Prominent in his article are the words:
"The world of Warcraft teaches this:" followed by a number of things that this world allegedly "teaches".
Now World of Warcraft is a subscription-based game. Because of that, maximising players' loyalty also maximises publisher revenues.
So... of course it's crafted in such a way that it rewards loyalty. By quitting his account, a player who has played for say 3 months will feel that he has something to loose that's proportional to the total time spent on the game. Also he'll feel he'll have "achieved" something that complete newcomers don't have.
I would have thought that this was obvious and transparant, and I can't imagine that players don't see that. Instead of getting excited about lessons supposedly taught within the make-believe world of the game, why not take a look at what it teaches in the real world? I'd say that it teaches a few age-old marketing truths.
"The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"
Oh yeah? I don't think so. Not the way he means it. As far as I know the Internet subscribers together (companies and private homes) happen to pay for *all* of the network traffic they generate across the *entire* network.
Content providers and private homes are already being double-charged because large accounts get charged for the amount of traffic they generate, and individual subscribers are chrged for the average amount of traffic that someone in their position is likely to cause.
For example: when I use Google's website I initiate the connection and I pull information down the network towards me. The content provider (Google) is completely passive. Nonetheless I am charged for the amount of traffic that I cause (upload and download) and Google is charged for the amount of traffic that it causes. So... double charging is here already (and has been since the start of the Internet). And somehow I cannot believe for an insstant that network operators are currently making a loss.
But that isn't the point of course. Network operators have caught on that they can raise their prices in two ways.
a) people may be made to pay more for the same service simply by practicing the age-old custom of "market segmentation" (platinum, gold, silver). And of course each market segment needs a certain amount of reserved bandwidth ("to ensure service levels for our customers"). Now one can think of plenty of innucuous "reserved bandwidth" schemes that will cause (purely artificial) bandwith shortages and hence a performance drop for the lower-priced segments. And hence incentives to "upgrade". Ca-ching !
b) businesses that totally depend on network access (Google, music sites, travel sites, Amazon, Ebay etc. etc.) can be "touched" for far more than they are paying now. In fact they can be "touched" for a percentage of their gross income! If only they can be cornered in a disadvantageous negotiation position.
If telecoms companies can charge content providers what the service is *worth* to them, rather than what it costs the telecom providers to provide it, then the telecoms stand to gain. And that is where content differentiation comes in. Now you don't need a network monopoly anymore: you simply present itemised bills according to the traffic characteristics (origins and destinations of the IP packets!) on *your* network. Unless some other competitor has 100% the same network coverage as yourself there are areas where traffic needs to go through *your* network. That's where you've got them over a barrel. The effectivity of this scheme increases with the size of the netowrk that you control. Hence the incentive for telecoms companies to acquire and merge. Ca-ching!
I don't for an instance believe that the telco's are somehow "creating value" in this way. It's more like a tax. They are simply gearing up tp price-gauge their customers, helped by the current FCC stance that network operators aren't utility companies but can simply charge whatever the market will bear. And a properly differentiated market will bear so much more... Not that this is particularly evil... it's just what profit maximisers do.
The question is then: is it in our best interests to allow them to do so? And the really tragic part of the answer is that some people (the author of the parent post for example) seem to fall for this type of reasoning:
a) "if they think they can have free use they're nuts", and
b) therefore I should be able to charge them according to what my service is worth to them... not what it costs me to provide it,
c) and I should have the freedom to arrange the market so that charging for content becomes the norm (lobbying in congress and with th
Firstly: well done for generating the traffic. Catchy headline, appeal to all those startrek fans out there, a hint of highly advanced Government research projects and yes... the article exists and experiments are being carried out.
However... those who actually bothered to read the article found this:
"But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a few physicists who have a different opinion. [...] It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."
This is a polite way of saying... that the whole thing is such an oddball interpretation of current physics theory that it needs needs solid experimental proof as a sanity check before we can talk further.
Sort of puts a different light on the whole thing, doesn't it?
FUD through Astroturfing !?
on
The Demise of IP?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
According to Melanie Wyne of the Initiative for Software Choice, we are facing disaster.
"It reflects the currently fashionable idea that confiscatory government policy must be used to even the score (whatever that means), thrusting highly demanded, privately risked IP out of the hands of legitimate property owners and into the hands of other, favored actors to further "develop" it."
"confiscatory government policy" ??? Mandating a standard (open) document format for government use is "confiscatory" policy? What in heavens name is "confiscated"? Not the holy IP anyway.
What is "confiscated" is the possibility for the currently dominant Office software vendor to maintain a lock on office software through proprietary document formats. And how is that bad? Every software writer on the planet can use the Open Document standard for free. Including the current heavyweight. Funny thing is... if the document format becomes standardised, then you loose an argument for buying the next version of MS Office. Competition will be more on price and performance. Bad news for Mircrosoft, the firm wich currently has market dominance, good news for everyone else. If that is "confiscatory" then I can live with it.
But who is this Initiative for Software Choice anyway? According to the Economist, the Initiative for Software Choice, is a Microsoft-supported lobby group that also made itself heard to decry the adoption of Linux in Munich. (see http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm ?story_id=2054746)/
Ah, now it starts to make sense. If you want to villify something in US public perception, call it "Socialist", or even better "Communist". "Anti-property" will do nicely too. If you can make that stick, then you have them on the defensive no matter what. In the absence of credible evidence try the next best thing... and call it "confiscatory government policy".
What better way to try and rub off a scary association onto Open Document than to have an innocuously sounding "initiative" worriedly denounce it as "confiscatory". It doesn't make sense but that it doesn't matter. PR pieces don't have to make sense, they have to make a splash.
Well done Initiative for Software Choice, and well done News.Com for publishing it without comment or research!
I think this is a clever ruse on part of Miscrosft:
1) MS won't loose anything because these document formats are being phased out in favour of XML with proprietary keys in newer versions of Office.
2) I suspect (but I'm not certain) that old MS Office formats still require some license from MS, possibly for patents, thus enabling them to keep Open Source software at bay
3) It knocks the single most dangerous argument against MS Office software out of their opponents hands.
So far this discussion has had a distinctly American flavour:
- Government is bad
- Foreign Governments are worse
- the UN is worst of all.
Whilst I love the freedom that the Internet gives me, I have to concede that it cannot be a place of lawlessness. Despite all the emotional reactions against government interference. And that is where government comes in. Both as regards security (read anti-terrorism, using Internet taps as evidence in criminal cases) and as regards protection of property (read copyright infringement). Government will have an influence on the Internet. In fact it has already, and its role is increasing. Get over it!
Now the big question is what form this government influence should take, and how far it should go.
On the one hand we have the "minimalist" approach (the one I side with) which will only regulate that which is needed to uphold existing law, and the "meddlesome" approach in which we see government censorship of websites.
From what I see, meddlesome governments are going to have a meddlesome influence on that part of the Internet which is hosted on their territory, and maybe have a big mandatory firewall on any routers that sit on the pipelines to foreign parts. We are seeing that already in the case of China and Iran. Tough on their citizins, but what can we do? After all... who is going to stop a government from exerting its authority over what's done with all the routers, switches and servers on its territory?
Then there is the issue of names and numbers. That's what worries me. One the one hand, are we really justified in expecting the rest of the world to acept the decisions of ICANN (being beholden only to the US dept. of Commerce)? If they were beyond reproach, yes, but they aren't.
What about the shortage of IP numbers? Who decides the allocation of them, and who decides whther or not we'll move to IP6? There seem to be some concerns of a non-technical, non-neutral type. And about domains? Is it reasonable to expect China, India, and Europe to be dependent on ICANN for a decision on whether or not they can have an additional domain? Some subsidiarity may be called for here.
And on top of that the declaration of the Bush adminstration that it will retain control of the Internet. As far as I'm concerned... they blew it.
Now as others have pointed out... there is an easy and natural way this can go: fracturing of the Internet along national lines. The alternative is tedious negotiation. Of the sort we see happening now.
And you know what? If the result is not acceptable, the US won't go along with it. Then we'll see who'd rather be compliant with US dns servers and who'd rather have the ones in China or Iran. And frankly... I don't think we'd have much to worry about. It looks as if it's their problem, not ours.
This is one of the reasons (besides the fees) why I don't play Everquest.
Compare this to e.g. the (now slightly old) game of "Neverwinter Nights". With this game every game CD also contains a server module, so that anyone who buys the game can also host it. Depending on the hardware specs of the server, such a gameworld will host 20-60 players, and depending on the quality of the Internet connection there will be noticeable lag or not.
Over the years a few hundred NWN servers have emerged throughout the world, each with its own game world. The vast majority of them run by enthousiasts and volunteers, although some ISP's run their own NWN server.
To me this has a number of advantages:
- choice (Game worlds vary from worlds with hardcore D&D rules, to more relaxed Roleplay worlds, to hack-and-slash worlds to tournament servers. If you don't like a server for whatever reason, other servers are just a mouseclick away.)
- fairly small community on the server (so people tend to know each other to some degree, and there is no basis for buying or selling gameworld stuff for real-life money)
- more intensive contact with Game Masters (on average 1 GM per 20 players)
- you can make your voice heard if necessary
- since the gameworld is "home-made", it can be customised and adapted and sometimes respond to In-Game events. Suppose e.g. that a battle for a city takes place. If the attackers win, the next version of the game world after a server reset can see the city reduced to ruins.
- no monthly fees (except for your own internet connection)
- people come online to have fun, not to make money.
Of course it may also have some disadvantages for you:
- the gameworlds tend to be smaller than Everquest worlds, so there will come a time when you have seen everything on the server.
- the number of people online is usually limited to 10-20 (although some worlds are exceptional and number 50 online players as average), so you have a more limited number of people to interact with
- you usually cannot transfer your character between servers.
If some sites were to fall over, shrink, become pay-sites, or whatever because we block ads, then I'm prepared to accept that. If I'm then confronted with a pay-site, I will either pay up (if what they offer interests me enough), or I'll go elsewhere.
The only thing I don't want is to have tons of rubbishy adverts stuffed down my connection and up my browser, that I never ever asked for. So I routinely block popups, deny sites the ability to set cookies, and have learned to read around ads blocks.
And what if advertisers and site admins feel I shouldn't be allowed to do that? And find ways of enforcing their point of view? Bug me enough and I'll stop visiting sites that show ads altogether.
I have just about stopped watching television because of all the ads, preferring to get my news updates from the Internet instead. On the Internet however I get as many "channels" as there are sites. There are bound to be one or two that cater to my taste for uncharged add-free (or maybe even add scarce) content.
Why is everyone suddenly so excited about this development?
As others said, the US will retain control of those parts in the DNS servers that relate to US servers: the.GOV,.US,.EDU,.MIL domains plus any new ones that may be added. And now someone else will have the final word on domain naming in the rest of the world, and will decide if domains like.EU, and.UN will be added or not, and if so who gets which name.
Now there might be a bone of contention with IP addresses because they are getting scarce. However... IPv6 will add so many more addresses that this problem disappears.
So err... where is the big US interest in all this? The Internet is nothing if not modular. And as far as I can see, nothing the proposed new root servers can do will impinge on the US. Why? Because all US users and all US DNS servers will continue to take their cue from a US root server. They will never even need to connect to a non-US DNS server. And when others want to access US servers..., if they want a connection, they will just have to follow the directions handed to them by US DNS servers.
It's only when clients from inside the US want to access outside servers (e.g. those of US companies abroad) that domains under foreign control will play a role.
As far as I'm concerned not until they come without one-sided DRM, which is "never".
I like the identification of a book with its physical appearance: I can own the book and no-one (least of all the publisher) can stop me from reading it, lending it, selling it, or making notes in it. And in fifty years I will still be able to do the same (although perhaps I will need glasses by that time) without once having to pay the publisher beyond what I paid for the book.
As I see it, this is because the publisher has no practical way to stop me.
How different things are with ebooks... With an ebook I own nothing but a _license_ to access the content of the book. But to exercise this license I must run some some software to decrypt the content and render it visible, and there is the problem. And of course ebooks are encrypted... and I must approach the publisher, cap in hand, to ask if I can please read this text for which I have paid. For how otherwise can the publisher enforce his 'rights'? When it comes to ebooks, either they control it _totally_, or they control nothing at all.
1) I may not _ever_ use other software to render the ebook than allowed by the publisher (or I will be violating the DMCA).
2) The rendering software:
2.a) may or may not run on particular hardware (at the discretion of the publisher), which may or may not disappear from the market in as little as 10 years.
2.b) may or may not enforce other restrictions on my access (e.g. limited duration of the license, limited number of times the ebook is opened
2.c) may or may not force me to contact the publisher online for a decryption key, so that
2.c.1) I cannot read the book unless I have a network connection to the publisher and
2.c.2) the publisher knows exactly when, where, and how often I am reading the book... so that a log of my reading habits can be kept
3) In view of the one-sided balance of power and knowledge that accompanies the ebook format, a publisher has many more opportunities to charge me for the use of the book than it had before (how often I access the text, how long, how long since it was first published, where I do it (home, office, if abroad which country), what other text I licensed). That, and the sharply reduced costs for the publishers, are in my opinion the only reason large publishers are 'excited' about it.
4) How long before 'patriots' will demand a careful scrutiny of who reads what in order to further 'homeland security'? Can't risk having a bunch of terrorists reading books about chemicals with a high energy content, radio-frequency devices, microelectionics, and infrastructure or major cities, now can we? So how long before a bill is passed to monitor the lot? And then what? Surely there must be someone somehow to deal with this information, right? A federal agency? Nah... too expensive, and it would expand government. So err... why not let the publisher monitor it and flag any suspicious use based on some AI, and then flag suspects to the FBI. That should do it.
5) Last but not least... there will be a continuous fight to determine how much publishers can charge everyone for their material. I mean of course "a period during which it wll be determined which charging model is most appropriate for the new form of content dissemination". Which means exactly the same of course. Not because publishers are nasty, but because they are profit maximisers who will now be able to exercise much more control over how their book is read and used. With the changing balance of power... the price will shift too. And since the power in the hands of the publisher is larger... the equilibrium price must be expected to be higher too.
Now personally I see more drawbacks than benefits from ebooks. Not because the medium is problematic (it's great; it saves room and it can make books
1) Having floating nuclear powerplants is just an extension and continuation of the Russian practice of using the powerplants of moored nuclear submarines to feed the grid. In this case they left out the sub and kept the powerplant... instant savings.
2) I feel that there are serious safety and environmental issues with this approach. Unfortunately the typical way of doing things seems to be to blithely ignore risks until they actually materialise (read: until things go wrong).
2.a) First issue: containment in case of leaks or accidents. Land-based reactors (in the West) are built with a concrete safety dome. This is to ensure that even if someone were to drop a big fuelled-up Boeing 747 on them (nah... who would do anything like that eh? Come on... too far-fetched...), the radioactive material would (probably) stay _inside_ the safety dome. These reactors don't seem to be fitted with such safety domes, especially if they have to float. And if they do... is that sufficient to ensure structural integrity in case they sink on impact? And what about repairs / clearance if they do eh?
And remember the fuel processing plants in France (Cap La Haye) and the UK (Sellafield)? The Irish sea issue (one of the most contaminated seas anywhere) should be well known by now (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield).
2.b) Many land sites (not those that use rivers for coolant, but there you go...) are chosen so that leaks won't lead to polluted groundwater... and ultimately our drinking water. The white sea is already uninhabitable in places because of sloppy practices with nuclear fuel dumping and scuttling nuclear powered vessels. This will just add to it.
2.c) Security. I submit that land-sites are easier to guard than those that are not only accessible from the sea, but which could actually be towed away in a terrorist attack. If that happens what do you do? Sink it before it gets to waters you _really_ want to protect? Mount an attack by marines and risk having it blown up? Overpower the tugs that pull it, and risk having it blown up? Happy choosing admiral...
Once again the "pragmatic" quick-fix, buy-now-pay-tomorrow artists seem to have pushed ahead with a scheme that jeopardises resources far beyond what they are be answerable and responsible for.
2.d) I can agree with the much reduced operational hazards of pebble bed reactors, but unless I'm much mistaken (correct me if I'm wrong please) these reactors are just slightly modified shipboard reactors of an aging Sovjet design. After all... changing _anything_ in a nuclear reactor design is something you don't do lightly.
How about towing a bunch of them up to Boston, New Orleans, LA, and San Francisco? Would solve your energy generation problems a treat! And real cheap too. Any takers?
I am not a biologist, but I feel that the 'uncanny valley' idea makes sense and would like to suggest a possible rationale for the existence of the 'uncanny valley'.
I believe that the 'uncanny valley' can be understood as meaning that people judge objects (tools, toys, furniture, mechanical looking robots), plants, and animals by very different standards than other humans.
Objects, plants, humans are, I think, judged by: are they harmful, are they useful, are they cute?
Other humans are judged with a view to the fact that they may either compete with us or assist us. I mean competition in a biological sense (food, shelter,mates), and in a societal sense (place in a group).
Now there is a strong tendency to refer to other humans in 'them-and-us' terms. The 'thems' usually being viewed negatively since they are a potential threat.
Even tiny differences between humans (e.g. skin colour, eye fold, language, culture) can lead to their being identified as 'thems' and as threats. Take racism, nationalism, and religious fundamentalism for example.
Now the more human-like qualities an object gains, the more the rules for judging other humans would apply, and the greater the chance of the 'object' falling afoul of one of the many triggers for antipathy that humans have towards other humans.
Well they are... and partly because of the funding and partly because of the excellent work being done there. But have you been to MIT lately?
About three-fourths of all PhD students and postdocs at MIT seems to be from overseas. One third of which is Chinese, one third Indian, and the rest a hodgepodge.
True, many of those will want to stay and work in the States and contribute to its success.
However the sad truth is that by and large US students figure that they can potentially get a better return on their (substantial) investment from something like an MBA than from studying 'hard', 'boring' subjects like Engineering, Physics, and Maths.
Because if they do..., they first run the risk of finding that they don't have the talent to excel in their chosen field. This is a problem, as they will be competing head-to-head and salary for salary with many very talented candidates from Asian countries who went to the same school as they did, and who will accept low salaries in return for a green card.
And when they land a job (when, not if: MIT's diploma still counts for something), their *boss* or their boss's boss will be somebody who did an MBA and knows everything about outsourcing, off-shoring, downsizing, cost-cutting, and 'realigning with core competencies'.
And this in turn means that they will hold jobs that are seen by US companies as regrettable cost-centres which they may or may not have to off-shore in the next 5 years.
I really can't say I blame them, and I feel that they just make a perfectly rational decision based of the values of the society that they happen to live in.
1) I believe that if I can program, I have the right to call myself 'computer literate'. And I did get that package installed in the end.
2) Read my post please. Editing the makefile was an attempt to make the package aware of where the libraries were.
3,4) Message not understood. Please clarify.
Hint: it benefits legibility if you start sentences with capitals. It's easy: just press the key while you press the key for a letter and it will appear capitalised. Try it!
In passing, but I'm not really interested in learning about it. Not until I absolutely have to. But I'm all for Standards if that means that software packages install without a hitch.
My only reservation is: do software developers who distribute their software know?
At least one of the libraries or the package itself (I forgot which) didn't adhere to this standard. And that obligated me to dive in and figure it out.
I think that this sort of thing should be automated. Perhaps it is... but I don't know about it, and neither did the developers of the libraries or the package.
Yes, heard of it. Used it when the installation docs with a package that uses configure told me to use it.
Hadn't heard of it when using a plain makefile. Do you mean that I should know that sort of stuff in order to install a software package? An admin should be expected to, but I'm not an admin (although I'm the only one who has the password for root on my machine), I'm an end-user.
This is what I am complaining about: needing to know things about makefiles when all I want is to install and use a software package. I feel I shouldn't have to know things like this.
Personally I don't mind learning about them, but that's not the point. The point is that its unhelpful and unfriendly of the software, take a lot of time to learn about if you didn't know, and therefore presents a significant barrier. I needed that JGR package for my work, and wasted 2 days installing it.
I don't want to bash Linux... I want it improved so that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. More (end)user friendly as it were.
Because I find it a pain! I'm thoroughly computer literate, I can program in about 5 computer languages (scientific work / console applications only; don't ask me about GUI's) , but I'm new to Unix/Linux, and I'm certainly not an admin. And I definetely shouldn't have to be to install an application. If it takes me 2 days to learn about and fix, how will a real end-user fare?
Example: I recently had to spend 2 days installing JGR (a Java Gui for the statistical package 'R') by hunting down and fixing all library dependencies. Now admittedly, the maintainers of JGR haven't gotten round to providing an installer for Linux yet. However... my distribution has those libraries, and I just need to install them, right? After installing a series of library packages using the built-in package manager the make file should work regardless, right?
No such luck! The Linux distro I use (SuSE 9.3) installs the packages in a slightly different place from where the.tgz files would do it (/usr/lib versus/usr/local/lib,/usr/include versus/usr/local/include). This breaks the makefile that comes with the package, which couldn't find the libs and the includes although they were on the system.
This forced me to learn about the workings of Linux / Unix, hunt down, download, and install a.tgz source file for every library, and then edit the makefile of the application.
Ahh... the makefile. What a piece of *&(&(( . If you edit it without paying attention to the difference between tabs and spaces... your makefile is ruined, and the error messages don't give you a clue about what happened. Everyone who tried that once either learned or quit... but it's still in use. And then the gloriously obscure syntax linking targets to source.
After installing every library from source... the package installed without further errors, and things worked... up to a point. It's functional, but it still misses out on a graphics library.
The same package installed under Microsoft Windows in about 5 seconds and then worked just fine. Go figure.
Linux ready for end-users? Only if they stay with the packages that come with their distro.
This type of thinking reminds me of Europe in the Middle Ages.
Guilds were then allowed to regulate (read monopolise) all branches of industry and trade, backed by government enforcers. Even the most basic information was "trade secret" and not to be revealed to non guildmembers. The perfect job protection scheme, and one of the reasons that Europe was at that time eclipsed by the Arab world in scientific, medical, and technological achievements.
I submit that the Government, in looking after the public interest, has every right to support valuable generation (universities) and dissemination (universities and this online service) of knowledge.
And since when did the ACS acquire copyright on basic chemical knowledge?
Slashdot Mirror
Now World of Warcraft is a subscription-based game. Because of that, maximising players' loyalty also maximises publisher revenues.
So ... of course it's crafted in such a way that it rewards loyalty. By quitting his account, a player who has played for say 3 months will feel that he has something to loose that's proportional to the total time spent on the game. Also he'll feel he'll have "achieved" something that complete newcomers don't have.
I would have thought that this was obvious and transparant, and I can't imagine that players don't see that. Instead of getting excited about lessons supposedly taught within the make-believe world of the game, why not take a look at what it teaches in the real world? I'd say that it teaches a few age-old marketing truths.
Oh yeah? I don't think so. Not the way he means it. As far as I know the Internet subscribers together (companies and private homes) happen to pay for *all* of the network traffic they generate across the *entire* network.
Content providers and private homes are already being double-charged because large accounts get charged for the amount of traffic they generate, and individual subscribers are chrged for the average amount of traffic that someone in their position is likely to cause.
For example: when I use Google's website I initiate the connection and I pull information down the network towards me. The content provider (Google) is completely passive. Nonetheless I am charged for the amount of traffic that I cause (upload and download) and Google is charged for the amount of traffic that it causes. So ... double charging is here already (and has been since the start of the Internet). And somehow I cannot believe for an insstant that network operators are currently making a loss.
But that isn't the point of course. Network operators have caught on that they can raise their prices in two ways.
a) people may be made to pay more for the same service simply by practicing the age-old custom of "market segmentation" (platinum, gold, silver). And of course each market segment needs a certain amount of reserved bandwidth ("to ensure service levels for our customers"). Now one can think of plenty of innucuous "reserved bandwidth" schemes that will cause (purely artificial) bandwith shortages and hence a performance drop for the lower-priced segments. And hence incentives to "upgrade". Ca-ching !
b) businesses that totally depend on network access (Google, music sites, travel sites, Amazon, Ebay etc. etc.) can be "touched" for far more than they are paying now. In fact they can be "touched" for a percentage of their gross income! If only they can be cornered in a disadvantageous negotiation position. If telecoms companies can charge content providers what the service is *worth* to them, rather than what it costs the telecom providers to provide it, then the telecoms stand to gain. And that is where content differentiation comes in. Now you don't need a network monopoly anymore: you simply present itemised bills according to the traffic characteristics (origins and destinations of the IP packets!) on *your* network. Unless some other competitor has 100% the same network coverage as yourself there are areas where traffic needs to go through *your* network. That's where you've got them over a barrel. The effectivity of this scheme increases with the size of the netowrk that you control. Hence the incentive for telecoms companies to acquire and merge. Ca-ching!
I don't for an instance believe that the telco's are somehow "creating value" in this way. It's more like a tax. They are simply gearing up tp price-gauge their customers, helped by the current FCC stance that network operators aren't utility companies but can simply charge whatever the market will bear. And a properly differentiated market will bear so much more ... Not that this is particularly evil ... it's just what profit maximisers do.
The question is then: is it in our best interests to allow them to do so? And the really tragic part of the answer is that some people (the author of the parent post for example) seem to fall for this type of reasoning:
a) "if they think they can have free use they're nuts", and
b) therefore I should be able to charge them according to what my service is worth to them ... not what it costs me to provide it,
c) and I should have the freedom to arrange the market so that charging for content becomes the norm (lobbying in congress and with th
However ... those who actually bothered to read the article found this:
"But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a few physicists who have a different opinion. [...] It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."
This is a polite way of saying ... that the whole thing is such an oddball interpretation of current physics theory that it needs needs solid experimental proof as a sanity check before we can talk further.
Sort of puts a different light on the whole thing, doesn't it?
See Groklaw's comments at:
1 63314567
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051126
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm ?story_id=2054746
"It reflects the currently fashionable idea that confiscatory government policy must be used to even the score (whatever that means), thrusting highly demanded, privately risked IP out of the hands of legitimate property owners and into the hands of other, favored actors to further "develop" it."
"confiscatory government policy" ??? Mandating a standard (open) document format for government use is "confiscatory" policy? What in heavens name is "confiscated"? Not the holy IP anyway.
What is "confiscated" is the possibility for the currently dominant Office software vendor to maintain a lock on office software through proprietary document formats. And how is that bad? Every software writer on the planet can use the Open Document standard for free. Including the current heavyweight. Funny thing is ... if the document format becomes standardised, then you loose an argument for buying the next version of MS Office. Competition will be more on price and performance. Bad news for Mircrosoft, the firm wich currently has market dominance, good news for everyone else. If that is "confiscatory" then I can live with it.
But who is this Initiative for Software Choice anyway? According to the Economist, the Initiative for Software Choice, is a Microsoft-supported lobby group that also made itself heard to decry the adoption of Linux in Munich. (see http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm ?story_id=2054746)/
Ah, now it starts to make sense. If you want to villify something in US public perception, call it "Socialist", or even better "Communist". "Anti-property" will do nicely too. If you can make that stick, then you have them on the defensive no matter what. In the absence of credible evidence try the next best thing ... and call it "confiscatory government policy".
What better way to try and rub off a scary association onto Open Document than to have an innocuously sounding "initiative" worriedly denounce it as "confiscatory". It doesn't make sense but that it doesn't matter. PR pieces don't have to make sense, they have to make a splash.
Well done Initiative for Software Choice, and well done News.Com for publishing it without comment or research!
I think this is a clever ruse on part of Miscrosft:
1) MS won't loose anything because these document formats are being phased out in favour of XML with proprietary keys in newer versions of Office.
2) I suspect (but I'm not certain) that old MS Office formats still require some license from MS, possibly for patents, thus enabling them to keep Open Source software at bay
3) It knocks the single most dangerous argument against MS Office software out of their opponents hands.
So far this discussion has had a distinctly American flavour:
... who is going to stop a government from exerting its authority over what's done with all the routers, switches and servers on its territory?
... they blew it.
... there is an easy and natural way this can go: fracturing of the Internet along national lines. The alternative is tedious negotiation. Of the sort we see happening now.
... I don't think we'd have much to worry about. It looks as if it's their problem, not ours.
- Government is bad
- Foreign Governments are worse
- the UN is worst of all.
Whilst I love the freedom that the Internet gives me, I have to concede that it cannot be a place of lawlessness. Despite all the emotional reactions against government interference. And that is where government comes in. Both as regards security (read anti-terrorism, using Internet taps as evidence in criminal cases) and as regards protection of property (read copyright infringement). Government will have an influence on the Internet. In fact it has already, and its role is increasing. Get over it!
Now the big question is what form this government influence should take, and how far it should go.
On the one hand we have the "minimalist" approach (the one I side with) which will only regulate that which is needed to uphold existing law, and the "meddlesome" approach in which we see government censorship of websites.
From what I see, meddlesome governments are going to have a meddlesome influence on that part of the Internet which is hosted on their territory, and maybe have a big mandatory firewall on any routers that sit on the pipelines to foreign parts. We are seeing that already in the case of China and Iran. Tough on their citizins, but what can we do? After all
Then there is the issue of names and numbers. That's what worries me. One the one hand, are we really justified in expecting the rest of the world to acept the decisions of ICANN (being beholden only to the US dept. of Commerce)? If they were beyond reproach, yes, but they aren't.
What about the shortage of IP numbers? Who decides the allocation of them, and who decides whther or not we'll move to IP6? There seem to be some concerns of a non-technical, non-neutral type. And about domains? Is it reasonable to expect China, India, and Europe to be dependent on ICANN for a decision on whether or not they can have an additional domain? Some subsidiarity may be called for here.
And on top of that the declaration of the Bush adminstration that it will retain control of the Internet. As far as I'm concerned
Now as others have pointed out
And you know what? If the result is not acceptable, the US won't go along with it. Then we'll see who'd rather be compliant with US dns servers and who'd rather have the ones in China or Iran. And frankly
This is one of the reasons (besides the fees) why I don't play Everquest.
Compare this to e.g. the (now slightly old) game of "Neverwinter Nights". With this game every game CD also contains a server module, so that anyone who buys the game can also host it. Depending on the hardware specs of the server, such a gameworld will host 20-60 players, and depending on the quality of the Internet connection there will be noticeable lag or not.
Over the years a few hundred NWN servers have emerged throughout the world, each with its own game world. The vast majority of them run by enthousiasts and volunteers, although some ISP's run their own NWN server.
To me this has a number of advantages:
- choice (Game worlds vary from worlds with hardcore D&D rules, to more relaxed Roleplay worlds, to hack-and-slash worlds to tournament servers. If you don't like a server for whatever reason, other servers are just a mouseclick away.)
- fairly small community on the server (so people tend to know each other to some degree, and there is no basis for buying or selling gameworld stuff for real-life money)
- more intensive contact with Game Masters (on average 1 GM per 20 players)
- you can make your voice heard if necessary
- since the gameworld is "home-made", it can be customised and adapted and sometimes respond to In-Game events. Suppose e.g. that a battle for a city takes place. If the attackers win, the next version of the game world after a server reset can see the city reduced to ruins.
- no monthly fees (except for your own internet connection)
- people come online to have fun, not to make money.
Of course it may also have some disadvantages for you:
- the gameworlds tend to be smaller than Everquest worlds, so there will come a time when you have seen everything on the server.
- the number of people online is usually limited to 10-20 (although some worlds are exceptional and number 50 online players as average), so you have a more limited number of people to interact with
- you usually cannot transfer your character between servers.
Popup advertisements, blinking advertisements, attention-grabbing in-line advertisements ... they really really annoy me.
If some sites were to fall over, shrink, become pay-sites, or whatever because we block ads, then I'm prepared to accept that. If I'm then confronted with a pay-site, I will either pay up (if what they offer interests me enough), or I'll go elsewhere.
The only thing I don't want is to have tons of rubbishy adverts stuffed down my connection and up my browser, that I never ever asked for. So I routinely block popups, deny sites the ability to set cookies, and have learned to read around ads blocks.
And what if advertisers and site admins feel I shouldn't be allowed to do that? And find ways of enforcing their point of view? Bug me enough and I'll stop visiting sites that show ads altogether.
I have just about stopped watching television because of all the ads, preferring to get my news updates from the Internet instead. On the Internet however I get as many "channels" as there are sites. There are bound to be one or two that cater to my taste for uncharged add-free (or maybe even add scarce) content.
*sighs*
.GOV, .US, .EDU, .MIL domains plus any new ones that may be added. And now someone else will have the final word on domain naming in the rest of the world, and will decide if domains like .EU, and .UN will be added or not, and if so who gets which name.
... IPv6 will add so many more addresses that this problem disappears.
... where is the big US interest in all this? The Internet is nothing if not modular. And as far as I can see, nothing the proposed new root servers can do will impinge on the US. Why? Because all US users and all US DNS servers will continue to take their cue from a US root server. They will never even need to connect to a non-US DNS server. And when others want to access US servers ..., if they want a connection, they will just have to follow the directions handed to them by US DNS servers.
... how problematic is that?
Why is everyone suddenly so excited about this development?
As others said, the US will retain control of those parts in the DNS servers that relate to US servers: the
Now there might be a bone of contention with IP addresses because they are getting scarce. However
So err
It's only when clients from inside the US want to access outside servers (e.g. those of US companies abroad) that domains under foreign control will play a role.
Now err
As far as I'm concerned not until they come without one-sided DRM, which is "never".
... With an ebook I own nothing but a _license_ to access the content of the book. But to exercise this license I must run some some software to decrypt the content and render it visible, and there is the problem. And of course ebooks are encrypted ... and I must approach the publisher, cap in hand, to ask if I can please read this text for which I have paid. For how otherwise can the publisher enforce his 'rights'? When it comes to ebooks, either they control it _totally_, or they control nothing at all.
... so that a log of my reading habits can be kept
... too expensive, and it would expand government. So err ... why not let the publisher monitor it and flag any suspicious use based on some AI, and then flag suspects to the FBI. That should do it.
... there will be a continuous fight to determine how much publishers can charge everyone for their material. I mean of course "a period during which it wll be determined which charging model is most appropriate for the new form of content dissemination". Which means exactly the same of course. Not because publishers are nasty, but because they are profit maximisers who will now be able to exercise much more control over how their book is read and used. With the changing balance of power ... the price will shift too. And since the power in the hands of the publisher is larger ... the equilibrium price must be expected to be higher too.
I like the identification of a book with its physical appearance: I can own the book and no-one (least of all the publisher) can stop me from reading it, lending it, selling it, or making notes in it. And in fifty years I will still be able to do the same (although perhaps I will need glasses by that time) without once having to pay the publisher beyond what I paid for the book.
As I see it, this is because the publisher has no practical way to stop me.
How different things are with ebooks
1) I may not _ever_ use other software to render the ebook than allowed by the publisher (or I will be violating the DMCA).
2) The rendering software:
2.a) may or may not run on particular hardware (at the discretion of the publisher), which may or may not disappear from the market in as little as 10 years.
2.b) may or may not enforce other restrictions on my access (e.g. limited duration of the license, limited number of times the ebook is opened
2.c) may or may not force me to contact the publisher online for a decryption key, so that
2.c.1) I cannot read the book unless I have a network connection to the publisher and
2.c.2) the publisher knows exactly when, where, and how often I am reading the book
3) In view of the one-sided balance of power and knowledge that accompanies the ebook format, a publisher has many more opportunities to charge me for the use of the book than it had before (how often I access the text, how long, how long since it was first published, where I do it (home, office, if abroad which country), what other text I licensed).
That, and the sharply reduced costs for the publishers, are in my opinion the only reason large publishers are 'excited' about it.
4) How long before 'patriots' will demand a careful scrutiny of who reads what in order to further 'homeland security'? Can't risk having a bunch of terrorists reading books about chemicals with a high energy content, radio-frequency devices, microelectionics, and infrastructure or major cities, now can we? So how long before a bill is passed to monitor the lot? And then what? Surely there must be someone somehow to deal with this information, right? A federal agency? Nah
5) Last but not least
Now personally I see more drawbacks than benefits from ebooks. Not because the medium is problematic (it's great; it saves room and it can make books
1) Having floating nuclear powerplants is just an extension and continuation of the Russian practice of using the powerplants of moored nuclear submarines to feed the grid. In this case they left out the sub and kept the powerplant ... instant savings.
... who would do anything like that eh? Come on ... too far-fetched ...), the radioactive material would (probably) stay _inside_ the safety dome. These reactors don't seem to be fitted with such safety domes, especially if they have to float. And if they do ... is that sufficient to ensure structural integrity in case they sink on impact? And what about repairs / clearance if they do eh?
...) are chosen so that leaks won't lead to polluted groundwater ... and ultimately our drinking water. The white sea is already uninhabitable in places because of sloppy practices with nuclear fuel dumping and scuttling nuclear powered vessels. This will just add to it.
...
... changing _anything_ in a nuclear reactor design is something you don't do lightly.
2) I feel that there are serious safety and environmental issues with this approach. Unfortunately the typical way of doing things seems to be to blithely ignore risks until they actually materialise (read: until things go wrong).
2.a) First issue: containment in case of leaks or accidents. Land-based reactors (in the West) are built with a concrete safety dome. This is to ensure that even if someone were to drop a big fuelled-up Boeing 747 on them (nah
And remember the fuel processing plants in France (Cap La Haye) and the UK (Sellafield)? The Irish sea issue (one of the most contaminated seas anywhere) should be well known by now (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield).
2.b) Many land sites (not those that use rivers for coolant, but there you go
2.c) Security. I submit that land-sites are easier to guard than those that are not only accessible from the sea, but which could actually be towed away in a terrorist attack. If that happens what do you do? Sink it before it gets to waters you _really_ want to protect? Mount an attack by marines and risk having it blown up? Overpower the tugs that pull it, and risk having it blown up? Happy choosing admiral
Once again the "pragmatic" quick-fix, buy-now-pay-tomorrow artists seem to have pushed ahead with a scheme that jeopardises resources far beyond what they are be answerable and responsible for.
2.d) I can agree with the much reduced operational hazards of pebble bed reactors, but unless I'm much mistaken (correct me if I'm wrong please) these reactors are just slightly modified shipboard reactors of an aging Sovjet design. After all
How about towing a bunch of them up to Boston, New Orleans, LA, and San Francisco? Would solve your energy generation problems a treat! And real cheap too. Any takers?
As usual with material coming from SCO, a critical and insightful response (and therefore a deadly one for SCO) can be found on Groklaw.
1 23259231
I won't bother to summarise it, as it is well-structured and succinct enough. The link is here:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050808
I am not a biologist, but I feel that the 'uncanny valley' idea makes sense and would like to suggest a possible rationale for the existence of the 'uncanny valley'.
I believe that the 'uncanny valley' can be understood as meaning that people judge objects (tools, toys, furniture, mechanical looking robots), plants, and animals by very different standards than other humans.
Objects, plants, humans are, I think, judged by: are they harmful, are they useful, are they cute?
Other humans are judged with a view to the fact that they may either compete with us or assist us. I mean competition in a biological sense (food, shelter,mates), and in a societal sense (place in a group).
Now there is a strong tendency to refer to other humans in 'them-and-us' terms. The 'thems' usually being viewed negatively since they are a potential threat.
Even tiny differences between humans (e.g. skin colour, eye fold, language, culture) can lead to their being identified as 'thems' and as threats. Take racism, nationalism, and religious fundamentalism for example.
Now the more human-like qualities an object gains, the more the rules for judging other humans would apply, and the greater the chance of the 'object' falling afoul of one of the many triggers for antipathy that humans have towards other humans.
What do you think?
Well they are ... and partly because of the funding and partly because of the excellent work being done there. But have you been to MIT lately?
..., they first run the risk of finding that they don't have the talent to excel in their chosen field. This is a problem, as they will be competing head-to-head and salary for salary with many very talented candidates from Asian countries who went to the same school as they did, and who will accept low salaries in return for a green card.
About three-fourths of all PhD students and postdocs at MIT seems to be from overseas. One third of which is Chinese, one third Indian, and the rest a hodgepodge.
True, many of those will want to stay and work in the States and contribute to its success.
However the sad truth is that by and large US students figure that they can potentially get a better return on their (substantial) investment from something like an MBA than from studying 'hard', 'boring' subjects like Engineering, Physics, and Maths.
Because if they do
And when they land a job (when, not if: MIT's diploma still counts for something), their *boss* or their boss's boss will be somebody who did an MBA and knows everything about outsourcing, off-shoring, downsizing, cost-cutting, and 'realigning with core competencies'.
And this in turn means that they will hold jobs that are seen by US companies as regrettable cost-centres which they may or may not have to off-shore in the next 5 years.
I really can't say I blame them, and I feel that they just make a perfectly rational decision based of the values of the society that they happen to live in.
About your points:
1) I believe that if I can program, I have the right to call myself 'computer literate'. And I did get that package installed in the end.
2) Read my post please. Editing the makefile was an attempt to make the package aware of where the libraries were.
3,4) Message not understood. Please clarify.
Hint: it benefits legibility if you start sentences with capitals. It's easy: just press the key while you press the key for a letter and it will appear capitalised. Try it!
In passing, but I'm not really interested in learning about it. Not until I absolutely have to.
... but I don't know about it, and neither did the developers of the libraries or the package.
But I'm all for Standards if that means that software packages install without a hitch.
My only reservation is: do software developers who distribute their software know?
At least one of the libraries or the package itself (I forgot which) didn't adhere to this standard. And that obligated me to dive in and figure it out.
I think that this sort of thing should be automated. Perhaps it is
Yes, heard of it. Used it when the installation docs with a package that uses configure told me to use it.
... I want it improved so that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. More (end)user friendly as it were.
Hadn't heard of it when using a plain makefile. Do you mean that I should know that sort of stuff in order to install a software package? An admin should be expected to, but I'm not an admin (although I'm the only one who has the password for root on my machine), I'm an end-user.
This is what I am complaining about: needing to know things about makefiles when all I want is to install and use a software package. I feel I shouldn't have to know things like this.
Personally I don't mind learning about them, but that's not the point. The point is that its unhelpful and unfriendly of the software, take a lot of time to learn about if you didn't know, and therefore presents a significant barrier. I needed that JGR package for my work, and wasted 2 days installing it.
I don't want to bash Linux
Why?
... my distribution has those libraries, and I just need to install them, right? After installing a series of library packages using the built-in package manager the make file should work regardless, right?
.tgz files would do it (/usr/lib versus /usr/local/lib, /usr/include versus /usr/local/include). This breaks the makefile that comes with the package, which couldn't find the libs and the includes although they were on the system.
.tgz source file for every library, and then edit the makefile of the application.
... the makefile. What a piece of *&(&(( . If you edit it without paying attention to the difference between tabs and spaces ... your makefile is ruined, and the error messages don't give you a clue about what happened. Everyone who tried that once either learned or quit ... but it's still in use. And then the gloriously obscure syntax linking targets to source.
... the package installed without further errors, and things worked ... up to a point. It's functional, but it still misses out on a graphics library.
Because I find it a pain! I'm thoroughly computer literate, I can program in about 5 computer languages (scientific work / console applications only; don't ask me about GUI's) , but I'm new to Unix/Linux, and I'm certainly not an admin. And I definetely shouldn't have to be to install an application. If it takes me 2 days to learn about and fix, how will a real end-user fare?
Example: I recently had to spend 2 days installing JGR (a Java Gui for the statistical package 'R') by hunting down and fixing all library dependencies. Now admittedly, the maintainers of JGR haven't gotten round to providing an installer for Linux yet. However
No such luck! The Linux distro I use (SuSE 9.3) installs the packages in a slightly different place from where the
This forced me to learn about the workings of Linux / Unix, hunt down, download, and install a
Ahh
After installing every library from source
The same package installed under Microsoft Windows in about 5 seconds and then worked just fine. Go figure.
Linux ready for end-users? Only if they stay with the packages that come with their distro.
This type of thinking reminds me of Europe in the Middle Ages. Guilds were then allowed to regulate (read monopolise) all branches of industry and trade, backed by government enforcers. Even the most basic information was "trade secret" and not to be revealed to non guildmembers. The perfect job protection scheme, and one of the reasons that Europe was at that time eclipsed by the Arab world in scientific, medical, and technological achievements. I submit that the Government, in looking after the public interest, has every right to support valuable generation (universities) and dissemination (universities and this online service) of knowledge. And since when did the ACS acquire copyright on basic chemical knowledge?