Disqus - Latest Comments for cordblomquist

Re: Open Source is Not the Enemy

cordblomquist — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:52:19 -0000

You should see my recent comments to Tim Lee, reposted here http://timothyblee.com/?p=1432 as a post with his comments, that illustrate why I believe there is a bias against free software specifically in the free market non-profit community. The advocates of free software often use highly charged language and try to turn an engineering question into a political one. That politicizing has made a lot of folks suspicious of open source, something that has set advocates of freedom behind because, as you say, money has been wasted on closed-source technologies that don't stack up to open software.

Re: Not So Fast, Cloud

cordblomquist — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:51:27 -0000

Jim, doesn't this sort of analysis ignore the trend toward specialization and the benefits of economies of scale? It makes sense for something like data storage, something that can be done cheaply and efficiently on mass, to become a commodity. It should be purchasable off-the-shelf. Services like DropBox are a good example of this.

Setting up a server in the home is an unreasonable expectation to have for the average consumer, but it's also a qualitatively different. "Cloud" services like Gmail are undoubtedly co-locating your data and despite the hype about down time, offer a much more stable service than the DIY variety. Additionally, upgrades to services are made seamlessly in the cloud, unlike home-based solutions that require consumers to be aware of updates to services or enable auto-updating, something that the average Windows or Mac user can't seem to grasp. Also, the iterative approach to software changes adopted by most cloud-based services makes improvements to software a much more pleasant process than swapping our your home server OS every few years.

But finally, i think my biggest issue with your analysis is that you seem to conclude that the market cannot solve some of the privacy problems involved with cloud computing. Shouldn't tech media outlets and the Consumer Reports of the world be able to sort out which companies have the best privacy policy? Couldn't an independent auditor of data-storage services be established? A PriceWaterhouseCoopers for cloud computing? It seems as though we're still in the infancy of this industry--if it can reasonably be called that--so drawing conclusions about the futility of having reasonable standards of privacy in the cloud seems premature.

Re: You Must Fear the Cookie Monster!

cordblomquist — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:29:12 -0000

A lot of the fault here lies with Cavuto's staff not doing the necessary background check on this guy. Even someone who doesn't have much technical expertise should be able to vet someone as an expert by seeing where they have been published, if they've ever testified on the issue, or through some other sort of endorsement.

Though I don't watch his show very often, Cavuto seems like one of the more serious and hard-working people on Fox News, so this interview was a surprise to me.

Re: Commerce and Law

cordblomquist — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:21:14 -0000

On a somewhat off-topic note, Money, Markets & Sovereignty falls into the trap of three things. That is, the trap that all sorts of books like this fall into when it comes to choosing a title. The list of three things has been used by great works like Anarchy, State, & Utopia, but I think choosing this sort of format hurts these works by making them all blend together. It's basic marketing that you should try to differentiate your product from the other guys. It's like Goodyear vs. Goodrich.

Re: Destruction Is Creation?

cordblomquist — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:22:07 -0000

The insurance company loses money, others pay higher rates, and opportunities elsewhere are therefore lost. Same as the other scenario. The flaw in your thinking here is that the insurance company is a free source of money, which can't be true.

Re: Destruction Is Creation?

cordblomquist — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:18:11 -0000

Certainly one could imagine some sort of scenario where value lost through destruction could be made up by added efficiency of whatever replaces it, but these would be the rare, rare exception to the rule. Also, one would wonder why the old wasn't traded for new prior to the destruction.

If there are examples of destruction leading to net gain out there, perhaps regulation plays a part in the story. I can imagine that after natural disasters, certain rules are waived. Historic preservation restrictions, for example, are suddenly gone when the historic buildings have been demolished by mother nature. This could lead to efficiencies that otherwise would have gone unexplored. But this doesn't prove that destruction is good, but rather that regulation is bad.

Outside of the rigid confines of an over-regulated economy, it's hard to imagine many examples of what Skidmore is suggesting.

Re: Cafe Face-Lift

cordblomquist — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:56:59 -0000

Yes, it's a great framework for WordPress. I highly recommend it and if anyone is looking to escape TypePad, you should look at Foliovision, the company that facilitated this transition process. There's a link to them in the footer.

Re: Cafe Face-Lift

cordblomquist — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:18:07 -0000

The design isn't final by any means. The main thing we want to accomplish was converting the blog from Typed to WordPress. Now we have a lot more flexibility in the design and functionality of the site. So, look forward to the design being improved in the weeks to come.

Re: Cafe Face-Lift

cordblomquist — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:15:36 -0000

If you subscribe to comments you can either receive emails when someone adds to the thread or add the thread to your RSS reader.

Yes, comments can be edited for a short time after posting, so you needn't worry so much about little typos.

Re: Cafe Face-Lift

cordblomquist — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:10:18 -0000

Like Don just explained, Cafe Hayek won't be in the practice of banning anyone, but the new comment system does allow you to "like" or "report" comments, essentially vote them up or down. The result of this voting only shows up if you select "Best Rating" under the "Sort by" menu at the top of the comments area.

I also want to encourage everyone to use the "Reply" function in the comments area. This will help to sort out if your comment is a reply to another comment, rather than a reply to the post itself.

If you have any questions about this stuff, feel free to post them here. I'll be checking in regularly to provide answers.

Re: Maine Launches Study to Track Drivers via GPS

cordblomquist — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:11:34 -0000

But how would you know that the miles driven were driven in Maine? If someone drives cross-country, they shouldn't have to pay Maine for that trip.

Re: Jerry Brito - Humor In The Workplace - Federal Business Opportunities

cordblomquist — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:49:00 -0000

I am already teaching an improv class to a group of FCC employees. Also, I'm legally prohibited from going with 100 yards of Timothy Geithner for reasons I'd rather not get into in this forum.

Re: Cringely’s Contradictory Thinking on Microsoft-Google Wars

cordblomquist — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:36:12 -0000

Good post Adam. A little lengthy, but good.

I think Cringely is underestimating the significance of both Bing and Google's Chrome OS.

Bing is the first real shot that Microsoft has had at competing with Google. Notice how it's not named MSN or Microsoft Live Search? Both were horrible names that put the clunky, blue-screening reputation of Microsoft out front. A dumb branding move.

Now, Microsoft is doing the right thing by creating a new brand and positioning it as a "decision engine" rather than a search engine. Microsoft knows it's next to impossible beat Google in a head-to-head fight, so it's trying to be number one in a category it invented, much like Cray did by inventing the product category of "super computer."

Google's Chrome OS has much more potential. Netbooks ARE the future, there can be no doubt about that. The average user simply doesn't need more RAM, a faster processor, more hard drive. These things are wasted on a web-enabled world and so is the clunky OS that keeps them all cooperating. Chrome could easily cut into Microsoft's sales, especially if Google decides to make its apps less feature poor, or if more people turn on to things like Think Free or ZOHO.

In a year or so I may be recommending that my mom buy a Linux-powered laptop. That's saying something.

I love Cringely too, but I agree that he misses the mark here.

Re: Initial recovery.gov pricetag: $9 million

cordblomquist — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:08:01 -0000

If I make a website that has a 10GB database and another with a 10,000GB database, the cost of the second is not 1000 times that of the first. The second site would perhaps cost more to host, but the software that feeds out the smaller amount of data could serve out the much larger amount just as well. So, it's not fair to say that a federal version of a transparency site should cost 50 times that of a state-level site.

The $300,000 state-level site is also questionable. It's not an expensive proposition to build a website which displays data cleary and is easily searched. There are many free solutions to this problem.

The reason this site is going to cost the taxpayers $18 million is the convoluted federal bidding process that shuts out all but the most politically connected contractors. Only a few dozen contractors were eligible to bid at all. This is why a defense contractor is building this website, instead of one of the hundreds of top-tier web software developers in the country.

Perhaps we need more transparency in order to build a good transparency site?

Re: The Cost of DDOS Attacks

cordblomquist — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:13:24 -0000

No. Just like they don't have anything else to "defend" from the West.

Re: Drupal Sites That Aren’t Ugly

cordblomquist — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:15:44 -0000

Thanks for your examples Greg, a very good way to prove my point and to plug your designs! You might DM me on Twitter or otherwise contact me to talk about working on themes for Drupal sites.

Re: Drupal Sites That Aren’t Ugly

cordblomquist — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:11:24 -0000

I agree, it looked good. Did you notice any changes in functionality when they switched over to Drupal?

Re: “Free” Isn’t Worth Reading, But It’s Worth Discussing

cordblomquist — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:00:41 -0000

Amen to that, Brother Bennett!

Re: “Free” Isn’t Worth Reading, But It’s Worth Discussing

cordblomquist — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:59:52 -0000

Perhaps they are poor examples for some reasons, but what Lexis and Westlaw sell is a valuable database of information that is otherwise hard to find. The individual pieces of information may not have a lot of value, but when organized, clearly some people find it very valuable. This sort of thing, the curation of information into a more usable form, is something that will likely continue to be offered on a subscription basis to niche communities.

Re: “Free” Isn’t Worth Reading, But It’s Worth Discussing

cordblomquist — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:00:30 -0000

Steve, I agree that trying to fight copyright violation, or "leakage" as you put it, is futile. The costs of suing the entire world for copying something like a newspaper article is just too high.

However, subscription models for niche information, such as trade publications, are likely to work well into the future. This is especially true when subscriptions are bundled with access to archives, something that's not easily copied. Lexis-Nexus or Westlaw are other good examples of information that most likely will not be free anytime soon.

Re: Defending Free

cordblomquist — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:51:30 -0000

Tim, good points, but I'm still critical of the book and dubious of Anderson’s authority on the subject. Certainly I do think that many, if not most, information companies will be giving things away for free in some capacity.

But I disagree when you say "we should expect companies that give their content away for free to gradually push out companies that don’t." I disagree because though price is a big factor in consumer choices, it’s not the only factor. This doesn't necessarily mean a future filled with micro-payments, but it could mean a future where—just like today—people pay a handful of moderate monthly or yearly subscription charges.

Though you’re right that the marginal cost of each copy of a piece of information is next-to-zero, the cost of creating the original is, in many instances, a large chunk of change. Certainly there are companies that will be able to offer those services for free through placing them against ads or bundling the free with the paid, but one can imagine some services that simply won’t be able to pay for the initial creation of information through this model. If consumers still value these services, they’ll pay for them.

I’m dubious of any book that tries to predict the future of a market economy—especially those that make such a broad and sweeping claim. Combine that doubt with Anderson’s copy and paste foibles as well as his own lack of appreciation for his premise when it comes to Wired.com, and I think my criticism of the book is justified.

Re: A Comcastic Mailer

cordblomquist — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:46:22 -0000

I don't think TLFers are OK with this sort of thing, but I think they'd agree with me that trying to regulate against companies not telling the whole truth would be a very hard thing to do.

One thing that people seem to neglect in the current political debate is the role of private 3rd parties in market exchanges. Government is not the only entity that can make its presence felt. Certainly the press has a role to play in correcting bad--yet legal--behaviors as do community-based review sites, and just friends consulting friends about what to buy. Reputation isn't federal code, but that doesn't make it a weak force in the market--in fact, it's much stronger in determining business outcomes than regulation in many cases.

Re: Technology Fatigue, Tyler Cowen, & Autism

cordblomquist — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:49:25 -0000

Yes! I vote for Barney Frank, Ben Bernanke, and Tim Geithner to be placed at the helm of this global, managed economy. That way, we'll get the best outcomes, right?

Re: A Comcastic Mailer

cordblomquist — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:46:46 -0000

I'm not so sure you could really regulate against this sort of thing as it's in a pretty gray area. To be fair to the Comcastic people at Comcast, the portion of their website referenced on paper does give lots of details on converter boxes, but I don't know how much of that is mandated and how much of it isn't.

All of that said, instead of regulations, why not just write nasty blog posts about Comcast? Seriously, things like this post hurt Comcast's public face and cause people to drift away from them. I think people making choices based on reputation can fill in the gray areas between clear cases of fraud or false advertisement and honest practices. It's more efficient than the courts.

I've read Smith. The passage above seems to be calling for more competition as a means to tame "the dealers." I think plenty of people here at TLF, in good laissez-faire tradition have called for smashing the protection that dealers in broadband have erected around themselves. That also works better than regulation.

Re: Obama, Waxman to Square Off on Free Speech

cordblomquist — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:55:48 -0000

Can we get a link to either denial?

If the reports are indeed false, that only means that Mr. Waxman isn't targeting the Internet for his politically motivated censorship regime. That's comforting, but it still means that the 1st Amendment is under attack when it comes to the airwaves.

Regardless of the extent of Waxman's ambitions for the Fairness Doctrine, it's still a horrid concept.