May 31, 2006
Today Wired magazine published a well-written history of non-egalitarian commercial practices on the Internet, it even mentions the spat between Level 3 and Cogent that made headlines last year. Unfortunately none of the solutions discussed in the article call for deregulation. At the same time, the author does not try to white wash the issue in favor of either stakeholder involved with net neutrality.
Interestingly enough, back when cable modems were first being rolled out onto the scene, some of my friends set up IRC and ftp servers. In fact, they even set up dedicated game servers to host Doom and Quake matches. Their party was crashed however, as several months later they began to receive “cease and desist” orders; they were apparently using up “too much bandwidth” — more than what the fine print said they were allocated. And this song and dance has been replayed all over the country, time and again.
And limits of “unlimited” services are seen in other industries as well. To the chagrin of its power users, Netflix was shown to be throttling “unlimited” rentals earlier this year. Where is the call to arms for a nationalized Movie Rental Neutrality policy? Where are the petitions to prevent Hollywood and Blockbuster video from charging higher rates than Netflix… after all, the DVD’s are all the same, right? And what about those lonely independent kiosks found in grocery stores?
Anyone else remember the episode where Homer Simpson did not get all that he could eat from the Frying Dutchman, the seafood restaurant?
A cave has to have at least one entrance, right? Well, researchers in Israel recently managed to enter a sealed-off cave and in the process discovered some rather curious creatures — in particular those that no longer have eyes, yet belong to the scorpion family in a quasi-pseudo kind of way.
In April, I mentioned a similar story about a team of explorers traveling near the Himalayas, who discovered a region of land left untouched from mankind. They too found all sorts of creepy crawly critters (plus a golden monkey) that had thus been uncatalogued.
And just two months prior to that, I discussed yet another land — a remote virgin island of New Guinea – that is home to hundreds of new species including a tree kangaroo, that have evolved in order to adapt to their unique environment.
One wonders when that Darwin guy and his finches will be taken seriously…
May 30, 2006
Norway is apparently building a vault near the North Pole to store a copy of every plant seed in the world. This sounds somewhat similar to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow sans the punk-diesel theme.
And as the politicians note, of course it’s a fantastic idea — it isn’t funded out of their own pockets (its fairly easy to spend someone elses money).
This is perhaps one of the weirdest video games I have ever seen — moreso because of who makes it and how they plan to use it as an evangelical tool.
I wonder, will there be cheat codes?
May 29, 2006
The Economist is reporting that superbugs Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile are wreaking havoc in the general public — causing all sorts of unpleasantries including death.
Last November, BetterHumans noted that where traditional antibiotics fail, “good” bacteria – the kind found in yogurts – might be just what the doctor ordered in fighting pathogens like MRSA.
See also Wired magazine’s article, People are Human-Bacteria Hybrid.
What do you get when you have Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and a net neutrality proponent, and former White House spokesman Mike McCurry, who heads a phone industry group, debate net nationalization? Unsurprisingly, an adolescent argument similar to ones you had in elementary school.
Mr. McCurry does a decent job explaining the capital investments, scarcity and economics involved in maintaining a large network infrastructure; however his “Hands off the Internet” movement does not represent a free-market solution to this problem. Absolutely no regulation or oversight is the free-enterprise answer to this quagmire. And the Internet providers he represents are protected through “legal” geographical monopolies and subsidies, which is unfortunately not being questioned.
Mr. Newmark is so close that it hurts in terms of what the Internet providers seemingly refuse to offer or use. Rather than pointing out that these telecom companies are legal monopolies that should be privatized, he jumps up on the egalitarian horse and uses the cliche emotional argument of “fairness” to substantiate his claims.
In retrospect, The Wall Street Journal should have selected individuals such as Declan McCullagh and Bram Cohen to represent the “hands off” laissez faire approach; in addition, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee would probably have done a better job at the pro-nationalization side.
See also:
The Washington Times is reporting that a scientist has apparently found the “God gene” — the gene that regulates the ability to experience spirituality. The kicker is, the volunteers whose genetic material was analyzed, were asked a series of 226 questions to determine how “spiritually connected to the Universe” they were.
Regardless as to how they answer, you cannot aggregate and average out any of the numbers as you might in a “hard-science” study. The answers the respondents give are entirely subjective to the internal preferences of each individual. In terms of Likert scales, one person’s 2 is different than another person’s 2.
Be sure to read “The Bowl Championship Series: A Case Against Subjectively Aggregated Statistics” for more discussion on this flawed methodology.
May 28, 2006
I have mentioned this topic several times, including what I consider perhaps the best non-academic article on the subject from The New Yorker and also a lengthy essay from the Mises Institute. Today’s lesson involves a high school graduation ceremony in North Dallas.
Prior to my younger brother walking across the stage, the principal at his school introduced the valedictorian — a peppy, petite girl. The principal remarked that she and her twin sister (who is graduating 3rd in the class) were both going to attend MIT. Upon hearing this, the entire auditorium let out a collective “WHOA.”
As funny as this sounds, the unseen aspect to the exasperation is that schools such as MIT have done a great job at promoting their pedigree as the gold standard — a lofty position held by the Crème de la Crème.
Other notes of interest:
- Podcast lectures for University Students: the instructor does not hold classes anymore, he simply has the students download the lectures and meet in small groups
- Educators Vilify Technology In Attempt To Preserve Outdated Model: while I do not support plagiarism, academic dishonesty, cheating or using technology to partake in these behaviors, one wonders when the Ivory Tower will modify the way tests are given (i.e. replace multiple-choice scantron with practical hands-on work experience). Perhaps even a simple essay exam…
- Why American College Students Hate Science: while not necessarily revolutionary or breath-taking, this NY Times article shows one way colleges can market STEM more effectively. Note: some argue that there is already an over-supply of scientists and mathematicians saturating the job market
May 27, 2006
Since my academic allies are few and far between (every techno law professor is apparently pro-net nationalization), I’d like to point out that our good ‘ol friend Bram Cohen of BitTorrent fame has thrown down the gauntlet on the issue. And surprisingly he grasps the economics of scarcity. One down, 300 million more to go.
May 26, 2006
So the game over six million people play and some consider “the new golf” has been analyzed for Higher Education usage patterns: MapWoW. No big surprises as the largest schools (in terms of enrollment) correlate with a high percentage of student usage.
It is kind of weird to see A&M ranked 13th… why would you attend a college with so many coeds and real-life social networks and then play video games all day?
Perhaps the players read Wired’s recent article on resumé building and guild responsibilities…
