Linux-Advocacy Digest #278, Volume #27 Fri, 23 Jun 00 13:13:05 EDT
Contents:
Re: Microsoft Ruling Too Harsh (MK)
Re: Microsoft Ruling Too Harsh (MK)
Re: Can Linux do this? KIOSKS - Lite Linux desktop? Lock-down configs?
Re: Dealing with filesystem volumes
Re: Charlie Ebert the LinoShill (Nathaniel Jay Lee)
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (MK)
Crossposted-To:
alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.economics
Subject: Re: Microsoft Ruling Too Harsh
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 17:07:13 GMT
On Thu, 22 Jun 2000 23:40:20 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
wrote:
>>I quoted the text of the article. I don't have link, but you can find
>>it on site of Reason magazine, http://www.reason.com.
>Went and read it. There's a lot to disagree with there.
>1. The author starts with the premise that "social choice" is the
>correct economic theory to use to evaluate anti-trust laws.
Public choice, IIRC.
>According
>to the article, this theory assumes that government action is driven by
>whichever interest groups have access to the government. Apparently it
>is not possible for the government to actually do anything on behalf of
>the public good and government power is "bad" while corporate power is
>at least "not bad".
That seems as misrepresentation to me. First off, it assumes that
everybody is for their own interest:
""We do it just for you!", per Ronald McDonald
Well, not really. Politicians do not devote their lives for yours and my
benefits anymore than McDonalds does.
Strangely, however, many people think so -- including university professors
that teach politics and philosophy. The most important contribution of Public
Choice Theory is that it recognizes that politicians are motivated by self
interest -- just like you and me. In fact, more so than you and me! If that is
so, and it is, then our expectations of politicians changes dramatically. One
point worth noting here is that the Founding Fathers of the U.S.A. understood
that and they tried to organize government in such a way as to minimize the
impact of self interest. They did a good job and the fact that we are having
so much trouble with our government today results from our losing sight of the
reality that politicians are self-interested.
To summarize this most important aspect of Public Choice Theory, I will quote a
paragraph from an essay by Paul Starr, "The Meaning of Privatization":
"Public choice," ill-named because the only choices it recognizes are
essentially private, is both a branch of microeconomics and an
ideologically-laden view of democratic politics. Analysts of the school apply
the logic of microeconomics to politics and generally find that whereas
self-interest leads to benign results in the marketplace, it produces nothing
but pathology in political decisions. These pathological patterns represent
different kinds of "free-riding" and "rent-seeking" by voters, bureaucrats,
politicians, and recipients of public funds. Coalitions of voters seeking
special advantage from the state join together to get favorable legislation
enacted. Rather than being particularly needy, these groups are likely to be
those whose big stake in a benefit arouses them to more effective action than
is taken by the taxpayers at large over whom the costs are spread. In general,
individuals with "concentrated" interests in increased expenditure take a "free
ride" on those with "diffuse" interests in lower taxes. Similarly, the managers
of the "bureaucratic firms" seek to maximize budgets, and thereby to obtain
greater power, larger salaries, and other perquisites. Budget maximization
results in higher government spending overall, inefficient allocation among
government agencies, and inefficient production within them. In addition, when
government agencies give out grants, the potential grantees expend resources in
lobbying up to the value of the grants--an instance of the more general
"political dissipation of value" resulting from the scramble for political
favors and jobs."
>It is not at all surprising then when he concludes
>that anti-trust actions are driven by the special interests that
>benefit from them.
But that is standard. Read on what Mancur Olson had to say
about this. In essence, society generates SIGs much faster
than it gets rid of them. But the root problem is that the govt
officials are in it not for public benefit, but for their own benefit first and
foremost -- even if they superficially believe otherwise. Ergo, anti-trust
will act not when it really is in public interest, but when it is in interest
of anti-trust.
IOW, the govt officials are not what public romantically assumes they are or
should be. They're just as altruistic as McDonald's. Not worse or better or
good or bad; just self-interested, limited people adapting their arguments,
beliefs and actions to their own selfish interests. If one accepts such premise
-- I do,obviously -- theoretical consequences are profound.
I think it's not like libertarians in general or me in particular hate govt. I
just don't like hypocrisy -- to me, govt is just hypocritical corporation,
while regular corporations just do not lie that they are in it for money.
Self-interest is OK with me, but I don't tolerate hypocrisy.
>2. The author states that few or no anti-trust actions have benefitted
>the consumer and that the only beneficiaries were the competitors of
>the company the action was taken against. However, this does not prove
>that the anti-trust actions in question were ineffective, since we
>cannot know what harm may have come to the consumer had the action not
>been taken.
To maintain that thesis you have to maintain quiet assumption that
the situation from various periods of time has nothing to do with
another and its economics is only expression of particular conditions
of particular time. This is known as relativist economics, and in general
it is rejected. Counterevidence: what happens after deregulation
of industries. So far all of the deregulation has had net positive
effects (at least I don't know of any negative examples) -- particular
examples are telecommunication and air transport.
>At the very least, he does not argue that these actions
>hurt the consumer and since competitors did benefit one could argue
>that there was indeed an indirect benefit to the consumer and to the
>market process even in the abscence of direct consumer benefits.
>3. The author states that government-regulated monopolies (e.g. phone
>companies, utilities) aren't to be counted in the success vs failure of
>anti-trust legislation. Yet that is exactly the way that many
>monopolies have been regulated.
And the net result is disaster at worst or real pain at best. See the regulated
European telecom market. It's horror. Believe me, you would not want to
experience this kind of thing. It _really_ sucks. In fact, explosion of mobile
telephony in Europe happened precisely bc the govt-regulated monopolies (I
think that the regulations that are supposed to make the monopolies behave
in fact serve nothing but maintaining monopolistic position) are so bad, and
the mobile market was the only telecom market that is not regulated so heavily.
My experiences with monopolies regulated by govt are so bad and so
systematically bad that I really don't see how regulating market could
be good. Talking stick to Ronald Coase:
"Reason: What's an example of bad regulation?
Coase: I can't remember one that's good. Regulation of transport,
regulation of agriculture-- agriculture is a, zoning is z. You know, you go
from a to z, they are all bad. There were so many studies, and the result
was quite universal: The effects were bad."
In my experience I have not seen a single data point that would contradict such
claim. Note: Coase is NOT libertarian. He actually started as socialist. He
just stopped being socialist, and the results of his checking results of govt
intervention in markets are so bad that he even once got Chicago school against
him. If socialist-by-belief draws conclusions about empirics so libertarian
that even Milton Friedman questions them, there has to be something meaningful
around.
>They weren't often government
>sponsored at the start after all, they were brought under regulation
>later. Therefore not counting them skews the real results.
I disagree -- the source of capital is not that important really, only what
privileges govt grants this monopoly. Under assumption of self-interest being
primary motivator of organization, it does not matter whether company was
originally owned by private persons or by govt. If core motivation is the same,
behavior is the same. I see no reason to believe that AT&T is more
self-interested than Qwest or vice versa. What matters is context in
which they operate.
>He also makes some mis-statements of history. For instance, he says
>that Standard Oil had eight competitors at the time it was broken up.
>This is true, but it also technically had competitors during it's whole
>history. They split 20% of the market amongst themselves so I have a
>hard time seeing Standard Oil as "not a monopoly" as our author would
>like us to.
>From other sources I remember that SO at the time of breakup had
40% of total market -- some more sources would be appreciated
from someone who has them.
The case for monopoly in oil market is not well founded IMO -- the product is
so standardized and exchangeable that it is close to perfect competition, and
the cost of switching to product of competition is basically zero -- it's
driving to gas station B instead of A. This is unlike desktop OSes.
The only way to maintain monopoly at least for some time here is very strong
political will among very few players and even then according to game
theory it is impossible to maintain it. Oil market analysts claim that
historically very few periods of loyalty among OPEC countries wrt not exceeding
negotiated limts of production lasted longer than three months.
>By the time Standard Oil was broken up, the case had dragged on for
>years and competition was strengthened just because of that (somewhat
>like what has happened with MS).
Correlation is not causation. Political struggles for closing American
car market from Japanese competition via tariffs has also dragged for years,
and in the meantime the American automakers have managed to survive and
improve their business. I'd say that in both cases it is probable that
competitors improved bc they felt the heat, not bc the supposed monopoly
was in court. Competitors migh simultaneously get their act together AND use
the courts and politics, bc they feel that if they don't, it would be game over
for them.
>The desired result of improved
>competiton might have happened regardless of the final outcome, but I
>would not count that as a reason not to pursue anti-trust cases.
I would -- if competitors did not have this substitute for competition on merit
in their legal arsenal, they'd be less likely to fool themselves and they would
HAVE to compete in marketplace rather than in court. They would not have any
other option.
>I could go on, but I think that hits the highlights. Mostly, it smacks
>of the same sort of simplistic ideological analysis as much of what
>comes out of the Cato Institute.
Granted, authors there do have particular ideological platform. However,
while people have agendas, arguments don't, arguments are just adequate
or inadequate.
>>Equality requires slavery.
>An interesting position.
People are naturally unequal. So making them equal requires constant
threat of force held by politics over everyone so everyone pretended being
equal. To me, that is form of slavery. Political correctness is tyranny with
manners, equality in practice boils down to slavery.
MK
---
Equality requires slavery.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (MK)
Crossposted-To:
misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Microsoft Ruling Too Harsh
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 17:07:18 GMT
On Fri, 23 Jun 2000 06:21:07 -0700, "George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr."
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On 23 Jun 2000 03:56:00 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
>wrote:
>
>>On 23 Jun 2000 03:01:55 GMT, Henry Blaskowski wrote:
>>
>>>I lean in this same direction, for a very simple reason. When in
>>>doubt, leave people alone. That means, if two people or groups can
>>>come to a voluntary, informed consent, it should take an overwhelming
>>>burden of proof to overturn that, such as clear evidence of direct
>>>harm. This is rarely if ever shown in anti-trust cases, and certainly
>>>not in the MS case.
>>
>>I disagree. I think that in a lot of cases, what you have is not
>>"voluntary, informed consent". I think Microsoft have thrown their
>>wieghht around and used coercion, and I believe the evidence presented
>>in the trial makes this pretty clear.
>Andy Grove of Intel was apparently furious when MS muscled Intel into
>killing off their program to make JAVA run much faster on Intel CPUs.
That is interesting -- you know where I can get more info on that?
>And since that makes me waste a ton of time, makes millions waste a
>ton of time, causes the govt to lose billions in taxes from production
>burned up by this purposeful destruction of productivity, don't we
>have an interest in that "voluntary" decision?
Intel may not be such a Snow White as you think -- after all, if Java
succeeds, "write once, run anywhere" makes x86 platform a dinosaur. Pentium
I/II/III is really a case of 386 instruction set tail wagging the dog of
advanced CPU architecture. See http://www.transmeta.com. Torvalds works there.
I read the white paper on the Transmeta CPUs -- they claim they can achieve
comparable real world execution of app at cost of quarter of transistors that
Intel has to use up. It's very interesting -- they use Very Long Instruction
Word architecture, which allows execution of four atom instructions
in 128-bit molecule simultaneously. They make stunts so wild that seem
science fiction at first -- how do you like parallel running of many operating
systems, processor LEARNING to execute the code faster with progress of
time or, believe it or not, software upgrade of your CPU to next generation?
Such things may mean the end of Intel's revenues. MS and Intel are in one boat.
In addition, Intel may be organizing some stick against MS, too -- why would
it purchase stakes in RH otherwise?
MK
---
Equality requires slavery.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Crossposted-To: alt.comp.linux,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Can Linux do this? KIOSKS - Lite Linux desktop? Lock-down configs?
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 17:04:30 GMT
On Fri, 23 Jun 2000 09:57:43 -0600, ckeough <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Gee, all you self proclaimed linux gurus all forgot to mention recompiling
>the kernel and stripping out all the extra crap.
...the kernel is the least of your worries when the discussion
is centering around something like Netscape...
>
>Nothing is impossible, i have mandrake running on a 486, which you
>apparently you cant do.
--
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/ | \
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dealing with filesystem volumes
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 17:05:06 GMT
On Fri, 23 Jun 2000 16:28:41 GMT, Joe Ragosta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <8ivvh1$1l7$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donal
>K. Fellows) wrote:
>
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> Joe Ragosta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > I have 3 partitions on my drive: System, Applications, VM. I create an
>> > alias for the System and Applications drives and put them in my Apple
>> > Menu. That allows me to access any file on those partitions with a
>> > single click.
>> >
>> > Now, I change the name of all 3 partitions to: "drive".
>> >
>> > Everything still works. VM still works on the partition formerly known
>> > as VM. The aliases still work.
>>
>> So MacOS hides the real names of everything from you, and only lets
>> you look at the happy-happy interface on top? I suppose it is one way
>> to do it...
>>
>
>That't one way to put it.
>
>The way most rational people put it is "it just works".
You can state the same for alternate methods of refering to
the same sorts of media.
--
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/ | \
------------------------------
From: Nathaniel Jay Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Charlie Ebert the LinoShill
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 12:05:21 -0500
James wrote:
>
> Another example:
>
> Read "Build the right [web] site for you business" in the PC Magazine dated
> 23 May 2000, p 154. Interesting comparison between W2k, Netware 5.1, RHL
> Pro 6.1, Solaris 8. Ok, I know it is all lies, but humour me.
>
> James
Yeah, I read that. They do that every year and always prove the
wonderful superiority of Windows. This is exactly the type of thing I
am trying to avoid seeing repeated. They bring in Windows experts and
tune up Windows to perform flawlessly then use a direct install of
Linux. Too bad. But the truth is eventually heard.
>
> "Nathaniel Jay Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Pete Goodwin wrote:
> > >
> > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Charlie Ebert) wrote in
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > >
> > > >And as I said before Simon777.
> > > >Just pick up any computer magazine from your office or Grocery store.
> > > >
> > > >Now, is that so hard.
> > > >
> > > >That's a BIG BOY.
> > >
> > > You were the one that claimed Linux is three times faster than Windows.
> > > Care to justify that statement? I did some tests of my own and found
> Linux
> > > is _slower_ than Windows!
> > >
> > > Pete
> >
> > We never did hear if you took any of the suggestions on tuning and
> > retried your tests. Or is this one of those Mindcraft type of
> > examples? Tune windows perfectly and let Linux sit with non-optimized
> > settings.
> >
> > I don't agree that Linux is tree times faster than Windows, but for most
> > things it is somewhat faster. I'm not a benchmarking person, so I don't
> > have solid numbers, but I am interested in if you ever re-ran your test
> > with any of the suggestions that were given to you. This to me would be
> > the equivalent of running your test under Windows without loading the
> > proper drivers to your motherboard/IDE controller/vide card/etc. Tuning
> > and driver loading are essential to get a well optimized system.
> >
> > Nathaniel Jay Lee
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
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