I was dragged into helping to recover the Stanford SAIL-DART archives from the 1970s
So very cool. Just read this Rolling Stone Article associated with SAIL - frak me rotten.
Death of newspapers and music stores predicted in 1972 - swoops my hair back.
I knew frakking around with LISP was mild altering, but I didn't know it lead to prescience and precognitive ability. Woof
... created an effective duopoly, one that still persists today in many markets. In such a situation, the free market cannot function, and government regulation is required to prevent abuses.
This is the part that the Libertarian loudmouths ignore. There is no market. Their magical invisible hand that solves all problems just turns into a choking fist when you have too few competitors.
The only sane solutions are government owned pipes (think water/sewer) or highly regulated privately owned pipes (think electricity/gas).
I like my local city utility monopoly. I like my power and gas monopolies. I despise all two of my choices from the Net duopoly camp.
Every city knows they have to "do" sewer/water/trash. Every state knows they have to "do" power and gas - even if it's just to set up a framework for local co-ops. Wish some state was willing and able to "do" Internet and fight off the corporate douchebags. Maybe next generation...
So, if you wish to call for regulation, you should consider the regulation that's already in place. Why is it inadequate? And how is your proposal immunised against the same problems? Because you will not be the first person to suggest regulation - those who came before you had similar ideals, and despite their good intentions, they created the current mess.
What regulation? What can my carrier currently do or not do with my content? Is traffic shaping okay? Can this or that ISP throttle and or choke my Netflix streaming? When they start doing it who do I call to complain?
Ever flip on a light switch? I do it all the time and it works pretty good. There's a highly regulated monopoly that works okay. How did regulation of old school utilities turn out okay despite the involvement of government? Can we look at that success and apply it to the ISPs? When the power company wants more money they have to present to a board that checks the numbers. Not perfect, but what is? When my ISP wants more money they just change their name and say we now have an X in our name and your bill is going to go up X dollars! Isn't that GREAT!!!
And before we talk about stifled innovation, I'll consider real innovation and not some imagined future innovation. The rest of the world has innovation, we don't, and we're currently ever so not regulated...
Your ISP is going to scale back or cancel any rollout of faster service or they will lower everyone's speeds or they will charge everyone more money.
That sounds an awful lot like the Net we already have.
What will it be like after regulation? I'll have to let some federal bureaucrat touch my junk so I can be cleared to download torrentz of people touching each other's junk. Sounds kinky. I'm down with it, right down on it. W00t!
As for the vitriol tossed your way, I'd say the zealots from any camp are quite tiresome. Perhaps some fellow open-source friends/colleagues felt betrayed? Their problem...
A professional knows the value of using the right tool for the job at hand. Some tools transcend utility and become inspiring in and of themselves. It has to be experienced, and by someone who can appreciate it. The haters know they're missing out on something - it fuels more hating...
I'm amazed that so many ordinary Americans will actually pony up for superior products. Perhaps there is still hope for a better future? [nah, crazy talk]
...how much does Janet Napolitano get per machine?
Doesn't work like that. Not yet.
What she will get is a high-paying job somewhere in the security-theater industry after making them all rich. Lots of examples of this, my favorite was the Sainted Ronald Reagan getting a $2 million payment from the Japanese, but only after he was officially no longer part of the government.
Domo arigato, Ronster. Thanks for the voluntary "quotas" you got for us. Here's a Scooby snack for ya! Here's two million of 'em!
Back when Wernher Von Braun created the Saturn 5...
Sounds like we need to go back to outsourcing our rocket science to Germany...
... can't let NASA just select any old rocket manufacturer or we'll end up in cement shoes at the bottom of the ocean.
Cement shoes: yes
Bottom of the ocean: no
Oceans have enough problems with pollution already. Our Great Salt Lake would be a perfectly fine dumping ground for bottom-heavy congress-critters. And the GSL is already so polluted that adding waste even as toxic as Oril Hatch wouldn't make an appreciable difference.
Just trying be environmental!
... I loved the walkman because it was small. I loved the iPod because it was small, I love my iPhone because it is small, and I love the small size of the iPad.
So if normal guys love large trucks because they compensate, and you appently love small things, then that must mean, umm, "Oh! Hello sailor!!!"
It streams from my NAS hanging off of Airport router, streams off of various Win XP and Win7 boxes. Does it all wirelessly (player is wireless, Win boxes are wireless)
User interface is adequate - not up to Apple's standards but good enough for the likes of me.
And most importantly, the hardware has a slick look and no noise (no HDD). Generates a fair amount of heat...
Just my $0.02
The alternative is a format called PDF/A...
I'm sticking with the current Adobe-approved PDF/U
and the airlines provide free drinks, free meals, and treat you like a person, right?
how do clueless, bend-over-and-rape-me-mr-ceo types always get modded up? for spewing clueless libertarian claptrap? bleh
"they" did create a war, magicked WMD right out of thin air, or, put less delicately, pulled straight out of "their" ass
also naive in the extreme to imagine that there is _anything_ you can do politically. you have no power, you mean exactly nothing
I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"
