William Mitchell, the head of the MIT Media Lab media arts and sciences, has written a book, "Me++"

] Me++ describes the move from virtual reality - the old
] 90s idea of the net as a separate, alternative realm - to
] "augmented reality" (AR), in which ubiquitous computing
] and mobile wireless networks are used to reconnect us to
] the real world.
]
] Mitchell muses on how AR will change our sense of our
] selves. Me++ is "a play on C++, the popular programming
] language. Among programmers,++ means incremented or
] extended, so Me++ suggests the computationally extended
] self." He suggests we should no longer think of ourselves
] as "fixed, discrete individuals", but as nodes in a
] network. "I am part of the networks and the networks are
] part of me. I am visible to Google. I link, therefore I
] am."

"I link, therfore I am," has resonance for MemeStreams.

Guardian Unlimited | Online | I link, therefore I am

] Despite the rivalry, Microsoft is keen to talk up its
] love for the competition, One Microsoft employee even
] went so far as to say Linux having a 50 percent market
] share would be good for Microsoft. "At least if Linux
] takes off, their viruses will propagate and we won't
] be seen as the bad guys any more," he said. Tipp
] equally sees advantages to Linux taking off. "We think
] Linux is great," he said, adding that competition from
] the penguin and associates keeps the Microsoft on its
] toes.
]
]
] Open-source users, however, aren't quite so overflowing
] with praise, he said. "We haven't talked to a single user
] who has said they're using [open source] because it's
] better."

hm, thoughts on this?

what products are actually better in OSS than their proprietary counterparts? does it all come down to price/performance?

i certainly believe that OSS is better insofar as it provides variety and choice, among other reasons, but is an OSS database system ever gonna truly compete with Oracle, DB2, or Sybase, for example? (I'm not indicating that they don't -- i know nothing about dbase performance rankings -- it's a real question).

Presumably it all comes down to your definition of better. Price/performance is one factor. as i've aged and spent days and years of my life with computers of all kinds, i've reached a point where ease and reliability are more critical than cost, motivating me away from linux for day-to-day activity. but i won't be buying an XServe for my mp3 collection anytime soon, which i guess puts me into the class of user where linux is a development and lightweight server platform.

anyone else have thoughts on this? or on what microsoft can learn from OSS?

ZDNet UK - News - Microsoft: 'We should learn from open source'

] Pornographer Larry Flynt says he bought nude photos of
] Pfc. Jessica Lynch to publish in Hustler magazine, but
] changed his mind because she's a "good kid" who became "a
] pawn for the government."

People don't give Flynt enough credit (sometimes). Is it funny to anyone else that "Pornographer" is a title used by the media?

CNN.com - Flynt won't publish topless Lynch photos - Nov. 11, 2003

] In other words, anyone viewing a Webcast of material that
] falls outside of copyright--such as a government-created
] documentary or a very old movie or audio recording--may
] not be able to freely store and redistribute that
] content.

Big webcasters have tipped their hand. They are now a worse threat then the RIAA. They have created an international treaty which makes it illegal to rebroadcast public domain material that someone has webcast unless the webcaster also disclaims "rights." This is unfathomable. Just like the DMCA, this law takes public domain material and makes it unavailable to the public. This isn't even about once copyrighted works not entering the public domain. This is about works that were never copyrighted being sucked out of the public domain.

Treaty could cast shadow on Webcast rights | CNET News.com

"It is the central focus of my life. America, under Bush, is a danger to the world. And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."

Soros's Deep Pockets vs. Bush

i put this under arts, because i didn't know where else it could go.

seriously, though, wow. pretty inappropriate, and it'll probly sell them a lot of copies

KRT Wire | 11/11/2003 | Hustler magazine says it has topless photos of Jessica Lynch

But let me not join the summarizers. Invest a half-hour in reading this moving exposition of the noble goal of American foreign policy.

i agree... people should read the speech. it's good, and shows that some talented writers are employed at the white house. the sticking point is, of course, that of all the good and positive things he says, few of them can be traced to the actions actually being made by the administration. as an exposition of ideals, it's fantastic, as a reference to our actually promoting, or even upholding, those ideals, it falls a little flat.

the actual speech is at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/politics/06TEXT-BUSH.html

The Age of Liberty

Looks like all the pseudo-legitimate zines are wrapping up the year's cool techmology... here's popsci's take.

Popular Science | Best of What's New 2003

TIME's take on this years dopest schwag.

Anyone surprised by the top pick : http://www.time.com/time/2003/inventions/invmusic.html ?

TIME Magazine: Coolest Inventions 2003

presumably canada has less cR4X0rz?

what do we think about this. we can't even trust our hardware based eVoting systems... are the canadians just less suspicious?

article's light on details. presumably the world standards they refer to are HTTP over SSL, but maybe not.

of course, /. is discussing it here : http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/10/1144234&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=95

London Free Press: News Section - 100,000 ballots to be cast online