Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out

"Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in hordes. The tedious particulars of keeping ourselves alive, comfortable and free are being taken offline to countries where people are happy to sweat the details, as long as we have some foreign exchange left to send their way. Nothing is more seductive than to think that we, like the Jedi, could be masters of the most advanced technologies while living simple lives: to have a geek standard of living and spend our copious leisure time vegging out."

Neal Stephenson

in reference to: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/opinion/17stephenson.html?_r=1 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Monday, December 28, 2009

crafting for guys

"I don't know about you, but I always have a hard time crafting for guys. Most of my craft ideas spring from things that I want or need and, not being a man, I have a hard time relating. I've made ties from scratch before, but they've all turned out a bit too, shall we say, flamboyant for your average Joe. This project might be a little over the top too, but if you have a fella in your life who loves a unique tie, I think that this would make him smile from ear to ear come Christmas morning."

in reference to: http://www.craftstylish.com/item/30659/how-to-embroider-a-necktie (view on Google Sidewiki)

Vintage Sewing

"The needle is brought up from the under portion of the garment through to the upper portion which is to be joined, leaving about one-inch end of the thread to be tied on the under portion of the garment, also leaving enough extra thread to give the garment whatever ease may be required between the folds of the material."

in reference to: http://www.vintagesewing.info/1910s/17-ad/ad-09.html (view on Google Sidewiki)

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Progress

"But actually I care less about the right thing to do now than I care about the only thing to do in the future. That’s to build out the Net as a basic utility. Not as a secondary (or tertiary) service of phone and cable companies.

I know that’s not how it is now, and that’s not how it’s gong to be for awhile. Right now the Net is still seen as gravy rather than as meat. But this will change. Count on it. And count on more money being made on the transition than on maintaining today’s defaults. Also count on it all going faster if we can also handle our own end of it, in our own homes and neighborhoods.

Companies betting on the free and ubiquitous Internet of the future have the best chance of winning in the long run. They just won’t win by continuing to monetize the Net on the pay toilet model. "

in reference to:

"it would make far more sense just to bake the service into those price and let the guests use the Net for free, just like they use water, bedding and electricity."
- Doc Searls Weblog · Progress (view on Google Sidewiki)

Friday, December 25, 2009

Business awards for 2009

"It has been quite a year in the world of business and finance beginning with warnings of Armageddon yet ending with optimism re-emerging. Along the way there have been some entertaining and memorable moments, some of which are captured in the awards below."

The $2.2B the banks owed IRD didn't make it...

in reference to:

"The German Zimmer frame gang, unsurprisingly consisting of a group of pensioners, was accused of kidnapping and torturing a financial adviser who lost about $4 million of their savings."
- Business awards for 2009 - business | Stuff.co.nz (view on Google Sidewiki)

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Looking Back at Google in 2009

"And what were some of Google’s releases and new efforts in 2009? The competition wasn’t sleeping, as we can see with Microsoft’s search contender Bing, or Wolfram Alpha; the return of the butler to Ask’s UK site is probably less noteworthy (and Yahoo continued to put a price tag on private user data, as internal documents revealed; search for “Basic subscriber records: approx. $20 for the first ID, $10 per ID thereafter”). Have a look at what Google came up with:"

Shee-ite! I'd some idea that it had been a busy year but...

in reference to:

"Because of our reach, technical know-how, and lust for big projects, we can take on big challenges that require large investments and lack an obvious, near-term pay-off. We can photograph the world’s streets so that you can explore the neighborhood around an apartment you are considering renting from a thousand miles away. We can scan millions of books and make them widely accessible (while respecting the rights of publishers and authors). We can create an email system that gives away a gigabyte of storage (now over 7 gigs) at a time when all other services allow only a small fraction of that amount. We can instantly translate web pages from any of 51 languages. We can process search data to help public health agencies detect flu outbreaks much earlier. We can build a faster browser (Chrome), a better mobile operating system (Android), and an entirely new communications platform (Wave), and then open them up for the world to build upon, customize, and improve. We can do these things because they are information problems and we have the computer scientists, technology, and computational power to solve them. When we do, we make numerous platforms – video, maps, mobile, PCs, voice, enterprise – better, more competitive, and more innovative. We are often attacked for being too big, but sometimes being bigger allows us to take on the impossible."
- Looking Back at Google in 2009 (view on Google Sidewiki)

How a new communications technology disrupted America’s newspaper industry—in 1845

"CHANGE is in the air. A new communications technology threatens a dramatic upheaval in America’s newspaper industry, overturning the status quo and disrupting the business model that has served the industry for years. This “great revolution”, warns one editor, will mean that some publications “must submit to destiny, and go out of existence.” With many American papers declaring bankruptcy in the past few months, their readers and advertisers lured away by cheaper alternatives on the internet, this doom-laden prediction sounds familiar. But it was in fact made in May 1845, when the revolutionary technology of the day was not the internet—but the electric telegraph."

in reference to:

"How a new communications technology disrupted America’s newspaper industry—in 1845"
- Newspapers and technology: Network effects | The Economist (view on Google Sidewiki)

Friday, December 18, 2009

The year in nonsense

"A £6m Home Office drugs education study was published with no results, because it was so flawed it couldn’t produce any, we saw MPs being foolish about cervical screening and moon magic, and then when they didn’t like the scientific evidence they got from Professor David Nutt, they sacked him. If politicians want us to take them seriously on the evidence for global warming, they have to show they care about evidence everywhere. It’s only slightly worse in Iraq, where they’ve just spent $32m on 800 sciencey looking dowsing rods to detect bombs."

in reference to: http://www.badscience.net/2009/12/the-year-in-nonsense/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Ghosts in the form of gifts

"These objects are replicas of artifacts imagined as lost, hidden or misregistered during the Museum of New Zealand's tenure in the former Museum Building on Buckle St, now occupied by Massey University's College of Creative Arts. The objects have been created through a process of drawing, digital 3D rendering, and finally printing with an Open Source 3-dimensional printer – the RepRap."

in reference to: http://bronwyn.co.nz/projects/gifts.html (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Cabinet Paper: Illegal Peer-To-Peer file sharing

"This paper makes recommendations for amendments to the Copyright Act 1994 (the Act) to provide a process for right holders to pursue repeat online copyright infringers."

in reference to: http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentTOC____42332.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

Sunday, December 13, 2009

What’s in Store for 2010? A Few Predictions

"Cloud API Proliferation Will Become a Serious Problem
Data as Revenue
Developer Target Fragmentation Will Accelerate
It’s All About the Analytics
Marketplaces Will Be Table Stakes
New Languages to Watch
NoSQL Will Bid for Mainstream Acceptance
FOSS Predictions"

Via Nat Torkington

in reference to: http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2009/11/12/2010-predictions/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

How to Give the People What They Want

"Demand Media has created a virtual factory that pumps out 4,000 videoclips and articles a day. It starts with an algorithm.
The algorithm is fed inputs from three sources: Search terms (popular terms from more than 100 sources comprising 2 billion searches a day), The ad market (a snapshot of which keywords are sought after and how much they are fetching), and The competition (what’s online already and where a term ranks in search results)."

in reference to: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_demandmedia/all/1 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Saturday, December 12, 2009

English libel law is becoming a global disgrace

"After a year-long Inquiry, English PEN and Index on Censorship have concluded that English libel law has a negative impact on freedom of expression, both in the UK and around the world. Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, and should only be limited in special circumstances. Yet English libel law imposes unnecessary and disproportionate restrictions on free speech, sending a chilling effect through the publishing and journalism sectors in the UK. This effect now reaches around the world, because of so-called 'libel tourism', where foreign cases are heard in London, widely known as a 'town named sue'. The law was designed to serve the rich and powerful, and does not reflect the interests of a modern democratic society."

in reference to: http://libelreform.org/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The patent system: End it, don't mend it

"A great deal of applied economic research has tried to answer this question. The short answer is that intellectual property does not increase innovation and creation. Extending IP rights may modestly boost the incentive for innovation, but this positive effect is wiped away by the negative effect of creating monopolies. There is simply no evidence that strengthening patent regimes increases innovation or economic productivity. In fact, some evidence shows that increased protection even decreases innovation. The main finding is that making it easier to get patents increases … patenting!"

in reference to:

"The patent system: End it, don't mend it"
- The patent system: End it, don't mend it | csmonitor.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Sunday, December 6, 2009

How Men and Women Badly Estimate Their Own Intelligence

"In investigating the question of whether men are smarter than women, British researcher Adrian Furnham came up with some startling results. His analysis of some 30 studies showed that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ, but women underestimate their own intelligence while men overestimate theirs. Surprisingly, both men and women perceived men being smarter across generations — both sexes believe that their fathers are smarter than their mothers and their grandfathers are more intelligent than their grandmothers. And if there are children, both men and women think their sons are brighter than their daughters."

in reference to:

"How Men and Women Badly Estimate Their Own Intelligence"
- Slashdot Science Story | How Men and Women Badly Estimate Their Own Intelligence (view on Google Sidewiki)

KAREN » NEN Evaluation Project

"The school is aware that sharing video can incur large data costs however where students are connected using a common ISP (Internet Service Provider) as the school this will reduce the cost to almost nothing. There has also been demand for French TV and an application is currently in progress to very soon be able to push out this out to schools on KAREN."

I wasn't aware of any ISP who discriminated in favour of intra-ISP traffic.

UPDATE: "SNAP offered free home to school traffic."

in reference to:

"KAREN » NEN Evaluation Project"
- KAREN - NEN Evaluation Project - Christ's (view on Google Sidewiki)

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Memories of a paywall pioneer

"I'm not hostile to the notion of people paying for online content. I do so myself. I'm glad people stepped up and paid for Salon. But the value of stuff online is usually tied to how deeply it is woven into the network. So locking your stuff away in order to charge for it means that you are usually making it less valuable at the moment that you are asking people to pay for it. And that's why people so often respond with: "No thanks."

in reference to:

"if you have a product that is scarce, you can charge for it more easily. Specialised information, information that people need to earn their livings and can't get elsewhere, and so on. If there are free alternatives, you are not going to get very far, even with an edge in quality."
- Memories of a paywall pioneer | Media | guardian.co.uk (view on Google Sidewiki)

Friday, December 4, 2009

The real cost to business of government guarantees

"There are good reasons why governments should not guarantee the liabilities of any private sector business. Such guarantees are likely to cost money and, in the case of banks, a lot of money.

There are three less obvious but also powerful arguments against such provision. The first is that such guarantees distort competition. Those who benefit will outperform rivals, not because they are more efficient or better at serving customers, but because they have access to cheaper capital. The second argument is that if government relieves companies of business risk, more risk will be taken. This is moral hazard. The third issue is that government intervention gets in the way of private sector initiatives, internal and external, to manage risk, which might be cheaper and less intrusive."

in reference to:

"The most effective control is other parties’ diligence in assessing the businesses with which they deal."
- The real cost to business of government guarantees (view on Google Sidewiki)

Is the 'Bandwidth Hog' a Myth?

This is therefore a good indication of the level of bandwidth at which you start being considered a "hog". But wait: 50 Gbyte a month is… 150 kbps average (0,15 Mbps), 150 Gbyte a month is 450 kbps on average. If you have a 10 Mbps link, that’s only 1,5 % or 4,5 % of its maximum advertised speed!

And that would be "hogging"?

No, the margins on overage, that is hogging.

in reference to:

"Is the 'Bandwidth Hog' a Myth?"
- Fiberevolution: Is the 'Bandwidth Hog' a Myth? (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

New research suggests porn is overly demonized

"Pornography has long been considered to be one of the main motivators of major technological inventions, from the camera to the worldwide Web. Its effects on human health and sexuality have also been, and likely will always be, hotly debated. (The pun is irresistible.)

But new research out of the University of Montreal suggests that pornography is so widely digested, and with such a seemingly low correlation to "pathological" behavior, that it is grossly over-demonized. The research is funded by the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Family Violence and Violence Against Women."

in reference to:

""We couldn't find any,""
- New research suggests porn is overly demonized | Health Tech - CNET News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Intelligent Ways to Solve the Middle Mile Problem

"unbundling in France didn't pick up outside of dense urban areas until local governments were allowed to invest in backhaul fiber networks. What they did was connect of of the incumbents local exchanges and sold the backhaul dark fiber at reasonable prices to the altnets who then promptly went and unbundled all of these exchanges. This in turn drove competition and led to better prices for consumers.

In other words, a virtuous circle.

Could this same model be applicable to FTTH deployment? In rural areas, I certainly think so. "

in reference to:

"very often, Rural backhaul is a monopoly, and we all know how monopoly prices are set. When in addition, the owner of the backhaul is a copper competitor on the access, the incentive is pretty clear to gouge you on backhaul prices."
- Fiberevolution: Intelligent Ways to Solve the Middle Mile Problem (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Fall and Rise of Media

"For those of us who work in Manhattan media, it means that a life of occasional excess and prerogative has been replaced by a drum beat of goodbye speeches with sheet cakes and cheap sparkling wine. It’s a wan reminder that all reigns are temporary, that the court of self-appointed media royalty was serving at the pleasure of an advertising economy that itself was built on inefficiency and excess. Google fixed that. "

in reference to:

"Earlier in November, the New York comptroller said that employment in communications in New York had lost 60,000 jobs since 2000"
- The Media Equation - For Media, a Sunset Is Followed Quickly by a Sunrise - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Developmental Psychologist Says Teenagers Are Different

"For the adults, the presence of friends has no effect. But for adolescents, just having friends nearby doubles the number of risks they take. We’ve found that a certain part of the brain is activated by the presence of peers in adolescents, but not in adults."

in reference to:

"Laurence Steinberg, a developmental psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, is one of the leading experts in the United States on adolescent behavior and adolescent brain biology."
- A Conversation With Laurence Steinberg - Developmental Psychologist at Temple and Expert on Adolescents - Interview - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Monday, November 30, 2009

We May Be Born With an Urge to Help

“Warfare is ultimately not a denial of the human capacity for cooperation, but merely the most destructive expression of it.”

The roots of human cooperation may lie in human aggression. We are selfish by nature, yet also follow rules requiring us to be nice to others.

“That’s why we have moral dilemmas,” Dr. Tomasello said, “because we are both selfish and altruistic at the same time.”

in reference to:

"We May Be Born With an Urge to Help"
- Some Biologists Find an Urge in Human Nature to Help - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Job Hunting Guide for the 50 Year Old

"Because of your age and experience, you have many more options and a much better network of colleagues than younger workers. Needless to say, it's much better to look for a new job when you have one. But, whether or not you are currently employed, your age is still an advantage. Really!"

in reference to:

"Your advantage is that you already have a network of people who know and respect you"
- Interns Over 40: Job Hunting Guide for the 50 Year Old (view on Google Sidewiki)

DCC's free internet plan poses legal risk

" The claim was made by Dunedin businessman Stu Fleming, the managing director and chief technical officer of the Dunedin-based internet service provider WIC NZ Ltd, former InternetNZ councillor and current member.

He said the council's wireless (Wi-Fi) internet proposal had some merit, but warned it would establish the council as the customer of an internet service provider, rather than "anonymous" end-users making use of the free service.

That in turn could see the council carrying legal liability for any copyright infringements by those using the network to download music, movies or games illegally, he warned."

Which is more of a criticism of a stupid law than an error on the part of DCC. There's of course nothing that could be done on the free Wi-Fi network that couldn't be done from the Koru Lounge, but...

in reference to:

"DCC's free internet plan poses legal risk"
- DCC's free internet plan poses legal risk | Otago Daily Times Online News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Awesome By Proxy: Addicted to Fake Achievement

"It turns out there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform - to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master - to improve their skill or knowledge.

Say you take a person with a performance orientation ("Paul") and a person with a mastery orientation ("Matt"). Give them each an easy puzzle, and they will both do well. Paul will complete it quickly and smile proudly at how well he performed. Matt will complete it quickly and be satisfied that he has mastered the skill involved.

Now give them each a difficult puzzle. Paul will jump in gamely, but it will soon become clear he cannot overcome it as impressively as he did the last one. The opportunity to show off has disappeared, and Paul will lose interest and give up. Matt, on the other hand, when stymied, will push harder. His early failure means there's still something to be learned here, and he will persevere until he does so and solves the puzzle.

While a performance orientation improves motivation for easy challenges, it drastically reduces it for difficult ones. And since most work worth doing is difficult, it is the mastery orientation that is correlated with academic and professional success, as well as self-esteem and long-term happiness."

Via Tim O'Reilly & Slashdot.

in reference to:

"Awesome By Proxy: Addicted to Fake Achievement"
- Pixel Poppers: Awesome By Proxy: Addicted to Fake Achievement (view on Google Sidewiki)

Women Who Want to Want

"She regularly wires the genitals of her patients to a photoplethysmograph to measure whether the women respond with surges of vaginal blood flow while they watch a pornographic video. Almost always, they do.

Brotto is dealing in the domain of the mind, or in the mind’s relationship to the body, not in a problem with the body itself."

in reference to:

"She is now one of the world’s leading specialists in what is known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder in women."
- Women Who Want to Want - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Friday, November 27, 2009

Roger de Salis rides again with Opto Network

“The Opto proposition for farmers within two kilometres of the cable will cost $2000 for the fibre, which they plough in themselves, then $500 for the installation.

in reference to:

"“Once you set a ship on its course it is hard to turn. I wanted to go to a different part of the market,” de Salis says."
- Computerworld > Roger de Salis rides again with Opto Network (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Brain-Like Chip May Solve Computers' Big Problem: Energy

"It sounds cockamamy, but it is true. Scientists have found that the brain’s 100 billion neurons are surprisingly unreliable. Their synapses fail to fire 30 percent to 90 percent of the time. Yet somehow the brain works. Some scientists even see neural noise as the key to human creativity. Boahen and a small group of scientists around the world hope to copy the brain’s noisy calculations and spawn a new era of energy-efficient, intelligent computing. Neurogrid is the test to see if this approach can succeed."

in reference to:

"The human brain runs on only about 20 watts of power, equal to the dim light behind the pickle jar in your refrigerator. By contrast, the computer on your desk consumes a million times as much energy per calculation. If you wanted to build a robot with a processor as smart as the human brain, it would require 10 to 20 megawatts of electricity. “Ten megawatts is a small hydroelectric plant,” Boahen says dismissively"
- Brain-Like Chip May Solve Computers' Big Problem: Energy | Computers | DISCOVER Magazine (view on Google Sidewiki)

A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss

"The media world is in a (relative) uproar over what the implications of News Corp. pulling its content off Google would be. But! A three-part Gawker investigation-type thing indicates the impact might be quite minimal for you, the consumer. Observe:"

Exactly, if you want news, you will still get it from Google, if you want the WSJ, you'll go to their site. There is no monopoly on news that needs a rent, only on brands.

in reference to: A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss (view on Google Sidewiki)

Saturday, November 21, 2009

[FCC] Workshop: Future Fiber Architectures and Local Deployment Choices

"The goal of the Broadband Workshop on Future Fiber Architectures and Local Deployment Choices is to understand post-100-megabit/s fiber and partial-fiber solutions for the middle mile, public institutions, small to medium enterprises and homes. It will cover:

* Fiber distribution topology (point-to-point, star)
* Fiber distribution technology (active Ethernet, Passive Optical Network), and
* Hybrid fiber solutions (advanced DSL, fiber-coax, fiber-radio) where fiber to the neighborhood is delivered to the end-user by non-fiber methods.

It will cover not only how network designers weigh economic and policy factors, but also how their choices of network topology and technology facilitate and inhibit future policy options. It will delve into the upgrade paths of the various alternatives along the way to explore where future barriers lie. It will highlight creative and exploratory thinking about upgrading today's technology, e.g., GPON, HFC and radio technology."

in reference to: Workshop: Future Fiber Architectures and Local Deployment Choices - Broadband.gov (view on Google Sidewiki)

Chorus split costs prohibitive - Yeah, Right

Auckland-based Craigs Investment Partners analyst Geoff Zame says spinning off Chorus would be expensive, but not $2b. "If that's the songbook [Telecom] want to sing to, then clearly they'll talk about the prohibitive costs."

in reference to:

"Australian-based Craigs Investment Partners analyst Ian Martin says Telecom faces three levels of cost in a structural split: operating separate premises and systems; loss of synergy in operations; and loss of economies of scale."
- Chorus split costs prohibitive - business | Stuff.co.nz (view on Google Sidewiki)

Friday, November 20, 2009

The Day After: Harlequin Blinks

"MWA:

It is common for disreputable publishers to try to profit from aspiring writers by steering them to their own for-pay editorial, marketing, and publishing services. The implication is that by paying for those services, the writer is more likely to sell his manuscript to the publisher. Harlequin recommends the “eHarlequin Manuscript Critique Service” in the text of its manuscript submission guidelines for all of its imprints and include a link to “Harlequin Horizons,” its new self-publishing arm, without any indication that these are advertisements….If MWA and Harlequin are unable to reach an agreement, MWA will take appropriate action which may include removing Harlequin from the list of MWA approved publishers, declining future membership applications from authors published by Harlequin and declaring that books published by Harlequin will not be eligible for the Edgar Awards."

Publishers, caring for authors like ranchers care for cattle.

in reference to:

"HARLEQUIN: Heck, no! You keep only 50% of the net. We need something for our trouble of lending our brand name to Horizons and steering you toward it, through our website and our rejection letter."
- Jackie Kessler - Insert Witty Title Here (view on Google Sidewiki)

Kineto Announces Combined VoLGA / IMS Client for Voice Over LTE

"Kineto’s combined VoLGA/IMS voice client is compliant with the VoLGA Forum’s release 1.0 specifications and is planned to support the recently announced “One Voice” IMS telephony profile.

VoLGA is defined specifically to pave a smooth migration path to IMS voice. It utilizes many of the same connection protocols defined in IMS voice, including RFC 4867 and RoHC (robust header compression).

VoLGA works with IMS data services, like the Rich Communications Suite (RCS) over LTE, enabling operators to begin their IMS deployments with new revenue-generating applications while laying the foundation for IMS voice."

OMG, could it be any more complex, fragile and costly?

in reference to:

"An important requirement for any LTE handset is concurrent support for both the interim VoLGA and longer-term IMS voice solutions. Operators around the world will adopt IMS voice on different timelines, so LTE handsets must support the interim approach along with IMS to provide an effective roaming solution."
- Kineto Announces Combined VoLGA / IMS Client for Voice Over LTE :: VoIP.BIZ-NEWS.COM (view on Google Sidewiki)

Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Accessibility Paradox

"The book world has been harrumphing about a battle among big box stores to sell the season's biggest books at the cheapest price. In order to draw customer into their stores, Target and Wal-Mart are making ten bestselling author's books available for under ten bucks"

in reference to:

"I'm also taken aback by the horrified response of the book industry. I thought the big crisis was that nobody reads. Now it turns out the problem is that books are so popular with the masses they're being used as bait to draw in shoppers."
- The Accessibility Paradox | Peer to Peer Review - 10/29/2009 - Library Journal (view on Google Sidewiki)

Are The Record Labels Using Bluebeat's Bogus Copyright Defense To Avoid Having To Give Copyrights Back To Artists?

"As you hopefully know, back in 1999, the RIAA had a Congressional staffer named Mitch Glazier slip four words into a totally unrelated bill on satellite retransmission of broadcast TV, literally in the middle of the night, that effectively changed the way copyrights worked on songs by major label artists. It effectively took much of the control out of the hands of the artists and handed it right to the labels. Remember that the next time the record labels claim they're representing the best interests of artists."

in reference to:

"The use of four simple words, buried deep within the bill, which no one other than the RIAA knew about (seriously, those who voted on it later said they had no idea), turned songs recorded by artists signed to record deals to works made for hire. That meant that those artists could not reclaim the copyrights to their songs later on via a "termination" right, as any other content creator could."
- Are The Record Labels Using Bluebeat's Bogus Copyright Defense To Avoid Having To Give Copyrights Back To Artists? | Techdirt (view on Google Sidewiki)

Losing Fatherhood

“I pay child support to a biologically intact family,” Mike told me, his voice cracking with incredulity. “A father and mother, married, who live with their own child. And I pay support for that child. How ridiculous is that?”

in reference to:

"Yet as troubled as many of them might be by that news, they are even more stunned to discover that many judges find it irrelevant. State statutes and case law vary widely, but most judges conclude that these men must continue to raise their children — or at least pay support — no matter what their DNA says."
- How DNA Testing Is Changing Fatherhood - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Big response to broadband partner plan

"A string of local and international groups have expressed interest in partnering the Government in its $1.5 billion internet broadband roll-out.

Communications and Information Technology Minister Steven Joyce said 38 groups had expressed an interest, and the Government was getting close to selecting private sector partners to build the infrastructure and get the roll-out under way."

in reference to:

"The invitation to participate was issued last month, providing terms and conditions of the Government's investment, including technical specifications and its preferred commercial model for co-investing with partners in a local fibre company."
- Big response to broadband partner plan - Telecommunications - NZ Herald News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Inventing a Better Patent System

"The best way forward is for Congress to sidestep the damages question and instead add five amendments to existing statutes that would improve the processing of patents, reduce lawsuits and speed up the arrival of innovations on the market."

in reference to:

"Congress shouldn’t make the best the enemy of the good. If it avoids the tricky question of damages measurement and adopts these five amendments, it would weed out low-quality patent claims, reduce the number of expensive lawsuits and reward our best innovators."
- Op-Ed Contributor - Inventing a Better Patent System - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Reality Check: 80% Won't Pay for Online Content (And the Other 20% Are Probably Lying)

"Forrester Research has a new study out that Rupert Murdoch should probably download: Of 4,000 people polled, 80 percent will not pay for online newspapers or magazines, and the rest are divided on how they want to pay."

Abolutely not surprised, nor by the continued sabre rattling at Google.

in reference to:

"Times of London reader Robin Stack: "It will reduce your wealth and influence; please do it.""
- Reality Check: 80% Won't Pay for Online Content (And the Other 20% Are Probably Lying) - News Corporation - Gawker (view on Google Sidewiki)

Big Content: Using "moral panics" to change copyright law

"Copyright owners' problems are market problems, and they can only be solved by responding to market demands: strong copyright protection cannot make consumers buy things they do not want to buy and, as RIAA's ill-conceived, ill-executed, and ill-fated campaign of suing individuals demonstrates, laws cannot stop individuals from filesharing. Laws can, though, stifle innovation, and in this respect the copyright industries have been successful, and tragically so, for the public and for authors. Innovation leads to greater consumer demand and therefore greater profits for copyright owners."

in reference to:

""The DMCA is the 21st-century equivalent of letting copyright owners put a chastity belt on someone else's wife.""
- Big Content: Using "moral panics" to change copyright law - Ars Technica (view on Google Sidewiki)

If You Believe in IP, How Do You Teach Others?

"Some Harvard professors are taking very seriously their "intellectual property rights" and have claimed copyright to the ideas that they spread in their classrooms. What prompted this was a website in which students posted their notes to help other students.

The professors have cracked down. It might have been enough to legislate against this behavior in particular. Instead, they wrapped their objection in the great fallacy of our age: the professor owns his ideas and they may not be spread without his permission."

in reference to:

"This action has opened up a can of worms, and now other universities have taken up the puzzling question: how do you at once enforce intellectual property and uphold the ideal of a university, which is, after all, about teaching and spreading ideas to others? The problem is a serious one that highlights the absurdity of the notion that an idea — infinitely reproducible and thereby not scarce, and also taught with the overt purpose of gaining adherents among students — can be somehow contained and restrained once it is unleashed."
- If You Believe in IP, How Do You Teach Others? - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Institute (view on Google Sidewiki)

Malcolm Gladwell, Eclectic Detective

"The reasoning in “Outliers,” which consists of cherry-picked anecdotes, post-hoc sophistry and false dichotomies, had me gnawing on my Kindle. Fortunately for “What the Dog Saw,” the essay format is a better showcase for Gladwell’s talents, because the constraints of length and editors yield a higher ratio of fact to fancy. Readers have much to learn from Gladwell the journalist and essayist. But when it comes to Gladwell the social scientist, they should watch out for those igon values."

in reference to:

"Malcolm Gladwell, Eclectic Detective"
- Book Review - 'What the Dog Saw - And Other Adventures,' by Malcolm Gladwell - Review - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Missing the point: It’s time to talk about software freedom

"To conclude, I’d like to pose some broader questions for members of the library profession. Should libraries purchase ebooks that come with DRM, which limits what the user can do with the information? Should they purchase digital information sources that can only be used on certain types of devices? This is particularly true for digital audio ebooks, but it also applies to other types of information. Why are so few librarians visible in the Free Software Foundations’s campaign against DRM (http://www.defectivebydesign.org/amazon1984)? How are members of the profession promoting the free circulation of information if they don’t ensure that this is true not only in the print world, but also in the digital one? Finally, if members of the library profession, with its commitment to free access to information, don’t take action to preserve our own and our users’ digital freedoms, who will do it for us? What is the future of libraries if we don’t?"

in reference to:

"What is the opposite of software freedom? Some people might say software slavery, but I prefer to call it software imprisonment. By choosing to use non-free (or proprietary) software, users become metaphorical prisoners of their software vendor, and a common phrase for this is ‘vendor lock-in’ (which is nicely connected to the notion of imprisonment). This means that the vendor, and only the vendor, has the power to decide what features the software will have, which bugs to fix and which to call ‘features’, when to require users to upgrade to a newer version, and when to discontinue support for a software package."
- reflections » Missing the point: It’s time to talk about software freedom (view on Google Sidewiki)

Telecom explores its options with partnership talks

Analysts say Telecom's latest quarterly result shows just how dependent the company is on the profits of network arm Chorus, and how vulnerable it would be to competing fibre access networks built as a result of the ultrafast broadband plan.

JBWere Goldman Sachs analyst Tristan Joll says Chorus is contributing a significant part of Telecom's earnings.

"Therefore, if there is something out there that exposes those earnings to competition, it creates a challenge and an imperative for them to try and defend it."

in reference to:

"Reynolds says discussions are taking place through the Telecommunications Industry Group, of which Vodafone, Kordia and Vector are also members, and one-on-one."
- Computerworld > Telecom broadens ultrafast broadband talks (view on Google Sidewiki)

Friday, November 13, 2009

Beyond Security Theater

"Security is both a feeling and a reality. The propensity for security theater comes from the interplay between the public and its leaders. When people are scared, they need something done that will make them feel safe, even if it doesn't truly make them safer. Politicians naturally want to do something in response to crisis, even if that something doesn't make any sense."

in reference to:

"Unfortunately for politicians, the security measures that work are largely invisible."
- Schneier on Security: Beyond Security Theater (view on Google Sidewiki)

Photoshop Disasters recently featured a wonderfully horrible image from Victoria's Secret.

"I have a theory that I call the "Just One Principle". Simply put, when someone modifies an image, they never change "just one thing". Since the artist at Victoria's Secret erased the handbag, they must have changed something else. What else was modified?"

in reference to:

"Although the dress appears to have a random noise pattern, there is actually one area where there is a well-defined pattern: her chest. Between her breast the dots form a well-organized "stretch" pattern. The modification also appears in a demosaic analysis as a diamond-shape distortion in the middle of her chest, and in the 2nd principal component as a minor color variation. Digital enhancements usually appear in multiple image analysis tests, and this appears in min/max, PCA, and demosaic analysis, among other tests."
- Body By Victoria - Secure Computing: Sec-C (view on Google Sidewiki)

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Colin Jackson stands up for your rights

"I can't accept how New Zealand politicians can let this just happen. How dare they take more notice of secret overseas treaty negotiations and industry lobbyists than they do of their constituents? The last government passed S92A and paid for it, although I doubt that was the only reason for its demise. The current government is still permitting its officials to take part in a secret process designed to curtail the rights of New Zealanders. How DARE they sell ordinary New Zealanders down the river?"

in reference to:

"Colin Jackson stands up for your rights"
- Public Address | Speaker (view on Google Sidewiki)

Telecom 3G network to be wholesaled

"Telecom is to wholesale its 3G network from next year, a year earlier than originally planned."

Excellent.

in reference to:

"Move comes early after successful trial of CDMA product"
- Computerworld > Telecom 3G network to be wholesaled (view on Google Sidewiki)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Google Offers A 16 Terabyte Cloud Drive For $4,096 A Year

"Google tonight announced that it was drastically slashing prices while at the same time offering more storage pricing options for users of its services. Specifically, while Gmail users currently get about 7 gigabytes for free and Picasa users get about 1 gigabyte for free, both can now upgrade to 20 GB for just $5 a year. Previously, it cost $20 to get just 10 GB of additional service.

But what’s really pretty incredible is that Google has an option for you to buy up to 16 terabytes, yes, terabytes, of storage from them. As Google notes, that enough to store 8 million very high resolution photos. Considering that most consumers probably still have south of 500 gigabytes of storage in their home, that’s pretty massive."

in reference to:

"Google is only officially offering this storage for use with Gmail and Picasa. It’s not a complete online backup/storage system,"
- Google Offers A 16 Terabyte Cloud Drive For $4,096 A Year (view on Google Sidewiki)

Einstein's Blunder Undone

1. Given there was a time when expansion was decelerating, and now its accelerating, that sounds like something thrown up, falling down.

2. Looking at 7 billion year old light and working out what was happening then, an acceleration of expansion, begs the question "where are those galaxies now?"

in reference to:

"the 2009 Royal Society of New ZealandDistinguished Speaker"
- index page for November 2009 Royal Society Lecture (view on Google Sidewiki)

Consider the possibility that “social media” is a crock.

"Today in the digital world we still have very few personal tools that work only for us, are under personal control, are NEA, and are not provided as a grace of some company or other. (If you can only get it from somebody else’s site, it ain’t personal.) That’s why I bring up email, blogging, podcasting and instant messaging. Yes, there are plenty of impersonal services involved in all of them, but those services don’t own the category. We can swap them out. They are, as the economists say, substitutable."

in reference to:

"The frame here is real estate. Or, more precisely, private real estate"
- Doc Searls Weblog · Beyond Social Media (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Change 74: Telecommunications Structures

Contents
Further Submissions

* Further Public Notice (66Kb PDF)
* Summary of Submissions (146Kb PDF)
* Further Submission Form (71Kb PDF)

Further submissions close at 5.00pm on 4 December 2009.
Original Documents

* Public Notice (64Kb PDF)
* Plan Change Document (281Kb PDF)
* Section 32 Report (151Kb PDF)
* Submission Form (60Kb PDF)

Submissions closed on 30 October 2009.

in reference to:

"Contents Further Submissions Further Public Notice (66Kb PDF) Summary of Submissions (146Kb PDF) Further Submission Form (71Kb PDF) Further submissions close at 5.00pm on 4 December 2009. Original Documents Public Notice (64Kb PDF) Plan Change Document (281Kb PDF) Section 32 Report (151Kb PDF) Submission Form (60Kb PDF) Submissions closed on 30 October 2009."
- District Plan - Plan Changes - Wellington - New Zealand (view on Google Sidewiki)

Findings from a six]country study of Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid

"Largest benefits perceived in emergency
communication and relationship maintenance"

in reference to: coai-tabop3-mumbai-10feb09_final2.pdf (application/pdf Object) (view on Google Sidewiki)

R v the Internet Seminar Is the Internet in contempt of court, and if so what should be done about it?

"A seminar for legal, media and Internet professionals to discuss the issues around suppression orders, contempt of court and the Internet."

in reference to:

"Venue: Rangimarie RoomTe Papa, Museum of NewZealand55 Cable St, WellingtonWhen:Thurs, 3 December 20099.00am – 5.00pmCocktails to follow Seminar(registration from 8.30am)Fully catered event"
- R v the Internet Seminar — InternetNZ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Blu-ray discs get Managed Copy

"The genius of the whole scheme is that these very same rights, which are free and easy to exert on non-encrypted digital media like CDs, is that rightsholders can then sell these very rights back to consumers for extra cash. Want to put a copy of your legally-purchased new film on your iPhone or laptop for that flight to LA? You can't—but you might soon be able to purchase the right.

This isn't the sort of change that could work in the marketplace—consumers don't like it and would simply bypass the encryption if the tools were easy and legal. Thanks to the DMCA, they are not, and the companies that traffic in them are usually located offshore.

The argument that this is about "stopping piracy" might have held water a decade ago, but it's now sinking like a leaky yacht. All of these films remain widely available online to anyone motivated to seek them out. Not that DRM has ever done much to stop piracy anyway, since all it takes is a single cracked copy to make a mockery of absurdly complicated technical lockdown attempts."

in reference to:

"After four years in the oven, "managed copy" is done—and boy, is it a stinker."
- Blu-ray discs get Managed Copy; hardware support nonexistent - Ars Technica (view on Google Sidewiki)

Sunday, November 8, 2009

What DNS Is Not

"What DNS is not is a mapping service or a mechanism for delivering policy-based information. DNS was designed to express facts, not policies. Because it works so well and is ubiquitous, however, it's all too common for entrepreneurs to see it as a greenfield opportunity. Those of us who work to implement, enhance, and deploy DNS and to keep the global system of name servers operating will continue to find ways to keep the thing alive even with all these innovators taking their little bites out of it.

These are unhappy observations and there is no solution within reach because of the extraordinary size of the installed base. The tasks where DNS falls short, but that people nevertheless want it to be able to do, are in most cases fundamental to the current design. What will play out now will be an information war in which innovators who muscle in early enough and gain enough market share will prevent others from doing likewise—DNS lies vs. DNS security is only one example."

in reference to:

"Paul Vixie, Internet Systems Consortium DNS is many things to many people—perhaps too many things to too many people."
- What DNS Is Not - ACM Queue (view on Google Sidewiki)

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Real Copyright Reform

"A copyright system is designed to produce an ecology that nurtures the creation, dissemination and enjoyment of works of authorship. When it works well, it encourages creators to generate new works, assists intermediaries in disseminating them widely, and supports readers, listeners and viewers in enjoying them. If the system poses difficult entry barriers to creators, imposes demanding impediments on intermediaries, or inflicts burdensome conditions and hurdles on readers, then the system fails to achieve at least some of its purposes. The current U.S. copyright statute is flawed in all three respects. In this article, I explore how the current copyright system is failing its intended beneficiaries. The foundation of copyright law’s legitimacy, I argue, derives from its evident benefits for creators and for readers. That foundation is badly cracked, in large part because of the perception that modern copyright law is not especially kind to either creators or to readers; instead, it concentrates power in the hands of the intermediaries who control the conduits between creators and their audience. Those intermediaries have recently used their influence and their copyright rights to obstruct one another’s exploitation of copyrighted works. I argue that the concentration of copyright rights in the hands of intermediaries made more economic sense in earlier eras than it does today."

Reminiscent of Jane Ginsberg's "Author-centric Copyright," but with recognition of the importance of the audience.

in reference to:

"The key to real copyright reform, I suggest, is to reallocate copyright’s benefits to give more rights to creators, greater liberty to readers, and less control to copyright intermediaries."
- SSRN-Real Copyright Reform by Jessica Litman (view on Google Sidewiki)

Free Content

"Take our content, please!

All content on this site is available for republishing under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license.

We want you to copy and distribute this stuff as widely as possible. That's what we're here for!

You don't have to ask our permission. That's what the Creative Commons licensing is for. Everybody has permission already. Just do it.

If you want to be nice, you can include a link back to us, but the only requirement is to provide attribution to the author and C4SS."

in reference to:

"Patent Twit of the Week"
- Gene Quinn: Patent Twit of the Week (view on Google Sidewiki)

Friday, November 6, 2009

Taking Walks, Delivering Mail: An Introduction to Graph Theory

"Video Summary: This learning video presents an introduction to graph theory through two fun, puzzle-like problems: “The Seven Bridges of Königsberg” and “The Chinese Postman Problem”

Via: Education and Services Innovation

in reference to:

"Use of the MIT BLOSSOMS website and Learning Video Repository is subject to our Creative Commons License and other Terms of Use."
- BLOSSOMS-Video Library (view on Google Sidewiki)

Robots could mimic human forgetfulness to filter out less useful information.

"Forgetting is a critical capability when operating in dynamic environments," says PhD student Sanford Freedman, who presented the group's data filtering-software, called ActSimple, in a paper published at the IASTED Robotics and Applications conference held this week in Cambridge, MA.

ActSimple draws on two facets of human memory: time-based decay, or the way that memories disappear over time, and interference, which is the failure to recall information due to other memories competing for attention. ActSimple assigns different pieces of data values depending on how often they are used, and how similar it is to other pieces of information."

in reference to:

"The Team found that on average, ActSimple created the most reliable estimated WiFi map. Interestingly, when the robot "remembered" everything--that is, used all of its gathered information (errors and all)--it generated the least accurate map overall."
- Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: Absent-minded Robots Remember What Matters (view on Google Sidewiki)

Thursday, November 5, 2009

The Future of Markets

"Among practical people, the simple message that government should go away and leave business alone has wide appeal to business: and the simple message that greed can serve a constructive social role also has wide appeal to greedy people. The claim that profitability demonstrates, is even the measure of, public benefit relieves people of any worries they might have harboured about the utility of their profitable activities. These worries are not common, but one does encounter them from time to time."

John Kay - Wincott Lecture 2009

in reference to:

"Wincott Lecture"
- The Future of Markets (view on Google Sidewiki)

Executive summary: Android is a screwed, hard-coded, non-portable abomination.

"The presentation explains in detail why Android is not what most people refer to when they say Linux. What most people mean when they say Linux is the GNU/Linux system with it's standard userspace tools, not only the kernel.

The presentation shows how Google has simply thrown 5-10 years of Linux userspace evolution into the trashcan and re-implemented it partially for no reason."

in reference to:

"The presentation explains in detail why Android is not what most people refer to when they say Linux. What most people mean when they say Linux is the GNU/Linux system with it's standard userspace tools, not only the kernel. The presentation shows how Google has simply thrown 5-10 years of Linux userspace evolution into the trashcan and re-implemented it partially for no reason."
- Harald Welte's blog (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Yahoo Open Sources Traffic Server

"Traffic Server enables the session management, authentication, configuration management, load balancing, and routing for an entire cloud computing stack. Yahoo says that with the open source version of Traffic Server, organizations can benefit from access to cached online content. In addition, Traffic Server enables faster responses to requests for stored Web objects, such as files, news articles or images.

The company’s global network of data centers allows Traffic Server to choose the closest servers to store and access cached content for increased speed. Traffic Server is capable of handling more than 30,000 requests per second per server and it currently serves more than 400 terabytes of data per day."

in reference to: Yahoo Open Sources Traffic Server (view on Google Sidewiki)

'Embrace the beauty of ageing': Sarah Murdoch appears on un[re]touched magazine cover

"On the cover Ms Murdoch looks bright and fresh-faced with just a couple of small lines near her eyes.

Ms Murdoch said she doesn't like airbrushed photographs of herself.

"I think when I'm retouched in photographs it's worse, because when people see me in real life, they go, 'Oh, God, isn't she old?," she told the magazine."

in reference to: Sarah Murdoch's Untouched Magazine Cover Photo | Women's Weekly (view on Google Sidewiki)

Open Access

"We find that in countries where an engaged regulator enforced open access obligations, competitors that entered using these open access facilities provided an important catalyst for the development of robust competition which, in most cases, contributed to strong broadband performance across a range of metrics. Today these competitors continue to play, directly or through successor companies, a central role in the competitiveness of the markets they inhabit. Incumbents almost always resist this regulation, and the degree to which a regulator is professional, engaged, and effective appears to play a role in the extent to which open access is successfully implemented with positive effects."

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski

in reference to:

"FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski"
- Line sharing best solution for slow, expensive US broadband - Ars Technica (view on Google Sidewiki)

Cellphones, Texts and Lovers

"Over the past few decades, these social scripts became obsolete. They didn’t fit the post-feminist era. So the search was on for more enlightened courtship rules. You would expect a dynamic society to come up with appropriate scripts. But technology has made this extremely difficult. Etiquette is all about obstacles and restraint. But technology, especially cellphone and texting technology, dissolves obstacles. Suitors now contact each other in an instantaneous, frictionless sphere separated from larger social institutions and commitments."

in reference to: Op-Ed Columnist - Cellphones, Texts and Lovers - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Hold the phone, reality is calling

"Welcome to augmented reality, the digital revolution that integrates location and data.

I'm standing at the corner of King and La Trobe streets in central Melbourne, facing the Flagstaff Gardens across the road. I've been here many times but today I'm looking at the gardens in a new way — through my phone.

When I point the phone's camera at the gardens, a flotilla of text bubbles pops up and bobs across the screen. Point the camera in a new direction and some bubbles drift out of view as new ones drift in.

Click on any bubble and an information box comes up."

in reference to: Augmented Reality iPhone Apps In Australia (view on Google Sidewiki)

Monday, November 2, 2009

* About Bill Gurley Google Redefines Disruption: The “Less Than Free” Business Model

"Google’s free navigation feature announcement dealt a crushing blow to the GPS stocks. Garmin fell 16%. TomTom fell 21%. Imagine trying to maintain high royalty rates against this strategic move by Google. Android is not only a phone OS, it’s a CE OS. If Ford or BMW want to build an in-dash Android GPS, guess what? Google will give it to them for free. As we noted in our take on the free business model, “if a disruptive competitor can offer a product or service similar to yours for ‘free,’ and if they can make enough money to keep the lights on, then you likely have a problem.”

Nice to find Bill Gurley again, somewhere in the past he fell off my radar.

in reference to: Google Redefines Disruption: The “Less Than Free” Business Model « abovethecrowd.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Save outrage for times that really warrant it

"Yes, it's been a great few weeks for the national pastime of taking offence. A bunch of Auckland Grammar pupils on a class trip to Auckland Museum mock worship the swastika, post the photographs online, and ... well, World War II breaks out all over again.

Publicly shamed, the offenders are even filmed, jerseys pulled over their heads, doing the equivalent of a perp walk into the museum to offer their apologies ... We cross now to our reporter outside who can tell us that, apparently, there were tears. This was the lead item of that evening's bulletin.

What a pack of pious, bullying scolds sections of our news media have become. And what a lot of purse-lipped professional offence-takers there are to enable this culture of complaint, creating supposed victims out of nothing more than loose talk and crass behaviour."

Via: http://publicaddress.net/default,6255,standing-up-and-calling-bullshit.sm#post6255

in reference to:

"Save outrage for times that really warrant it"
- Save outrage for times that really warrant it | Stuff.co.nz (view on Google Sidewiki)

Telecom offers unlimited uploading, but downloading still capped

"New Zealand broadband users are used to heavy limits on the amount of data they can download, but there will be no limit on uploading data for Telecom Broadband customers for the next three months."

Why only three months? But congratulations on recognising we don't just suck content down.

in reference to:

"Telecom offers unlimited uploading, but downloading still capped"
- Telecom offers unlimited uploading, but downloading still capped | The National Business Review - New Zealand - business, markets, finance, politics, property, technology and more (view on Google Sidewiki)

Saturday, October 31, 2009

The Only ‘Journalism’ Subsidy We Need is in Bandwidth

"If the authors had only pursued their logic, they’d have ended up at the only sensible conclusion — that taxpayers could well subsidize the equivalent of the postal and printing subsidies they celebrate (among many other infrastructure supports that helped get the news from one place to another, such as roads, never mind the variety of other government help that’s gone to news organizations over the past several centuries.

What would following their logic lead us to in a digital world? That’s easy: We should collectively install dark fiber to every home and business where it’s feasible to do so, and put fiber as close to the ones that are too remote to make sense otherwise. It should be “dark fiber” — that is, data lines not controlled by government but available for others to light up to provide services for users."

in reference to: The Only ‘Journalism’ Subsidy We Need is in Bandwidth « Mediactive (view on Google Sidewiki)

Twitter Lists 2 RSS

The $10 Phone Bill: The $116 billion business of selling cell phone calls in the U.S. faces a long, ugly decline.

"Commodity--as distasteful as that word might be, there's opportunity there," Linquist says, contemplating the coming apocalypse with a smile. "Our anchor is that as long as we have a substantial cost leadership position we know we're not just a survivor ... we will thrive."

The new gear is so powerful that he will be able to simultaneously increase the quality of cell phone calls while cutting the cost of providing each minute, from just under a penny today to closer to a tenth of a cent. Linquist charges 2.1 cents a minute, just under half of the industry's average revenue. He'll continue cutting, confident his singular focus on running the cheapest voice network will keep his costs well below those of the rest of the industry."

in reference to: The $10 Phone Bill - Forbes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Flu-wary telecommuters may clog Web networks, GAO says

"As the spread of the H1N1 flu keeps more Americans away from work and school, a federal report warns that all those people logging on to the Web from home could overwhelm Internet networks."

Better than clogging hospitals I would have thought.

in reference to: Telecommuters fearing swine flu may clog Web networks, GAO says - washingtonpost.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Rape drug in drinks 'a myth'

"The researchers and related organisations and charities have noted that this belief is supported by very little recorded evidence that drink-spiking with ‘date-rape’ drugs is especially prevalent, although large numbers of those questioned reported to have known people to be victims of drink-spiking, the actual circumstances and real events surrounding these reports are not known. "

in reference to:

"Rape drug in drinks 'a myth'"
- Date-rape drugs like rohypnol are an 'urban myth' according to (view on Google Sidewiki)

Target your filtering, or else...

"Law enforcement groups, which include the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the Metropolitan Police's e-crime unit, believe that more encryption will increase the costs and workload for those attempting to monitor internet traffic. One official said: "It will make prosecution harder because it increases the workload significantly."

A source involved in drafting the Bill said that the intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, had also voiced concerns about disconnection. "The spooks hate it," the source said. "They think it is only going to make monitoring more difficult."

Via: http://creativefreedom.org.nz/story.html?id=423

in reference to: UK Law Enforcement Tells UK Gov't: Please Don't Kick File Sharers Offline | Techdirt (view on Google Sidewiki)

Conroy blunder could damage Telstra

"Detailed appendix information about providing broadband services to commercially unviable areas would allow critics to test Telstra's public claims with the reality."

And that's a bad thing?

in reference to: Stephen Conroy | Blunder could damage Telstra (view on Google Sidewiki)

Monday, October 26, 2009

Chris Dyhrberg - GM Product Management, Chorus

"A question from the audience on why it was necessary to demand a return on the $1.5 billion FttP network when each year, we pour some $2 billion into roading with no such expectations, was given short shrift by Dyhrberg. “It’s rubbish. Broadband networks are not like roads,” Chris Dyhrberg stated categorically."

in reference to: Computerworld > Is fibre the answer? 'Yebbut', says telco panel (view on Google Sidewiki)

Eric von Hippel

“Twitter’s smart enough, or lucky enough, to say, ‘Gee, let’s not try to compete with our users in designing this stuff, let’s outsource design to them,’ ” said Eric von Hippel, head of the innovation and entrepreneurship group at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. and author of the book “Democratizing Innovation.”

in reference to:

"witter’s smart enough, or lucky enough, to say, ‘Gee, let’s not try to compete with our users in designing this stuff, let’s outsource design to them,’ ” said Eric von Hippel"
- Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Users - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Windows 7 – It’s Vista All Over Again

"Because the more I play with Windows 7, the more I see the Vista debacle unfolding all over again. The commonly accepted wisdom is that Windows 7 is oh-so-much-better than Vista. Well, based on my own extensive testing, it’s not. Not at all."

Via: Twit 217

in reference to: Windows 7 – It’s Vista All Over Again : Jim Louderback (view on Google Sidewiki)

Why Banks Stay Big

"The trouble is that the “market” for banking is so distorted—by switching costs, by government subsidies and guarantees, and by the banks’ market power—that it’s hard to know whether big banks are adding value or are simply exploiting their oligopolistic positions. We do know that too much concentration in finance increases risk, since a handful of dominant players are more likely to make the same kinds of mistakes, and jeopardize the entire system."

in reference to: Why banks stay big : The New Yorker (view on Google Sidewiki)

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Nobody Knows Nothing

"But it's all fraud, papered with self-delusion, self-aggrandization and hubris. What gets done in large organizations (corporations, non-profits, governments) is the sum of what everyone in those organizations does. The people at the top generally have no more real impact, and no more useful knowledge with which to make decisions, than the people at the bottom. The 'leaders' are responsible neither for the organization's successes, nor its failures -- a few people just don't make that much difference, except when they make some hugely expensive, incompetent decision or rip the company off so it goes bankrupt. "

Via: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2009/10/25/have-a-nice-daze/

in reference to: How to Save the World (view on Google Sidewiki)

Libertarian Municipalism: An Overview

"Libertarian municipalism is not one of many pluralistic techniques that is intended to achieve a vague and undefined social goal. Democratic to its core and nonhierarchical in its structure, it is a kind of human destiny, not merely one of an assortment of political tools or strategies that can be adopted and discarded with the aim of achieving power."

VIa: http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.helix

in reference to: Libertarian Municipalism: An Overview | Institute for Social Ecology (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Internationale and Copyright

"Pierre De Geyter died in 1932. His music of the Internationale is copyrighted in France until October 2017. The duration of copyright in France is 70 years following the end of the year when the author died, plus (for musical works) 6 years and 152 days to compensate for World War I, and 8 years and 120 days to compensate for World War II respectively.[6] In 2005, Le Chant du Monde, the corporation administering the authors' rights, asked Pierre Merejkowsky, the film director and an actor of Insurrection / résurrection, to pay €1,000 for whistling the song for seven seconds."

Pay the living, not the dead.

in reference to: The Internationale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (view on Google Sidewiki)

Family's shock at council spying

"This is a ridiculously disproportionate use of RIPA and will undermine public trust in necessary and lawful surveillance."

Which, fortunately, is the way of excess, be it censorship, copyright or other power. Abuse it and lose it.

in reference to: BBC NEWS | UK | England | Dorset | Family's shock at council spying (view on Google Sidewiki)

Saturday, October 24, 2009

UK example of what NZ Search & Surveillance Bill might presage?

"Suspecting Ms. Paton of falsifying her address to get her daughter into the neighborhood school, local officials here began a covert surveillance operation. They obtained her telephone billing records. And for more than three weeks in 2008, an officer from the Poole education department secretly followed her, noting on a log the movements of the “female and three children” and the “target vehicle” (that would be Ms. Paton, her daughters and their car).

It turned out that Ms. Paton had broken no rules. Her daughter was admitted to the school. But she has not let the matter rest."

in reference to: Ever-Present Surveillance Rankles the British Public - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Friday, October 23, 2009

Sean Parker’s Rise of Facebook And Twitter, Fall Of Google

"Sean Parker gave a provocative presentation entitled “The New Era Of The Network Service.” In it, he argues that so-called “network services” like Facebook (which he helped start) and Twitter will soon dominate the web, rather than “information services” like Google and Yahoo."

Certainly explains Google's eagerness for [social] network services. NB. Reed's Law.

in reference to: Sean Parker’s Rise of Facebook And Twitter, Fall Of Google Presentation (Full Slide Deck) (view on Google Sidewiki)

ACTA - Control not copying

"Kim Hill spent a portion of her Saturday Morning radio programme discussing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) with Mark Harris (who blogs On the Gripping Hand which I love as a blog name). The conversation covered the normal range of issues (unfortunately mixing copyright with patent law freely), most of which I agree with, but I think they both missed the key risk of ACTA."

in reference to:

- Stephen's Blog - ACTA (view on Google Sidewiki)