[10820] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
November Ask Dr. Internet Part II
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Fri Nov 15 20:56:15 1996
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 17:02:11 -0600 (CST)
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Q6
Why Is It So Much Cheaper To Buy A Whole New Computer,
Than To Upgrade It Piece By Piece?
A6
The reason for this is the same reason that the parts of a car are worth
more than the car itself. . .profit margin. The companies fight tooth &
nail to have the best price deal on the items you see advertised. . .and
on the other items, where there is less competition. . .prices soar.
For example: rent a car at San Jose International Airport for $50, AND!
pay an extra $100 for your plane ticket, than you would for the same Air
Line's flight to San Francisco International Airport a few miles north.
Not only is everything much more expensive at San Jose International but
you are limited in the hours you can travel or rent a car. Up the road,
at SFO. . .you can fly and rent 24 hours a day and the same car from the
same rental company. . .$35. . . more below, about computers this time.
COMPAQ COUNTS YOUR OPTIONS [From Edupage]
A key component of Compaq CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer's strategy when he took over
the company in 1991 was to make the most of its "options" business --
peripherals such as the 17-inch monitors that many computer users are now
demanding, as well as networking cards and modems. The strategy has
enabled Compaq to keep its profits up in a business where the margins on
PCs have shrunk to bare bones minimums. Profits on peripherals are roughly
double those of basic PCs. "We're an options company attached to a
computer company," says the head of Compaq's commercial PC options
division, which boasts its own engineering, marketing and manufacturing
staff. (Forbes 4 Nov 96 p352)
Q7.
Why Is The US Government Classifying My New Cable Modem Hookup
As "Munitions"?
A7.
In case you hadn't heard about it the US government appears to feel that
ANY message it cannot read is a danger to society and must be put behind
steel or kryptonite bars.
As we have said before, you should AUTOMATICALLY PRESUME YOUR EMAIL IS READ
by someone other than the person to whom it is addressed. There is plenty,
PLENTY, about this if you want to search for more.
NEW ENCRYPTION BLOW-UP LIKELY
Because it makes use of a 128-bit encryption code that is much more powerful
than the 40-bit code authorized for export by the Clinton Administration, a
$300 TV set-top device developed for Web-surfing and e-mail has been
classified in the "munitions" category to keep it away from terrorists and
criminals. The device is manufactured by the Sony and Philips corporations
based on a design by Web TV Networks, Inc., which had planned to market it
next year in Europe and Japan. However, having recently proposed a "key
recovery" encryption plan using third parties to hold parts of the
encryption key, the Clinton Administration is unlikely to allow exportation
of the Web TV device. (New York Times 8 Nov 96 C2) [Edupage]
More on Internet Privacy. . .
INTERNET USERS VALUE THEIR PRIVACY
The 1996 Equifax/Harris Consumer Privacy Survey for the Internet reveals
that Internet users place a high premium on their online privacy, relative
to non-Internet users. 60% of the Internet users interviewed said their
anonymity shouldn't be compromised when they visit a Web site or use e-mail.
Only 45% of non-Internet users were sympathetic to the desire for online
anonymity. About half (49%) of the Internet users who participated felt
that the federal government should be restricted in its ability to scan
Internet messages, compared to only a third (34%) of non-users. 71% of
Internet users did not want online service providers to track their
Web surfing patterns for marketing purposes, while 63% of non-users felt
this activity was intrusive. The telephone survey of 36 million people
also found that Internet users tended on average to be better educated, earn
more money and have a somewhat more liberal outlook than non-users. (BNA
Daily Report for Executives 10 Oct 96 A24) [Edupage]
Q8.
What Have You Heard About A New 500Mhz CPU Chip
A8.
Our guru's guru, Kevin Gilmore says that there is never going to be a
1Ghz CPU chip, at least until a significant technological advance may
come along. . . I, on the other hand, as usual, love sticking my neck
out and will predict a 1Ghz chip without such an advance.
Here is the latest.
BIG MAC -- EXPONENTIAL WORKING ON 500-MHz MAC CHIP
Exponential Technology recently debuted its X704 microprocessor, a 500-MHz
PowerPC chip slated for use in Apple Macintosh computers, as well as
machines made by DayStar Digital Inc., Power Computing Corp. and UMAX
Computer Corp. Apple has worked closely with Exponential engineers during
the development process and is rewriting the Mac ROMs to function at the
higher speeds. The X704 is based on BiCMOS technology -- a combination of
the CMOS technology typical in microprocessors and the bipolar architecture
more commonly found in mainframe processors. The X704 chips are scheduled
to ship in March 1997. (MacWeek 3 Nov 96) [Edupage]
Q9.
What Have You Heard About This New Treaty That Will Make It Illegal To
Compile And Publish Statistics, And Apparently Many Other Facts.
A9.
"U.S. Government officials are pressing for the adoption of
an International treaty that will (if enacted) significantly
change the ways sports statistics are controlled and
disseminated. The treaty isn't specifically directed at sports
statistics -- it is a much broader attempt to create a new
property right in facts and other data now in the public domain -
- but it will have an enormous impact on the legal rights
exercised by the National Football League (NFL), Major League
Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the
National Hockey League (NHL) and virtually all other professional
or amateur athletic leagues. [The same treaty will radically
affect the way that stock prices, weather data, train schedules,
data from AIDS research and other facts are controlled."
You can get more on this from:
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.essential.org/cpt
love@tap.org; 202/387-8030
Here is Edupage's take on this:
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TREATY WORRIES SOME ACADEMICS
A multinational treaty on intellectual property protection for databases,
slated for consideration at the World Intellectual Property Organization's
meeting next month in Geneva, has scientists, librarians and some scholarly
societies concerned over what they view as overly broad protections for
information contained in a database. While database publishers need some
protection against digital piracy, any solution should also protect "the
interests of society and the full and free flow of information for
scientific research," says the president of the National Academy of
Engineering. The Academy has joined with the Institute of Medicine in
recommending that the U.S. take "no precipitous action" on the treaty. A
lawyer at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has called scientists'
concerns about fair use overblown. He says the draft treaty contains
provisions to allow the U.S. to enact a fair-use exemption in the
legislation it would pass to enact the treaty. (Chronicle of Higher
Education 15 Nov 96 A31)
Q10.
Book Review and Interview
"Holy Fire" by Bruce Sterling
You are invited to read this book, we highly suggest it,
and to email us your questions for Bruce Sterling; these
questions do not have to be about the book.
So far our staff has given Holy Fire an average rating of 90.
Part One of Dr. Internet's Review of Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling
Holy Fire starts on the Cyberpunk's Pacific Rim, but without any
of the usual suspects, no really identifiable Pacific Rim people
. . .more like people from the 1960's, but set in the 2090's, as
medical advances approach the point where for every extra year a
person lives, medicine advances enough to add a year of life, an
interesting premise to examine.
Our heroine, and we note that the last few years have brought us
leading female characters from all of the major cyberpunkers, is
riding the shockwave between the time when people would expect a
limited lifetime and the time when they could logically expect a
lifetime of unlimited duration, barring the unforeseen.
The action starts up when she [Mia] picks up a stray hippie-like
girl named Brett [who later turns out to be named Natalie]. The
interaction between Mia and Brett strongly evokes Mia's maternal
feelings, as strongly as she had had them with her own daughter,
Chloe, many many decades ago.
Brett takes Mia on a tour of her little [to Mia] life, shows Mia
her dreams and sorrows, and in her own naive way tries to appear
as though she might be able to conquer the world, if she only is
to be given a chance. Mia thinks she is about as dangerous as a
"kitten in a basket."
However, Mia's little excursion out of the painfully normal norm
of her life, where everything is planned and drab [how else will
she be able to life as long a life as possible?] sticks to Mia's
subconscious, and surfaces during her next rejuvenation.
Instead of emerging as Mia, she emerges as "Maya," illusory copy
of Brett's hippie dreamlife, and she makes good an escape from a
life which now appears to be behind strong gerontocracy bars.
Mild Spoilers Follow!!
Maya makes her way to Europe and ends up fulfilling Brettdreams,
even to the point of literally having the society of gerontocrat
haut couture at her feet, and is interviewed after this feat, by
none other than Brett [who is now apparently operating under her
real name of Natalie, perhaps somewhat indicative of her role in
the birth of "Maya."
Maya recognizes Brett, but Brett denies her Brettness. After an
exciting evening of falling from grace, Maya and Brett<=>Natalie
finally agree on having met before, and Natalie realizes that it
is Mia, and that Mia has stolen her dream, her life, and has had
the opportunity to do all the things she told Mia as Brett, back
in the beginning.
We can't really go further with employing major spoilers, and we
would like to include more quotes, which we haven't yet received
permission for, so we will conclude the review next month with a
set of questions for Bruce from our readers.
Part One of Dr. Internet's Interview With Bruce Sterling
Drnet asks:
1. This book is much more of a "Cyberpunk" [I am not sure it
is a term I like, got any others?] work than previous works--
do you read the works of writers such as: Gibson, Stephenson
and Barnes? . . . Holy Fire seems to fit right in with them.
Well, I read Gibson, Stephenson, Rucker, Shiner, Cadigan, these people are
all friends of mine. Of course HOLY FIRE is a cyberpunk book -- anything
I write will be called "cyberpunk," it doesn't matter what it is or what
it's about; if I do it, it's "cyberpunk." I accept this. I don't mind the
label "cyberpunk" because I can see the justice in it. I don't have much
use for terms like "post-cyberpunk" or "former cyberpunk," because they seem
to have even less content than "cyberpunk."
I was very into "cyberpunk" when we original cyberpunks were struggling
to figure out what to do. Nowadays I have an actually quite good
understanding of what it is I'm trying to do with my writing. So instead
of trying to convince other people to write more like me, I'm increasingly
interested in doing things that I know only I can do.
There are topics and approaches in my writing that are clearly
informed by cyberpunk techniques and cyberpunk methods of extrapolation.
But you're not going to find a lot of other books like HOLY FIRE. In the
next few years I'm going to make science fiction do things it's never done
before.
Drnet asks:
2. Would you describe your work as only fiction, or could we
also use visionary? In this sense, do you feel your work may
change the future, as well as predict it? Would you be upset
if your readers saw your work as a call to change?
Oh, it takes quite a lot to upset me. I don't worry very much about the
prospect of becoming a pop genre novelist who accidentally sets the world on
fire. I've got some pretty odd readers, but not many of them are violent
revolutionaries.
What does kind of worry me a bit is when guys like Newt Gingrich
start writing science fiction novels, or when fantasy writers like Mark
Helprin write political speeches for Bob Dole. I don't think my science
fiction novels are gonna change the future much, so I don't fret overly
about my sanctified role as some kind of socially responsible visionary
wizard. I'm not Einstein, or Edison, or even H G Wells, and I like calling
my work "science fiction." I don't declare it be a visionary tract or a
political manifesto.
However, if you ever see me writing speeches for Al Gore, you can get
back to me on this topic.
Drnet Asks:
3. All the cyberspace stories seem to include an increasing,
nearly exponential separation between the rich and the poor--
including, but not limited to, the Information Rich and Poor;
can you describe this in terms of your own vision of present-
time and future-time?
Well, there *is* an increasing separation between rich and poor. Doesn't
require telepathy to figure that one out.
It's a trend. No trend lasts forever. It's something to thing about,
but it's not the only thing to think about. As far as "information rich"
goes, if information meant everything, then librarians would be the most
powerful people on earth. "Information rich" counts for something, but
old-fashioned rich rich still counts for plenty. And when it comes to
exercising political power and control, you'd be surprised to discover just
how useful a large, well-equipped army can be.
Drnet says:
4. Another feature of cyberspace stories appears to be a new
fascism for the control of information. . .almost reactionary
in its reaction to new modes of the Information Age, designed
to keep these new modes of information transmission out of an
assignation with the public, and locked in the bed/boardrooms
of the elitists.
Is this a question? If time has taught me anything, it's that there's
a very weird kind of ductility between the so-called public and the
so-called elite. Elite by whose standards? Elite under what
circumstances? Take a step outside the Group of 7 for a while, and it's
very clear that the entire population of the United States is an "elite."
At the moment I think it's clear that the single most powerful and
influential interest group in the US is the Christian Right, but it's very
hard to call them an "elite." These people are mostly pathetic lower-class
crackers who believe anything they're told from a pulpit.
Maybe you could call Steve Forbes an "elitist," because he was born
wealthy, has four hundred million dollars, and runs a large and influential
publishing and media concern, but if you actually look at the guy and listen
to what he's saying, it's obvious that there's just not a lot there. Bill
Gates is super-rich and comes from a mildly prominent regional family, but
just a few years ago Bill was just an ugly little hippie nerd. If he ever
gets hit in the head with a brick, his empire will come apart like a
sandcastle. It could come apart anyway; as castles go, Microsoft looks very
gimcrack and temporary.
I know a little bit about how fascism actually worked, so I don't throw
that term around loosely.
***
The first three rules of computing:
#1. Back up your data.
#2. Back Up Your Data!
#3. BACK UP YOUR DATA!
If this is the ONLY thing you ever learn from "Ask Dr. Internet" it
will still be very worthwhile that you have read this.
***
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***
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cd pub
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cd gutenberg
cd etext95 [or 94, 93, 92, 91 or 90. 70's and 80's are in /etext90]
get filename (be sure to set bin, if you get the .zip files)
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New files in etext96, of course.
***
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mh
