Category: Technology

I hope Tom Clancy is not a prophet

If Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman paid any attention to national politics, he’d know that Gambling Is Bad and Americans Hate Gambling. But, until the House gets around to outlawing Las Vegas, Mayor Goodman is in charge. And Tom Clancy has him working feverishly to protect Las Vegas from its no doubt imminent economic collapse, thanks to his new “terrorists invade Las Vegas” edition of Rainbow Six:

“It could be harmful economically, and it may be something that’s not entitled to free speech (protection),” Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said of the game’s realistic scenes, which he had not personally viewed.

“It’s based on a false premise,” Goodman said, adding federal and state leaders have repeatedly assured him that Las Vegas is “the safest place imaginable” nearly five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the East Coast.

“I will ask … whether or not we can stop it,” Goodman said of the game’s planned November release.

In other news Destroy All Humans has completely turned me off the idea of visiting strange towns filled with stereotypical bumpkins. I might end up dead with my brain stem extracted through mental powers. Or worse, I might end up the victim of mind control and be forced to sing and run around in circles. And I definitely fear being in a hotel when a UFO launches a sonic boom or two at the structure’s foundation, thereby causing it to collapse. Why didn’t someone acknowledge that the game’s makers don’t deserve free speech because the resulting fictitious game might scare me?

As stupid as Mayor Goodman’s comment is, I’m going to happily give (hopefully legally take from, of course) Las Vegas some of my money next month when I’m there on vacation. He’s worrying for nothing.

Source: John Dvorak

Digital Lefts Management in France

Two things interest me in this story explaining Apple’s possible response to French legislation requiring that songs purchased online be playable on any mp3 player. Personally, I think the choice is simple: Apple should close shop in France. When citizens in France are still walking around with the latest iPod every time Apple releases a new product, the government will have its answer on which the French consumer values more. Capitulation to the French central planners would only encourage other central planners in Europe. I suspect Apple pulling out of France would lead to the same nonsense surrounding region-encoded DVD players, preventing online purchases of non-compliant players. Permit central planners to invade on the small things and they’ll control the big things, too. So Apple should leave France.

More intriguing is this:

Members of the activist group Free Software Foundation have staged protests this summer outside of Apple stores across the country, with members dressed in colorful toxic waste suits and carrying signs that rate digital rights management software such as Apple’s as “Defective by Design,” the name of the group’s campaign.

Henri Poole, a Free Software Foundation board member, said that such software restrictions infringe on consumer rights and are designed to protect “antiquated business models.”

“We purchase [songs] and we think we have the same rights we had two years ago, but those rights are being eroded and the [digital rights management] rules can even be changed after you’ve purchased,” he said.

I agree that excessive DRM is indeed “defective by design.” However, as I’ve said before, I’ve come to accept that with the iPod and iTunes. I knew going into the deal exactly what Apple expects, what it will license to me. As such, I won’t argue that my rights are being eroded. Perhaps they are, but if I value something else more (convenience, functionality), that’s my choice. I don’t need a central planner to tell me how I’m supposed to enjoy my iPod. I want it to have Sirius functionality, but I’m not going to ask Congress to require it.

Of course, economically, I’m still discussing the French, so I leave open the possibility that French consumers believe it’s better to have nothing than something if that something is “exploitative”. If so, c’est la vie. I’m not the boss of them.

Solving the gas crisis, one giveaway at a time

Congress is putting our money where its mouth is:

Scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs will be able to vie for a grand prize of $10 million, and smaller prizes reaching millions of dollars, under House-passed legislation to encourage research into hydrogen as an alternative fuel.

Legislation creating the “H-Prize,” modeled after the privately funded Ansari X Prize that resulted last year in the first privately developed manned rocket to reach space twice, passed the House Wednesday on a 416-6 vote. A companion bill is to be introduced in the Senate this week.

Yay? From a budgetary impact, the prize is only $10 million. When the government spends almost $3 trillion, who will miss it? (That’s not a sufficient reason, of course, as there are many “no one will miss it” appropriations.) But here’s a question: what if hydrogen isn’t the eventual best solution to switching from oil? In that scenario, either this incentive pushes entrepreneurs and scientists into sub-optimal research, or the prize is ignored or awarded to the best of the worst ideas to solving the energy crisis. At least Congress did something. No doubt subsidies for hydrogen access (supplies, stations) will follow.

Naturally, many grandiose statements must flow from the hallowed halls of Congress, since no politician wants to avoid credit for the inevitable success.

“This is an opportunity for a triple play,” said bill sponsor Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., citing benefits to national security from reduced dependence on foreign oil, cleaner air from burning pollution-free hydrogen and new jobs. “If we can reinvent the car, imagine the jobs we can create.”

I am imagining them. And so are the entrepreneurs most likely to take the investment risk necessary to create a viable alternative to the gas engine. And so are the automotive unions who will lobby Congress to protect their jobs when the technology changes on them. A rational person understands that economic and technological growth is not a zero-sum game, but he also understands that it’s not an infinity-sum game.

“Perhaps the greatest role that the H-Prize may serve is in spurring the imagination of our most valuable resource, our youth,” said co-sponsor Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill.

Really, I have nothing insightful to say on that, other than score one for Rep. Lipinski for finding a creative way to insert “for the children” into the discussion. I should’ve anticipated it, but I’m not sure I would’ve come up with that. Granted, my view is tainted by my brother, who will enter college in the fall, and his desire to be an engineer. Amazingly, that desire grew without the influence of a $10 million prize from the federal government. I’m sure he’ll study harder because of this, so it’s worth it.

Day 18 of D-E-Double Hockey Sticks

Over the last eighteen days, I’ve begun to understand “Dell Hell.” Currently, my laptop is in Memphis for repair for the third time since it died in April. During its first repair attempt, Dell replaced the fan and heat sink. When I received the laptop back, I was able to recreate the problem in 50 minutes. When I called, Dell admitted that its staff turned my computer on and let it run for 45 minutes before sending it back. They didn’t bother to examine the laptop to determine a cause. The hardware technician did not diagnose anything beyond what the phone representative imagined as the cause, hence the limited, ineffectual repair.

On its second attempt, Dell replaced the fan, heat sink, and CPU. I do not understand why they believed that a part they replaced a few days before would be the cause of the original problem. The phone representative noted in my case that the next repair attempt should include the motherboard. This did not happen, as I said. When I received the laptop from the repair depot, I managed to kill it in 35 minutes, replicating the original problem by playing a DVD.

So now my laptop is on its third journey. I have no faith that my laptop will be fixed whenever it returns, but that’s mitigated by the knowledge that Dell must continue trying until the problem is resolved. Of course, I have to remind them of that every time I’ve called them, which is frustrating. Why no one at Dell can grasp the simple concept that, because my laptop failed during the warranty period, it is irrelevant that my warranty has since expired if the original problem hasn’t been fixed. Especially when they’ve admitted that they didn’t bother to run a thorough diagnostic or post-repair test.

I’ve learned a few things during this ordeal. Dell is clearly incompetent, which I think is all that works as an explanation. There is an upside to this: my laptop will have all new insides by the time this is resolved. It’s unfortunate that I’m not earning frequent flier miles for all the trips the computer is making to Memphis.

I won’t be buying anything from Dell in the future.

Post Script: Composing anything worth reading on a PocketPC is still virtually impossible, not to mention the hand cramping it causes. Regular blogging will resume soon.

I’m stealing the term “definitional elasticity”

As long as it increases tax-receipts revenue, any logic is acceptable. Increasingly, states apply irrational justifications to tax iTunes and other music download services.

In Kentucky and Washington, state law does allow the taxation of computer software. Washington law defines software as “a set of coded instructions designed to cause a computer…to perform a task,” which tax officials have interpreted to include music, movies and e-books.

“We use that same rationale on other types of files, such as music files or video files,” said Gary Davis, the state’s tax information and education manager. “We view them as similar because they cause some action by a piece of hardware to play them.”

Davis recited aloud the definition of computer software from Washington’s tax law and said he believed that data files, like an executable program, cause a computer to “perform a task.” He said, “I think it’s our policy that that’s exactly what a music file does in order to hear it.”

That definitional elasticity has alarmed online retailers, which say states are interpreting tax laws in ways never envisioned by elected officials or the general public. They would rather see the issue decided openly in state legislatures than behind closed doors by tax agencies.

On what basis could any rational human being interpret an mp3 file to be software that causes a computer to perform a task? The only software that causes a computer to perform a task has an .exe extension. That stands for “executable”. It’s a bizarre notion, I understand, but it’s universal. An mp3 file has an .mp3 extension. Click that without an mp3 player on a computer and the computer will do nothing. Absolutely nothing. An mp3 is data used by a program as a set of instructions to create sound waves through computer speakers. Next, I suppose Mr. Davis will determine that a ball rolling down a hill is being propelled by perpetual motion instead of gravity.

Perhaps the music download tax question is valid. I’m all for as little taxation as possible, but I understand that politicians aren’t reasonable people. At least understand that updating legislation is the way to deal with new situations. Loose reinventing of the same language only cheapens the constitutional basis. Instead, understand that the words mean what the words say.

Apple now allows you to protect yourself… from yourself

Isn’t it reassuring to see how well the free-market works?

Owners of recent iPods will now be able to set how loud their digital music players can go. Apple Computer Inc., facing complaints and a lawsuit claiming the popular player can cause hearing loss, made the setting available as part of a new software update Wednesday. The free download applies to the iPod Nano and the iPod models with video-playback capabilities.

Hmmm… incentives work? Without government intervention? It even lets parents set the software and lock the setting so kids can’t undo it on their iPods? That’s crazy talk. I don’t believe it. What kind of foolishness is this?

I want to exercise my “Phillies win every World Series” rights.

I understand that this quote is a simplification of copyright “fair use” for clarity, but I found it amusing anyway.

“Consumers have well-established rights to ‘time-shift’ television programming by making copies for personal, in-home viewing,” [Cablevision] says. “This new technology merely enables consumers to exercise their time-shifting rights in the same manner as with traditional DVRs, but at less cost.”

Let’s see them find that in the Constitution. Activist judges cable television providers!

I already spend enough money

In this article about the looming format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD illustrates how some companies can technologically smart and policy dumb.

… at least one major studio intends to downgrade the picture even more unless consumers hook their players up through a special, pricey cable aimed at preventing piracy.

New software included on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD releases, however, will automatically slash the picture quality in half, unless consumers have a relatively new connector and cable called HDMI to hook up players to their televisions.

Yeah, let me know how that works. Was anyone paying attention to the recent Sony CD fiasco, which didn’t involve degrading the product quality?

Lesson number one in the looming format war should be obvious: I don’t have to do anything. I’m content with the equipment I have. I’m content with my relatively extensive DVD collection. I’m content with Netflix. Obviously the movie studios could mess with the last option, but I suspect Netflix, Blockbuster, and Amazon are more focused with that than I am. It’ll be okay. Since my entertainment budget is non-essential, I can find other ways to spend it. Make it worth my effort financially and I might see the difference in picture quality as worthwhile. Penalizing me for earlier technology upgrades is not the way to encourage me to continue upgrading to newer technology.

FYI.

Don’t bite the Apple that feeds you

Here’s an interesting critique of the Cato Institute’s new white paper on Digital Rights Management. I haven’t read the white paper, so I’ll confine myself to the Boing Boing critique. First, this:

The Cato Institute, an ultra-libertarian, right-wing think tank, has released a white paper damning the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s ban on breaking the anti-copying systems used to cripple digital media, like DVDs and iTunes songs.

I’m not sure what to make of “ultra-libertarian, right-wing”? Ultra-libertarian sounds good enough to me, both in a utopian view of the world and as a descriptive statement for the Cato Institute. So why the addition of “right-wing”? This context reads as if we the reader should replace “right-wing” with “bad” as we follow along. This is too broad, in what appears to be an attempt to smear the Cato Institute’s normal beliefs. Are they not liberal progressive enough? I don’t know, I could be wrong. The post later describes them as “sharp free-market types”, which I like, so “right-wing” just strikes me as a weird to introduce them for this topic.

Moving on:

I’ve heard for years that the Cato Institute was divided on DRM and copyright, so it’s good to seem them taking a stand now. I think they’ve only scratched the surface, though. Of special interest to free-marketeers should be the way that DRM lets Apple hijack the music companies’ copyright monopoly and turn it into a tax on Apple customers who switch from an iPod to a competing product. You can keep your MP3s if you switch from Windows to Mac, but if you switch from iPod to Creative, kiss your iTunes goodbye. Talk about anti-competitive!

That’s too simplistic, I think. It’s too easy to lump DRM and the corporations that use it into the bad category and customers into the good category. I spent a long time not using Apple’s products (iPod and iTunes) because of the DRM issues and the potential choice problems later. Ultimately, my subjective conclusion of Apple’s superiority convinced me.

Apple’s behavior can be seen as anti-competitive, since it’s a closed source process. Boo-hiss, and all that. But I also have a choice. I didn’t have to convert to Apple products. I weighed the factors (cost, options, future conversion efforts) and decided that the deal is sufficient. The free market is functioning.

The flaw in the excerpted passage lies with an incorrect assumption that the free market means the solution comes up roses for the customer every time. The best solution doesn’t have to involve sticking it to The Man. Customers may make irrational decisions that benefit one company more than another. That doesn’t make it wrong. More than anti-competitive dreck surrounding the DRM, the real issue might be whether or not legal digital music would’ve happened without Apple. I have no idea. But the free-market decided that this is good enough for now.

The US Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s ban is absurd, of course, but there’s a difference between a corporate decision to implement licensing requirements DRM and government regulation. With Apple’s scheme, customers have a choice. With the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, customer’s have no choice, aside from whether or not to abide by the law. It’s even more glaring considering how intentionally skewed the DMCA is to content owners. Hitting Apple for its business practices because they correspond with government regulation is too intellectually soft.

College is not about collecting notes

It’s reassuring, I guess, that whining is universal across industries. A professor at the University of Memphis banned laptops from her class.

On March 6, Professor June Entman warned her first-year law students by e-mail to bring pens and paper to take notes in class.

“My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing,” Entman said Monday. “The computers interfere with making eye contact. You’ve got this picket fence between you and the students.”

What’s the issue? The law isn’t about rote memorization, to my knowledge. I’d rather my attorney be able to tell me what precedents and facts mean than I care when a case was decided and in whose favor. Having been a graduate (MBA) student, I’m aware of the lack of understanding from trying too hard to capture every word. My style of learning may or may not be common, but I learned the most in classes where I paid attention. Strange, I know, but it might work for Professor Entman’s students, too. Considering Professor Entman’s students filed a complaint with the American Bar Association that was dismissed might indicate that she knows more than they do about the law.

Of further note is this tidbit:

“If we continue without laptops, I’m out of here. I’m gone; I won’t be able to keep up,” said student Cory Winsett, who said his hand-written notes are incomplete and less organized.

At some point in the 20th century, someone invented the tape recorder. Later in the 20th century, someone invented the digital voice recorder. Is it possible that Mr. Winsett and his fellow classmates could transcribe the class discussion during their post-class studies? Maybe they could take turns or request that Professor Entman offer her class as a podcast.

Of course, if I was in Professor Entman’s position, I might not institute a ban on laptops since that punishes the students who use them responsibly. Instead, I might just make class participation more important in each student’s grade. If the student can’t keep up because of poor note-taking strategy, he or she will adapt or fail. That seems like a reasonable early test for future lawyers.

I make that suggestion with full acceptance that I don’t know how much participation she requires. I assume it’s greater than nothing, but I could be wrong as to the practicality of my suggestion.