] I'm starting to wonder if were aren't watching something
] like the same strategy again. In other words, it's
] possible Cheney and company are actually bluffing. This
] time, instead of trying to terrify the Soviets into
] collapse, the objective is even grander. If I'm right
] about this, they have two goals. Neither involves actual
] war, any more than the MX missile did.

The thought had occurred...

John Perry Barlow provides a personal perspective on Dick Cheney

Jeremy wrote:

] ... kids aren't interested in music anymore; "it's about
] gaming and PlayStation."

I got the same perspective from talking about this question with some of the IT people at a record label that I work for. In the 70's you had nothing to do but sit in your room, listen to records, and do LSD. In this decade there are all kinds of things to do, even if you don't leave your house. Music is just background noise for whatever it is that you're really doing. Its not the focus anymore.

RE: Twilight of the CD? Not if It Can Be Reinvented

UserFriendly makes a stab at the eternal. He's better at this then Scott Adams! Unfortunately, the message board is sorely in need of moderation. So, I'll ask our audience here. Does this comic speak to you? How? Don't be afraid to admit a silly supersitious beleif in fate. I'll even forgive a fundamentalist religious conviction. I just want some perspectives.

UserFriendly Strip - Feb. 22

] A link to a site you read isnt the same as a link to
] someone you know through their blog or someone you
] actively collaborate with.
]
] After reviewing data of work relationships, information
] flows and knowledge exchanges from hundreds of consulting
] assignments inside Fortune 2000 organizations Valdis
] Krebs did not see much evidence of power laws in this
] data. His data is of confirmed ties [both persons
] agreed/recognized their mutual
] interactions/flows/relationships] from a worldwide pool
] of clients dating back to 1988. Of course he found some
] people were better connected than others, but the extreme
] hubs found in power law networks just were not evident.

Ross Mayfield's Weblog: Looking at weblog networks

] It is possible that new technologies may enable a
] higher-level order through emergent properties, which
] will enable a form of emergent direct democracy capable
] of managing complex issues more effectively than the
] current form of representative democracy.

This reminds my of my essay on "Weblogs and Democracy" posted here.

Emergent Democracy

] Under the ruling, the Bells won't have to allow
] competitors fair access to new high-speed fiber-optic
] lines and facilities they say they will deploy in the
] future.
]
] What this likely means, unfortunately, is that the Bells
] will use their current power in local voice and data
] service to subsidize dominance in next-generation data
] services.

Mercury News | 02/21/2003 | Dan Gillmor: FCC ruling is a blow to the competitive marketplace

There are some good observations in this story, but one is missing. Over punishing for computer crimes means its not reasonable to enforce computer crime laws when infringement truely is minor. The problem, coupled with the total lack of interstate and international law enforcement for petty crimes, is what creates the SPAM problem, and what will create even greater problems. Steal a dollar from a million different people across state lines and no one can investigate unless they can correlate all the crimes (which they are unlikely to do if they don't investigate them).

The Internet requires radical rethinking about how basic law enforcement works.

Hackers do it with longer sentences!

quoted (illegally, I guess)

===
The Poetics of Security: Skateboarding, Urban Design, and the New Public Space
by Ocean Howell
(© 2001. No portion of this essay, text or image, may be reproduced without author's consent.)

Abstract:

Skateboarding is a thorn in the side of landscape architects, planners, and building owners; so much so that there are now design workshops that teach a series of defensive architectural tactics for deterring the activity. The type of skateboarding that plagues these architects and the spaces they create, "street skating," has only existed for about 15 years, and in fact was born out of the barren, defensive spaces created by redevelopment. Viewed in this light, it is clear that street skating is not only an impetus for defensive architecture, but also a symptom of defensive architecture. Recognizing that redevelopment spaces fostered pathologies, cities and corporations have begun to build more friendly spaces in the past couple of decades. But they have been careful to ensure that the spaces are only friendly to a select subset of the public, namely office workers and consumers. To create such spaces requires knowledge of the minutest details of undesirable behaviors—a knowledge that can only be gleaned through surveillance. Because the resultant spaces appear open but exclude the vast majority of the citizenry, they represent a restrictive discourse of publicness. Although the destructive effects of skateboarding have been exaggerated, the purpose of this essay is not to argue that skateboarding should be permitted in public space. It is by virtue of its status as a misuse of these spaces—and because it is a symptom of defensive design—that skateboarding is exceptionally good at drawing attention to the quietly exclusionary nature of the new public space. Ultimately, skateboarding affords an observer glimpses of the larger processes of surveillance and simulation by which public space, both physical and cultural, is produced.

==

There is no such thing as urban public space. The copyright notice is a little ironic given that there is no such thing as public information space either.

The Poetics of Security: Skateboarding, Urban Design, and the New Public Space

] With Covad (or companies like it, or new companies)
] acting as "fiber middleware" suppliers, and Earthlink (or
] companies like it) investing heavily in last-mile WISP
] solutions for customers, the Bells will be effectively
] bypassed. And voice calls are really just a low-bandwidth
] data service.

A radical idea.

Moore's Lore: new technology. Computing, connectivity, mobile, convergence, communications, software, etc.

Thrynn wrote:
] Very interesting read about the branding of Google. I'll leave
] you the tidbit about Google's advertising tactics to read. I
] want to discuss why a company who "as fiscal 2002 profits at
] $100 million" would even think about an IPO?

As for their advertising tactics, what this article presents is a fantasy. Google signed a deal to provide searches at Yahoo. They bizdeved it. They got all kinds of press coverage and their logo on Yahoo's page. Word of mouth, along with some public speaking experiences, took them from there. So its true that if you have a good product you'll go far, but the idea that a good product will get to googleland starting from 0 with no marketing is silly. They started from a very high place.

As for IPO, you get shareholder's money, and their opinions. It makes sense to the degree that the negative effect of their opinions doesn't cancel out the positive effect of their money. In some cases, it does. Probably not here. However, now is not a good time for IPOs.

RE: Forbes.com: The Making Of A $2 Billion Brand