Software, Digital Content, Geopolitics, Economics & More from of a Libertarian Serial Expat and Entrepreneur
Open Studios: "Open Studios is a nonprofit organization dedicated to replenishing our precious Public Domain. We assist communities who wish to build community-based recording studios. The facilities provide FREE recording services for residents of the community and surrounding areas. In return, the users/participants are encouraged to place their works in the Public Domain." Open Studios [...]
SilliconValley: "New York ad salesman Michael Parrish, who noticed the BQE’s DJ was turntables-free when he requested a song, says anyone can be a DJ now. "When I was younger I felt like there was a talent to it because they were spinning records backwards and forwards and really cutting it in and overlapping songs," [...]
FTrain: "Well, computers still aren’t listening to us as well as we’d like, but in the meantime the technology matured, and what really happened is that centralized databases – and Amazon and Ebay were prime examples of centralized databases with millions of items each – could suddenly be spread out through the entire web. Everyone [...]
NYT: "Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., formally proposed legislation that would give the industry unprecedented new authority to secretly hack into consumers’ computers or knock them off-line entirely if they are caught downloading copyrighted material. [...] Records show Berman received at least $186,891 from the entertainment industry during the 2001-02 election cycle, including $31,000 from [...]
In: fun
26 Jul 2002Saltire: "Let’s take a look back at this mess: The acquisition of something old by something new: $165 billion AOLTW’s write-off of the purchase one year later: $54 billion Amount of advertising AOLTW sold to itself: $468 million Bob Pittman’s 2001 stock option compensation: $66 million [...] The feeling you get when you knew it [...]
In: search engines
25 Jul 2002NYT: "Some say that the phenomenon of instant unchecked background searches could be manipulated to sabotage others’ reputations." John, here’s your essay assignment for next month: think of all the ramifications about Google reputation bombing, and report about them in the usual twelve pages.
In an e-mail sent by Paypal: "If you used a Visa credit card or Visa debit card to make a PayPal transaction between July 19-21, 2002, your card may have received a duplicate charge from our credit card processor. Our processor has identified these transactions and corrected the problem within the last 24 hours by [...]
It always amazes me that even people experienced with web technology keep falling in this trap. Just don’t use a domain name publicly until DNS tables have had time to catch up with the appropriate IP address. Especially during a big product launch, with PR and all. No, hitting refresh in your browser like a [...]
CNet: "Congress is about to consider an entertainment industry proposal that would authorize copyright holders to disable PCs used for illicit file trading. [...] The legislation would immunize groups such as the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America from all state and federal laws if they disable, block or [...]
CIO.com (that’s Wal-mart): "In any development effort, our [IS] people are expected to get out and do the function before they do the system specification, design or change analysis. The key there is to do the function, not just observe it. So we actually insert them into the business roles. As a result, they come [...]
I'm CEO of an online trade publishing firm in the marketing and defense verticals. We try to make news and data digestible and useful in an environment that is more noisy each day. This personal blog mixes my thoughts and interests on politics, business, software, and more, based on my business and personal experiences. Over the years I have posted items that turned out spectacularly wrong, and a few posts that stood the test of times better. Personal views only.