Tag: nice things

Smashwords, iPad, Doctorow, Zeldman: further bumbling self-publishing adventures

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Over on the Self-Publishing Review, my Adventures in Self-Publishing is still front-paged and generating some nice contact, public & private. Go me! But I’m still not rich yet. So anyway(s), as discussed, I’ve signed up with Smashwords to distribute my Acts of the Apostles. It’s been accepted into the iPad store, for which iPad-hater Cory Doctorow would give me a “boo-bad” and iPad hater-hater Jeffrey Zeldman a “way-to-go”, I expect. DOCTOROW-ZELDMAN STEEL CAGE DEATH MATCH! Or not. So long as they both keep saying nice things about my books it’s all good, as the surfers say.

So far, my Smashwords results not all that impressive: 82 downloads and zero sales.

On the other hand, the book is only available on Smashwords so far, not on Amazon or iPad. Maybe best-sellerdom is right around the corner!

Further reflections on Smashwords, iPad, OpenLaszlo, self-publishing, etc, etc, below the fold.

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Attention E-Tech Infidels!

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A linkfest for people at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (and anybody else considering buying my books) to do some due diligence.

People Saying nice things about my books
Grumpy Old Bookman, Salon, Kuro5hin (Acts of the Apostles), Slashdot Acts and CCD, Geek.com, BioInformatics.org, Jeffrey Zeldman, Danny Yee, and Kuro5hin (Cheap Complex Devices).

Stuff I wrote for Salon
Editor’s Choice Best of Salon 2003 lists 4 articles by me (4 out of 32 — not bad!). And How I Destroyed the New Economy explains how I caused our current economic predicament by helping to desecrate and ancient Native American burial ground.

Farewell to Commissioner Deborah Tate

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As I observed back awhile ago when describing possible scenarios for the FCC, Commissioner Deborah Tate would need to depart when the 110th Congress expired and the 111th Congress convened at Noon on January 3, 2009. So, at the FCC’s pro forma meeting on December 30, Commissioner Tate stepped down and made her farewell address. Despite the rather tense atmosphere that often prevails on the 8th Floor of the FCC these day, her fellow Commissioners used most of the meeting time to say many nice things in appreciation of her tenure.

Allow me to add my own appreciation for Commissioner Tate’s service. This may come as a surprise to some, given that I disagreed with Tate a fair amount on most matters of substance. As others have noted, Tate voted along fairly standard Republican lines — generally shying away from regulation of “the market” despite a sincere concern about consumer welfare. (I should add that despite her much publicized comments about the dangers of Worlds of Warcraft, her support for strong digital right management and urging ISPs do more to block content potentially harmful to minors, Tate still generally followed a deregulatory line in simply urging industry to voluntarily do more and raising this in the context of voting against the Comcast/Bittorrent Order).

But let me tell a little story below which illustrates why Commissioner Tate deserves a respectful farewell even from staunch progressives such as myself.

More below . . . .

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The Google Non-Story On Network Neutrality — And Once Again Why Citizen Movements Are Citizen Driven.

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Both Dave Isenberg and Tim Karr have already cast a rather skeptical eye over the Wall St. Journal story claiming that Google is in secret negotiations to get “fast lane” treatment for its content in violation of Network Neutrality principles. I’ll therefore limit myself to a few additional points. I’ll not along the way that one of the nice things about having a blog is that I can point to stuff I said a long time ago for the inevitable accusation that I am simply an apologist for the Great Google Overlords.

More below . . . .

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White Spaces Update — Field Testing Can Be Soooo Educational. You Always Find Something You Don’t Expect.

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As folks may recall, the primary opponents of opening the broadcast white spaces for use, the broadcasters and the wireless microphone manufacturers — notably our good friend and radio pirate Shure, Inc. (official slogan:“We get to break the law ’cause we sound so good”) — insisted that the FCC conduct field tests on the white spaces prototypes. Of course, because these are concept prototypes and not functioning devices certified to some actual standard, everyone knew this would leave lots of leeway for the broadcasters and the wireless microphone folks to declare the “tests” a “failure” regardless of the actual results. Which, of course, they did. Needless to say, Phillips (which makes one of the prototypes) said the opposite, and it all depends on whether you mean “the device functioned perfectly as if there were actually some standards for building a functioning device” or “the device proved it could detect occupied channels at whatever sensitivity the FCC decides is necessary.” The FCC engineers, wisely, made no comment and went back to their labs to analyze the actual data.

But one of the nice things about field testing is that you learn the most amazing things that you can never learn in a lab, as demonstrated by this ex parte filed by Ed Thomas for the White Spaces Coalition, the industry group that backs opening the white spaces. Apparently, in front of eye witnesses (including the FCC’s engineers), both broadcasters and unauthorized wireless microphone users in the Broadway field test operated wireless microphones on active television channels, at power levels well above what white spaces advocates propose for mobile devices. All apparently without interfering with anybody’s television reception or even — in the case of the unauthorized Broadway users — screwing up the hundreds of other illegal wireless microphones in the neighboring theaters.

A few rather important take aways here: (1) the danger of interference claims by broadcasters and Shure are utterly bogus, as the wireless microphones do not screw up either television reception or each other; (b) the broadcasters and Shure know their interference claims are bogus. If they actually cared on iota about possible interference, they would not casually operate high power wireless microphones on the same channel as active television broadcasts and as each other. Instead, they are so unconcerned about interference that they can’t even remember to pretend to care about basic interference concerns when they are conducting a field test in front of the FCC’s own engineers.

A bit more elaboration on these points below . . . .

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I, For One, Welcome Our New Google Overlords

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In a news report worthy of KBBL-TV’s Kent Brockman, MSNBC’s Olga Kharif writes of Google wielding it’s awesome and terrible powers in preparation for bidding in the 700 MHz Auction (as if I think about anything else these days). According to Kharif, “Google is wielding a surprising amount of power in the nation’s capital,” as demonstrated by “the influence Google is having on a closely watched government auction of $10 billion in licenses to provide wireless service.”

As evidence of Google’s supposed “influence,” Kharif points to Google’s involvement in the 4G Coalition “widely considered Google-led” (by whom, Kharif’s cat Mittens?) and how Martin’s express support for 4G on the large licenses v. small licenses issue shows that the FCC is likely to “play ball” with Google.

I might just let this go as another example of the Google-mania that has takne root in the press, but the normally perceptive and attentive Paul Kapustka on GigaOm made the same mistake. Because Martin said nice things about 4G and the DBS Guys (which I still thinks sounds like a Rock Band that performs at the CES Show), everyone is all “oooohhh the 4G guys are doing real well.” And the Google worshippers are all “Ah, Google Overlords, is there nothing you can’t control?”

Two critical facts tend to drop out of this analysis.

1) Martin lost his first-round bid to get the larger license-size reag plan through. That was the original plan, as noted by the Commission when it initiated this proceeding last August. This large license proposal got enormous push-back from SpectrumCo LLC (Comcast/TW/Cox/Sprint-Nextel) and the independent wireless incumbents (T-Mobile, MetroPCS) and the little rural guys. The fact that Martin was unable to get his fellow Republicans to vote with him and get the large-license band plan ratified in this round (as opposed to considered as one option among several in the Further Notice) is a set back for the supporters of large licenses.

2) The other supporters of large licenses, the ones Martin couldn’t mention for political reasons, are Verizon and AT&T. You might remember these telcos from such Kevin Martin movies as “Local Governments Hate Competition” and “Cyren Call: Song of Satan.” Verizon went so far as to hire ace auction expert Peter Cramton to write this paper on “Why Large Licenses In The 700 MHz Band Make Jesus Happy.”

[WHY the telcos and the cable cos are battling over the sze of licenses is extremely interesting and important, and is the subject of this post here.]

So yeah, Martin gave the big shout out to the DBS and 4G guys, since he’s not exactly going to say to the Dems “I’m puzzled why Ds who claim to hate cable market power back SpectrumCo against Veizon and AT&T.” And I think Martin genuinely does believe large licenses are the best way to get another national broadband competitor on the scene. (I also believe it, which is why I prefer large licenses a la the telcos and our Great Google Overlords.) But the idea that Martin did this just because Google redid the words “Federal Communications Commission” in rainbow and promised that they wouldn’t do evil with the licenses doesn’t exactly cut it. (No offense to Rick Whitt, whom I like and I think is a great lobbyist, but lets stay focused on the actual docket and relevant history, shall we?)

I suppose I should just accept that Google exerts a fascination on the trade press these days and let it go (and figure that anyone who wants my view on reality rather than Googleview will come here). But after spending last summer of watching Google and the rest of the tech industry unable to find their lobbying ass on net neutrality with both hands and a compass and a big sign saying “telcos, please spank us here”, while constantly hearing from the press and the cable cos how all of it was really the amazing Google Overlords at work has made me just a shade irritated.

Besides, it’s Friday afternoon and I’m due for my shabbos rest.

Stay tuned . . . .

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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