“We support democracy, but that doesn’t mean we have to support governments elected as a result of democracy.”
George Bush on dealing with the Hamas government elected by the Palestinian people. Cited in David Hirst’s Guardian column today.
Microsoft’s most dangerous competitor is…
… itself! Here’s an insightful essay on Redmond’s growing problem. Extract:
It is, admittedly, a cliché, but Microsoft is clearly a victim of its own staggering success. What they’ve done best, historically, is kill and/or neuter their competitors. That’s why they’re gearing up for a fight against Google; Microsoft, as a company, defines itself by its rivalries. They relegated early PC peers like WordPerfect, Lotus, and Borland to relative obscurity; then, famously, they outright obliterated Netscape.
In the ’90s, to sell copies of Word, they needed to beat WordPerfect, and they did; to sell Excel, they needed to beat Lotus 1-2-3. Now, though, to sell new copies of Microsoft Office, they need to beat older copies of Microsoft Office. Hence the much-maligned ads in which Microsoft casts their own users as dinosaurs simply because they haven’t upgraded to the latest version of Office.
Most of the criticism of these ads revolves around the fact that it’s a bad idea to insult your own customers. But what I found interesting about them is the tacit acknowledgment that Microsoft’s strongest competitor in today’s office software market isn’t OpenOffice, or any other competing suite from another company, but rather the Microsoft of a decade ago.
The problem with Google, as an “enemy” for Microsoft, is that Google is even less of a direct rival to Microsoft than Apple is. Microsoft sells software. Google does not sell software. The only way for Microsoft to “beat” Google is for one of the two companies to enter the other one’s market. Google doesn’t seem the least bit interested in selling operating systems or office software — and even if they do eventually enter those markets, it would likely be with software they give away in order to generate advertising revenue. Microsoft’s previous corporate rivals were companies that helped Microsoft focus on its core competency: selling and developing PC software. Obsessing about Google draws them away from that focus…
Link via Nicholas Carr.
Kafka rules OK in the National Security state
Here’s a sobering story.
Two weeks ago when USA TODAY published their famous story about a database of telephone records maintained by the NSA on all Americans, I decided to test my luck and see if I can get a copy of those records via a Privacy Act request. Following instructions on NSA’s FOIA page, I sent them a digitally signed email with my request (I have never seen any other federal agency accept signed email in liue of a written request). The email is as follows:
Under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. subsection 552 and the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. section 552a, please furnish me with copies of all records about me indexed to my name, social security number and phones numbers specified below. To help identify information about me in your record systems, I am providing the following required information…
And the reply? It went like this:
Because of the classified nature of the National Security Agency’s efforts to prevent and protect against terrorist attacks, the fact of whether or not any specific technique or method or activity is employed in that effort is exempt from release pursuant to the exemption provisions of the FOIA.
We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or non-existence of responsive records is a currently and properly classified matter in accordance with Executive Order 12958, as amended. Thus, your request is denied pursuant to the first exemption of the FOIA, which provides that the FOIA does not apply to matters that are specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive Order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign relations and are properly classified pursuant to such Executive Order.
Moreover, the third exemption of the FOIA provides for the withholding of information specifically protected from disclosure by statute. Thus, your request is also denied because the fact of the existence or non-existence of the information is exempted from disclosure pursuant to the third exemption. The specific statutes applicable in this case are Title 18 U.S. Code 798; Title 50 U.S. Code 403-1(i); and Section 6, Public Law 86-36 (50 U.S. Code 402 note)…
35% of software in the world is pirated
From ZDNet.com…
35% of the packaged software installed on personal computers (PC) worldwide in 2005 was illegal, amounting to $34 bln in global losses due to software piracy. Piracy rates decreased moderately in more than half (51) of the 97 countries, and increased in only 19. The global rate was unchanged from 2004 to 2005 as large developed markets like the United States, Western Europe, Japan and a handful of Asian countries continue to dominate the software market while their combined piracy rate hardly moved….
Serendipity and the Web
Thoughtful essay by Bill Thompson. It was prompted by a column by William McKeen arguing that online reading precluded the serendipity that one experiences in reading offline newspapers.
Perhaps the best argument in favour of the argument that today’s richly interlinked web is as much a promoter of serendipity as the library, the bookstore or the radio is simply that the discussion is happening at all.
I came across Steven Johnson’s first post, a response to McKeen’s article, because I subscribe to the feed from Johnson’s blog through the Bloglines service. I can see whenever he writes something new, and because I like his style I generally read his stuff.
He linked to the original article so I read that, but there were also a range of comments already posted on Johnson’s website, so I followed them up too.
My serendipitous discovery of McKeen’s piece demonstrates clearly not only that he is wrong but that the potential for accidental discovery is greatly enhanced by the net and the web. The chance of me stumbling across the St Petersburg Times in my local library is rather small, since it doesn’t actually keep copies of it.
Once I came across the argument about serendipity I focused on it, searched specifically for people engaged in the debate, and ignored many interesting sidelines – like an old post from Jason Kottke about why Macs used to be rubbish – as a result….
The Chicken-Hawk list
Tomorrow is Memorial Day, when the US honours those who have died on active service. How nice then to find a helpful list of the “Chicken-hawks” who have blithely volunteered other people’s kids for war duties in Iraq and Afghanistan. They include:
President George W. Bush – served four years of a six years Nat’l Guard commitment, some say after daddy’s friends pulled some strings to keep him out of Vietnam. The circumstances of his early separation from state-side service are still controversial (details) Karl Rove, occasional Deputy Chief of Staff and alleged full time smear artist, escaped the draft and did not serve VP Dick Cheney – several deferments, by marriage and timely fatherhood Former VP Chief of Staff I. Lewis Scooter Libby – did not serve Secretary of State and former NSA Condaleeza Rice – did not serve Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist – did not serve. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert – did not serve. Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay – did not serve House Majority Whip Roy Blunt – did not serve Majority Whip Mitch McConnell – did not serve Rick Santorum, third ranking Republican in the Senate – did not serve. Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott – did not serve
And then, of course, there are the fearless right-wing hacks who want (other) Americans to whip the asses of Islamicists and other non-Americans everywhere. They include:
Rush Limbaugh – did not serve Sean Hannity – did not serve Pat Buchanan – did not serve Ann Coulter – did not serve Ralph Reed – did not serve Bill O’Reilly – did not serve Michael Savage – did not serve Bill Kristol – did not serve
As the man said, Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant.
Travel-time maps
Terrific piece of ingenuity by Chris Lightfoot and Tom Steinberg of mySociety — travel-time maps showing journey times via public transport and shortish taxi rides. Using colours and contour lines they show how long it takes to travel between one particular place and every other place in the area, using public transport. They also show the areas from which no such journey is possible, because the services are not good enough.
The detailed map of Cambridge is very interesting because it shows how some destinations in the neighbourhood are easy to reach by public transport, whereas others (e.g. outlying villages) are effectively cut off.
Link via BoingBoing.
Amazon.com’s architecture
Lorcan Dempsey, whose Blog is a thing of wonder, pointed me to this riveting Conversation with Werner Vogels – Amazon’s CTO on the thinking which led to the company’s transformation from online bookstore to e-commerce juggernaut. The conversation is with Jim Gray, a Microsoft Technical Fellow and should be required reading for anyone responsible for scaling up online services.
Lorcan also spotted an important aspect of the Amazon S3 storage service that I’d missed when I blogged it.
One interesting feature was the absence of a feature – the user interface. It did not have its own user interface: it is available only through machine interfaces. One of these is BitTorrent. So it is built from the start as a network service, a service that other applications communicate with.
Only the paranoid…
… survive, as Bill Gates knows. This week’s Economist reports that:
On May 18th America’s State Department said it would not use 16,000 computers it recently bought from Lenovo, a Chinese firm, for sensitive “classified” work. Instead the PCs will be used for more prosaic matters… Moreover, the department said it was “initiating changes in its procurement processes in light of the changing ownership of IT equipment providers”.
Interesting. Lenovo, you will remember, is the firm to which IBM sold its comjputer manufacturing business. So when you buy an IBM Thinkpad today, you’re really buying a Lenovo machine.
Why the State Department’s paranoia? Well, as the Economist tactlessly points out, the US has long experience of convert surveillance. For example, in 2001 there was a minor diplomatic scuffle when the Chinese discovered that a Boeing plane built for the then Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, was stuffed with bugging devices.
The Homburg factor, contd.
Mary Riddell, writing in today’s Observer about the way the female vote is beginning to slip back to the Tories.
It is a minor tragedy that Brand Gordon is so difficult to sell. No modern politician has a better record on doing good things for women and children. Unlike Cameron, he has a proven track record on social justice, child poverty, SureStart and daycare. Up close, he is engaging, good fun and heartfelt in his attachment to his family. All my female colleagues and friends prefer Brown’s policies and saturnine style to Cameron’s porridge-cooking, apron-wearing, PR-driven smarm.
But we may be in a minority. If women are going Dave’s way, then what is Gordon to do? The usual answer is that he will have to lighten up. That, though, may be neither possible nor prudent. Brown might be much too leaden, but he is never going to win a levity contest with a man liable, if he sheds any more Tory ballast, to shoot heavenwards like a helium balloon.