Paul Boutin in Wired. Why it makes more business sense to give WiFi away to consumers.
I guess it just costs more to charge for it, hence the salt and pepper analogy.
Are digital commodities different than material commodities in that respect?
Archives mensuelles : août 2003
Obsolete business model
Why does the music industry think it can preserve an obsolete business model?
Follow the links for a good read.
Dock envy
You wish you had a big nice dock like mine? Keep trying, still not nearly as lickable, plus you need big icons to be in the big boys club …
Oh, the same goes for the Genie effect.
The answer to life, the universe and everything
The answer to life, the universe and everything
The Google calculator: learned about it from Aaron (or was it MeFi?) and got some useful (and less useful but very creative) ideas from Jason Kottke and Andrew Baio.
Communauto
Martine vient de me faire penser à Communauto. Et puis il y a Fleecy qui évangélise ça depuis un an. Et mon excuse était que « y’a pas de stations près de chez nous ». J’avais tord.
Avoir su j’y aurais sérieusement réfléchi…
Ecological Footprint
My Eco-Footprint: it requires 4.47 Earths to support each member of the present human population at your standard of living.
Hey, it’s still only only 64.57% of an average North American’s footprint
Worst article ever
A friend sent me this Internet Week Opinion piece: Reasons To Shun Open Source-ry . It is without contest the worst thing I’ve ever read regarding Linux and open source issues ever.
The point seems to be « Linux is not ready for the enterprise ». I’ll let you judge if it proves the point. Or any point.
This is smart use of technology
Enters SMS agriculture says SPU newslog: farmers in Kenya will be able monitor prices for their products via their mobile and SMS. The hope is that this will avoid farmer’s exploitation by middlemen since previously, knowing commodity prices required travelling to markets.
Non more meta
Anil Dash on the flash mobs phenomenon I discussed earlier.
Those who are worried about the weblog fad flaming out, fear not. Mobs are truly the flagpole-sitting of the new millennium. As Joshua astutely observed, Flash Mobs are striking in that they are an affinity event for people who have no affinity group. A Meetup for people who like Meetups. How much more meta can it get? None. None more meta.
+1 for the Spinal Tap reference, and for the semi self-serving lament to the effect that flash mobs coverage in the media does not mention weblogs.
[via SmartMobs]
Keeping the Net neutral
Keeping the Net neutral is the title of this Salon piece.
For those with a subscription, it explains why cable compagnies should be made common carriers, for me it’s just a teaser that I agree with.
Update: Frank has a nice exerpt.
[via Greplaw]
A Framework for Evaluating Digital Rights Management
First International Mobile IPR Workshop: conference of Rights Management of Information Products on the Mobile Internet in Helsinki.
A team from SIMS at Berkeley is presenting a paper that evaluates and proposes DRM schemes for compulsory licensing.
Mary Hodder also did something that was on my to do list: a chronological list of the public conversation and articles about the compulsory licensing issues that have been going on lately. Very much appreciated and helpful. Thanks.
[via bIPlog]
Quote of the day
The EU’s Draft Directive on IPR Enforcement
Nice summary of the draft directive by the Foundation for information policy research .
[via Emerging Technologies → Ross Anderson]
Flash mob in Montreal
Cyberpresse reports that a bunch of people threw rubber ducks in the fountain in front of Place des Arts while chanting « coin coin ». This was Montreal’s first flash mob.
It seems to be quite the rage this week-end, even the BBC says so. Might be the heat, or just the desire to cling onto the vacations.
Personally, I don’t get it. I’m not saying i wouldn’t participate ever, but I wouldn’t get out of my way to participate. Unless it’s totally absurd or original, or perhaps even meaningful or artsy.
I do get a feeling that this stuff is either about using all those telecom technologies that surround us in a personal, self indulging way, or about expressing free will in a very unproductive way.
Not that any of this is bad of course, it’s kinda fun and new and different. It means people have nothing too important to worry about. Which is good. I guess.
Keep yourself informed of the upcoming flash mob events in Montreal or just get a feeling of the flash mob scene.