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I can't decide if this is honest or a fantastic troll. At each point where the government "stepped in", it acted in a way that likely provides any technical rea

by ynniv 14y ago

I can't decide if this is honest or a fantastic troll. At each point where the government "stepped in", it acted in a way that likely provides any technical reader with relief. I had assumed that when "[the government] did play a role and, for the most part, it was not a good one", it would be in the form of business or labor regulation. Instead, this company laments that setting up their private revenue mechanism in the middle of public infrastructure was met with government regulation? And their inability to gain patent protection on an idea that is obvious but not previously implemented only works in this world that seems to assume that truly anything is patentable. The government acted in both situations to protect the common good from the selfish desires of a business. For my own sanity and faith in humanity, I will assume that this is a fantastic troll. To assume otherwise requires me to fear entrepreneurial "innovation".

makomk 14y ago
My personal guess is that it's an honest article from an utter scumbag. Imagine if you were reading this as someone who isn't a geek and isn't already familiar with what he was trying to do - it'd be an entirely different experience. For instance, there was actually a fair amount of geek-subculture support for Lightsquared's even more awful attempt to make a quick buck whilst breaking GPS in the process, because their promises were geek-friendly and most geeks didn't have right the technical knowlege to understand what was wrong with their business model. That was also stopped by Government intervention and they tried to spin it as the Government driving an innovative new startup out of business to protect incumbents, with some success.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  > Lightsquared's even more awful attempt to make a quick buck whilst breaking GPS in the process I think I missed this, do you have a link?
  - makomk 14y ago
    They had the smart idea of buying up cheap wireless spectrum right next to GPS that's only licensed for low-power satellite transmissions and using it to run a high-powered terrestrial 4G network, hence the geek appeal. It didn't work for fairly inevitable technical reasons: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/02/why-lightsquared-failed/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/02/why-lightsquared-... (If anything that article's more sympathetic to Lightsquared than they deserve - it's not clear it's even physically possible to build GPS receivers that wouldn't be affected.)

by ynniv 14y ago

makomk 14y ago

My personal guess is that it's an honest article from an utter scumbag. Imagine if you were reading this as someone who isn't a geek and isn't already familiar with what he was trying to do - it'd be an entirely different experience. For instance, there was actually a fair amount of geek-subculture support for Lightsquared's even more awful attempt to make a quick buck whilst breaking GPS in the process, because their promises were geek-friendly and most geeks didn't have right the technical knowlege to understand what was wrong with their business model. That was also stopped by Government intervention and they tried to spin it as the Government driving an innovative new startup out of business to protect incumbents, with some success.

pavel_lishin 14y ago
> Lightsquared's even more awful attempt to make a quick buck whilst breaking GPS in the process I think I missed this, do you have a link?
- makomk 14y ago
  They had the smart idea of buying up cheap wireless spectrum right next to GPS that's only licensed for low-power satellite transmissions and using it to run a high-powered terrestrial 4G network, hence the geek appeal. It didn't work for fairly inevitable technical reasons: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/02/why-lightsquared-failed/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/02/why-lightsquared-... (If anything that article's more sympathetic to Lightsquared than they deserve - it's not clear it's even physically possible to build GPS receivers that wouldn't be affected.)