The issue of mobile phone subsidies and early termination fees has been getting a lot of extra attention lately. The FCC has asked Verizon to explain its early termination fees, and why they are requiring higher fees for users of certain phones. Their answer is, of course, ludicrous. But the fees were ludicrous to begin with. These problems are well known even outside of tech circles, but lets examine it much closer, shall we? Continue reading
Persistence Sells and Ruins Games
Imagine you are about to play a game of Monopoly. According to the rules, each player starts with $1500. One of the other players, however, insists that they are going to start with $2000. What is their justification for this extreme head start? Well of course, it’s a bonus they deserve because they won the last game of Monopoly they played. Continue reading
Posted in Video Games
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Privacy is Dead
Towards the end of my previous post I began to talk about the inevitability of a techno-anarchist future. Eventually we will have such powerful technology that is so widely available to the masses that it will be impossible to enforce any laws. It will be like living in a world full of wizards. Their vast powers allow them to do great good, and great harm. Those same powers also allow them to disguise or conceal anything beyond the point of deniability. If someone can snap their fingers to affect things on the other side of the world, you live in anarchy whether you like it or not.
Posted in Opinion
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Injustice by Association
It has recently come to my attention that there are far too many laws which outlaw harmless activities, simply because they correlate with other harmful illegal activities. It all goes back to the day when they had to get Al Capone for tax evasion. Rather than eliminate incompetency and impotence of the law enforcement, requiring them to work harder, we pass laws to make their jobs all too easy. The side effect is that many grave injustices are allowed to pass. Continue reading
We Need Nicer Medicine
Anyone who knows me knows that snake oil peddlers rank close to the top on the list of things I despise. When someone is suffering from an illness, taking their money in exchange for false hope is among the worst things one human can possibly do to another. Evidence based medicine is the best medicine we have, and I wouldn’t let myself, or anyone I care about, receive any other kind of treatment. However, evidence based medicine has one major problem in that is is very unpleasant for the patient.
A Way to Save Local Business?
In recent years, people have been trying to “save” local businesses. It’s just that when you actually look at the practicality of keeping things local, it often becomes difficult if not impossible to get what you want, and also keep things local. It’s another one of those chicken and egg problems. Let’s see if we can figure a way out of it. I think a good way to go about this is to examine the pros and cons of local vs. big businesses, and try to solve them one at a time.
How Badly Do You Want It?
Over all the decades that piracy has been a hot topic the point often comes up that piracy isn’t stealing because those pirates would not have paid money if piracy were not an option. This point, while often brought up, is often ignored. There is no response to it, and yet it is perhaps the most central and crucial point in the entire discussion. I think one major problem is that there has been little actual investigation into the truth of this, at least that I have heard of. Allow me to begin that investigation with some common sense logic.
