Philips 42" 1080p LCD HDTV

This will be waiting for me when I get home this evening courtesy of UPS. The MSRP for this HDTV is 1499$. Its currently on Amazon for 1249$. I bought it from Costco for 999$ w/ free shipping. Woot.
Award Winning Green Features
The innovative Eco TV (42PFL5603D) is a high-definition LCD television that delivers superb picture quality while minimizing power consumption.

Philips ECO TV Power Saving Features:
Dimmable Backlighting technology combined with:

• Ambient Light Sensor and Active Content Monitoring


• Low standby mode at only 0.15 watt


• Consumer selectable Power Saver Mode

Chemical/Hazardous Substances:
Meets EU RoHS standards

Carton Packaging:
Made from a combination of recycled material and materials from Sustainably Managed Forests.

5000 Series Design Collection
A new family of products which surprise and delight by the way they look, behave and interact. A consistent, iconic signature creates distinction over the ranges. Embodied by the 5000 series LCD flat TV, distinctive and timeless, designed as a focal point for the family, yet discreet rather than dominant.

Full HD LCD display, with a 1920x1080p resolution
The Full HD screen has the widescreen resolution of 1920 x 1080p. This is the highest resolution of HD sources for the best possible picture quality. It is fully future proof as it supports 1080p signals from all sources, including the most recent like Blu-ray and advanced HD game consoles. The signal processing is extensively upgraded to support this much higher signal quality and resolution. It produces brilliant flicker-free progressive scan pictures with superb brightness and colors.

Invisible speakers with incredible surround
An invisible sound system that blends perfectly with the design of the cabinet. Optimal acoustics with horn shaped acoustical reflector for mid and high frequencies. It gives a clear and spacious sound stage complementary to the rich viewing experience.
HD Natural Motion for ultra smooth motion in Full HD movies
Philips invented HD Natural Motion to eliminate juddering effects that are visible with movie based picture content. HD Natural Motion estimates motion in the picture and corrects juddering movements in both broadcast and recorded movie material (such as DVD and Blu-ray Disc). The resulting smooth motion reproduction and excellent sharpness take the viewing experience to a higher level. HD Natural Motion removes judder from SD and HD pictures, including 1080p, for a motion performance that surpasses the cinema.
EasyLink: easy control of TV & connected device via HDMI CEC
The Full HD screen has the widescreen resolution of 1920 x 1080p. This is the highest resolution of HD sources for the best possible picture quality. It is fully future proof as it supports 1080p signals from all sources, including the most recent like Blu-ray and advanced HD game consoles. The signal processing is extensively upgraded to support this much higher signal quality and resolution. It produces brilliant flicker-free progressive scan pictures with superb brightness and colors.

Pixel Plus 3 HD for most sharp and clear pictures
Pixel Plus 3 HD offers the unique combination of ultimate sharpness, natural detail, vivid colors and smooth natural motion on all qualities of HD, standard TV signals and multimedia content, for high definition displays. Each pixel of the incoming picture is enhanced to better match the surrounding pixels, resulting in a more natural picture. Artifacts and noise in all sources from multimedia, standard TV and highly compressed HD are detected and reduced ensuring that the picture is clean and razor sharp.

Integrated Dual Subwoofers for deep and powerful bass
Built-in ATSC & QAM tuner for reception of over-the-air and unscrambled HD cable programs.

4 HDMI inputs for full digital HD connection in one cable
HDMI makes an uncompressed digital RGB connection from the source to the screen for the ultimate picture quality. HDMI intelligently communicates the highest output resolution with the source device. The HDMI input is fully backward compatible with DVI sources and includes digital audio. HDMI uses HDCP copy protection. With 3 HDMI inputs on the back and 1 HDMI on the side of the TV you can connect multiple HD sources, for instance an HD settop box, a Blu-ray player, and game console or digital Camcorder. Your TV is fully prepared for the HD future.

Settings assistant for effortless personalized TV settings
Settings assistant for effortless personalized TV settings. The new settings assistant personalization wizard guides you to personalized settings with unparalleled ease. It includes not only picture, but the complete viewing experience, including sound settings. The wizard shows a few screens with easy to choose options to select the essential settings. The TV performance is set to the your personal preference without difficult terms or settings, and this very quickly.

Dolby Digital Output for connection to a home theatre system
Output for connection to a home theatre system

Multimedia Applications
Playback JPG photos and MP3 music using the onboard USB accessory port

Dual Subwoofers
Integrated Dual Subwoofers for deep and powerful bass

Picture / Display

• Aspect ratio: Widescreen


• Brightness: 500 cd/m²


• Dynamic screen contrast: 29,000:1


• Response time (typical): 5 ms


• Diagonal screen size: (inch): 42 inch


• Panel resolution: 1920x1080p


• Picture enhancement: Pixel Plus 3 HD , 3/2 - 2/2 motion pull down , 3D Combfilter , Active Control + Light sensor, Dynamic contrast enhancement, Progressive Scan , HD Natural Motion


• Viewing angle (horizontal): 178 degree


• Viewing angle (vertical): 178 degree

Supported Display Resolution (all at 60 Hz)

• Computer formats
  640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, 1280 x 768, 1280 x 1024, 1360 x 768, 1920 x 1080i, 1920 x 1080p


• Video formats:
  480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p

Sound

• Equalizer: 5-bands


• Output power (RMS): 25W


• Sound Enhancement: Incredible Surround


• Sound System: Dolby Digital (AC-3) , BBE


• Built-in speakers: 4

Convenience

• Child Protection: Child Lock+Parental


• Control Clock: On main display, Sleep Timer


• Ease of Installation: Autostore


• Ease of Use: 4 favorite lists, Auto Volume Leveler (AVL), Channel list, Settings assistant Wizard, Side Control


• Remote Control: TV


• Screen Format Adjustments: 4:3, Auto Format, Movie expand 14:9, Movie expand 16:9, Super Zoom, Widescreen, unscaled (1080p dot by dot)

Multimedia Applications

• Multimedia connections: USB memory class device


• Playback Formats: MP3, Slideshow files (.alb), JPEG Still pictures

Tuner/Reception/Transmission

• Aerial Input: 75 ohm F-type


• TV system: ATSC, NTSC


• Video Playback: NTSC


• Cable: Unscrambled Digital Cable -QAM


• Tuner bands: Hyperband, S-Channel, UHF, VHF

Connectivity

• AV 1: Audio L/R in, YPbPr


• AV 2: Audio L/R in, YPbPr


• AV 3: CVBS in, S-Video in


• HDMI 1: HDMI v1.3


• HDMI 2: HDMI v1.3


• HDMI 3: Analog audio L/R in, HDMI v1.3


• HDMI-control (CEC features): One touch play, Power status, System info (menu language), System standby


• Front / Side connections:Audio L/R in, CVBS in, Headphone out, S-video in, USB, HDMI


• Audio Output - Digital: Coaxial (cinch)

Dimensions

• Set Width (inch): 41.2 inch


• Set Height (inch): 25.4 inch


• Set Depth (inch): 3.5 inch


• Set width (with stand) (inch): 41.2 inch


• Set height (with stand) (inch): 28 inch


• Set depth (with stand) (inch): 10.3 inch


• Product weight (lb): 60.32 lbs (with stand), 49.3 lbs (without stand)VESA wall mount compatible 400 x 400 mm

Accessories
Tabletop swivel stand, Power cord, Quick start guide, User Manual, Registration card, Remote Control

Product Description
1920 x 1080p full HD pixel resolution29000:1 dynamic contrast ratio16:9 widescreen aspect ratio5ms motion response500cd/m brightness Pixel Plus 3HDBuilt-in analog/digital tuner (NTSC/ATSC/QAM)USB connector for easy instant multimedia playing25-watt speakers and digital audio output3 HDMI inputs for easy full HD connectivityIncludes remote and swivel stand

How Twitter's ComcastCares Turned My Stress Filled Week Into One That Wasn't

Edit: This post was previously two posts but to make it easier to follow the whole story, I've edited them into a single post that was better formatted. I apologize for my long winded, and probably, poor written explanation. I'm a Web Designer/Content Manager - not an English Major (and I never liked Shakespeare anyway).

Original Post - May 12th, 2008

Let me walk you back to April 15th, 2008. I had just started a new job & just gotten my application approved to my new apartment that I would be moving into on May 15th, 2008. Trying to make sure that I took care of scheduling all of my new utilities well in advance, I called the Comcast building representative for my new complex (as my leasing agent told me to do). I told him which services I wanted and explained to him that I would not be moving into my new apartment until April 15th and that, if possible, I wanted to have them come on May 17th, a Saturday, and schedule a hookup of my new television & internet service. I also told him how I would need two single stream or one multi-stream CableCard for my HD Tivo. Having heard horror stories from fellow Tivo owners, online, about getting Comcast to successfully install Cable Cards or much less admit to you being able to get them (or spending an hour on the phone with a rep who doesn't know what they are) I was pleasantly surprised when, without batting an eye, the rep told me it would be no problem to have CableCard(s) sent out.

Very pleased, I hung up the phone, opened my Google Calendar & scheduled the appointment for that day.

Fast forward to this morning, May 12th, 2008.

I receive a call on my cell phone, while sitting at my desk at work that was marked restricted via caller ID. I answer the phone and a person, whom I can barely hear, tells me he is a Comcast service tech and wants to verify that I was at my apartment because he is on his way to install my new Comcast service. Exasperated I tell him that...no....this is not ok, as I don't live there yet. I explained that I called a month ago to schedule a hookup on the 17th and that my time window was from 9:00 am until noon. He said...oh ok and was about to hang up when I stopped him. "Wait Wait," I said. "Are you going to come Saturday still to connect my new service." He answers, "I dunno." Pause. I ask, "Well - I was told, a month ago, that it would be May 17th between 9 and 12. Should I call customer service to verify this?" He said, "Oh yes yes. Goodbye" and hung up.

I immediately dug through my email to get the contact number for the Comcast building rep for our complex and I called him.

The conversation went as such:

"Hello"

"Uh, Hi. I'm calling to verify that my scheduled hookup appointment is still Saturday May 17th between 9:00 and 12:00. I just received a call from a tech who was on his way to my apartment to hookup my service except this isn't correct. I scheduled it for the 17th."

"Ummm....can I call you back at this number in several minutes?"

I then explain to him that the number he is seeing on his caller ID isn't my actual desk number - but the main number for my employer. I then try to give him my desk line and he says "One moment sir, I need to pull over so I can take down your information." Uh - since when do Comcast reps drive around????

I give him my information and he says he will call me back later once he can look up my info. I tell him, worried, "I called a month ago to schedule this hookup." He sounds doubtful, "I don't know if we have any times available still on Sautrday." Grrrrrrrr

THATS WHY I CALLED A MONTH AGO TO SCHEDULE IT YOU IMBECILE!!!!!

COMCAST CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS

(Edit from May 21st: Can't you tell how frustrated/pissed off I was? Keep in mind we had planned to move the following weekend (16th & 17th) and this date had been approaching for several weeks, with the stress building. This news wasn't helping. )

Update - May 14th, 2008

Wow - a lot has happened since Monday. Let me bring you up to date. Immediately after the posting below, I twittered my displeasure as well. I then remembered that Comcast has a Twitter account called Comcastcares. I sent an @ message to the account, linking to this post and giving them a brief summary of the issue. About an hour later, the person behind the account (Frank), replied to me requesting that I email them (he supplied an email address) explaining this issue in detail. I linked them to this blog post and re-explained the issue in the body of the email.

About an hour after this I received a call from Comcast Corporate in Philadelphia PA asking me to explain the issue. He said that he wanted to see that this is resolved and promised to call the local Comcast office here and then give me a call back Monday evening or Tuesday morning. Monday evening passes and I hear nothing.

Tuesday, I am out to lunch and I receive an email on my blackberry. It is from a different person at the local Comcast office, but someone at their local headquarters office in Manassas. The gentleman said he was informed about my problem and had cleared it up with the local office, ensuring me that my original scheduled install would happen on Saturday, May 17th, 2008. Once I arrived back at my office, I realized he had left me a voicemail as well, saying the same thing. I called him back, leaving a voicemail saying that I appreciate his call and that I was out to lunch, which is why he missed me. I replied to his email as well, just to make sure he got my message. I stepped out of my office to meet with a co-worker and upon my return, found that he had called once more. I emailed once again letting him know I had gotten his message and that I appreciate his prompt reply. I then replied to Comcastcares on twitter, letting Frank know that someone had gotten in touch with me (well, two someones actually) and that I was surprised and pleased with their response. He thanked me. I told him I would follow up, post Saturday, to let him know how it went. Thinking this was the end of it, I went home

This morning I arrived in my office to find out a THIRD person from Comcast HQ had contacted me at 5:20 pm yesterday from a 215 area code. According to google, 215 is PA so this must be their Corporate HQ once more. I just left the gentleman a voicemail assuring him that I had been contacted and that I was aware my appointment had been correctly rescheduled for Saturday.

Let me just say that Comcast is a huge ISP that has many strikes against them. Their local & regional customer service leaves something to be desired. Their shady means of monitoring and capping network traffic is anti-net neutrality and I think they leave something to be desired in that department. That being said, I am THOROUGHLY IMPRESSED by their response to my issue. Their use of social networks via Twitter to seek out customers with problem and respond to them is a breath of fresh air amongst the common means of corporate customer service. Having received 2 follow-up calls from their Corporate HQ in PA and 1 from their Regional HQ in Manassas has left me with the feeling that they really wanted to fix my issue and make sure I knew that they had taken the steps to do so. If only all of their customer service was like this. What happens to all of the users who AREN'T on Twitter like I am? No doubt, they are left at the mercy of the seemingly under trained local CS reps. It does seem, though, that people at Comcast Corporate HQ with some authority have recognized this is a problem and are taking means to fix it. I know that once companies grow, there are detrimental silos created within a company where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Clearly the Right Hand, in this case, is trying to fix this issue via innovative means. Cheers guys - you're doing a good job.

Friday, May 16th
Let me first take you back to Friday afternoon. Steffanie and I are packing the moving trucks, the both of us having took the day off to do so. I got a call from Comcast; It was an automated message confirming my installation appointment for the following morning between 9:00 am and noon. I hung up and told Steff that it was just the automated Comcast reminder. We go back to work.

Saturday, May 17th

Steff and I get up bright and early, despite our exhausted state from the day before - having went to bed around 1:00 am the night before from a very long day of moving. Marlo was due sometime between 8:00 am and 11:00 am to deliver our new couch. I got up at 7:00 to be ready for them to get here, and sure enough, around 8:15 they called. Went downstairs and helped them get it inside the loading dock, up the service elevator and into our apartment. They left around 8:40 and I began preparing for the Comcast technician to arrive. I setup the TV on the TV stand and hooked up my TivoHD to it. I setup the TV in the bedroom (which was due to receive an analog connection - not digital) and prepared our router in the "Office" (2nd bedroom) for the modem. It took me until 9:30 to finish all of this, and I was hoping that during this time the tech wouldn't arrive yet, as I hadn't had time to get all of this done until then.

Having finished all this, we resumed unpacking the other 30-40 other boxes packed in every bit of free-space around the apartment. I kept checking the clock every little bit, and as the morning wore on, it was fast approaching noon. The time window for the tech to get there was 9-12 so I was beginning to get worried that he wouldn't show. Alas, me fears were unfounded as he arrived at around 11:45 - having called me about 20 minutes before and letting me know he was on his way.

At 11:45 he walks in with his equipment to immediately tell me that he was unable to locate any Cable Cards that morning before leaving for his service calls. He asked me if an HDTV digital converter box would be sufficient. I told him that I was pretty sure that it wouldn't be, as the TivoHD specifically says it needs CableCards. Thinking about it more, I asked him what he meant by HDTV digital converter box and he held up the very very infamous Craptastic™ Scientific Atlantic box that Comcast is notorious for pushing off on their customers, something that is very well known in the tech enthusiast world as one of the most horribly designed devices to ever exist. I then explained to him that, no, this would not work as the whole point of a Tivo was for the CableCards to be able to change the channel on their own for the Tivo so as to be able to record different programs when Steff or I weren't there. He then nods in understanding and begins to work on the other tasks.

Because our apartment complex is new, having only just opened earlier this year, no one has ever lived in our unit before. The technician took about 15 minutes walking in every room of our apartment looking for a main routing station panel for all of the cables in our walls. After he and I were unable to locate one, he guessed (and was correct) that it was located behind the main panel in the living room - the supposed location one would put their main TV. He removed the faceplate from the outlet, found the junction, and began putting ends on the coax.

Once he finished with this, he asked where I wanted to put the cable modem. I showed him the office and explained that I had my own router/network, and that he only needed to setup the router on a certain table & provision it, and I would then hook it into the router & get the network setup. He began to work on this issue, which took a while as the first 2 cable modems he had with him would not acquire a signal. He had to go down to his truck to retrieve another, coming back a bit later with it.

All of these tasks had taken about 2 hours time. During this time, and I cannot remember exactly when, I emailed Frank at Comcastcares, of whom I corresponded with earlier in the week due to the scheduling issues. I had meant to email him very shortly after I found out that the tech did not have our CableCards, but I got caught up in helping the tech out that I had forgot. It wasn't until the tech headed down to his truck that I remembered. so I drafted an email to Frank. At this point, due to not being able to setup the CableCards, I expected the tech to come back shortly with a working router, set up our internet, and then leave - probably well before I received a message back from Frank. To my surprise, this was not to be.

Within a few minutes, I had an email on my blackberry:

Is the technician still there? Can you ask him to have his supervisor call my cell?

xxx-xxx-xxxx

Frank Eliason
NCO Customer Service Manager

"Wow!" I thought. Not wanting to talk about the technician within hearing distance, I silently mouthed a word to Steffanie and handed her my blackberry so she could read the message. She saw it and smiled. I took the blackberry back from her, and turned to walk into the other room.

"Excuse me sir. I know this is going to sound unusual, but I have been in communication with one of your colleagues who works in Pennsylvania for your corporate office and he just emailed me telling me to have you have your supervisor call his cell. The Technician, stared back at me, I guess a little surprised. I handed him my blackberry so he could see the message myself...signed, Frank Eliason, NCO Customer Service Manager. The tech, without saying a word, removes his company cell & places a call to his dispatcher, kind of unsure of himself, but explaining to his supervisor what just happened and gave him the number. I smiled, thanking him once he got off the phone, and took my blackberry back. I immediately emailed Frank to let him know that I did as instructed, not really believing the local supervisor would call Frank. I get an email message back from Frank:

I spoke to him already and I have called a few other people. I will let you know. We will get one to you ASAP and I am trying for today.

Frank Eliason
NCO Customer Service Manager

Once again, I was shocked. Really - at this point I should cease to be surprised due to the way Frank had helped my earlier issue with the scheduling snafu. I had actually found a person with the authority to do something about people's problems who actually gave a care to customer's issues at Comcast. Something I didn't think was possible.

I wrote him back:

Ok Frank - I appreciate it.

Joel

The tech continues to work, and 9 minutes later, I get this:

I just got off the phone with some local people. They are working to locate one and get it to you.

I will keep you updated.

Frank Eliason
NCO Customer Service Manager

Not 2 minutes after receiving this, the tech gets a call from his dispatcher. The dispatcher says something inaudible about CableCards. The Tech responds to the dispatcher with something I didn't hear. I email Frank:

Tech is still here working on my inet connection now. Heard some correspondance between someone in local office and him talking about cablecards.

Forty minutes later, the tech finishes working on the internet. He then packs up his things and just as he is getting ready to leave, he gets another call. The dispatcher asks him where he is and if he can come to xxx location. The tech responds, saying he is only 10 minutes from there. After getting off the phone, he turns to me and tells me he is off to get the CableCard (multistream) and then will be right back. I smile and thank him, offering him some more sweet tea that I had given him earlier while he was working. He heads out the door w/ a to-go cup in hand just as I receive this:

They will be bringing one over today.

Frank Eliason
NCO Customer Service Manager

Smiling I resume unpacking things from boxes, until the technician returns. About 30 minutes later, he arrives back w/ a CableCard in hand. I offer him a seat on the couch and we go to work. We insert it into the #1 slot. He reads off the serial number, model number, and some other things from the card to someone at the local office over the phone. We wait for channels to start "coming in" or appearing in the channel test mode in the tivo menu. It takes about 15 minutes before the first one's start to appear. The tech explains to me that this will somtimes take a long time, he estimated 45 minutes to 24 hours, which I was skeptical about. The tech stood up and we shook hands. I asked him his last name so I could write Frank back & tell him his name & ID number so I could tell them how polite, and patient he was with me that day - knowing that my particular problem must be a pain in the ass.

At this point Steffanie really needed to head out to go shopping for some things we needed for the new place. We departed. At this point it was 4:03pm when I wrote Frank. The tech had spent from 11:50ish until 4:00 dealing with us.

We arrived home that night very late - around 11 pm. I checked the Tivo - no dice - the same lack of channels as before. I decided to wait a bit longer, until around 1:00 am. At this point it had been 9 hours since the CableCard was provisioned. I decided that if it was still getting in channels, as the tech said, I should have been seeing a small amount start to appear after every few hours. Given that there had been no change, in 9 hours, I spent about 20 minutes researching on the Tivo Community forums until I found this post from someone in Arlington from back in January who was having a problem very very similar to mine. I wrote Frank, letting him know that new issues had arisen. I detailed the issue, linked to the above forum post, and then proceeded to thank him profusely for all the help so far. I told him not to bother getting back to me until it was convenient for him because of the account that it was so late, and that it was the weekend.

Sunday, May 19, 2008

I received a reply the next day:

For some reason I am not able to access your information to reset the card. I will have someone do it in the morning.

XXXXX,
Can you follow up with this? Follow the trail below; we need to send a hit to the cable card.

He had handed me off to someone on his team who, apparently, had some sort of technical expertise/experience in dealing with CableCards.

Monday- Wednesday, May 20-22, 2008

I begun a new email thread with this new person over the next 2 days (Monday and Tuesday). We eventually figured out that the technician hadn't provisioned my card correctly. As of Monday he called me at work to tell me this and told me to check it that night. I did so but it still wasn't working. I emailed him back and also twittered to Frank. The next day I got another email from the new person and he told me he was handing me off to someone locally who could trouble shoot directly with me once I arrived home. I got a call a short time later from this new local person. I thanked her and we setup a time (Wednesday at 6) when they would call me back at home to help me. I arrived home that night (Tuesday) to find that I HAD ALL OF MY CHANNELS! I immediately wrote an email to Frank/new person & twittered to Frank. Apparently, on a hunch, Frank told the other person to "hit" my card with a "setup" signal again and this worked to solve my issue. I told them that the phone call on Wednesday at 6 wouldn't be necessary (although I still got it, but it wasn't a big deal as I just thanked the man and told him to have a good night). After 10 days of email/twitter/phone tag, my issues were resolved and everything worked as it should.

Comcast needs to give Frank a promotion and hire about 30 people to work for him. He gets things done. Last week about this time I was DREADING being a Comcast Customer, as I have no choice for my area. This week, I still don't think that Comcast is the ISP I would like to have (I want FIOS) but I feel a LOT better about it knowing that Frank is there, should I ever need him.

Lesson of the week? If you're a Comcast customer and are having issues getting the service you ordered/were promised, just send a little note to Frank. He's got your back.

US Drastically Behind In Newly Released World Broadband Report: 15th

Despite the occasional claim by the Bush administration that the US has a broadband policy, the truth is that the US only has a broadband policy if you consider "doing nothing" to be a policy. When you're convinced that any form of government regulation, policy-setting, or program only mucks up the market, this makes sense; if you look at other countries and find that nations without a plan "will fare worse than if they had smart broadband policies," the continued refusal to do anything meaningful looks willfully ignorant.

A major new report on broadband policy from the nonpartisan Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) suggests that government action alone won't produce a broadband panacea, but that leadership from the top and a carefully-targeted set of policies can do plenty of good. After doing detailed case studies of nine countries, the report concluded that "those that make broadband a priority, coordinate across agencies, put real resources behind the strategy, and promote both supply and demand" do better than those which do nothing.

Critics of the current US approach to spurring broadband deployment and adoption point out that the country has been falling on most broadband metrics throughout the decade. One of the most reliable, that issued by the OECD, shows the US falling from 4th place in 2001 to 15th place in 2007. While this ranking in particular has come under criticism from staunchly pro-market groups, the ITIF's analysis shows that these numbers are the most accurate we have. According to an ITIF analysis of various OECD surveys, the US is in 15th place worldwide and it lags numerous other countries in price, speed, and availability—a trifecta of lost opportunities.

With an average broadband speed of 4.9Mbps, the US is being Chariots of Fire-d by South Korea (49.5Mbps), Japan (63.6Mbps), Finland (21.7Mbps), Sweden (16.8Mbps), and France (17.6Mbps), among others. Not only that, but the price paid per megabyte in the US ($2.83) is substantially higher than those countries, all of which come in at less than $0.50 per megabyte.

The ITIF warns against simply implementing the policies that have worked for other countries, however, and it notes that a good percentage of the difference can be chalked up to non-policy factors like density. For instance, more than half of all South Koreans lived in apartment buildings that are much easier to wire with fiber connections than are the sprawling American suburbs. The report calls for going beyond the "either-or" shouting matches between the "market fundamentalists" and the "digital populists" to embrace a set of pragmatic principles that should help the US improve its ranking.

These include more favorable tax policies that encourage broadband investment; making more spectrum available for broadband, including the white spaces; extending the Universal Service Fund program to cover not just rural telephone service but rural broadband) supporting state-level broadband initiatives like Connect Kentucky; and keeping broadband usage free from all taxes.

Several of these initiatives have been proven in countries like Sweden, which has pumped $800 million into subsidies for broadband deployment; for a country the size of the US, that would come to some $30 billion. Needless to say, no such major infrastructure investment has been forthcoming from the federal government. But Sweden has also targeted the demand side of the equation, subsidizing personal computers that businesses purchase for employees' home use. This kind of a program is also important in the US, where broadband availability runs ahead of actual broadband usage.

And for those who wonder exactly how other countries have implemented their policies, the report concludes with detailed case studies of the countries in question. While lengthy, the entire thing makes good reading for anyone interested in broadband policy questions. A choice to make no changes to the current setup is a choice to leave billions of dollars on the table.

How To Fix Your Twitter

Courtesy of Mashable:

Have you, like so many other users, experienced problems with Twitter in the last couple of days? Not getting updates from all the people you’re following, but only a handful? The problem seems to be lying with Twitter cache.

Here’s a quick fix for the problem. Simply find some person you’re not already following, follow them and then unfollow them. Refresh your Twitter page and voila, your Twitter cache should now be restored, and you should be getting updates from everyone.

Thanks to engtech for the tip on Twitter. Check his blog, too, it’s cool.

Twitter Having Problems? Say It Ain't So!

It has been a good while since twitter has had serious uptime issues. The last time it happened was...well....since this. Well - Twitter is up to its old tricks again. It isn't offline per say, but it might as well be. As others have pointed out Twitter has been having serious issues since Saturday, April 19th. The service has been online but has not been displaying tweets from some users on their followers' timelines.

I first noticed this about midday Saturday as I was at PodcampDC with my beautiful girlfriend, Steffanie, watchin Andy Carvin and Jim Long, of NPR & NBC respectivley, do a presentation on the power of twitter as a news gathering and conveying mechanism. I would estimate that PodcampDC has about 100 people in attendance. I would say about 30 of us were Twitter users. At various times during the day I would make tweets about PodcampDC happenings or see Andy or Jim use Twitter theirselves but their updates wouldn't hit my feed. I has a feeling in the back of my head that something was going on but was so preoccupied with the day's events that I didn't pay much attention to it. After the event was over with, Steff and I ran some errands & preoccupied ourselves for the rest of the day. It wasn't until the next day, Sunday, that I started seeing a few posts on Techmeme about it. This type of error we're seeing reminded me of the problems Twitter had several months back when people like Merlin Mann, Leo Laporte, Robert Scoble, or Jason Calacanis couldn't add people as friends OR have people see their updates. It seems that a lot of the people having messaging problems now are people with lots of followers. It seems like a potential database issue tied to accounts with large sql fields? Just guessing.

Anywho - I'm writing about this to help get the word out to my followers. As I make this post it will go out to Twitter. Hopefully those that are blissfully unaware of Twitter issues at the moment will see the title/link & read it and help spread the message. (Hi followers :)) In the meantime Twitter, the company, has remained mostly silent on this issue preferring to take the old corporate methodology to dealing with the problem - pretending it doesn't exist until they fix it. They did acknowledge the problem at their twitter status account but you only got the message if you follow them (which I didn't - as I didn't know the account existed until i saw another blogger write about it) and I doubt a lot of people got it even if they DID follow it, as that is the problem in the first place.

Consider yourself informed.

Lessig Lectures the FCC on the Need for Neutrality

Now we know why none of the major carriers showed up for Thursday’s open FCC meeting at Stanford University: Who wants to take on Larry Lessig, the lion of Net Neutrality, in his own den?

Class was in session when Stanford law prof Lessig delivered a powerful lecture on the need for neutral networks, telling the assembled FCC chairman and commissioners to their faces that they were part of a 10-year-long failure by the agency to “make a clear statement of policy” about how infractions against the open, end-to-end connectivity of the Internet would be policed or enforced.

Lessig’s key points — which included the assertion that the historic openness of the Internet has been the key to its economic boom — are important to record, since they are very likely to become key talking points for Net Neutrality proponents as the battle over potential neutrality regulation heats up during the current congressional session. But the lack of a viable opponent in the arena made for a somewhat lukewarm event, with more than half the auditorium’s reported 716 seats going empty. Those who were present cheered mightily for Lessig, while only issuing soft “boos” for Republican FCC commissioners Robert McDowell and Deborah Tate, whose brief remarks basically indicated their opposition to any Net Neutrality regulations.

Unlike the other assembled panelists, who had just a few minutes to present their specific-interest cases, Lessig was given all the time he needed to make a strong case for the need for clear network neutrality policies, either from the FCC or Congress. Two of his stronger points, which you can expect to see repeated, were one, that Net Neutrality principles have been the historic base of the Internet, and have been responsible for its unbridled competition and growth. And two, that providers should be governed by clear rules that make it more expensive for them to restrict network access than to provide broadband that doesn’t differentiate or prioritize different traffic types.

The FCC, Lessig said, should pass rules that make it more profitable for service providers to behave than to misbehave. “You have to make it so playing the games is not a good business model for them,” Lessig said. “If we really didn’t have a reason to worry that they were playing games [with network management], then what they did inside their networks would be of less concern.”

Though invited by FCC chairman Kevin Martin, all the major Internet service providers — AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, among others — declined to participate in Thursday’s open meeting. Comcast, which waded into a debacle on several levels at the last such open meeting at Harvard, was slammed by several panelists Thursday, including by Robb Topolski, who is credited as being one of the first to detect Comcast’s disputed P2P blocking activities.

Comcast’s activities, Topolski said, “are non-standard, and not accepted by the industry.” And Jon Peha, a computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon, disputed Comcast’s claims that it wasn’t “blocking” traffic, part of an seemingly unsolved question that Lessig said was at the heart of the problem.

“The most outrageous thing is that [the FCC] can’t get the facts straight,” Lessig said with regards to the Comcast controversy, expressing wonderment that a government body like the FCC was still somewhat in the dark about what Comcast was or wasn’t doing. “The least we should be able to do is get the truth about what is happening,” Lessig said.

Article by Paul Kapustka which can be found, in full, at GigaOM.

XM / Sirius Merger Approved

Looks like that seemingly-desperate two month extension XM and Sirius gave each on the merger agreement paid off after all -- federal regulators have finally approved the $5B deal. The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division says that after "thorough and careful review" (we'll say -- it's been over a year), it's determined that allowing the two satellite radio companies to merge "is not likely to harm consumers." The deciding factor appeared to be the proprietary hardware needed to receive both XM and Sirius; since consumers who shell out aren't likely to switch, the DOJ doesn't think the marketplace is all that competitive to begin with, which makes the impact of a merger relatively small. In fact, the DOJ says the merger could actually benefit consumers, who might see lower prices as the result of more efficient operations, broader programming options, and faster rollouts of new technology.

Of course, it's not quite all over yet -- the FCC's approval is yet to come following its own historic delay and NAB's rabble-rousing, but most analysts say the FCC will follow the Justice Department's lead and approve the merger as well. Now the big question: will consumers be able to use their existing radios to get all the stations or not? We'll let you know -- we're trying to find out all we can.

Actual DOJ Press Release

Statement of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division on its Decision to Close its Investigation of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc.'s Merger with Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.
Evidence Does Not Establish that Combination of Satellite Radio Providers Would Substantially Reduce Competition

WASHINGTON - The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division issued the following statement today after announcing the closing of its investigation into the proposed merger of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. with Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.:

"After a careful and thorough review of the proposed transaction, the Division concluded that the evidence does not demonstrate that the proposed merger of XM and Sirius is likely to substantially lessen competition, and that the transaction therefore is not likely to harm consumers. The Division reached this conclusion because the evidence did not show that the merger would enable the parties to profitably increase prices to satellite radio customers for several reasons, including: a lack of competition between the parties in important segments even without the merger; the competitive alternative services available to consumers; technological change that is expected to make those alternatives increasingly attractive over time; and efficiencies likely to flow from the transaction that could benefit consumers.

"The Division's investigation indicated that the parties are not likely to compete with respect to many segments of the satellite radio business even in the absence of the merger. Because customers must acquire equipment that is specialized to the satellite radio service to which they subscribe, and which cannot receive the other provider's signal, there has never been significant competition for customers who have already subscribed to one or the other service. For potential new subscribers, past competition has resulted in XM and Sirius entering long-term, sole-source contracts that provide incentives to all of the major auto manufacturers to install their radios in new vehicles. The car manufacturer channel accounts for a large and growing share of all satellite radio sales; yet, as a result of these contracts, there is not likely to be significant further competition between the parties for satellite radio equipment and service sold through this channel for many years. In the retail channel, where the parties likely would continue to compete to attract new subscribers absent the merger, the Division found that the evidence did not support defining a market limited to the two satellite radio firms that would exclude various alternative sources for audio entertainment, and similarly did not establish that the combined firm could profitably sustain an increased price to satellite radio consumers. Substantial cost savings likely to flow from the transaction also undermined any inference of competitive harm. Finally, the likely evolution of technology in the future, including the expected introduction in the next several years of mobile broadband Internet devices, made it even more unlikely that the transaction would harm consumers in the longer term. Accordingly, the Division has closed its investigation of the proposed merger."

ANALYSIS

During the course of its investigation, the Division reviewed millions of pages of documents, analyzed large amounts of data related to sales of satellite radios and subscriptions for satellite radio service, and interviewed scores of industry participants.

Extent of Likely Future Competition between XM and Sirius

The Division's analysis considered the extent to which the two satellite radio providers compete with one another. Although the firms in the past competed to attract new subscribers, there has never been significant competition between them for customers who have already subscribed to one or the other service and purchased the requisite equipment. Also, competition for new subscribers is likely to be substantially more limited in the future than it was in the past.

As to existing subscribers, the Division found that satellite radio equipment sold by each company is customized to each network and will not function with the other service. XM and Sirius made some efforts to develop an interoperable radio capable of receiving both sets of satellite signals. Depending on how such a radio would be configured, it could enable consumers to switch between providers without incurring the costs of new equipment. The Division's investigation revealed, however, that no such interoperable radio is on the market and that such a radio likely would not be introduced in the near term. For example, in the important automotive channel, such a radio could not be introduced in the near term due to the engineering required to integrate radios into new vehicles. The need for equipment customized to each network means that in order to switch from XM to Sirius, or vice versa, a subscriber would have to purchase new equipment designed for the other service. In the case of a factory-installed car radio, switching satellite radio providers would have the additional disadvantage of requiring an aftermarket radio that would be less integrated into the vehicle's systems. Data analyzed by the Division confirmed that subscribers rarely switch between XM and Sirius.

As to new subscribers, XM and Sirius sell satellite radios and service primarily through two distribution channels: (1) car manufacturers that install the equipment in new cars and (2) mass-market retailers that sell automobile aftermarket equipment and other stand-alone equipment. Car manufacturers account for an increasingly large portion of XM and Sirius sales, and the parties have focused more and more of their resources on attracting subscribers through the car manufacturer channel. Historically, XM and Sirius engaged in head-to-head competition for the right to distribute their products and services through each car company. As a result of this competitive process, XM and Sirius have provided car manufacturers with subsidies and other payments that indirectly reduce the equipment prices paid by car buyers to obtain a satellite radio. However, XM and Sirius have entered into sole-source contracts with all the major automobile manufacturers that fix the amount of these subsidies and other pertinent terms through 2012 or beyond. Moreover, there was no evidence that competition between XM or Sirius beyond the terms of these contracts would affect customers' choices of which car to buy. As a result, there is not likely to be significant competition between XM and Sirius for satellite radio equipment and service sold through the car manufacturer channel for many years.

The Division's investigation identified the mass-market retail channel as an arena in which XM and Sirius would compete with one another for the foreseeable future. Both XM and Sirius devote substantial effort and expense to attracting subscribers in this arena, with both companies offering discounts, most commonly in the form of equipment rebates, to attract consumers. Retail channel sales have dropped significantly since 2005, and the parties contended that the decline was accelerating. However, retail outlets still account for a large portion of the firms' sales, and the Division was unable to determine with any certainty that this channel would not continue to be important in the future.

Effect on Competition in the Retail Channel

Because XM and Sirius would no longer compete with one another in the retail channel following the merger, the Division examined what alternatives, if any, were available to consumers interested in purchasing satellite radio service, and specifically whether the relevant market was limited to the two satellite radio providers, such that their combination would create a monopoly. The parties contended that they compete with a variety of other sources of audio entertainment, including traditional AM/FM radio, HD Radio, MP3 players (e.g., iPods®), and audio offerings delivered through wireless telephones. Those options, used individually or in combination, offer many consumers attributes of satellite radio service that they may find attractive. The parties further contended that these audio entertainment alternatives were sufficient to prevent the merged company from profitably raising prices to consumers in the retail channel – for example, through less discounting of equipment prices, increased subscription prices, or reductions in the quality of equipment or service.

The Division found that evidence developed in the investigation did not support defining a market limited to the two satellite radio firms, and similarly did not establish that the combined firm could profitably sustain an increased price to satellite radio consumers. XM and Sirius seek to attract subscribers in a wide variety of ways, including by offering commercial-free music (with digital sound quality), exclusive programming (such as Howard Stern on Sirius and "Oprah & Friends" on XM), niche music formats, out-of-market sporting events, and a variety of news and talk formats in a service that is accessible nationwide. The variety of these offerings reflects an effort to attract consumers with highly differentiated interests and tastes. Thus, while the satellite radio offerings of XM and Sirius likely are the closest substitutes for some current or potential customers, the two offerings do not appear to be the closest substitutes for other current or potential customers. For example, a potential customer considering purchasing XM service primarily to listen to Major League Baseball games or one considering purchasing Sirius service primarily to listen to Howard Stern may not view the other satellite radio service, which lacks the desired content, as a particularly close substitute. Similarly, many customers buying radios in the retail channel are acquiring an additional receiver to add to an existing XM or Sirius subscription for their car radio, and these customers likely would not respond to a price increase by choosing a radio linked to the other satellite radio provider. The evidence did not demonstrate that the number of current or potential customers that view XM and Sirius as the closest alternatives is large enough to make a price increase profitable. Importantly in this regard, the parties do not appear to have the ability to identify and price discriminate against those actual or potential customers that view XM and Sirius as the closest substitutes.

Likely Efficiencies

To the extent there were some concern that the combined firm might be able profitably to increase prices in the mass-market retail channel, efficiencies flowing from the transaction likely would undermine any such concern. The Division's investigation confirmed that the parties are likely to realize significant variable and fixed cost savings through the merger. It was not possible to estimate the magnitude of the efficiencies with precision due to the lack of evidentiary support provided by XM and Sirius, and many of the efficiencies claimed by the parties were not credited or were discounted because they did not reflect improvements in economic welfare, could have been achieved without the proposed transaction, or were not likely to be realized within the next several years. Nevertheless, the Division estimated the likely variable cost savings – those savings most likely to be passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices – to be substantial. For example, the merger is likely to allow the parties to consolidate development, production and distribution efforts on a single line of radios and thereby eliminate duplicative costs and realize economies of scale. These efficiencies alone likely would be sufficient to undermine an inference of competitive harm.

Effect of Technological Change

Any inference of a competitive concern was further limited by the fact that a number of technology platforms are under development that are likely to offer new or improved alternatives to satellite radio. Most notable is the expected introduction within several years of next-generation wireless networks capable of streaming Internet radio to mobile devices. While it is difficult to predict which of these alternatives will be successful and the precise timing of their availability as an attractive alternative, a significant number of consumers in the future are likely to consider one or more of these platforms as an attractive alternative to satellite radio. The likely evolution of technology played an important role in the Division's assessment of competitive effects in the longer term because, for example, consumers are likely to have access to new alternatives, including mobile broadband Internet devices, by the time the current long-term contracts between the parties and car manufacturers expire.

The Division's Closing Statement Policy The Division provides this statement under its policy of issuing statements concerning the closing of investigations in appropriate cases. This statement is limited by the Division's obligation to protect the confidentiality of certain information obtained in its investigations. As in most of its investigations, the Division's evaluation has been highly fact-specific, and many of the relevant underlying facts are not public. Consequently, readers should not draw overly broad conclusions regarding how the Division is likely in the future to analyze other collaborations or activities, or transactions involving particular firms. Enforcement decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, and the analysis and con clusions discussed in this statement do not bind the Division in any future enforcement actions. Guidance on the Division's policy regarding closing statements is available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/guidelines/201888.htm.

Martian Headsets

This item ran on the Joel on Software homepage on Monday, March 17, 2008

You’re about to see the mother of all flamewars on internet groups where web developers hang out. It’ll make the Battle of Stalingrad look like that time your sister-in-law stormed out of afternoon tea at your grandmother’s and wrapped the Mustang around a tree.

This upcoming battle will be presided over by Dean Hachamovitch, the Microsoft veteran currently running the team that’s going to bring you the next version of Internet Explorer, 8.0. The IE 8 team is in the process of making a decision that lies perfectly, exactly, precisely on the fault line smack in the middle of two different ways of looking at the world. It’s the difference between conservatives and liberals, it’s the difference between “idealists” and “realists,” it’s a huge global jihad dividing members of the same family, engineers against computer scientists, and Lexuses vs. olive trees.

And there’s no solution. But it will be really, really entertaining to watch, because 99% of the participants in the flame wars are not going to understand what they’re talking about. It’s not just entertainment: it’s required reading for every developer who needs to design interoperable systems.

The flame war will revolve around the issue of something called “web standards.” I’ll let Dean introduce the problem:

All browsers have a “Standards” mode, call it “Standards mode,” and use it to offer a browser’s best implementation of web standards. Each version of each browser has its own Standards mode, because each version of each browser improves on its web standards support. There’s Safari 3’s Standards mode, Firefox 2’s Standards mode, IE6’s Standards mode, and IE7’s Standards mode, and they’re all different. We want to make IE8’s Standards mode much, much better than IE7’s Standards mode.

And the whole problem hinges on the little tiny decision of what IE8 should do when it encounters a page that claims to support “standards”, but has probably only been tested against IE7.

What the hell is a standard?

Don’t they have standards in all kinds of engineering endeavors? (Yes.)

Don’t they usually work? (Mmmm…..)

Why are “web standards” so frigging messed up? (It’s not just Microsoft’s fault. It’s your fault too. And Jon Postel’s (1943-1998). I’ll explain that later.)

There is no solution. Each solution is terribly wrong. Eric Bangeman at ars technica writes, “The IE team has to walk a fine line between tight support for W3C standards and making sure sites coded for earlier versions of IE still display correctly.” This is incorrect. It’s not a fine line. It’s a line of negative width. There is no place to walk. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

That’s why I can’t take sides on this issue and I’m not going to. But every working software developer should understand, at least, how standards work, how standards should work, how we got into this mess, so I want to try to explain a little bit about the problem here, and you’ll see that it’s the same reason Microsoft Vista is selling so poorly, and it’s the same issue I wrote about when I referred to the Raymond Chen camp (pragmatists) at Microsoft vs. the MSDN camp (idealists), the MSDN camp having won, and now nobody can figure out where their favorite menu commands went in Microsoft Office 2007, and nobody wants Vista, and it’s all the same debate: whether you are an Idealist (”red”) or a Pragmatist (”blue”).

Let me start at the beginning. Let’s start by thinking about how to get things to work together.

What kinds of things? Anything, really. A pencil and a pencil sharpener. A telephone and a telephone system. An HTML page and a web browser. A Windows GUI application and the Windows operating system. Facebook and a Facebook Application. Stereo headphones and stereos.

At the point of contact between those two items, there are all kinds of things that have to be agreed, or they won’t work together.

I’ll work through a simple example.

Imagine that you went to Mars, where you discovered that the beings who live there don’t have the portable music player. They’re still using boom boxes.

You realize this is a huge business opportunity and start selling portable MP3 players (except on Mars they’re called Qxyzrhjjjjukltks) and compatible headphones. To connect the MP3 player to the headphones, you invent a neat kind of metal jack that looks like this:

Because you control the player and the headphone, you can ensure that your player works with your headphones. This is a ONE TO ONE market. One player, one headphone.

Maybe you write up a spec, hoping that third parties will make different color headphones, since Marslings are very particular about the color of things that they stick in their earlings.

And you forgot, when you wrote the spec, to document that the voltage should be around 1.4 volts. You just forgot. So the first aspiring manufacturer of 100% compatible headphones comes along, his speaker is only expecting 0.014 volts, and when he tests his prototype, it either blows out the headphones, or the eardrums of the listener, whichever comes first. And he makes some adjustments and eventually gets a headphone that works fine and is just a couple of angstroms more fierce than your headphones.

More and more manufacturers show up with compatible headphones, and soon we’re in a ONE TO MANY market.

So far, all is well. We have a de-facto standard for headphone jacks here. The written spec is not complete and not adequate, but anybody who wants to make a compatible headphone just has to plug it into your personal stereo device and test it, and if it works, all is well, they can sell it, and it will work.

Until you decide to make a new version, the Qxyzrhjjjjukltk 2.0.

The Qxyzrhjjjjukltk 2.0 is going to include a telephone (turns out Marslings didn’t figure out cell phones on their own, either) and the headphone is going to have to have a built-in microphone, which requires one more conductor, so you rework the connector into something totally incompatible and kind of ugly, with all kinds of room for expansion:

And the Qxyzrhjjjjukltk 2.0 is a complete and utter failure in the market. Yes, it has a nice telephone thing, but nobody cared about that. They cared about their large collections of headphones. It turns out that when I said Marslings are very particular about the color of things that they stick in their ears, I meant it. Most trendy Marslings at this point have a whole closet full of nice headphones. They all look the same to you (red), but Marslings are very, very finicky about shades of red in a way that you never imagined. The newest high-end apartments on Mars are being marketed with a headphone closet. I kid you not.

So the new jack is not such a success, and you quickly figure out a new scheme:

Notice that you’ve now split the main shaft to provide another conductor for the microphone signal, but the trouble is, your Qxyzrhjjjjukltk 2.1 doesn’t really know whether the headset that’s plugged in has a mic or not, and it needs to know this so it can decide whether to enable phone calls. And so you invent a little protocol… the new device puts a signal on the mic pin, and looks for it on the ground, and if it’s there, it must be a three conductor plug, and therefore they don’t have a mic, so you’ll go into backwards compatibility mode where you only play music. It’s simple, but it’s a protocol negotiation.

It’s not a ONE-MANY market any more. All the stereo devices are made by the same firm, one after the other, so I’m going to call this a SEQUENCE-MANY market:

Here are some SEQUENCE-MANY markets you already know about:

1. Facebook | about 20,000 Facebook Apps


2. Windows | about 1,000,000 Windows Apps


3. Microsoft Word | about 1,000,000,000 Word documents

There are hundreds of other examples. The key thing to remember is that when a new version of the left-hand device comes out, it has to maintain auto-backwards-compatibility with all the old right-hand accessories meant to work with the old device, because those old accessories could not possibly have designed with the new product in mind. The Martian headphones are already made. You can’t go back and change them all. It’s much easier and more sensible to change the newly invented device so that it acts like an old device when confronted with an old headphone.

And because you want to make progress, adding new features and functionality, you also need a new protocol for new devices to use, and the sensible thing to do is to have both devices negotiate a little bit at the beginning to decide whether they both understand the latest protocol.

SEQUENCE-MANY is the world Microsoft grew up in.

But there’s one more twist, the MANY-MANY market.

A few years pass; you’re still selling Qxyzrhjjjjukltks like crazy; but now there are lots of Qxyzrhjjjjukltk clones on the market, like the open source FireQx, and lots of headphones, and you all keep inventing new features that require changes to the headphone jack and it’s driving the headphone makers crazy because they have to test their new designs out against every Qxyzrhjjjjukltk clone which is costly and time consuming and frankly most of them don’t have time and just get it to work on the most popular Qxyzrhjjjjukltk 5.0, and if that works, they’re happy, but of course when you plug the headphones into FireQx 3.0 lo and behold they explode in your hands because of a slight misunderstanding about some obscure thing in the spec which nobody really understands called hasLayout, and everybody understands that when it’s raining the hasLayout property is true and the voltage is supposed to increase to support the windshield-wiper feature, but there seems to be some debate over whether hail and snow are rain for the purpose of hasLayout, because the spec just doesn’t say. FireQx 3.0 treats snow as rain, because you need windshield wipers in the snow, Qxyzrhjjjjukltk 5.0 does not, because the programmer who worked on that feature lives in a warm part of Mars without snow and doesn’t have a driver’s license anyway. Yes, they have driver’s licenses on Mars.

And eventually some tedious bore writes a lengthy article on her blog explaining a trick you can use to make Qxyzrhjjjjukltk 5.0 behave just like FireQx 3.0 through taking advantage of a bug in Qxyzrhjjjjukltk 5.0 in which you trick Qxyzrhjjjjukltk into deciding that it’s raining when it’s snowing by melting a little bit of the snow, and it’s ridiculous, but everyone does it, because they have to solve the hasLayout incompatibility. Then the Qxyzrhjjjjukltk team fixes that bug in 6.0, and you’re screwed again, and you have to go find some new bug to exploit to make your windshield-wiper-equipped headphone work with either device.

NOW. This is the MANY-MANY market. Many players on the left hand side who don’t cooperate, and SCRILLIONS of players on the right hand side. And they’re all making mistakes because To Err Is Human.

And of course this is the situation we find ourselves in with HTML. Dozens of common browsers, literally billions of web pages.

And over the years what happens in a MANY-MANY market is that there is a hue and cry for “standards” so that “all the players” (meaning, the small players) have an equal chance to being able to display all 8 billion web pages correctly, and, even more importantly, so that the designers of those 8 billion pages only have to test against one browser, and use “web standards,” and then they will know that their page will also work in other browsers, without having to test every page against every browser.

See, the idea is, instead of many-many testing, you have many-standard and standard-many testing and you need radically fewer tests. Not to mention that your web pages don’t need any browser-specific code to work around bugs in individual browsers, because in this platonic world there are no bugs.

That’s the ideal.

In practice, with the web, there’s a bit of a problem: no way to test a web page against the standard, because there’s no reference implementation that guarantees that if it works, all the browsers work. This just doesn’t exist.

So you have to “test” in your own head, purely as a thought experiment, against a bunch of standards documents which you probably never read and couldn’t completely understand even if you did.

Those documents are super confusing. The specs are full of statements like “If a sibling block box (that does not float and is not absolutely positioned) follows the run-in box, the run-in box becomes the first inline box of the block box. A run-in cannot run in to a block that already starts with a run-in or that itself is a run-in.” Whenever I read things like that, I wonder how anyone correctly conforms to the spec.

There is no practical way to check if the web page you just coded conforms to the spec. There are validators, but they won’t tell you what the page is supposed to look like, and having a “valid” page where all the text is overlapping and nothing lines up and you can’t see anything is not very useful. What people do is check their pages against one browser, maybe two, until it looks right. And if they’ve made a mistake that just happens to look OK in IE a nd Firefox, they’re not even going to know about it.

And their pages may break when a future web browser comes out.

If you’ve ever visited the ultra-orthodox Jewish communities of Jerusalem, all of whom agree in complete and utter adherence to every iota of Jewish law, you will discover that despite general agreement on what constitutes kosher food, that you will not find a rabbi from one ultra-orthodox community who is willing to eat at the home of a rabbi from a different ultra-orthodox community. And the web designers are discovering what the Jews of Mea Shearim have known for decades: just because you all agree to follow one book doesn’t ensure compatibility, because the laws are so complex and complicated and convoluted that it’s almost impossible to understand them all well enough to avoid traps and landmines, and you’re safer just asking for the fruit plate.

Standards are a great goal, of course, but before you become a standards fanatic you have to understand that due to the failings of human beings, standards are sometimes misinterpreted, sometimes confusing and even ambiguous.

The precise problem here is that you’re pretending that there’s one standard, but since nobody has a way to test against the standard, it’s not a real standard: it’s a platonic ideal and a set of misinterpretations, and therefore the standard is not serving the desired goal of reducing the test matrix in a MANY-MANY market.

DOCTYPE is a myth.

A mortal web designer who attaches a DOCTYPE tag to their web page saying, “this is standard HTML,” is committing an act of hubris. There is no way they know that. All they are really saying is that the page was meant to be standard HTML. All they really know is that they tested it with IE, Firefox, maybe Opera and Safari, and it seems to work. Or, they copied the DOCTYPE tag out of a book and don’t know what it means.

In the real world where people are imperfect, you can’t have a standard with just a spec–you must have a super-strict reference implementation, and everybody has to test against the reference implementation. Otherwise you get 17 different “standards” and you might as well not have one at all.

And this is where Jon Postel caused a problem, back in 1981, when he coined the robustness principle: “Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.” What he was trying to say was that the best way to make the protocols work robustly would be if everyone was very, very careful to conform to the specification, but they should be also be extremely forgiving when talking to partners that don’t conform exactly to the specification, as long as you can kind of figure out what they meant.

So, technically, the way to make a paragraph with small text is <p><small>, but a lot of people wrote <small><p> which is technically incorrect for reasons most web developers don’t understand, and the web browsers forgave them and made the text small anyway, because that’s obviously what they wanted to happen.

Now there are all these web pages out there with errors, because all the early web browser developers made super-liberal, friendly, accommodating browsers that loved you for who you were and didn’t care if you made a mistake. And so there were lots of mistakes. And Postel’s “robustness” principle didn’t really work. The problem wasn’t noticed for many years. In 2001 Marshall Rose finally wrote:

Counter-intuitively, Postel’s robustness principle (“be conservative in what you send, liberal in what you accept”) often leads to deployment problems. Why? When a new implementation is initially fielded, it is likely that it will encounter only a subset of existing implementations. If those implementations follow the robustness principle, then errors in the new implementation will likely go undetected. The new implementation then sees some, but not widespread deployment. This process repeats for several new implementations. Eventually, the not-quite-correct implementations run into other implementations that are less liberal than the initial set of implementations. The reader should be able to figure out what happens next.

Jon Postel should be honored for his enormous contributions to the invention of the Internet, and there is really no reason to fault him for the infamous robustness principle. 1981 is prehistoric. If you had told Postel that there would be 90 million untrained people, not engineers, creating web sites, and they would be doing all kinds of awful things, and some kind of misguided charity would have caused the early browser makers to accept these errors and display the page anyway, he would have understood that this is the wrong principle, and that, actually, the web standards idealists are right, and the way the web “should have” been built would be to have very, very strict standards and every web browser should be positively obnoxious about pointing them all out to you and web developers that couldn’t figure out how to be “conservative in what they emit” should not be allowed to author pages that appear anywhere until they get their act together.

But, of course, if that had happened, maybe the web would never have taken off like it did, and maybe instead, we’d all be using a gigantic Lotus Notes network operated by AT&T. Shudder.

Shoulda woulda coulda. Who cares. We are where we are. We can’t change the past, only the future. Heck, we can barely even change the future.

And if you’re a pragmatist on the Internet Explorer 8.0 team, you might have these words from Raymond Chen seared into your cortex. He was writing about how Windows XP had to emulate buggy behavior from old versions of Windows:

Look at the scenario from the customer’s standpoint. You bought programs X, Y and Z. You then upgraded to Windows XP. Your computer now crashes randomly, and program Z doesn’t work at all. You’re going to tell your friends, “Don’t upgrade to Windows XP. It crashes randomly, and it’s not compatible with program Z.” Are you going to debug your system to determine that program X is causing the crashes, and that program Z doesn’t work because it is using undocumented window messages? Of course not. You’re going to return the Windows XP box for a refund. (You bought programs X, Y, and Z some months ago. The 30-day return policy no longer applies to them. The only thing you can return is Windows XP.)

And you’re thinking, hmm, let’s update this for today:

Look at the scenario from the customer’s standpoint. You bought programs X, Y and Z. You then upgraded to Windows XPVista. Your computer now crashes randomly, and program Z doesn’t work at all. You’re going to tell your friends, “Don’t upgrade to Windows XPVista. It crashes randomly, and it’s not compatible with program Z.” Are you going to debug your system to determine that program X is causing the crashes, and that program Z doesn’t work because it is using undocumentedinsecure window messages? Of course not. You’re going to return the Windows XPVista box for a refund. (You bought programs X, Y, and Z some months ago. The 30-day return policy no longer applies to them. The only thing you can return is Windows XPVista.)

The victory of the idealists over the pragmatists at Microsoft, which I reported in 2004, directly explains why Vista is getting terrible reviews and selling poorly.

And how does it apply to the IE team?

Look at the scenario from the customer’s standpoint. Yo u visit 100 websites a day. You then upgraded to IE 8. On half of them, the page is messed up, and Google Maps doesn’t work at all.

You’re going to tell your friends, “Don’t upgrade to IE 8. It messes up every page, and Google Maps doesn’t work at all.” Are you going to View Source to determine that website X is using nonstandard HTML, and Google Maps doesn’t work because it is using non-standard JavaScript objects from old versions of IE that were never accepted by the standards committee? Of course not. You’re going to uninstall IE 8. (Those websites are out of your control. Some of them were developed by people who are now dead. The only thing you can do is go back to IE 7).

And so if you’re a developer on the IE 8 team, your first inclination is going to be to do exactly what has always worked in these kinds of SEQUENCE-MANY markets. You’re going to do a little protocol negotiation, and continue to emulate the old behavior for every site that doesn’t explicitly tell you that they expect the new behavior, so that all existing web pages continue to work, and you’re only going to have the nice new behavior for sites that put a little flag on the page saying, “Yo! I grok IE 8! Give me all the new IE 8 Goodness Please!”

And indeed that was the first decision announced by the IE team on January 21st. The web browser would accommodate existing pages silently so that nobody had to change their web site by acting like the old, buggy IE7 that web developers hated.

A pragmatic engineer would have to come to the conclusion that the IE team’s first decision was right. But the young idealist “standards” people went nuclear.

IE needed to provide a web standards experience without requiring a special “Yo! I’m tested with IE 8!” tag, they said. They were sick of special tags. Every frigging web page has to have thirty seven ugly hacks in it to make it work with five or six popular browsers. Enough ugly hacks. 8 billion existing web pages be damned.

And the IE team flip-flopped. Their second decision, and I have to think it’s not final, their second decision was to do the idealistic thing, and treat all sites that claim to be “standards-compliant” as if they have been designed for and tested with IE8.

Almost every web site I visited with IE8 is broken in some way. Websites that use a lot of JavaScript are generally completely dead. A lot of pages simply have visual problems: things in the wrong place, popup menus that pop under, mysterious scrollbars in the middle. Some sites have more subtle problems: they look ok but as you go further you find that critical form won’t submit or leads to a blank page.

These are not web pages with errors. They are usually websites which were carefully constructed to conform to web standards. But IE 6 and IE 7 didn’t really conform to the specs, so these sites have little hacks in them that say, “on Internet Explorer… move this thing 17 pixels to the right to compensate for IE’s bug.”

And IE 8 is IE, but it no longer has the IE 7 bug where it moved that thing 17 pixels left of where it was supposed to be according to web standards. So now code that was written that was completely reasonable no longer works.

IE 8 can’t display most web pages correctly until you give up and press the “ACT LIKE IE7″ button. The idealists don’t care: they want those pages changed.

Some of those pages can’t be changed. They might be burned onto CD-ROMs. Some of them were created by people who are now dead. Most of them created by people who have no frigging idea what’s going on and why their web page, which they paid a designer to create 4 years ago, is now not working properly.

The idealists rejoiced. Hundreds of them descended on the IE blog to actually say nice things about Microsoft for the first times in their lives.

I looked at my watch.

Tick, tick, tick.

Within a matter of seconds, you started to see people on the forums showing up like this one:

I have downloaded IE 8 and with it some bugs. Some of my websites like “HP” are very difficult to read as the whole page is very very small… The speed of my Internet has also been reduced on some occasions. Whe I use Google Maps, there are overlays everywhere, enough so it makes it ackward to use!

Mmhmm. All you smug idealists are laughing at this newbie/idjit. The consumer is not an idiot. She’s your wife. So stop laughing. 98% of the world will install IE8 and say, “It has bugs and I can’t see my sites.” They don’t give a flicking flick about your stupid religious enthusiasm for making web browsers which conform to some mythical, platonic “standard” that is not actually implemented anywhere. They don’t want to hear your stories about messy hacks. They want web browsers that work with actual web sites.

So you see, we have a terrific example here of a gigantic rift between two camps.

The web standards camp seems kind of Trotskyist. You’d think they’re the left wing, but if you happened to make a website that claims to conform to web standards but doesn’t, the idealists turn into Joe Arpaio, America’s Toughest Sheriff. “YOU MADE A MISTAKE AND YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD BREAK. I don’t care if 80% of your websites stop working. I’ll put you all in jail, where you will wear pink pajamas and eat 15 cent sandwiches and work on a chain gang. And I don’t care if the whole county is in jail. The law is the law.”

On the other hand, we have the pragmatic, touchy feely, warm and fuzzy engineering types. “Can’t we just default to IE7 mode? One line of code … Zip! Solved!”

Secretly? Here’s what I think is going to happen. The IE8 team going to tell everyone that IE8 will use web standards by default, and run a nice long beta during which they beg people to test their pages with IE8 and get them to work. And when they get closer to shipping, and only 32% of the web pages in the world render properly, they’ll say, “look guys, we’re really sorry, we really wanted IE8 standards mode to be the default, but we can’t ship a browser that doesn’t work,” and they’ll revert to the pragmatic decision. Or maybe they won’t, because the pragmatists at Microsoft have been out of power for a long time. In which case, IE is going to lose a lot of market share, which would please the idealists to no end, and probably won’t decrease Dean Hachamovitch’s big year-end bonus by one cent.

You see? No right answer.

As usual, the idealists are 100% right in principle and, as usual, the pragmatists are right in practice. The flames will continue for years. This debate precisely splits the world in two. If you have a way to buy stock in Internet flame wars, now would be a good time to do that.