Disqus - Latest Comments for mdswbkq

Re: Startling Incompetence at ANSI Standards Group

mdswbkq — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:52:51 -0000

Jim said: "And REAL ID does not require verification of identity prior to issuance of birth certificates. What could that even mean?! 'Hey you—little baby—let me see some ID before I issue you your birth certificate.'”

Obviously, a newborn doesn't need its own ID for issuance of a birth certificate, but it probably does need the ID of at least one parent, or a public official attesting that the parents are unknown.

More importantly, I shouldn't be able to just waltz up to theVital Records Bureau (or its online portal) in Jim's place of birth saying I'm Jim Harper and be able to get Jim's birth certificate, all certified and sealed. With that and a bit more I could get a driver's license and passport in his name.

Re: More on the FCC’s e-Government Transparency Efforts: ECFS, RSS, Social Media & Setting Priorities

mdswbkq — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:40:58 -0000

I trust you overlooked the fact that the RSS feeds include one for Instructional Television Fixed Service ("ITFS") applications -- a service that has not been in existence for many years? It has long been superseded by the Educational Broadband Service ("EBS"). If you add the ITFS feed to your reader, you will discover all of two ITFS public notices -- both of which are from 2002!!! My guess is that someone at the FCC set up those RSS feeds ten years ago but never made them public, and the FCC simply dumped all of its RSS feeds onto the new page.

Re: Help Us Build a Better TLF!

mdswbkq — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:14:59 -0000

I actually had not noticed until this post, since I read TLF via an RSS subscription in Google Reader.

Re: What “Internet” Means to the Feds

mdswbkq — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:38:29 -0000

There is also a definition at 47 USC § 230(f)(1) that is identical to the one you quote from the bankruptcy law and Internet gambling ban.

Re: Limbaugh on the Fairness Doctrine

mdswbkq — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:00:47 -0000

Cord, you do a pretty good job of setting up a straw man, but you apparently don't look at the links you include. You describe the Fairness Doctrine as "an abandoned rule mandating equal time for all sides of controversial issues discussed on broadcast radio & television,' but the wikipedia link for the Fairness Doctrine that you linked to makes clear that you are all wet.

Here's what Wikipedia says in its introduction to the subject:

"The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was (in the Commission's view) honest, equitable and balanced.
"The Fairness Doctrine should not be confused with the Equal Time rule. The Fairness Doctrine deals with matters of public importance, while the Equal Time rule deals only with political candidates."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about the Fairness Doctrine. It was a well-intended rule that utterly failed to achieve its purposes. It has been gone for many years. Obama doesn't want to bring it back. Congress isn't about to bring it back. Even public interest groups aren't agitating for it. It ain't happening.

Now the latest right-wing conspiracy theory is that even though Obama's not going to bring back the fairness doctrine per se, he's going to effectively do the same thing by pushing other policies, such as localism requirements and broadcast ownership limits. If that's the theory, then let's talk about those policies (which are very different from the Fairness Doctrine), not a policy that has had both a silver bullet and a stake put through its heart.

Re: Which Republican for the FCC?

mdswbkq — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 01:16:31 -0000

Please. We have had an unending succession of Senate staffers and campaign guys as Commissioner. Yes, ex-Senate-staffers know how to compromise, when that is what their bosses want. They also know how to filibuster, so to speak. What they don't necessarily know is anything substantive about telecom.

When was the last time there was an FCC Commissioner who had any knowledge of engineering or even had an engineering assistant? It was at least 20 years ago (engineering assistant, not Commissioner-engineer). I'd like to see some Commissioners who aren't just Hill people or party hacks; people with substantive knowledge and experience.

I am heartened that Julius Genakowski has had some experience in the telecommunications and media industries; that qualifies him much more than his time as Reed Hundt's right-hand-man. I am also heartened by the fact that one of the names being bandied about for a Republican seat is that of David Gross, who not only has served in the State Department as our telecom Ambassador, but spent years in the telecom industry before that. The Commission should reflect many different perspectives. Just having lots of people with experience in "policymaking" and being "principled and democratic" isn't good enough. This is supposed to be an "expert" agency.

Re: The Right Way to Allow Cell Phone Jammers - And the FCC’s Way

mdswbkq — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:37:57 -0000

Correction: the anti-jamming statute is 47 USC 333, not 533.

Re: More on the super awesome commenting system

mdswbkq — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:23:31 -0000

For some reason, my comments show up on Disqus, but not here.

Re: More on the super awesome commenting system

mdswbkq — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:58:31 -0000

Testing the Disqus thing.

Re: More on the super awesome commenting system

mdswbkq — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:38:18 -0000

I'll try a comment in response to this, and I'll go to claim it (whatever that means)!

Re: Cellphones, Freedom and the Cuban Embargo

mdswbkq — Thu, 22 May 2008 17:33:35 -0000

Your article is the first one I've seen that points out the need to have adequate cellular infrastructure covering Cuba. Most stories on this simply report that the White House will encourage U.S. residents to set up and pay for accounts to be used with the phones, but never question what good it will do a Cuban to have an account with Verizon or AT&T and a U.S. number, when those operators aren't in Cuba and don't have a network partner or roaming deal in Cuba, so the phone and account would be useless.

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » What is ConnectKentucky exactly?

mdswbkq — Thu, 22 May 2008 17:10:35 -0000

According to GigaOM, Connect Kentucky has lost its state funding. http://gigaom.com/2008/04/15/connect-kentucky-g...

Re: Are the threats to online free speech real?

mdswbkq — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:50:22 -0000

The links to John Morris's and Adam's views on the child protection bills, at the end of the paragraph after the block quote, are not working.

Re: Devastating Ubuntu Review

mdswbkq — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:28:46 -0000

I can't make up my mind if that's a satiric website or simply a site run by totally insane Republicans who are completely serious but deluded.

The Linux review gets off on the wrong foot by saying the OS was created by Richard Stallman, then goes downhill with the claims about SCO -- which lost its groundless lawsuit and then went out of business. If it's satire, it's not very good.

Re: US Air’s Control Freakery

mdswbkq — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:42:08 -0000

I suspect, as Jerry says, that it's for the sake of attention. They probably would love to ban cellphones while taxiing, but they know damn well they can't enforce that, so they pick on people with iPods, laptops, etc., and let the phoners do their thing, which they haven't been able to do during the flight, while people have been indulged re their iPods, laptops, etc., while in flight.

Re: Telco Immunity No-Go, At Least Until Next Year

mdswbkq — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:46:21 -0000

Bad link.

Re: Well Meaning, But Without Understanding

mdswbkq — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:28:14 -0000

I've got to agree. Members of Congress hear pitches from companies, interest groups, lawyers, and lobbyists on issues that are before their committees, without regard to where the speaker lives. I really doubt Senator Inouye or Rep. Dingell would be disinterested in what the Chairman of Verizon or a representative of Public Knowledge have to say about Net Neutrality, just because neither they nor their lobbyists or attorneys hail from Hawaii or Detroit, for example. Why, then, should they be uninterested in what affected members of the public have to say? Especially if the caller's senators and representative are not on the committee marking up the bill and thus have effectively no voice!

I agree that members of Congress should be especially solicitous to callers from their states or districts, but they don't only represent those people.

Re: Did a lack of standardization kill high-def audio?

mdswbkq — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:04:49 -0000

Eric and I seem to have stirred up a firestorm. I actually considered mentioning DRM and the need for a sophisticated sound system as additional factors, but ultimately decided that they can be considered as part of the "premium price" in the demand/price analysis.

DRM certainly is a price factor: I will buy 99 cent tracks from iTunes that is DRMed because iTunes uses a "weak" form of DRM that allows me to move music to other devices through the minor inconvenience of burning an audio CD. Thus, I am paying for music that can be moved to another device or application when iTunes and the iPod become unavailable or no longer meet my needs. I don't buy music at the same nominal 99 cent price that comes with "strong" DRM that would force me to buy the music all over again, because my actual price for the music will be much higher if I ever wish to migrate it.

For obvious reasons, the elaborate audio system needed to make hi-def music worthwhile should ultimately be considered as part of the price of listening to hi-def music.

Re: Unplugging Plug-and-Play Regulation

mdswbkq — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:07:12 -0000

Isn't it also possible that the two HD audio formats have "languished" not because of the fact that there are two competing formats, but because there is limited demand for HD audio recordings at a premium price?

Re: What Is this animal? Anyone?

mdswbkq — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:57:57 -0000

Google translated the name from Russian to "fish cat", saying it was protected by CITES, which would rule out a domestic hybrid. There is a "Fishing cat" listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_Cat that could be it.

Re: Karlgaard on “The Cheap Revolution”

mdswbkq — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:47:22 -0000

Intel Pentium II chips reached 300 MHz in 1997, and the Pentium Pro at 333 MHz didn't arrive until 1998. (I had one of those!) So he was off by about 5 years. Details.

Re: Hazlett on the iPhone, walled gardens, and innovation

mdswbkq — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:30:03 -0000

The net-neutrality/open networks philosophy ultimately works best for geeks, who have the patience and ability to figure out how to take advantage of the openness. I'm a bit of a geek, so I have some innate sympathy with this.

But I also recognize that the vast majority of people in our society are not geeks. They don't code Java, they don't understand IP addresses or DNS, and they don't know what J2ME, Part 68 standards, or IEEE 802.11x variants are all about.

These people don't want to be given a general purpose palmtop computer with wireless capability that can have any browser installed and configured, and they don't want to have to call the nearest geek to figure out how to view a web page, listen to music, or make a phone call.

These people want someone to sell them a bundled solution that will do what it's sold to do, and do it as simply and unobtrusively as possible. The walled garden and proprietary system/service approach satisfy normal users' needs much better than fully open systems, for the most part.

This has its downsides, which people are more or less resigned to. They can't keep using their Mac software if they switch to Windows (and vice versa, unless they are capable of doing Boot Camp or Parallels). Likewise, they can't keep using their Verizon Blackberry if they switch to AT&T.;

Apple has catered to people like this. Apple users (for the most part) don't have to worry about which video cards or peripherals will work with their computers, or how to get them working. Apple offers a more-or-less closed machine that works very well. People who want to focus on graphics arts, recording music, or editing video instead of becoming operating system experts are well served by Apple's approach.

The Apple iPhone is a perfect extension of Apple's largely-closed computer philosophy. It's a very elegant, intuitive, and functional black box that does things you want to do, does them well, and doesn't make you learn a lot of voodoo to get there.

All that being said, I think there is a strong market incentive for companies such as Apple to open their systems up to a limited degree, without compromising the simplicity and elegance of what they offer. Apple's computers would not be nearly so popular if they couldn't run third-party software or browse websites on the public Internet. Likewise, I think some degree of openness will come to the iPhone through market forces, but Apple will allow this to happen only to the extent it doesn't compromise the user-friendly nature of the device and its associated services.

Re: Fire Sale

mdswbkq — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:17:28 -0000

I suspect the real reason was to get their competitors -- the wireless handset makers -- working on "iPod killer" phones that would be competitive at the $600 price point. Now the rug has been pulled out from under the competitors' feet, because target price point has been slashed by a third, and it will be much harder for a comparable phone to be sold for a competitive price.

Re: Software Patent of the Moment: Autoresponders

mdswbkq — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:45:17 -0000

Filtering and use of rules for selective autoresponse (including the use of separate prepared response files) has been one of the core functions of procmail since the Iron Age of computers.

Re: Newtonian Physics: All Wrong!

mdswbkq — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:27:45 -0000

It more or less works, it doesn't really work. At normal scale-of-life, the error (difference between Newtonian and relativistic) is real but too small to be important.

Disqus - Latest Comments for mdswbkq

Re: Startling Incompetence at ANSI Standards Group

Re: More on the FCC’s e-Government Transparency Efforts: ECFS, RSS, Social Media & Setting Priorities

Re: Help Us Build a Better TLF!

Re: What “Internet” Means to the Feds

Re: Limbaugh on the Fairness Doctrine

Re: Which Republican for the FCC?

Re: The Right Way to Allow Cell Phone Jammers - And the FCC’s Way

Re: More on the super awesome commenting system

Re: More on the super awesome commenting system

Re: More on the super awesome commenting system

Re: Cellphones, Freedom and the Cuban Embargo

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » What is ConnectKentucky exactly?

Re: Are the threats to online free speech real?

Re: Devastating Ubuntu Review

Re: US Air’s Control Freakery

Re: Telco Immunity No-Go, At Least Until Next Year

Re: Well Meaning, But Without Understanding

Re: Did a lack of standardization kill high-def audio?

Re: Unplugging Plug-and-Play Regulation

Re: What *Is* this animal? Anyone?

Re: Karlgaard on “The Cheap Revolution”

Re: Hazlett on the iPhone, walled gardens, and innovation

Re: Fire Sale

Re: Software Patent of the Moment: Autoresponders

Re: Newtonian Physics: All Wrong!

Re: What Is this animal? Anyone?