>> Allow me to refute: The US government *needs* GPS, whether you have
>> access to it or not. Once you have a GPS service, it costs nothing to
>> allow civilians to access it as well. (Indeed, it would cost money to
>> *stop* then accessing it.) Ergo, in fact giving you GPS isn't costing
>> anybody anything.
>
> Perhaps that is true. But it contradicts your definition:
>
>  >> A better explanation might be "if it costs somebody money but you
>  >> didn't pay for it, you're being sold"

The idea being that if providing something to *you* costs money, but you 
didn't pay for it, you're probably being sold.

If it's a service which exists anyway, letting you use it might not cost 
much.

> As you probably know the GPS signal used to have a publicly available
> accuracy of about 100m. Accuracy to about 20m was available only to the
> military as that part of the signal was encrypted. That was the original
> design and implementation.
>
> It took a deliberate decision to make the full accuracy available for
> civilian use. Simply deciding this and implementing it no doubt cost a
> significant amount.

Not really. Just turn off the encryption hardware. (I'm sure on the 
longer term they'll probably try to remove it completely, but there's no 
rush.)

> Then the military has developed extra capability to
> 'deny' GPS to selected areas when they desire.

That's new to me.

> That and other requirements no doubt cost more than the strictly
> military requirements.

Yes, but does it cost /significantly/ more?

Post a reply to this message

On 6/10/2011 8:22 PM, Invisible wrote:
>>> Allow me to refute: The US government *needs* GPS, whether you have
>>> access to it or not. Once you have a GPS service, it costs nothing to
>>> allow civilians to access it as well. (Indeed, it would cost money to
>>> *stop* then accessing it.) Ergo, in fact giving you GPS isn't costing
>>> anybody anything.
>>
>> Perhaps that is true. But it contradicts your definition:
>>
>> >> A better explanation might be "if it costs somebody money but you
>> >> didn't pay for it, you're being sold"
>
> The idea being that if providing something to *you* costs money, but you
> didn't pay for it, you're probably being sold.
>
> If it's a service which exists anyway, letting you use it might not cost
> much.
>
>> As you probably know the GPS signal used to have a publicly available
>> accuracy of about 100m. Accuracy to about 20m was available only to the
>> military as that part of the signal was encrypted. That was the original
>> design and implementation.
>>
>> It took a deliberate decision to make the full accuracy available for
>> civilian use. Simply deciding this and implementing it no doubt cost a
>> significant amount.
>
> Not really. Just turn off the encryption hardware. (I'm sure on the
> longer term they'll probably try to remove it completely, but there's no
> rush.)
>
>> Then the military has developed extra capability to
>> 'deny' GPS to selected areas when they desire.
>
> That's new to me.
>
>> That and other requirements no doubt cost more than the strictly
>> military requirements.
>
> Yes, but does it cost /significantly/ more?

Well I bet it is significant to you or me.  Sure divided by the number 
of beneficiaries the spread cost would be small.

Didn't this start with something about how much it costs to run 
Facebook?  No doubt it is a lot of money.  However the incremental cost 
of providing Facebook to any one user is immeasurably small.  You could 
even say that denying Facebook to any one person would cost more than 
allowing it.

GPS is a similar example with the critical difference that I don't see 
how a user is being sold.

Post a reply to this message

> Didn't this start with something about how much it costs to run
> Facebook? No doubt it is a lot of money. However the incremental cost of
> providing Facebook to any one user is immeasurably small. You could even
> say that denying Facebook to any one person would cost more than
> allowing it.
>
> GPS is a similar example with the critical difference that I don't see
> how a user is being sold.

The difference is, the US military *needs* GPS to exist, and they're the 
ones paying for it. Once it exists, it costs no extra money to let you 
and me use it, so why bother trying to charge for it?

Nobody *needs* Facebook to exist, and nobody *pays* for it to exist. 
[Some people pay to put adverts on it, but they don't actually care 
about FB itself. They just want lots of people to see ads.] Every single 
extra person who accesses FB increases the costs for the operators 
(unlike GPS). So yes, you're being sold.

Now figure this out: It costs money to access the Debian website. Who 
the **** is paying for that?

Post a reply to this message

On 6/10/2011 9:12 PM, Invisible wrote:
>> Didn't this start with something about how much it costs to run
>> Facebook? No doubt it is a lot of money. However the incremental cost of
>> providing Facebook to any one user is immeasurably small. You could even
>> say that denying Facebook to any one person would cost more than
>> allowing it.
>>
>> GPS is a similar example with the critical difference that I don't see
>> how a user is being sold.
>
> The difference is, the US military *needs* GPS to exist, and they're the
> ones paying for it. Once it exists, it costs no extra money to let you
> and me use it, so why bother trying to charge for it?
>

The genesis of GPS is a fascinating study in technology, bureaucracy and 
the military.  Read "The Strategy of Technology" (1970), Stefan T. 
Possony, Jerry E Pournelle and Col. Francis X Kane.  It is available 
online at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/Strat.html. 
Particularly "An Illustrative Case History: GPS NAVSTAR: The Revolution 
25 Years in the Making" at the end of Chapter 2.

Col. Kane headed up the study and then the programme that developed GPS.

The study identified that such a system would be technologically 
possible and would have many benefits to various military operations - 
something like 30,000 distinct uses were considered.  One problem was 
that for just about every possible use somebody would say "Well sure but 
we can get by the way we are" / "We have a cheaper alternative" / "It 
won't be ready because the (Vietnam) war will be over in 6 months" etc. 
  Others actively opposed the scheme because it would replace the system 
that they were running or proposing.

US Congress approved funding on the basis that it would cost less than 
the programmes it replaced (it didn't) and that the non-Defence users 
would pay (they don't).

Looking back it seems like a no-brainer decision to put up GPS but that 
isn't how such things come about.

I strongly doubt that the non-military usage of the system came at no 
cost either originally or since.  Suppose for example that the US 
military no longer required GPS.  The body that oversees the programme 
is mandated to provide civilian use positioning signals.

Do you think the system would be shutdown and the satellites de-orbited? 
  Do you think there would be any way to start charging for all of the 
continuing users?

> Nobody *needs* Facebook to exist, and nobody *pays* for it to exist.
> [Some people pay to put adverts on it, but they don't actually care
> about FB itself. They just want lots of people to see ads.] Every single
> extra person who accesses FB increases the costs for the operators
> (unlike GPS). So yes, you're being sold.
>

By the same logic, advertising funded television stations, radio 
stations, newspapers, sporting events, billboards and more don't *need* 
to exist.  They are just vehicles to carry advertising to consumers. 
The actual content is secondary.  I don't see much difference between 
those and Facebook.  Sure some people actually enjoy the content and 
even *want* it but for anybody else you just see them as irrelevant and 
wonder why somebody would pay to produce them.  Unless you see that they 
are just money making vehicles.

> Now figure this out: It costs money to access the Debian website. Who
> the **** is paying for that?

No idea.  Somebody or some organisation that benefits from Debian and 
wants it to be active and healthy?

Post a reply to this message

> I strongly doubt that the non-military usage of the system came at no
> cost either originally or since. Suppose for example that the US
> military no longer required GPS. The body that oversees the programme is
> mandated to provide civilian use positioning signals.
>
> Do you think the system would be shutdown and the satellites de-orbited?

I guess that would cost money too, although I don't know how much.

> Do you think there would be any way to start charging for all of the
> continuing users?

There's probably a way of doing that. No idea what it would cost to 
implement. Nor how many people would continue to use the system if it 
wasn't free.

>> Nobody *needs* Facebook to exist, and nobody *pays* for it to exist.
>> [Some people pay to put adverts on it, but they don't actually care
>> about FB itself. They just want lots of people to see ads.] Every single
>> extra person who accesses FB increases the costs for the operators
>> (unlike GPS). So yes, you're being sold.
>>
>
> By the same logic, advertising funded television stations, radio
> stations, newspapers, sporting events, billboards and more don't *need*
> to exist. They are just vehicles to carry advertising to consumers. The
> actual content is secondary. I don't see much difference between those
> and Facebook.

Facebook sells its users as a product. Newspapers sell their readers as 
a product. Um... yeah, I don't see much difference either.

>> Now figure this out: It costs money to access the Debian website. Who
>> the **** is paying for that?
>
> No idea. Somebody or some organisation that benefits from Debian and
> wants it to be active and healthy?

Hmm, interesting. Apparently [some of] the web servers are provided by 
the same company as runs my website. Except that they charge me money. 
Hmm. I wander how Debian got this stuff for free?

Post a reply to this message

On 10/6/2011 5:48, Paul Fuller wrote:
> Looking back it seems like a no-brainer decision to put up GPS but that
> isn't how such things come about.

This seems unfortunately true of a great number of projects that would work 
best with government funding but which (or because they) don't benefit any 
particular congressman's constituents directly more than any other group.

> Do you think the system would be shutdown and the satellites de-orbited? Do
> you think there would be any way to start charging for all of the continuing
> users?

It wouldn't be hard to charge. Put a license tax on each GPS receiver, like 
TV in the UK.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:32:43 +1100, Paul Fuller wrote:

> On 4/10/2011 6:20 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 03 Oct 2011 08:59:40 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> A better explanation might be "if it costs somebody money but you
>>> didn't pay for it, you're being sold".
>>
>> That's the best way to look at it I've seen. :)
>>
>> Jim
> 
> GPS strikes me as a counter-example.  It costs somebody (the US military
> / government) a lot of money.  I didn't pay for it except by the most
> circuitous reasoning (not being a US citizen).  I don't see how I'm
> being sold by it or for it.  Now I do have to pay for a GPS receiver but
> there isn't as far as I know any component in that cost for building and
> running the satellite network, ground stations etc.
> 
> To every generalisation there is at least one obvious and irrefutable
> counter-example - even this one.

Well, sure, there are some services that are provided gratis that cost 
money but the user doesn't pay for.  Open source software is another 
example.

As one of my old civics teachers used to say, there ain't no such thing 
as a free lunch.

Jim

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On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:12:21 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> The difference is, the US military *needs* GPS to exist

Well, no, military forces (including in the US) existed well before the 
advent of GPS technology.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:16:26 -0700, Darren New wrote:

>> Do you think the system would be shutdown and the satellites
>> de-orbited? Do you think there would be any way to start charging for
>> all of the continuing users?
> 
> It wouldn't be hard to charge. Put a license tax on each GPS receiver,
> like TV in the UK.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that that was part of the cost of the 
devices already.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:48:02 -0400, Cousin Ricky wrote:

> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Incidentally, people talk about how FB has all this valuable user data
>> and how they're using it to do ultra-targeted advertising. ARE YOU
>> KIDDING ME? Have you *seen* their adverts? What are they aiming with? A
>> blunderbuss?! Because the targeting is just laughably poor. For
>> example, constantly spamming me with ads for dating websites, even
>> after I changed my profile to indicate that I'm no longer single.
>>
>> Sometimes, you do something like change your status to mention
>> Marmite(tm), and an advert for Marmite(tm) appears. Sometimes you say
>> something like "man, I'm really looking forward to the weekend", and
>> get an advert for Hellman's mayonnaise. And sometimes, you say
>> something like "hey Helen, that was some great dancing yesterday" and
>> get adverts for Black & Decker power tools. I mean, seriously, WTF?
>> This is not "targeted advertising", this is "randomly generated spam".
> 
> I don't consider it spam if the advertiser pays for the ad.

So those "cheap meds" messages don't count as spam?  The seller does pay 
someone to send the message, after all...

If so, that's a very unconventional definition for "Spam" (in the 
Internet sense).

Jim

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