] As solutions to these alleged failures of globalization,
] dissidents frequently appear to favor politically imposed
] systems, employing the power of the state to override the
] outcomes arrived at through voluntary exchange. The
] historical record of such approaches does not offer much
] encouragement. One would be hard pressed to cite examples
] of free and prosperous societies that suppressed the
] marketplace.

[IP] Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan Before the World AffairsCouncil

] We're getting the G.D.P. growth, and by now any recovery
] in the past would be flashing green on the hiring front.
] This one isn't. With all due respect, I don't know what
] you guys are talking about. This is a profoundly
] different relationship between hiring and the business
] cycle.

Good NYT panel on outsourcing.

Who Wins and Who Loses as Jobs Move Overseas?

] Unquestionably, the solutions to many current problems,
] the treatments for many illnesses, and the pathways to
] new businesses have already been invented, but they are
] waiting on the sidelines.

...

] it's not only innovation that
] matters, it's the rate at which innovations are
] improved and brought to market. And this has declined
] precipitously since the bust. The result is a surplus of
] innovations, with vast numbers of potentially important
] advances being warehoused or shelved. This situation is
] alarming enough in itself, but even more worrisome is the
] fact that innovations don't have an unlimited shelf
] life: they are perishable and risk becoming unusable when
] the people associated with them move on to other
] endeavors. Another reason for concern is that warehoused
] innovations remain untested and deprived of the iterative
] improvements so critical to their journey from inception
] to implementation.

you have to register for this, but it's a great article on how innovation has accelerated but the conduit for commercializing it has essentially collapsed. This has validated my thinking on the subject, but changed my perceptions on it quite a bit. Upto now, I had considered it a purely supply-demand problem, but it is more complex than that as the system that transforms innovation into the mainstream has matured and atrophied to some degree. The system is irrevocably changing.

Our Innovation Backlog

] Executives at Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems,
] Hewlett-Packard and Intel say they have reduced their
] building needs by hundreds of thousands of square feet --
] or expect to do so in the near future -- by eliminating
] offices for many of their employees.

I think John Seely Brown would have critical things to say about this trend.

Silicon Valley: Companies eliminate office space

Everyone should be concerned about this fight.

NYT weighs in on one of two ongoing labor disputes in southern California.

The Wal-Martization of America

inignoct wrote:
] [edit] i'll leave my original post below, but take w/ grain of
] salt. this is the NY Post after all, and i've seen no
] corroboration yet. perhaps i got over excited
] [/edit]

That would be the correct answer. NYPOST is sort of like the National Enquirer. I can't beleive Slashdot also picked this up.

Follow the link here for the MCD press release.

Even if there IS a deal between MCD and Apple it will be a cold day in hell before either Pepsi or MCD pays full price at volume 1 billion, or even 100 million. Its not even a matter of why pay full price when a deal could easily be negotiated, its a matter of the numbers being off the chart. This would probably be the most expensive marketing campaign of all time.

We're talking about $990 million dollars here. This would suck up almost all of their free cashflow. Last year the company's total annual advertising expenditures were $647.6 million.

MCD: We have nothing to announce...

] U.S. economic growth surged in the third quarter of 2003
] to the fastest pace in nearly two decades, the government
] said Thursday, in a report that was much stronger than
] most economists expected.

!!!!!!

GDP growth posts strongest growth in nearly 20 years - Oct. 30, 2003

] The vast majority of the 2.7 million job losses since the
] 2001 recession began were the result of permanent changes
] in the U.S. economy and are not coming back, which means
] the labor market will not regain strength until new
] positions are created in novel and dynamic economic
] sectors, a Federal Reserve Bank of New York study has
] concluded.

Like I was saying...

Jobs cut since 2001 are gone for good, study says

flynn23 wrote:
] o broadband line capping

Do you understand the rational with this? I don't get it...

] o high cost with costs rising ($50/mo for avg 384k line)

Well, yes, rising in general, but there is another way to put this. Asymetric access is cheap. Symetric access is not. Most broadband cannot be used for servers. Symetric access is priced to suck money out of businesses. I can think of a wide range of potential applications for home servers, but I think there are niches where those applications can exist today, and until they become popular enough to create competitive pressures this is not going to change.

] o bandwidth intensive applications destroyed (ie Napster)
] o bandwidth intensive sectors under assault (ie RIAA, MPAA,
] etc)

Look for PVR based VoD in 2004, probably not over the Internet though. Their strategy with this will be to create proprietary devices that are computers but aren't open, upon which they can provide access to content in a controlled way. (This is, in general, an extremely dangerous development worth serious consideration. On the one side we have computers, which are a totally open platform upon which to build these services, and on the other side we have these closed systems, like X-boxes and PVRs, which are essentially the same things, and competing for the same space, but are totally closed and not adaptable. Currently the Tivos and x-boxes of the world are blowing the pants off the snapstreams and pc gamers...)

The reason I'm putting so much effort into getting a stable mythtv running is that it is a frontier that needs to be settled. There are lots of opportunities for interesting, legitimate applications here that won't be developed in the cable world because its so closed. At the same time, about 50% of what presently makes mythtv interesting is currently illegal. The copyright problem continues to be something that holds us back.

] o legislation preventing use of NAT, firewalls, multiple
] machines on home networks (TN HB457, S-DMCA laws, etc)

I don't think its fair to call this a block, but it could be a block if it is passed and enforced. A pre-emptive strike to (essentially) outlaw computers as a platform for certain kinds of broadband services...

] ] What is the application for all this bandwidth?
]
] it's already here. Imagine having a device in your home which
] allows you to check email, video and audio conference with
] anyone anywhere, visit any website, play any song ever
] recorded, watch any television or movie ever made, play any
] video game ever made, store your pictures and home movies, and
] turn your lights on and off for you automatically.

Yeah, sounds like mythtv to me... The thing is that this isn't all that interesting to me. VoD, MoD, and GoD are interesting because I don't have to go out to the store, but thats really it. Netflix is almost as good. Is it rea... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: The Many Paradoxes of Broadband | Andrew Odlyzko [PDF]

From an article in the August 2003 issue of Harvard Business Review:

In the technology industry, breakthrough products and services rarely come about as a result of asking customers what they want. Customers are notoriously unable to envision what doesn't exist. Instead, successful companies divine the needs of their customers by probing at the underlying problems and transferring that understanding to the innovation process.

Harvard Business Review - August 2003