AOL does something smart for once
AOL is doing something smart: picking up talents during recession
"David Weir writes on Bnet that the thousands of journalists being let go from newspapers, magazines, and television networks have increasingly been showing up on AOL's payroll — over 1,500 in the last eighteen months — a number AOL expects to double or even triple over the coming year. 'Over time, talent is a fixed cost,' says Marty Moe, Senior Vice-President of AOL Media. 'You can syndicate it, distribute it as you scale. Furthermore, we are already the largest branded content company in the US, with an audience of 75 million domestic uniques. At our size, we can leverage the cost of our publishing and content management systems along with the talent and make the whole thing do-able on an advertising model.' Weir writes that AOL's turnaround started three years ago via the acquisition of Weblogs, Inc., and its set of branded verticals, including Engadget in technology, Autoblog covering the auto industry, and Joystiq covering gaming."
Assuming that they can afford a long-term strategy, this sounds like a good long-term strategy as long as they can make sure that they are hiring talents at ... appropriate salaries (i.e. slackers for slacker salary, and the rare geniuses at recession bargain salary).
Too bad AOL and Time Warner hasn't split ties yet—it doesn't look like I can buy AOL stock without investing in that detestable TIME magazine.
Idea: dead man’s post
I am sure someone else had this idea before, too. But since I haven't read anything written by that someone, I'd like to get this idea.
In the movies and TV shows (in thrillers, e.g.), the protagonist will sometimes tell the villain that killing them won't help, because he sent a letter to his lawyer (or the media) instructing them to open it upon his death.
Well, today, I think there is an even better (and far less costly) method to do the same thing: dead man's blog post.
See, blogging softwares like Wordpress allows you to set the publication time. It can be in the future, and it can be in the past. Most of the times, I set it to "publish immediately". So you see where I am getting at.
I can write a post containing everything I want to get off my chest in the event of my death, set it to be published at some future date (say, a month or two weeks from now) and keep changing the publishing date to the future every few weeks or so. The moment you are unable to do that (either because you are dead or incapacitated), the post will be on a ticking clock to publication. (This idea, of course, will need improvements to counter various moves fascists can make to diffuse the time bomb, but I won't list it here.)
At the moment, I don't think I have any use for this (I don't have any sensitive information beyond my personal passwords and financial information; and I hope no one wants to kill me yet), but, oh well. Maybe some day.
Don’t be a monopolist: the Government hates competition
On the perverse reason why FCC's involvement in Google vs. Apple is a good thing:
There's two sides to this inquiry business. Personally, I come down on the side of this being a very good thing, though admittedly perhaps for the wrong reasons. Specifically, the inquiry will hopefully lead to at least a little more transparency in how apps get approved or rejected.
The author clarifies the legitimate role of the government in this: None:
However, the flip side of this is that Apple simply doesn't owe the developers or the public anything of the sort. Currently, nobody in Cupertino seems to be breaking any actual laws. Exercising bad judgement, maybe--annoying a great deal of developers and consumers, definitely--but not doing anything they're not allowed to do by law. As Sascha Seagan of PC Magazine points out, there's no potential monopoly here, at least not right now. Apple doesn't have a majority in the smartphone market, and they're not preventing Google from continuing to sell products on other platforms. And while it would be great to have Google Voice on the iPhone, and while it doesn't make sense that it was rejected while other VOIP apps are still available, such decisions are down to Apple's business acumen and not a federal agency.
As much as I don't really like Apple (and don't trust Google deep down), I like the government even less and trust it even less. Every action taken by the government, save perhaps for punishing violent criminals, is evil. Sometimes it happens to be necessary, but it still remains evil (if not the action itself, then the fact that action had to be taken by forceful means).
It is said "That government is best which governs least". It's true everywhere (the quote is from Thomas Paine, but there is a similar story ... elsewhere about a wise king who was upset when his subjects praised him for good governing but was pleased when his subjects couldn't care less about the king—when the government works well, it should vanish from your view), and it's true throughout the course of human history. I don't see how it is no longer true now.
Privacy, the right way
As this Slashdot commenter says:
When I was looking for a lawyer, I asked them how they contacted their clients, and where their email servers were located. The guy I eventually chose as my lawyer told me he contacts clients via email, phone and IM only to arrange face to face meetings, and then walked me down the hall to the server room.
Deep down, I don't really care about feds tapping phone lines or Skype listening on my conversations. That's not because I have nothing to hide (although I do have nothing to hide—but I'll never let you prove that) or simply don't care about privacy. That's because I deeply distrust these systems, enough that if it were sensitive information, I wouldn't be sending it over these networks. Here is my motto:
"Don't put anything in writing that I am not willing to post on a public website."
"Writing", for my purposes, means putting anything in a permanent form, which includes email, any communications over digital networks, and possibly phone (it's harder to ensure that it isn't recorded than person-to-person conversation). Personal conversations taking place during a walk in the park probably qualifies as not being "writing", if I trust the person I am talking to.
And although I haven't needed a legal service so far, if I ever need it, I am going to make sure that my lawyer has the same motto, too.
P.S. It's easy to interpret techies' concern for security and privacy as paranoia and dismiss it. Well, don't. It looks like paranoia because we understand the things a villain or the government (but I repeat myself) can do with technology—many members of the public, even those who consider themselves part of the elite, are only just now coming to grips with these new technologies. This is like chemists being "paranoid" about storing ethyl ether correctly—they are "paranoid" because they know how flammable those things are and how hard it is to put out such fires.
AP trap and how to avoid it
A few days ago, Laboratorium broke a story about how AP charges for content (although supposedly not for bloggers). He argues that AP's licensing policy is absurd, whether it's for bloggers or the members of the MSM.
I agree, and I propose a solution: stop using AP's content.
Associated Press has its roots in small newspapers not wanting to pay big newspapers for their story, while still allowing them to cover non-local stories without incurring the great cost of having paid reporters all over the nation. In the case of radio (where there is a similar story about peoplo not wanting to pay a monopolist for royalty) one can say that there's no public domain or alternate sources to dip into and use that as excuse for promoting the oligopolists on radio. But, in the case of news, that shouldn't be our excuse.
With so many bloggers out there, surely there are sources of news closer to the action who haven't handed over their copyright to associated press? Heck, for heaven's sake, we can probably quote and link to news networks, at least for the stories which do not say that AP had anything to do with it.
You hate AP; I hate AP. Let's vote with our feet: stop linking to and quoting AP news. AP will be simply repeating history if it fades into background through draconian copyright enforcement with little respect to fair use or fairness in licensing.
Provocation does not equal defence of civil rights
I think Allahpundit got it wrong. Colin Powell is right, at least in this case, and I say that as a self-described libertarian. This is what Colin Powell said:
I would say, the first teaching point is when you’re faced with an officer trying to do his job and get to the bottom of something. This is not the time to get in an argument with him. I was taught that as a child. You don’t argue with a police officer. In fact, in our schools today, in order to make sure that we don’t have things escalate out of control and lead to very unfortunate situations, we tell our kids, when you’re being asked something by a police officer, being detained by a police officer, cooperate.
And this is what Allahpundit claims:
If a nationally known figure who knows his rights can’t talk back to a cop in his own home, what rights does he have, really? I’m squarely in the Hitchens and Herzog camp on this, as any libertarian should be.
Well, as a libertarian and freedom-lover, I heartily support man and women like John Gilmore who use their personal resources to fight back creeping totalitarianism. I, as an average citizen, can't personally afford to do it (I have meetings and conferences that I have to arrive on time for, so I will carry my ID and show it like an obedient little citizen, for now), but I do like and support it when those who can do.
But what this professor did wasn't for standing up for his right. If we trust the police officer's testimony, this professor was provoking the cop and wouldn't stop provoking the cop. It's like yelling "Fire!" (or "I have a bomb!") at an airport and, when the authorities arrest or detain you for disturbing the peace, getting into some absurd argument about how they are making airport a First Amendment-free zone by arresting you like this and so on. There is a line between peaceful civil disobedience, which is the most common and effective method of fighting for your civil rights as a private citizen, and deliberate and unnecessary provocation—which does and should destroy your credibility to anyone with common sense.
Here's another example that may help show that difference more clearly: strong encryption. I love encryption. I encrypt everything. My hard drive is fully encrypted once with full-drive encryption, and important documents are encrypted again within an encrypted loopback device. I wouldn't leave town without encrypting my main computing and record-keeping device. And we all know that the governments around the world wants to make strong encryption illegal. Now, in this situation, what's the best thing I can do to protect my right against self-incrimination?
Should I carry my laptop over to the customs officer, set it down, and loudly and proudly proclaim that no matter what he may try, he cannot see what's in it because the encryption is so strong no government in the world has enough computing resource to break it? Or should I be discreet and try not to show that I even have encrypted data?
I think all reasonable persons would make the same choice, given these two choices. Here is what I do: I hide my encrypted devices behind an unencrypted device. If it's an external storage device, I split it into two partitions, the first being a small, unencrypted NTFS partition, and the latter being an encrypted EXT3 partition (Windows will usually detect the first and don't even notify the user that there is a second partition). If it's a computer, I usually keep around an unencrypted partition large enough to keep a functional operating system on it (about 10 GB or so). If I am ever forced to boot up my computer and log into it, I am booted into the unencrypted decoy OS. This is not exactly steganographic encryption, but it will pass casual inspection. Perfect steganographic encryption is believed to be impossible anyway.
Time Warner Transfer Caps May Inspire Fair-Price Legislation
On Slashdot:
Time Warner's recently announced plan to expand their broadband transfer caps to new markets drew heavy criticism, which prompted their attempt to smooth things over with a ridiculously expensive "unlimited" plan. That wasn't enough for New York Representative Eric Massa, who now says he will draft legislation to "curb tiers, particularly in areas where a broadband provider owns a monopoly on service." Massa said, "Time Warner believes they can do this in Rochester, NY; Greensboro, NC; and Austin and San Antonio, Texas, and it's almost certainly just a matter of time before they attempt to overcharge all of their customers," adding, "I believe safeguards must be put in place when a business has a monopoly on a specific region."
Geez. That's because the solution to messed up government action is more government, right?
Rather than messing with the free market, granting monopolies and then using that as excuse to impose arbitrary requirements ("regulations", as they call it), why not simply take your damn hands off?
Don't grant special favors, and don't enact any socialist laws. As long as companies are not harming anyone, leave them alone.
Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division
Welcome to the web site for the Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division (DMRD), currently located in Newark, Delaware. The controversy surrounding dihydrogen monoxide has never been more widely debated, and the goal of this site is to provide an unbiased data clearinghouse and a forum for public discussion.
Explore our many Special Reports, including the DHMO FAQ, a definitive primer on the subject, plus reports on the environment, cancer, current research, and an insider exposé about the use of DHMO in the dairy industry.
Did you know that dihydrogen monoxide is responsible for global warming? In fact, gaseous forms of dihydrogen monoxide is the most abundant greenhouse gas on Earth. We shouldn't be wasting our efforts cutting carbon emission. We should be focusing our efforts in eliminating dihydrogen monoxide from Earth (and, in good time, all of the solar system, as this dangerous compound has been detected on Mars recently).
FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful
The Onion reports:
Also, being excessively cheerful wastes energy. This drug promises to help Mother Earth support larger and larger population on her limited land and resources.