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Posted Friday, September 26, 2003 The Undistributed FutureBrad DeLong bangs his head against the wall.
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Posted Thursday, September 25, 2003 Microsoft, Dominance, and SecurityPresumably, y'all have seen this by now.
As a buyer, I have a choice of what software to buy. I would rather take the advantages of Microsoft software and live with its flaws than deal with the challenges of using Apple or Linux or Solaris or what have you (actually, when I was making decisions about servers, I went with Solaris). Although the security experts are supposedly bashing Microsoft, what they are really doing is bashing me. They are saying that because I contribute to the dominance of Microsoft, I make their lives more difficult, because Microsoft is a magnet for virus-writers. If I believed their basic story (and I probably don't), then as an economist I would say that the solution is for the government to place a tax on the buyers of virus-prone software and use that tax to compensate ISP's and others that have to devote resources to fending off viruses. If the tax ends up high enough, it could induce people at the margin to switch away from Microsoft. But as long as we're putting a tax on people who increase risk in the system, why not focus on the most dangerous behavior? The largest tax should be levied on people who fail to install patches. Another large tax should be levied on people who open attachments without thinking. etc. If you don't like taxes, and you want to use a regulatory approach, then I don't think the solution is to force people to install Linux. You could just tell Microsoft to cripple its email program in ways that would prevent viruses, and require individuals to obtain a license in order to uncripple it. My point here is that this "dominance/security" controversy is horse hockey. Dragging Microsoft down is the solution to one problem and one problem only: the fact that competitors are not as successful as they wish they were. . . . . . .
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 Techies vs. Non-techiesIt strikes me that the people who complain the most about Microsoft are techies, and the people that suffer most from the design of the operating system are non-techies. My guess is that Microsoft listens to the wrong set of complaints--the ones from the techies. Consider someone who only wants to use a computer for communication, word processing, and web browsing. Suppose that they never want to download or install software. Couldn't you build an operating system that would support those functions that would be crash-proof? Five years ago, no one would have bought a computer with finite functionality. Most households have at least one person who wants to play games or do programming or use something other than the comm-WP-WWW combination. And five years ago, it was atypical for a household to have more than one computer. And grandma and grandpa did not own a computer at all. As long as the rule was one computer per household, the most techie person in the household drove the purchase decision. That rewarded complex operating systems. I think that today there might be a market for a robust comm-WP-WWW appliance. There are a lot of consumers out there who should not be having to deal with re-starts, calls to customer support, etc. Somebody should aim for that market. . . . . . .
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003 Stock OptionsI think that stock options are a crock. Brian J. Hall and Kevin J. Murphy use polite academic phrasing.
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Off-topicIn my latest TCS essay, I pose a few questions for Presidential candidates. I get hung up on one of them.
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Posted Monday, September 22, 2003 Regulate Hardware, not EtherI think that's what Kevin Werbach is saying.
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Filing your emailDavid Gelernter's essay on email has this fun rant.
The essay concludes with his inevitable plug for the nonhierarchical filing system that he is developing. But it's still worth a read. . . . . . .
Posted Sunday, September 21, 2003 The Power of FeedbackI was without power for 60 hours, so I'm just catching up. While I was out, TCS restored its comments functionality, and also published my essay on how to give useful feedback.
Now, as soon as Hylton gets me switched over to Movable Type, you will be able to give feedback on my ideas about feedback, as well as any other rants that I post here. . . . . . .
Posted Thursday, September 18, 2003 "Fixing" the Internet
David Isenberg comments on some other suggestions.
I really agree with the view that the intelligence on the Net should be on the edges. What that means, however, is that you have to assume that there will be a lot of stupidity on the edges, as well. What you cannot expect is to be able through legislation or centralized architecture to be able to make the Net idiot-proof. As someone once said, there is no such thing as idiot-proof: someone can always build a better idiot. . . . . . .
Dissing Java for the Desktop
Microsoft software is flawed. From the standpoint of many users, the competing software has flaws that are worse. Reality bites. . . . . . .
Paying the Copyright TaxThe copyright tax just keeps getting more and more expensive. We have the resources being used up by the RIAA lawsuits. And we have efforts like this one.
Of all of the ideas in the copyright wars, adding "crippleware" to hardware is the worst. It maximizes the costs and minimizes the benefits. . . . . . .
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003 Da ManA terrific interview with Milton Friedman. Near the end, Friedman says,
Read the whole thing. . . . . . .
Evolution, Technology, and TerrorismRandall Parker has a follow-up to my concerns about the potential of terrorism by a lone individual.
I'm sure that people will not like Parker's conclusions. But the warning should be taken seriously. Sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "I'm not listening" is not the answer, either. I think that some sort of surveillance society is inevitable, and the issue is one of control. I don't think that control by a small elite is workable, and it is certainly not desirable. I think that something like David Brin's "transparent society," in which surveillance information is accessible to everyone, is what we should be trying to think about and work toward. UPDATE: More discussion, from The Speculist. . . . . . .
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003 Why College Tuition is so HighI suggest two reasons: aesthetics and inefficiency. On the latter, I write,
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Transparency and Patriot-ismMarginal Revolution writes,
Any law that is passed in the name of stopping terrorism should be written so that it only applies to terrorism. How hard is that to do? . . . . . .
Posted Thursday, September 11, 2003 Grid Computingis the great hope, if you believe Vint Cerf. Or the great hype, if you believe Carly Fiorina. It surprises me to say this, but on this one, I'm with the CEO, not with the godfather. Grid computing strikes me as a way to squeeze more computing cycles out of existing machines. If that's a value proposition, then why isn't there a more active market in used computers? If you answer, "Moore's Law--the old computers aren't worth much compared with new ones," well...that's my answer on grid computing, too. The administrative cost of tieing together old iron in a grid seems like a lot when you could just wait a while and buy new iron. . . . . . .
I May Be Wrong, ButI have been pestering Hylton to add a "comments" feature to our blogs on Corante, and I have been pestering Nick to bring back the "feedback" feature on TechCentralStation, which got lost when they revamped the site. (Nick promises that it is going to come back.) I want to respond to the typical pushback I get when I extol the virtues of comments.
Then move the comments to a separate page, and run the comment database off a different server. Moore's Law says that comments should not be a problem.
I have a modest suggestion, which is to have the site automatically preface each comment with "I may be wrong, but," That is, If I write, "Virginia, you are an ignorant slut," my comment will be posted as, "I may be wrong, but, Virginia, you are an ignorant slut." Brother Shirky of many-to-many says that software can make a difference in social climate. I'd be curious to see if an innocent little thing like the automatic "I may be wrong, but, " preface might induce people to change the tone of their comments. My hope is that it would encourage people to think about how to establish the validity of their arguments as opposed to how to dehumanize their opponents. But even if flame wars break out, I think that a flame war is healthier than the silence that is enforced by not allowing comments. . . . . . .
Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2003 Odlyzko on Boom-Bust in TelecomAny time Hylton sends me a link to something by Andrew Odlyzko, if I haven't already seen it, I'm bound to post it. Here, he says that the cycle in telecom will turn around at some point.
I also think that non-human communication is going to be important--sensor networks, RFID's, and whatnot. . . . . . .
Free Agents vs. Grey FlannelsGlenn Reynolds describes the differences. He concludes,
And I think that ultimately even college professors will not be able to enjoy the combination of a regular paycheck and almost complete autonomy. They'll have to join the rest of us in Real World 101. . . . . . .
Posted Monday, September 8, 2003 Portalization of WeblogsHere's a "social software" type of theory: as popular weblogs age, they will become portals. In the early days of the Web, back when there were about 1000 sites, I started homefair.com. It had my personal voice, and it had broad content--interest rate information, housing information, and so on. As the Web expanded, this model became untenable. You cannot be top quality at everything, and a better site is always one click away. Because homefair was early and built up a following, we eventually evolved into a portal. Our own content became less essential to our success, and our links out became more important. My point is that I think that weblogs are headed down the same track. People who have longstanding weblogs who want to keep their following will find that they have to behave like portals. That is, they will have to become very rich in links, and reduce their self-expression (or express themselves by the way in which they select links). If you want to express yourself heavily (as I do), and you want a large following, then I think you will have to progressively narrow your scope. People will come to you for your area of expertise, not for stuff that they can find just as easily elsewhere. . . . . . .
Voice over IPKevin Werbach is your (or at least my) Voice over IP headquarters. Today, he links to a depressing story about a state regulator in Minnesota who is determined to "level the playing field" with the Baby Bells by subjecting VOIP to the same regulations. A couple of points I would make. 1. The story shows that there are still important people out there who do not see that where we are headed is what the Reed, Frankston folks call "connectivity," as opposed to services like "voice" or "TV." Nicholas Negroponte said at least a decade ago, "bits are bits." Is it too much to ask a regulator to have acquired a clue by now? 2. To me, this makes a total mockery of what Kevin Martin forced the FCC to do about local telephone network facilities sharing, which is to let state regulators set the terms and conditions. That puts power into the hands of the most stupid, corruptible people in the whole process. I give you this Minnesota gopher as exhibit A. All you geeks out there who are working so hard to elect Howard Dean should realize that once the Democrats get control of the FCC again, the "world of ends" is toast. It will be world of clueless suits, bumbling cross-subsidizing do-gooders, and kiss-my-ring regulators. . . . . . .
Taxing Hardware to Eliminate Copyright?One approach to the copyright issue is to levy a tax on hardware and distribute the tax proceeds to copyright owners. Canada does this with blank tapes. Stan Liebowitz takes a dim view of the hardware tax approach.
He raises some important points. Which hardware do you tax? If you tax tapes but not computers or MP3 players, then people will just stop using tapes. If you tax computers the same percent as MP3 players, then people who never download music will be subsidizing people who download a lot. etc. Which content creators receive the tax revenue? The ones who get the most downloads? That would seem to favor music that a lot of people like a little bit, at the expense of music that a few people really like a lot. On the other hand, he puts in a good word for digital rights management (DRM). DRM is a tax with no beneficiaries. It raises the cost of hardware and software, without making any more money available to pay content creators. I know that there is no perfect solution, and we can go round and round on this. But I am convinced that DRM takes you in the direction of the social welfare minimum. I like Odlyzko's solution. Let the phone companies buy the music companies--or let them license the music. Or let Intel buy the music companies--and while you're at it, let Intel license enough spectrum to make wireless mesh networking function really well. Intel can use the music to raise demand for its chips in products that are on the network, and they can allocate some of the revenue from chip sales to pay music creators. Thanks to a reader for alerting me to the Liebowitz paper. . . . . . .
Posted Sunday, September 7, 2003 Darwin and Terrorism: Missing the PointA Foreign Policy article on evolution and terrorism that seems weak to me. I mean, this is true enough:
But to me, the interesting question is this: assume you can make state-sponsored terrorism extinct. Then what kind of terrorism will survive? I think that survivors will be splinter groups, rogue operations, and individuals. As of now, that is less of a threat than a large network. But the power of the individual keeps increasing as technology increases. Eventually, we are going to have to develop the capability to identify and thwart a lone terrorist with no connections to anyone. . . . . . .
Want More People to Use Mass Transit?Brad DeLong reports on a conversation in San Diego.
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Posted Friday, September 5, 2003 Restructure the FCC?A weird opinion piece in the Washington Times about the FCC, from a former associate general counsel there.
Get over it. I happen to disagree with the emailers on substance--I am in favor of the new media ownership rules, or at least I don't think they will cause any harm. But if you think that their tactics are egregious, but lobbying by K Street lawyers isn't, then...*&(#!*# you! GET OVER IT.
Actually, some "independent" agencies work very well, thank you very much. Ever heard of the Federal Reserve? the FDIC? But I think that you may be onto something. The key is deregulation. If somebody wants to abolish a lot of FCC functions that have been made obsolete by new competing technologies, and THEN transfer the remaining functions to the executive branch, then fine by me. . . . . . .
More ClayShirky on the new economics of content.
Economists would then ask, how does quality get sorted out? The Shirky's answer would be "collaborative filters." Not the only plausible answer, but a reasonable guess. He goes on to say that
Economists call this a Nash equilibrium. Anyway, as usual, read the whole thing. . . . . . .
Posted Thursday, September 4, 2003 Painfully CheapBrad DeLong points to a post by John Robb on digital cameras.
But digital cameras are a pain at any price. My wife and I are old fogeys, so we think of pictures as things that you hold onto for a long time so that you can look at them later. Getting pictures from a digital camera to a photo place to print makes programming a 1985 VCR seem trivial. Some friends of our have a son who just graduated college and spent 6 weeks traveling in Europe. He came back with 3000 pictures on his laptop, which he gave to his mother to sift through. "I narrowed it down to 600," was the last I heard from her. Computer printers for the home have gotten really cheap. But they take forever to print. And you have to watch the printer constantly to make sure that the paper does not stop feeding. It's a major project printing out one copy of notes for a class, which I then have to take to a copy machine, because there is no way that I am going to baby-sit my computer printer while it makes 15 copies. To paraphrase the credit card commercial: cost of a digital camera or a home printer--cheap; ability to manage photographic memories or to prepare for a class--priceless. . . . . . .
Posted Wednesday, September 3, 2003 Just AnsweringIs the purpose of BloggerCon to con bloggers? (just kidding) Anyway, for some reason Dave Winer thought that the blog for the conference would be a good place to post these questions for Presidential candidates: [I'll add my answers in brackets. Even though I'm not running.] 1. Should the United States have a health care system like the ones in European countries and Canada? [no] 2. What's your position on the death penalty? [unequivocally opposed] 3. Abortion? [no government prohibition. Morally, though, I think that abortion ought to be only used early in pregnancy as an unconditional form of birth control. It should not be used as a way to dispose of babies with birth defects. Regardless, I would not try to legislate my moral views.] 4. Did Bush lie about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? [I don't think so. I expected that it would be easier to find WMD after the war, but I do not feel misled or lied to.] Does it matter? [If I thought that I had been lied to, it would matter a lot.] Was the war in Iraq a good idea? [Yes. But long-term consequences are hard to predict. In the 1960's, I thought that Communism would be good for Viet Nam, and I no longer believe that. I think that regardless of how you feel about the war in Iraq now, you have to be prepared to change your mind depending on how things turn out over the next decade.] 6. If you were President, would you have settled with Microsoft for antitrust? [Yes. Microsoft is flawed, but government regulation would not necessarily make things better. And antitrust laws are very clumsy instruments of regulation. The anti-trust controversy is a fight between one flawed company and other flawed companies, with the consumer not having a horse in the race.] 7. Why is it illegal to use or possess marijuana? [Because of laws which I oppose] 8. How do you feel about music on the Internet? What, if anything, should the President do about it? Congress? [Do less to protect the music industry. Send their lobbyists away, and make them compete on technology.] 9. Do you have an email address? Do you read your own email? What should we do about spam? [I worry about solutions that cost more than the problem. I worry about passing laws that cannot be enforced or that make things worse. I hope that engineers, software developers, and others in the private sector come up with a solution.] ... 11. How do you plan to get us out of this Steinbeckian-Grapes-Of-Wrath economy? From Halley. [The facts simply will not support the thesis that we are in such an economy. If I sent you through a time machine back to the 1930's and put you in the 90th percentile of the income distribution, you would soon beg to come back to live in the 25th percentile today.] 12. What do you think about school vouchers? [They are a plausible but unproven approach. They ought to be given an opportunity to succeed or fail. A number of different voucher experiments, with various rules and approaches, ought to be tried.] How can public education in the U.S. best be improved? [by giving parents more say. Vouchers could be one method, but reducing the size of school districts and the strings associated with Federal and state funding is another.] . . . . . .
Manufacturing Crisis?I take a cynical view of President Bush's Labor Day pronouncement. So did Daniel Gross and Steve Pearlstein. Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds says that cottage industry is the wave of the future. . . . . . .
Posted Tuesday, September 2, 2003 Roofnet
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Dubious PredictionsFrom Forrester Research on the future of music and movies.
Forrester says that the media industry is finally willing to look at the Internet as an opportunity rather than a threat, and I hope that this is true. But I am skeptical of any study that forecasts a big market for movie video-on-demand. That forecast has been made wrongly for years, and it continues to defy the fact that hard disk space is increasing faster than bandwidth. I think that the correct answer to the question, "When will video on demand become mainstream?" is "Never." By the time we have the bandwidth to make it work, we will have hard drives capable of storing all the movies ever made. Maybe people will download brand new movies--but it also could turn out that they obtain updates to their movie collections via physical media. . . . . . .
Strange Tales from the Spam WarsThe spam wars are getting weirder. Folks like Joi Ito are finding their email blocked by SpamAssassin. Dan Kohn has helped found a company called Habeas, that creates a header that supposedly is a promise not to spam. I think that the idea of either-or email delivery (it either must be sent as plain text or it must be sent to one person at a time) is looking better. . . . . . .
Push to TalkThanks to the ever-vigilant Smartmobs blog, a pointer to an article on push-to-talk.
Will this mean more cultural divergence between the U.S. and Europe/Japan? The economics of cell phones in other countries still favor text messaging over voice. Also, my thinking is that cell phone communication is a bit of an anachronism in the Internet age. Proprietary systems, circuit-switched calls, etc. At what point will we convert to voice over IP? Anyway, I think that PTT is something to watch. . . . . . .
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