, perhaps, usable value where the value between XP and Vista was dubious, and performance tests clearly showed that XP 32-bit vs Vista 32-bit was at best a wash.
So was it a bad design? Yeah. And worse, they lied about it. This version will be scrutinized like no other. People are pissed. Microsoft has about one chance here, or the slippery slope that they're on will continue to elevate in angular inclination. In one year, that's not a problem, in five years, it's a new career.
And we would agree that Mr Loose and Fast architected one of the buggiest and more irresponsible pieces of junk ever foisted on an unsuspecting public.
No matter, it's up to others to punish Microsoft. You and I must deal with the reality of supporting those that made the Windows selection. W7 might work. It's better than the sharp stick in the eye that is Vista.
And being a realist is fine.
Take a look at Microsoft's 10K. Read the press and talk to large organizational users; query about Vista adoption rates.
Look at the 10Ks, look at the results you'll get. Draw a line. Vista is a flagship product that's roiling. Netbooks, advances in competition, and other matters of fact are costing Microsoft dearly. That's why WIndows 7 will be out, post haste. The three year cycle is dead. Long live the three year cycle hubris. May it rot. When you start believing your own propaganda, life gets worse.
Yeah, that's a great solution. Wipe a nice fat drive array, then start over. Right. Wipe it. Got it.
You read much propaganda. Now tell me, oh Microsoft shill, how many downgrades to XP were sold. Go on. Tell me.
Others would disagree with your assessment, as in the marketplace which almost uniformly rejected Vista as bloated, incompatible, buggy, and not the post-XP replacement it should have been. The media was correctly responsible in calling Vista the Aporkolypse.
No, most people don't say the "three year rule". Where have you been?
Microsoft's suffering revenue shortfalls because Vista was a bad idea. You'll see the tip in September, real McCoy in October. That's not 'late fall'.
What would blatant, even anarchistic openness do that's bad? We're a nation of critics now. Whether seemingly entitled by degree or simply desire, we all get Free Assembly and Free Speech.
Where atty/client relationships are concerned, there are already many constraints as to what can be publicly published. The court of public opinion has always had a voice, and that voice has been listened to and acknowledged. That acknowledgement might be bending or swaying to those opinions, or in many cases (thank heavens) not.
The discipline enforced on SCOTA and other judiciary is important. Bring in cameras. Do YouTube when/where privacy isn't compromised. Talk about it. Blog it. Blogging is a lot like writing a column; it's opinion. Journalists will (hopefully) adhere to a different set of ethics that among other things, requires balance.
If you're a judge, your opinion's already published. And there are reams of law books and sources of online information that track the courts. What I'd like to see: if you litigate, and settle out of court, I'd like to know how you settled. It would keep the courts a lot cleaner and bereft of mindless litigation. If you take it to court, you must tell the court of your settlement to the complaint filed.
The airlines do this all the time, where one carrier raises prices, then maybe one or two follow to see if it can stick.
Murdoch won't be permitted to make it stick. The actual value of his journalistic endeavors is pretty poor-- especially in the post financial crisis meltdown. Add in the dubious qualities of Fox Network, and the only possibility he has is to take other Fox media and put it onto Hulu and hope.
Murdoch lives in fantasyland, along with a lot of other old media publishers.
Yes, and we're human and used to not having to use magnifying glasses to read 2pt text. Face it: it's not an HDTV. I carry around a few things now. I'm used to schlepping gear. Others won't do it. Hell, there are still lots of people that don't use cell/mobiles altogether.
I can break out my notebook and get whatever I want, including free VoIP just about anywhere these days in the US (within reason, of course). The problem is that with a new hammer, everything looks like a nail. The cell phone isn't a nail, and the iPhone makes a crappy reader. Those that might stoop to use it in such a way are robbing others of better and more convenient form factors.
You're imposing your own standards, and foolishly, when you say that people don't want a separate reader device. I certainly do. You don't, so you exclude everyone by your statement. That's pretty silly. I want to prop up a reader on my patio and read the paper in the morning while I eat my bagel or yogurt or whatever.
A reader is tougher to lose (albeit easier to crack, probably). Battery life can be longer because there's more geometry to the device. A phone, prior a device held to one's ear, has been modded to the point of deception. Certainly there will be people that sacrifice the convenience of the form factor for its poor quality reproduction of media and its handiness, but it's a sacrifice nonetheless. We can and should do better.
The whole philosophy seems to smack of undying narcissism. It's ok to fear death; it's part of western culture, and key to survival. As we experience life individually and only marginally as a collective (civility as bad as it is), it's understandable that living forever seems like a good idea. We're here as an accident of our birth. Disembodied, we might evolve, but we're not designed for 400 years of life. Who knows what kind of cyber-insanity might evolve. I'm leaving it up to my kids to figure it out, as it was left up to me to figure it out.