DISQUS

But it could be that this thing will work. I wrote on my own blog that while it seems really, really stupid to imagine that people would pay for something they can get for free, I looked over at my colleague's desk.

At the $3 bottle of water.

So as stupid as it may sound, it has precedent.

Another "WTF?" feature is that in order to download a public domain book to this thing you have to pay, but why would someone do that instead of sending that browser over to the Gutenberg Project or Google book search?

It looks like some sort of handheld medical device, like a heart or blood sugar monitor. Now THAT'S ugly.

And for $399? My library card is free, my books don't need batteries and they won't be destroyed if I drop them.

I can also see air travel hassles. I travel a lot for business and I've seen several occasions on which a traveler patiently tried to explain what "airplane mode" means to a flight attendant who refused to listen. You'd think the airlines would have sent a memo or something, but...

It looks like an overfed ocicat. See the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocicat.

Easier said than done. I moved a couple of weeks ago and tried to establish my new utility accounts without giving my social security number. It was possible to do so, but only if I was willing to make hefty deposits against future utility bills (the electric company wanted $200). So even though nobody is supposed to require your SSN, they penalize you for exercising your right not to provide it.

My credit union also requires you to verify your identity with your SSN (along with address and telephone number) when you call them on the phone.

I will never understand the thinking that goes on in corporations and other entities that believe identity and privacy can be protected by requiring callers to speak their SSNs out loud where anybody within earshot can make note of it, especially when the call also includes provision of your address and telephone number.

"Separating people from their laptops during flights would be painful, although some people could surely use the time to go over reading material, or even revert to pen and paper."

Newsflash, Grey Nitwits -- many of us laptop-hauling business travelers are expected and indeed, required, to work on our laptops during our flights. Those hours hurtling through the sky in an extra large Pepsodent tube are not downtime, they are booked as billable business hours and we are actually expected to use them for work.

"Deborah Platt Majoras cited the principle that, absent clear and specific evidence of market failure or consumer harm, policymakers should not enact blanket prohibitions of particular business models or conduct."

The Supreme Court cited the principle that, absent clear and specific evidence of law enforcement failure or citizen harm, lawmakers should not enact blanket prohibitions of particular crime models or conduct. The time to criminalize murder, rape, burglary and fraud is after there is clear evidence that it is both occurring in significant amounts and that it is doing actual harm.

Doesn't wash, does it? And no, it is not different. Criminalizing/regulating harmful activity after is has already been committed and done harm is too little, too late. You can not turn back time erase the harm done.

I believe that you have both missed the point of Felten's paper -- that discrimination could take the form of induced/maintained jitter in the network, but it is almost impossible to determine if jitter is a natural occurring phenomenon of the network architecture, or artifically induced to degrade service. Or more ambiguous yet, a naturally occurring phenomenon that the ISP takes no steps to correct because the result is degradation of service, which benefits the ISP.

And while it is perhaps true that the ISPs have not attempted discrimination -- but again, we can't possibly know for certain, given the above -- the cell phone companies most certainly have. Hit the web on your internet-enabled cell phone, and make note of the sites and service that you can NOT access. Say, Vonage, for example.

The lack of competition argument does not refer to price, it refers to number of service providers avaiable in a given area, and thus consumer choice. Very few consumers in the U.S. have a choice of more than one broadband provider, and even fewer have a choice that would not require large upfront fees and equipment change. In other words, those that have a choice must choose between two different technologies, cable and DSL. But they do not have a choice between multiple DSL providers or multiple cable modem providers.