04.18.08
Posted in politics, tech at 11:46 pm by mridley
I saw this article in CIO Insight and I thought it was worth reading. The article is an interview with Anthony Williams, co-author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. I enjoyed the book and I was interested in his thoughts on the subject.
A lot of “CIO type” interviews and articles are long on theory and short on practical reference. This article does include some concrete references to real projects under way. Notably the intelligence community’s answer to Wikipedia, Intellipedia. Also mentioned are Politicopia, a Utah project to create a wiki community where citizens can voice their opinions about pending legislature.
The article mainly discusses theory and a few wiki examples, so I’m not sure that it lives up to it’s “Web 2.0″ claim as many other “Web 2.0″ technologies are ignored. Still, it’s worth skimming. Not so much to learn anything groundbreaking but to get the cognitive juices flowing.
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06.10.06
Posted in amuse, politics at 4:03 am by mridley
I suppose I mention this only because I find it interesting when people of some notability make such controversial public statements. On his June 5th blog, Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU/free software movement shares some unorthodox philosophies on the dangers of pedophilia:
“05 June 2006 (Dutch paedophiles form political party)
Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.”
Seems odd to me to put something out there like that without any citations to peer reviewed studies supporting such a claim. But whatever.
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02.27.06
Posted in politics at 6:15 pm by mridley
I feel compelled to comment about this tempest in a teacup. So much is being made of the fact that a Dubai-based company is attempting to purchase the UK-based company responsible for terminal operations at several United States ports. Yet all the security experts I’ve seen interviewed have said there is no additional risk from this transaction. And the Coast Guard and Customs are still actually responsible for security. And the real port security issues are at foreign ports, long before the cargo gets to the US.
Yet Congress seems all worked up about this. I saw a press conference the other day with Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton where they were lamenting how dangerous this is and pointing out that we don’t let foriegn owned companies own US airports. I know it’s great politics to call the White House out on this. But let’s be realistic for a second. First of all, it would be entirely within Congress’s power to change the law to prevent foreign ownership of ports. So instead of critisizing of the executive branch for not enforcing a law that doesn’t exist, they should legislate if they so choose. Of course in the interest of a fair playing field that would mean that all foreign port operators would need to be kicked out and their interests nationalized. Oh…that’s not politically palatable? Yeah…how about that.
Second of all, on the subject of Bush not being up to speed on the issue quickly enough. I’m not a big fan of George Bush. Having said that, there are many many international business deals going through every day. It is not part of the President’s job description to monitor and individually approve or disapprove of each one. Nor should it be. Remember that whole capitalism/free market thing? And for business transactions that do raise special national security implications, such as the DPW deal, there is a process in place for experts to assess the risks and make a determination. That process most often does not involve the President. Is the President an expert on port security and operations and the implications of a UAE versus UK company as terminal operator? I would imagine not. How about we let the people who know what they’re talking about work on that one.
Tags: DPW
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01.18.06
Posted in politics at 8:29 am by mridley
I was listening to the radio and heard a report that apparently the US Department of Homeland Security and the State Department are working together to create ID cards for US citizens who frequently travel to Canada and Mexico. This confuses me a bit, as I thought we already had ID cards for that. Called passports.
The news story said that apparently these cards will be simpler to get and create a more streamlined and simple process. I didn’t realize getting a passport was that laborous. This seems like a solution in search of a problem to me. What’s the point of doing this? I don’t get it.
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10.06.05
Posted in media, politics at 7:42 am by mridley
I was watching CNBC’s Squawkbox this morning and they’re reporting that the record industry is contemplating bringing a copyright infringement suit against the Sirius and XM satellite radio operators because of their new portable devices. As I understand it, the way these devices work is somewhat like TiVo for radio. The portable units don’t have a satellite receiver built into them, so they record content while they’re docked and then you can play it back when you’re out and about.
There was a comment made by a CNBC reporter that the fair use doctrine allows you to save broadcast music for personal use. I’m not so sure about whether that’s settled legal precedent, but there is a settled precedent for time shifting and that seems to be the main point of these portable devices. Hopefully if they do bring a suit the satellite operators can get summary judgement and move along quickly.
PS - so Becky Quick has an unofficial fan site? That’s hot. She’s a cutie pie.
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09.20.05
Posted in politics, tech at 3:41 pm by mridley
There was a post on Slashdot about this CNN article discussing the publishing industry’s mixed feelings about Google’s plan to scan in a ton of books and make them searchable. Normally this is not an interesting enough story for me to mention, but this excerpt got my attention:
Richard Hull, executive director of the Text and Academic Authors Association, called Google’s approach backwards. Publishers shouldn’t have to bear the burden of record-keeping, agreed Sanfilippo, the Penn State press’s marketing and sales director.
“We’re not aware of everything we’ve published,” Sanfilippo said. “Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, there were no electronic files for those books.”
Read the rest of this entry »
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09.16.05
Posted in politics at 6:47 pm by mridley
I was listening to President Bush’s national address last night about plans to rebuild New Orleans. It sounded like a relatively good plan to me, in the abstract. I guess we’ll see how it plays out. If you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have picked this president to revive the New Deal and create his own TVA.
I wonder if the liberal Bush opponents recognize that his plan to rebuild the gulf coast is a page out of the playbook of FDR.
Tags: Bush, Katrina
Related:
http://www.katrinaquarters.com/blog/2005/09/president_discusses_hurricane.html
http://www.hayz.ws/blog/index.php?p=1781
http://rncnyc2004.blogspot.com/2005/09/president-addresses-nation-video.html
http://www.fatmixx.com/2005/09/16/newspaper-reaction-to-bush-speech/
http://prestoagitato.typepad.com/presto_agitato/2005/09/media_hell.html
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09.08.05
Posted in politics at 1:22 pm by mridley
I was listening to a news report today and one US congressman made the statement that he’d like to see a “czar” appointed to lead the investigation into the problems surrounding government response to hurricane Katrina. That got me thinking- where did this use of the word “czar” come from? I know we’ve had it for some time. We call the head of anti-drug enforcement the “drug czar”. But why? We are a democratic federal republic, not a czarist monoarchy.
And what about the heads of federal programs who don’t get to be czars? I would think they’d feel left out. Are we going to see a press release by the head of the FDA informing us that he is now the “Emperor of Food”? Ponderous.
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09.06.05
Posted in politics at 9:23 am by mridley
I was listening to the radio this morning and heard that National Guard troops from Virginia (and I’m sure other states) are being sent down to the Gulf coast to help with hurricane Katrina response. It’s nice to see our National Guard being used for its intended purpose- domestic use. Without getting into the whole can of worms of the Iraq situation, it always has struck me wrong that we were sending National Guard personnel abroad to fight a war. Army Reserve is one thing, but that’s not the purpose of the National Guard.
So…good to see them doing what they’re supposed to be doing for a change.
Tags: Military, Katrina
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09.02.05
Posted in politics, tech at 6:30 am by mridley
Apparently C-SPAN is jumping on the podcast bandwagon with a beta podcast site. Very cool!
Tags: Politics, Podcasting, C-SPAN
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