Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Great Paper on NN Out of University of Florida

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I’m back from a vacation in Israel to discover an amazing economic analysis of network neutrality posted by my good buddies at Consumers Union on hearusnow.org. Written by University of Florida Economists Hsing Cheng, Subhajoyti Bhandyopadhya and Hong Guo, Net Neutrality: A Policy Perspective applies game theory to the network neutrality debate. They conclude that abandoning network neutrality would create a disincentive for broadband network providers to build fatter pipes.

If this analysis seems familiar, it’s because I wrote something similar (but without the fancy math) about a year ago. As always, I get warm fuzzies whenever economists confirm my Econ 101 “gut check.”

Of course, these guys being real economists (as opposed to undergrad posseurs like yours truly) have a bit more to say on the subject and use lots of fancy math that I will not try to reproduce. But I offer some brief plain language explanation (including what I think are the brilliant points in the analysis) below….

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My Thoughts Exactly:
Hooray for Libby Conviction!

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Just a note to celebrate the conviction of Shooter Cheney’s loyal underling Lewis Libby, a lying weasle if ever there was one (not to mention a purveyor of kiddie porn –see is “novel”). As expected, the corporate media are working overtime to spread the meme that some kind of injustice was done to poor ol’ Scooter. Well, that’s a syndrome we know well here at Wetmachine. Nobody expected Moloch to whither away after one little conviction, nor Bush neither. Nevertheless we can take joy that one soldier of the Bush crime family has been at least temporarily sidelined.

For a great analysis of the right wing/Bushista/corporate infotainment spin, see this helpful post at premiere site Firedoglake. And if you have a few pennies to throw in the direction of that stellar group of citizen journalists, by all means do so. They’re fighting a brave battle on behalf of all of us.

P.S. This FDL post about the role played by NPR’s “All Things Considered” in shilling for the administration is also well worth your while.

My Thoughts Exactly:
Libby trial reflection: “My pencil is dull and my handwriting stinks”

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Isadore Barmash, who passed away last November at the age of 84, was a longtime reporter for the New York Times. Political junkies may be forgiven for not being familiar with his extensive body of work, for Barmash’s beat was retail business, not politics. He had a particular interest in the apparel industry (he had worked at Women’s Wear Daily before joining the Times). His articles were found most often not in the front section of the paper, but deep in the business pages. I myself don’t care about fashion, and when I read a newspaper I usually skip the business stories. So I’m not the kind of guy who would be expected to notice Barmash’s byline. But I used to follow Barmash’s work because for a period in from the late 60’s through 1975, when I was in high school and college, he had series of front-page-of-the-New-York-Times articles that I found absolutely compelling.

His subject was my father.

I thought of Barmash a few weeks ago when Tim Russert’s testimony at the Lewis Libby trial was reported. Under oath, Russert said that when he talked to senior government officials, everything was “off the record” unless the official explicitly agreed to go “on the record.” People who value the role of journalism in a democracy were appalled by Russert’s admission, but attentive students of contemporary American “journalism” were not surprised. Dan Froomkin rightly said, “That’s not reporting, that’s enabling.” Russert’s sworn testimony made patently clear that what he does for a living is not journalism properly understood, but rather a form of court stenography served up in a a faux-journalism format.

Below the fold, what Barmash, a real journalist, told my father about “on the record” and “off the record.”

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My Thoughts Exactly:
Internet radio in immanent danger?

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According to this story (via slashdot), some regulatory board that I’ve never heard of has handed down some ruling which, if it stands, could be the death knell of internet radio (or a t least of internet radio that originates in countries that adhere to this regime?).

As I type this I’m listening to the fantastic (OpenLaszlo application)Pandora — an internet radio station that astoundingly accounts for more than 1% of all internet traffic (??? can this be so???). I also listen to a lot of college radio stations streaming on the net.

Is this mavevlous technology about to be taken away from us by the RIAA goons? I don’t pretend to understand the legal, political, or technical issues. An opinion from Mr. Feld is clearly in order. What’s the word, Harold? Should I be panicking?

Inventing the Future:
Distributed Systems Part 2: Off-Island Data

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The Core Croquet model describes a complete independent simulation, in which changing behavior is automatically synchronized between all participants. The model is best thought of as describing replicated objects with behavior over time, rather than as older models of program and data (or state). The collection of objects in a given replicated simulation is called an “island.”

However, one of the nice things about the Croquet model is that it can co-exist with other models. It is perfectly reasonable to use a “data” model for immutable objects (which do not change their behavior over time).

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Inventing the Future:
Spontaneous Usage

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bloggingfrominworld

One success metric that I’ve been shooting for is that I want a user to do something in Croquet that was not specifically intended by the authors of the space or software. It’s very cool to create something that is ideally suited for a particular usage, but it’s really something to create a meta-tool whose usage exceeds the sum of its designed parts.

This fellow Laurence apparently created his blog entry from within the Collaborative.

I had expected and hoped the first such spontaneous use to be something based on collaboration, or on usability or scalability. This was not. It was done because it was fun to do. That’s pretty cool, actually. Shows what I know…

My Thoughts Exactly:
Dick Cheney, “Uniquely Ridiculous”

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Pardon me for piling on, and I’ll get back to my usual Wetmachine technoparanoia beat forthwith, but kindly allow me to chime in here with Josh Marshall on the subject of the criminal, nonsensical, dangerous and stupid sociopath who shares the presidency with what’s-his-face, that chimp-faced guy about whom the Grammy-winning Dixie Chicks were embarassed to share a home state:

But Dick Cheney’s an exceptional case. He stands on his own unique ground of ridiculousness. And because of that he’s not simply a bully but a glass bully. Outside of the very hard right wing of American politics, pretty much everyone now sees that Dick Cheney is a screw-up and a moron of historic proportions.

It really is time for us to laugh this guy out of office, is it not, my fellow patriots? Every moment that we allow him to remain in the constitutional office he now occupies (however he got there) is a moment that imperils all of us, and those who will follow us.

Those of you who do not think Dick Cheney is a screw-up and a moron of historic proportions, kindly resume your telephone santitizing or whatever else you were doing. Everybody else, please contact your state senators and representatives and get this impeachment ball rolling. Clearly the congress is not going to take up impeachment until we make them do it. When it comes it will come from the state legistlatures. Do your part. Make sure your state reps are on board.

Updated

I have chaged the title of this little entry, which never really worked (something about Cheney being a fart joke). The point I was trying to make, which is small but important, is that this man deserves no respect at all. Fearing him is understandable — he’s a Tony Soprano-like sociopath who manages to extract apologies from people whom he has blasted in the face with shotguns. But he deserves no respect, especially not the phoney-baloney respect “for the office, not the man.” The guy is a first-class moron, every bit as clueless as Bush is. Bush is a universal laughingstock, but Cheney, although he’s despised, is somehow still considered “smart” in some circles. He’s about as smart as the rocket scientists who decided to go to the Sun instead of the moon. To avoid the heat problem, they were going to go up at night.

My Thoughts Exactly:
Overmind hires Rutgers to build PreCog Institute

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The so-called Homeland Security Agency is looking to use supercomputers & datamining to find latent terrorism in “open-source web logs” and other nasty & threatening instances of that pernicious “free speech” thing:

Leading the Rutgers effort is the university’s Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS). It will include partner researchers from AT&T Laboratories, Lucent Technologies Bell Labs, Princeton University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Texas Southern University. This group will develop computing technologies that find patterns and relationships in data, such as news stories, open-source web logs, and other accessible information, to quickly identify emerging indicators of possible terrorist activity, and rate the consistency and reliability of the sources. Such information could give officials more lead time to investigate and potentially thwart terrorist plans.

“The challenge involved in this endeavor is not only the massive amount of information out there, but also how quickly it flows and how fast the sources of information change,” said Fred Roberts, director of DIMACS. “We will develop real-time streaming algorithms to find patterns and relationships in communications, such as among writers who may be hiding their identities, and to rate information sources for their reliability and trustworthiness.”

The Rutgers center will undertake nine research projects in its first year and will also create educational programs around the technology it develops, such as courses and certificate programs for undergraduate and graduate students. The center will also establish outreach efforts for high school students and community groups.

I do appreciate that Stasi throwback to “outreach efforts for efforts for high school students and community groups.” So very retro!

Heckova job, Rutgers! Heckova job!

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Tim Wu Writes Incredibly Important Paper on Wireless Networks

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Tim Wu, a brilliant scholar who combines an understanding of law, technology and economics to his writing, has written an incredibly important paper on wireless networks for the New America Wireless Future Program. You can download it here.

But Tim has done more than write a brilliant paper about why we need network attachment rules and network neutrality rules for wireless networks. He has — by accident or design — put his finger on the critical issue of public policy of our time. Do we regulate to increase public welfare, or do we only regulate to cure “market failure”?

What the paper is about, why it’s important, and what the opposition to it tells about the state of public policy these days, below….

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