Posts by Shannon Jacobs

Censorship in America

While Al Gore's lack of business acumen is an interesting diversion, I think the most significant aspect of this story is the censorship in America, supposedly so proud of "free speech". Divergent viewpoints are allowed to exist, but no one wants to hear them.

My theory of the last few years is that this is largely due to linguistic confusion in English about the nature of "free". Apparently a lot of Americans thing "free speech" is like "free beer" or "free lunch". As long as you can't see the price tag, that means it's "free".

The important sense of "freedom" involves meaningful and unconstrained choice, NOT to be confused with free beer. You can't get the information to make those meaningful choices if censorship eliminates almost all of the data. What has happened in America is that "free speech" only applies if you can afford it, and it has become a luxury good for the super-rich. The rest of us peasants should just keep our mouths shut.

You're theoretically allowed to speak, but if you say anything too "troublesome" (which often means simply something controversial or disagreeable), then the reality is you better expect to get hammed for it.

How to confirm that an unsubscribe mechanism works?

Answer: You can't, but the email providers (such as Gmail) could if they cared that much. In essence, they need to test the unsubscribe mechanisms with honeypot addresses and see whether or not they work or just result in more spam. In cases where they do work, the email should be annotated to that effect, and in cases where they don't work, the email provider should make extra efforts to put the spammers' out of business.

This should actually be part of comprehensive anti-spammer tools that the "sincerely anti-spammer" email services should provide. Imagine something like SpamCop, but on steroids. Rather than a meek shot at the spammer's ISP and webhost, there should be several iterations of increasingly refined analysis and targeting to break ALL of the spammers' infrastructure, pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and help and protect ALL of the spammers' victims.

The spammers are in effect holding up signs saying "I'm a criminal and I will rob you." Doesn't it seem bizarre that their business models are still working so well?

Symbolic appointment to hide the evil?

No offense to Kurzweil, who I basically regard as a good fellow, but I think the google hired him for cosmetic reasons. Not sure how much they're paying him, but I doubt he actually has to do anything for the money.

Meanwhile the google will continue pumping money into its lobbying operations in Washington of the DC. It used to be true that the google was just evolving in response to the corrupt rules of the business game as written by the most cheaply bribed politicians. However, the google is now paying to write those rules. Last reports I've read insist that the google is the biggest lobbyist among high-tech companies. Have you noticed a trend towards less corruption? Me neither.

His "just as bad" actually means "not perfect".

I sort of admire Stallman and have exchanged email with him in the past. However, he always lets the perfect be the enemy of the good, and the real-world problem is that nothing is perfect. This greatly limits his influence on the real world.

Actually, one (or more) of our exchanges involved alternative economic models for OSS, and one of the features of the funding model described below was actually crystallized by a question he asked. I regard that as strong evidence of his high intelligence, since it was a problem that I had been wrestling with for months or even years, but he worded his question in a way that helped lead me to a solution--but not a perfect solution, so he didn't care.

http://eco-epistemology.blogspot.jp/2009/11/economics-of-small-donors-reverse.html

Got me to look--at the name of the author

Ignored after that.

The Reg is beginning to need a killfile for certain prominent posters.

I want to say that PDAs were NOT a failure and they are NOT forgotten

However, it would appear that I am wrong, certainly on the forgotten count, insofar as no one has made any comment about them. Anyway, I certainly remember my Palm-based PDA as a major success that changed my life, and I still miss it.

On the point of failure, I think the PDAs were actually induced to commit suicide, which ought to count as a form of murder. There were various factors in their disappearance, but I think the main culprit was Microsoft, which had (and apparently retains) delusions of success in small-form-factor devices. What my PDA did was excellent, but NOT the same things that my computer did. However, Microsoft managed to start an imaginary arms race to create a computerish PDA. Did Palm walk into the trap? Or did Microsoft's advertising cloud basically force them down the path to their destruction?

Guess it doesn't matter. The economic losses were chump change to Microsoft, though they were probably larger than Palm's total profits over the length of it's existence. (Just to clarify, my good PDA was a Sony CLIE, and I still haven't forgiven Sony for dumping it. I also had one or two non-Palm PDAs, and they were not good.)

Hmm... I just got email that says I'm a "bronze" user with more editing options, but I don't see them anywhere that's obvious... Am I supposed to embed the HTML directly in the comment?

There were also major spam scams targeting Black Friday customers

The ones I saw that bypassed Gmail's so-called spam filters were on behalf of Samsung and Best Buy. There's actually been quite a rise in unfiltered spam and misfiltered non-spam in the last few days, but the google don't care.

Why don't any of the major email providers see an advantage in being the MOST spammer-hostile email system? Why don't any of them provide EFFECTIVE anti-spammer tools? It's like the spammers are wearing giant signs saying I'm a criminal scammer, but no one cares--and the scamming spammers are evidently right. No one cares.

What I want is a spam-fighting system integrated directly into a SPAMMER-HOSTILE email system. It would be like SpamCop on steroids, but instead of one round of analysis with complaints for the spammers' ISPs and webhosts. (The ISP is an especial waste, since the spammers just spam-and-run with the suckers routed elsewhere.) The system I want would have several rounds of increasingly refined analysis. It would work to shut down ALL of the spammers' infrastructure, to pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and to help and protect ALL of the spammers' victims.

Patent law is BROKEN (and Copyright law is WORSE).

The article doesn't mention derivative works, which might be the part of it that causes the most trouble. One path of advance is along the lines of rational evolution, but the increasingly absolute bans on derivative works make it harder and harder to evolve. The alternative is extreme and revolutionary jumps in the dark, which might (or might not) produce some progress on the long run, but they are certainly messy and inefficient and quite often harmful...

It's the economic model, stupid!

I've said this before, but I'll waste a few keystrokes to say it again: There ARE alternatives to Microsoft and Apple, but the alternatives' economic models reek like the big dog's m0e. Superior software and a bad economic model does not reach a compromise in the middle. It just loses.

The alternative I'm still advocating would be kind of like a stock market, but for charity projects. The participants would donate to the parent organization, presumably the Mozilla Foundation in this case, and then their donation would magically reappear as credit in their charity share account. The donors would then shop around the available projects and buy (virtual) charity shares in the candidate projects. Only AFTER enough donors agreed that a particular project should be funded would the Mozilla people release the funds and start the work. I would NOT sign up for support of yet another trivial version number increment, but there are plenty of features that might actually be attractive, and it would be up to the Mozilla people to find out what we want and offer those features and projects--which could include things like extended support or upgrade paths. There's no real risk to the Mozilla people, since they'd already be holding the money, presumably with a timeout until they get to use it as they see fit.

This may remind you of the Kickstarter and IndyGoGo systems, though it's actually an older idea. The difference is that they don't (aFaIK) provide any meta-support for preparing good proposals and evaluating the results. Project life-cycle management is a REAL thing that needs to be part of any realistic model of software development.

Do I have psychic powers?

I'd like to claim I can see the future, but not really. However, it might be bad karma catching up with Toshiba?

What I can say is that my previous three computers were Toshibas, and one of the reasons was the ease of finding English versions of their manuals on the Web. It didn't bother me too much where I found them, and in general I have not been "amused" with Toshiba's own websites.

About the same time these "valuable" copies of the Toshiba manuals were being disappeared, I was buying a new computer. It was NOT a Toshiba, and this story makes me feel kind of glad that I switched brands. It wasn't the reason, but maybe there was a karmic thing going on there... I certainly looked at Toshibas, and my experiences with the last three had mostly been satisfactory, but something still motivated me to try something different.

I don't want to say what the new one was... I haven't yet decided if I endorse that maker, though most of my impressions of the new machine have been favorable.

First he should fix the censorship on his increasingly evil google

Amusing fantasy suggestion. Perhaps the politicians should have lobotomies, too?

I actually think that there are solutions to the sicknesses in American politics, but I have seen NO evidence that the increasingly EVIL google is making any positive contribution. Actually, since corporate lobbying for greater profits is quite possibly the worst part of the disease, and since the google is now reported to be the leading and biggest spending lobbyist among high tech companies, the google has become a big part of the problem and NO part of the solution.

In short, most businesspeople are fine and upstanding and just play by the rules. However the reals are encoded in laws written by the politicians who can be bribed most cheaply, and the dominant payers of those bribes are the LEAST ethical and greediest businessmen. (One of the sexist aspects is that all of the leading abusers of the system are businessmen, not businesswomen, though I admit that Meg Whitman got close at one point.)

Twitter is nasty, brutish, and short

Or perhaps I should say "at least it's short." I've had a Twitter account for several years. Kept trying to find a meaningful, useful, interesting, or relevant use for it. Finally thought I had found one--but I was mistaken. Twitter turned out to be just as worthless at it had always seemed.

In conclusion, I dismiss Twitter as nasty, brutish, and short.

There is a tiny bit of a good idea under there (somewhere), but the implementation stinks to high heaven. It will be interesting to see how long the first-in-the-niche effect can keep them alive. I was going to call it the market-leader effect, except that there's no market there and I can't imagine there ever will be one.

I know why I dislike the google

But I was surprised to see all the hostile comments here. Just to be clear, I don't have any particular feelings for or against Samsung, but I think the google has definitely gone to the evil side, and whenever there is a good alternative, I favor it.

Latest ugly grin was getting invited to use a new Google system, but when I poked at it, I found my participation is still censored. I've been trying to figure out what that is about for a couple of years now, but the google ain't talking. However, it's only one of a long list of reasons I don't trust the google now--and why I won't consider buying a Chromebook.

All's quiet on the eastern spammer front!

I was wondering where all my spammers had gone, and I hope it's a long time passing before any of them show up again. Let me note that I am predicating that on a potentially risky belief that the Chinese authorities aren't going to execute any of them or anything really drastic. Even sociopathic spammers are sort of human, after all.

Also I should clarify that it isn't all the spammers, but I do track the spammers on two accounts and I had noticed drops and that the residual headers showed much less activity from China than I would have expected. It kind of makes you wonder how such visible criminals can survive. The essence of their crimes is to be visible to as many unknown people as possible, and it's not like they can avoid letting ALL of the police see them in action. From that perspective, I suppose the real question is "Why now? Why did China suddenly decide to cut it off?" I don't think it can be just because they were worried about the bad publicity.

Conspiracy time? Could it be somehow related to the American election? Romney's buddy Sheldon Adelson asked his Chinese business partners to fix things so that his candidate's reams of spam will be more visible over the next few weeks? President Obama threatened to sic Hillary on them for a similar reason? China is rounding up the spammers to auction their services to the highest bidders in support of any candidates?

As financial models go, I think it's actually a slight improvement

Their financial model has always been badly broken, but this is actually a tiny bit of improvement. Well, maybe not, since they are putting the cart in front of the horse. Yes, they should ask the users what they want, but in a way that has meaning.

My long ignored suggestion is that they sell virtual shares on a by-project basis. The projects might represent individual features, or groups of related features, but the money wouldn't be released until AFTER enough donors had indicated that they really wanted to vote their wallets that way.

I'm sure there are many ways to implement this, but my version would be like a kind of charity brokerage, with the broker holding the money up front. That would be the Ubuntu organization in this case, but there would be no risk for them since they would be holding the money already.

You can argue that there would be some risk to the donors, since they might not find any projects that they want to fund, but that wouldn't be a major problem for two reasons. (1) If a donor picks a project and it doesn't get enough support, then that money would go back to the donor's balance and the donor would get to pick another project. (2) There is always risk in donating to a charity that might fail to complete it's objectives.

I do hope that Ubuntu succeeds, if only because Microsoft and Apple are mostly evil companies. However, they have working economic models, and this thing with the slide bars is NOT yet an adequate response. As for me, I'm still running Ubuntu on a couple of machines, but the utility has steadily declined over the last few years, I'm not using it for any "production" work, and at this point I won't miss it.

Only c is forbidden?

I thought that only the speed of light was forbidden to anything with mass. Isn't the problem that crossing that speed in either direction requires dividing by zero?

My first smartphone was an HTC

I even want to feel sorry for them, but then I remember how useless and annoying their so-called support systems were, and I mostly think they just got what they deserved. They probably deserve some more besides, but I'm using a Huawei phone now, so I don't know the current situation at HTC. I suppose I should feel some dissatisfaction with the minor problems of the Huawei, but HTC lowered my expectations so much that Huawei is reaping the benefits.

Then again, I don't feel ANY loyalty to either HTC or Huawei. Not sure if I'm going to wait out the contract or semi-retire the Huawei in favor of something else from a different carrier... However, I'm pretty sure my next Android will be from someone else. (Including tablets, I'm already on my fourth Android... Mostly 2, but some 3 and 4.)

So-called good economic models

Lots of business models work well in terms of making money and badly in terms of the external costs born by everyone else. Spam qualifies as one of those economic models, and the model deserves to be disrupted and even broken to increase the value of the Internet for everyone else but the spammers. The zombots are only one of the uglier parts of the economic model that drives the spammers, but at the bottom there are human suckers who feed the spammers.

Hey, why not leverage the LARGE number of people who hate spam against the SMALL number of suckers who feed the spammers? It can be purely voluntary, but if it's easy enough then a significant number of the spam-haters will cut the spammers off from the cash. I'm not saying the spammers will become decent human beings. They started as sociopaths and will always be sociopaths, but they can be urged to crawl under less less visible rocks.

My suggestion is an improved anti-spam system integrated into the major Web-based email systems. It would have several rounds of increasingly refined analysis seeking to disrupt EVERY part of the spammers' infrastructure, pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and help and protect EACH victim of the spammers.

Nothing to see here

Really I only looked to check the author. 'Nuff to know it's worthless and empty tripe.

Yahoo is WINNING! More spam than ANY other email service!

As someone who continues to fight the spammers, I can report that this is one area where Yahoo is clearly the winner. They are really great at supporting spammers, both as a leading originator of spam and as a leading provider of spammer dropbox addresses. Oh yeah. Also a leading target of the spam and probably the bulk of the spammers' address databases. They may also be supporting the latest round of calendar mangling spam, too, but I'm not sure about that, since I absolutely minimize my use of Yahoo these years.

Hey, Yahoo! How would you like to survive? Hint: If you improve the value of your email system, you would improve the value of your company, and dare I say you would stop subtracting so much value out of the entire Internet, too.

Why don't you [still talking to Yahoo!] add a serious spam-fighting tool to your increasingly worthless email system? It should involve several rounds of increasingly refined analysis for those MANY people who really hate spam. It should target EVERY part of the spammers' infrastructure, pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and help and protect EACH of the spammers' victims. Considering that your own reputation is probably the spammers' biggest victim, maybe it could save you from the bankruptcy you so richly deserve?

Author confirmed, article ignored

It's like super speed reading. All I need to do is check the name of the author and I already know the content.

Null.

Sounding like the broken record, but I'm responding to one:

It doesn't really matter how severe the climate change problem is or whether human stupidity (as typified by the author of the so-called article) is the primary cause. What mattered is that we had an opportunity for many countries to work together BEFORE it became a mad race to the lifeboats.

Thank you little Lewis: "Every man for himself, and to hell with the women and children."

Meanwhile, back in America, the RomneyBot says: "Vote for me so that government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1% of American robots, shall rule the earth."

Broken business models

Some business models work. For example, Microsoft may have awful software, full of bug, bloat, and buyers' remorse (especially since the buyer never had a choice), but their business models work quite well, thank you. In some ways I think that Apple's anti-freedom business models are even worse, but again they work. In Apple's case they work exceedingly well.

OSS has tried a number of economic models, and ALL of them have failed. OSS software is barely surviving in most cases, and even in the best cases, it is far below it's potential. Actually, though I'm still using Ubuntu on a couple of real machines and a few more VMs, I mostly regard it as an example of another failure to reach its potential, especially when Microsoft gave it a green light with that Vista fiasco. At least for my international and rather prosaic needs, Ubuntu's utility has actually declined from a peak about four years back.

Ubuntu is using the large donor model, where the two weaknesses are the donor's pockets and the donor's decisions. I think that his pockets aren't empty yet, but his decisions have been increasingly for annoying flash that the programmers like while breaking such trivial essentials as the Japanese input system. (I can't remember all of the other problems with the more recent releases, but I do remember massive backwards leaps on the Japanese part of it...)

Another popular OSS funding model is basically donated time by programmers without real jobs, with independent wealth, or perhaps just with nothing else to do. SourceForge is a monument to the orphaned projects that result.

This article is about the advertiser-sponsored business model. If it worked for TV, it's supposed to work for the Internet, eh? Excuse me, but TV is DYING because that model has created an intellectual wasteland. There are a few exceptional programs, but they are rapidly becoming fewer and fewer. Me? I stopped dealing with Amazon because of their in-your-face advertising.

I actually think there may be a solution. Something like Kickstarter or IndyGoGo, but with support for project proposals and evaluation of the results. Project management is actually important for anything above a noddie. My own version of the idea is called "reverse auction charity shares", and was mostly created before I ever heard of Kickstarter, but as far as I know, it is not in use anywhere...

Patent law is BROKEN (and Copyright law is WORSE).

I certainly agree that Apple deserves credit and even profits for being first. However, the objective of patents was to ENCOURAGE innovation. Now the primary use of patents seems to be to destroy competitors and prevent competition.

This is especially egregious in situations where there is only one natural or best approach or solution. In those cases, for the sake of encouraging more innovation and competition a monopoly patent is fundamentally a blockade against innovation. Yes, there are some provisions to require licensing at reasonable fees, but all of this breaks down because the factors that determine whether or not these patents are granted and how they are handled once granted is mostly the skills of the lawyers and the foolishness or gullibility of the patent office and courts.

I think this needs to be completely rethought. Instead of monopolistic patents, how about just licensing the invention in exchange for sharing it, and giving the creator a claim on future profits from ALL products that use the invention? This could be handled on a kind of speculative basis AFTER the value has been established. Basically the law would need to require that companies that make large profits reveal more information about how they made those profits. The larger the profits, the larger the incentive for the responsible innovator to step up and claim a share.

It might seem a little backwards, but the inventor would actually be freed to spend all his or her time on inventing things, without taking ANY risks on the implementation or marketing. In exchange for disclosing and sharing the inventions, the inventor can just sit back and wait for profits.

Google claims HOW many active users? They hired Romney?

I find that numeric claim rather hard to believe. I think that is in the same league with Romney's claim that 47% of the American voters are irredeemable victim-minded government-leeching supporters of President Obama.

Can't disprove the number, but I can address the topic of why I barely use Google+ and have no plans to do more with it. I'm pretty sure my use is sufficient for the google to claim that I'm an active user, but I have NOT communicated with anyone via Google+ in some months, and only about three times EVER. My current "activity" is to allow Google+ to upload pictures from my smartphone--and I increasingly regret my choice of Android. I'm still with Android basically because Apple and Microsoft are too evil for my tastes, and at least the increasingly evil Google doesn't control the Android infrastructure to the same degree.

For whatever it's worth, I didn't blame the google for going EVIL--until I found out that they have become leading lobbyist among high-tech companies. It's one thing to become evil because the rules of the game require large American companies to become more evil over time just to survive, but the lobbyists are the creators of those evil rules (of course mediated through the politicians who can be purchased most cheaply).

Idiot author warning

Article skipped.

Former fan of Ubuntu

I'm still using it, actually, but without any enthusiasm. Actually, for serious work I'm using older versions, since the reliability of later versions declined so much, at least for the stuff I want to do. I still think Linux has potential, but Ubuntu is another example of a little engine that couldn't.

The big-donor financial model has two basic constraints. One is that the donor's pockets don't become empty, and it appears he's still got some change. However, the more serious constraint in Ubuntu's case is that the big donor doesn't start calling bad plays, and his calls started going bad a couple of years ago. Basically he listened to programmers who wanted to do flashier stuff and ignored users who wanted a practical alternative to Windows and Apple junk.

Maybe my taste is flawed, but I think Microsoft has awful products, and Apple has an awful anti-freedom philosophy. However their economic models work. Near as I can tell, the best Linux-related economic models are just barely managing to avoid collapsing, even after years of producing superior software with a superior philosophy.

My suggestion is for a small-donor-driven funding model. Imagine something like a stock market, but with charity shares recognizing sponsorship rather than for-profit ownership. Basic idea is the 'charity brokerage' helps with preparing the proposals (including planning for testing and evaluation of the results) and when enough donors like an idea, the money for that project starts flowing. (A viral version of it is described as 'reverse auction charity shares' somewhere on the web.) Basic idea is similar to Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, but with more support for project management...

At this point it doesn't matter why the boat is on fire

What matters is whether we are going to share the effort of building more lifeboats (now mostly equal to houses in more livable places) or fight each other to the death over places in the lifeboats. Apparently a lot of Americans think they should fight on the grounds that they have the most guns, but that usually doesn't work well. Even worse, by making it an insane political football, it's like they are running AWAY from the lifeboats.

Dubious results...

I'm distinctly surprised that neither South Korea nor Japan made the top 10. I join those who suspect an excessive language bias...

It's the economic model, stupid!

Actually, in this case the economic models really are stupid. Whatever you say about the badness of their software, you have to admit that Microsoft's economic models work. Ditto Apple, though my main beef with them is that they are fundamentally against freedom in the form of meaningful and unconstrained choice.

I think Ubuntu is probably the best example of a high-potential failure driven by the big charity model. That can work okay as long as two conditions are met: (1) Big pockets don't become empty. (2) Decision maker with the big pants doesn't make bad choices. I'm not sure about Condition (1), but Ubuntu has clearly fallen apart on Condition (2) since its early peak some years ago. (Yes, I'm still using Ubuntu on four machines, but it is way down from what it used to be, and one of those machines is actually running an obsolete version that is superior in a number of ways to later versions for its current purposes.)

SourceForge is another leading model of failure. Lots of great ideas there, but almost none of them carried to completion. Of the few that do reach usability, almost all of them fail on sustainability or viability. SourceForge is a graveyard where interesting ideas go to die.

A new and more promising alternative is the open pooling of Kickstarter and OpenGoGo. The biggest problem there is project management and assessment. It isn't enough that a lot of people like an idea. The proposed implementation has to be reasonable and possible. Look at Disaspora to see what kind of catastrophe can follow when the flood of uncontrolled money creates an explosion in what was originally a pretty plausible idea.

My suggestion would be something like a charity brokerage, where the people running the brokerage would hold the money and get a percentage in exchange for managerial support. There are a LOT of questions that need to be addressed, but here are a few samples:

(1) Exactly what do you want to do?

(2) What resources will you need?

(3) How will you test it?

(4) How will you decide if you have succeeded?

(5) Is this the end, or are you designing for extensions?

Anyone, for one version you can search for "reverse auction charity shares". That version includes a kind of viral marketing feature...

What should I do?

Oh, so Oracle has panicked and released an update for this? Usually the Java updates announce themselves, but so far this one hasn't. Sometimes I have triggered it manually by using the plugin updates from my browser (usually Firefox). So far neither of those update paths seems to be working, and I don't trust the Oracle website enough for a more manual approach...

When I run the update check for the plugins, it shows three Java-related plugins. However, there is no option to update any of them. Instead, the only option it is current offering is to disable them. If I do that, I suspect my computer will be at least partially crippled, even more than it currently is (partly by my security software).

Should I wait for the update to appear? Should I disable? If I disable, will that also disable the update when it does appear?

In conclusion, I always hated Oracle, and now I hate them more and with better reason. If I knew that a website or company was using Oracle products, I would count that as a strong reason to avoid that website or to avoid doing ANY business with that company.

Way to go, Oracle. How's that purchase of Sun working out for you? It's certainly screwing with the rest of us.

Not accessible from the browser? (Firefox)

Usually the Java updates announce themselves, but so far this one hasn't. Sometimes I have triggered it manually by using the plugin updates from my browser (usually Firefox). So far neither of those update paths seems to be working, and I don't trust the Oracle website enough for a more manual approach...

When I run the update check for the plugins, it shows three Java-related plugins. However, there is no option to update any of them. Instead, the only option it is current offering is to disable them. If I do that, I suspect my computer will be at least partially crippled, even more than it currently is (partly by my security software).

Should I wait for the update to appear? Should I disable? If I disable, will that also disable the update when it does appear?

In conclusion, I always hated Oracle, and now I hate them more and with better reason. If I knew that a website or company was using Oracle products, I would count that as a strong reason to avoid that website or to avoid doing ANY business with that company.

Way to go, Oracle. How's that purchase of Sun working out for you? It's certainly screwing with the rest of us.