] "Says cinematographer Bill Pope: “It’s going to make ‘The Fast and the Furious’ look like ‘The Slow and the Dimwitted’.”

Excellent read! Can't wait!

Make a mental note: 2003 is going to be the year of “The Matrix.”

] "The Saturday, the Hangyore newspaper in Seoul Korea
] carried a front-page article entitled, "Youth Politics of
] the IT Generation Won," on the role of network
] connectivity in the recent election. Young supporters of
] No Mu-hyon flooded the internet with e-mails and
] saturated text messaging services with calls to get out
] the vote for No Mu-hyon. The article noted claims by
] information technology columnist Sin Tong-nyo'k': that
] information and power in the mass media and
] representative democracy were in the past vested in a
] minority, but have been conferred on the majority by the
] internet."

Wow... Now South Korea is considerably more wired then the United States, so this is a window into the future.

Smart Mobs turn election in South Korea

] "Sun Microsystems Inc. (NasdaqNM:SUNW - news) won a major
] antitrust victory against Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT
] - news) on Monday when a federal judge ordered Microsoft
] to distribute Sun's Java programming language in its
] Windows operating system.

While definitely good, this is just a prelim injunction, which primarily means that the damage done to Sun if they ultimately win by not having Java included during the trial process would be worse then the damage done to Microsoft if THEY ultimately win by having to include it. Given that the trial process is going to last several years, this much should be obvious.

Sun Wins, Microsoft Ordered to Carry Java

] decius is proudly underground
] decius is an active member of the conspirators so he is very
] motivated into getting caesar to go to the senate house
] decius is a charmless rake for whom it's hard to work up much
] empathy
] decius is one of the most important aspects to the earth defense
] corps fleet
] decius is best known for his rigorous persecution of the
] christians

Googlisms for Decius

] "As the Web grows, websites continue to come up with ways
] to annoy users. Following are ten design mistakes that
] were particularly good at punishing users and costing
] site owners business in 2002."

A few good UI clues, at least two of which I'm breaking. :)

Top Ten Web-Design Mistakes of 2002 (Alertbox Dec. 2002)

] "I'll be putting up a movie every day this week: Lawrence
] Lessig, John Perry Barlow and Jack Valenti today, DJ
] Spooky Tomorrow, Brewster Khale and (mini-brewster),
] Craig Newmark, Aaron Swartz and Vicki Bennett as the week
] goes on..."

At this point the Intellectual Property problem is almost a dead horse. People talk and talk and talk and talk about WHAT the problem is, and usually they don't say anything that Mitch Kapor didn't say in 1990, or that wasn't obvious then GNU started in the early 80s. But they still have to explain it over and over and over because it continues to be a problem or because they are fund raising.

Someday someone is going to actually have something NEW to say about it. I any event, if these people were getting together to speak on any other issue I might be quite interested in it. Right now I'm half sure. I haven't heard any of it yet. There are certainly some smart folks here, and otherwise it would likely cost thousands to hear them all speak at the same show...

On Lisa Rein's Radar: Lessig, Barlow, Valenti at Creative Commons Launch

] "Taiwan's situation differs from that of Hong Kong in
] precisely this manner -- that if the government is seen
] by the people of Taiwan to be using its powers in a
] heavy-handed manner, those people have the right to boot
] that government out of office. The people of Hong Kong do
] not have that right. Taiwan's government is answerable to
] the people of Taiwan. Hong Kong's government is
] answerable to fewer than a dozen men in Beijing. And
] that's it, really... All you have to know is that the
] Taiwan legislation is made within a political system
] where the governed can, if they wish, force change upon
] those who govern them. The Hong Kong legislation isn't."

Hong Kong is about to pass a law that would make certain forms of peaceful protest serious crimes (life inprisonment) and that would make it illegal to associate with forgieners for political reasons.

There are many articles out there on this; I pick this article because of the many paradoxes it represents.

16,000 people marching in support of restrictions to their right to march for things. The fact that this represents a democratic discourse in an un-democratic land. A democratic land in which a democratic government creates similar restrictions, arguing that its ok because they are a democracy. The fact that I agree, and feel like its ok for Taipei the prevent financial influence from China, but its not ok for Hong Kong to prevent intellectual influence from me.

Hong Kong to oust forgien political groups, restrict 'sedition'

It is often useful to look at the world through someone else's glasses. These are journalists talking about the changes their profession faces. Conclusions are few and far between, but its the perspective thats interesting.

They seem to have a quaint, old fashioned, comic booky view of their profession as the "fourth" branch of the federal government... Brave journalists telling the people what the powers that be don't want them to know... They do seem to realise that their real job is to create and crucify exagerated caricatures of people for the entertainment of the masses. They do seem to lament this, but they don't understand... In fact, as they lament it, they color their prose with the sort of meandering emotional contextualization that is the hallmark of newspaper non-non-fiction.

Anyway, I found it a good sounding board for ideas about the development of the Internet. Putting yourself in someone elses shoes is a great way to see your own ideas in a different light.

American Journalism Review

] "We ought not to let pass unnoticed the impending 20th
] anniversary of the Internet. The most logical date of
] origin of the Internet is January 1, 1983, when the
] ARPANET officially switched from the NCP protocol to
] TCP/IP."

[IP] The 20th anniversary of the Internet

] "Efforts to bolster Internet security will not lead to
] increased government scrutiny of individuals' online
] habits, the White House and industry sources said on
] Friday."

[IP] White House Claims Web Security Plan Won't Invade Privacy