Category Archives: Economics

A fun twist on tiered internet, or, is Microsoft paying for this?

It’s coming to light that Comcast appears to be interfering with Lotus Notes traffic, in addition to other packet types. This isn’t surprising and is perfectly in line with a company that wants a tiered internet so people “don’t get … Continue reading

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EMI to embrace digital?

I love to bash EMI because they were at the forefront of corporate attempts at stifling the interactions and subsequent creative possibilities in a networked world when they forced OLGA off the net in 1996. There’s no coincidence between Radiohead’s … Continue reading

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NW Solar

A couple weeks ago I went to the NW Solar Expo in Portland. I was really struck by how solar is a commercial reality today. The expo was all about how to get solar electric or water heating today. It … Continue reading

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AT&T Demonstrates The Value of Net-Neutrality

This weekend the geek press is all over new terms of service AT&T has rolled out which basically say they will cancel your connectivity if you use it to do anything on the net which they deem disparages their company. … Continue reading

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Multicore programming helpers

It still sticks out in my head that I had a professor in the mid-90s who was talking about programming and threading and asserted that practically nobody in the world knew how to write multithreaded code. At the time I … Continue reading

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Fair use supports the economy

Arguably from the Department of You Can Fund A Study To Prove Whatever You Want, but there is now a study claiming that fair use not just adds economic value, but actually adds more to the economy than copyright! Maybe … Continue reading

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What will November property taxes do to the “mortgage crisis”?

I realised today that I forgot to pay for my house this month. Oops! I hadn’t set up a direct debit when I refinanced earlier this year because my bank had said they were changing their online payment and mortgage … Continue reading

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EMI content DRM free on iTunes

If the press release were dated a day earlier I’d have been sure it was a joke. But it appears the anti-market EMI corporation may be the first major to start getting with the digital future. It might still be … Continue reading

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Apple/Jobs on uselessness of DRM

I was surprised to stumble on this today. The actual write-up is a good read…thoughtful and written in a way I’d expect a large portion of Apple’s critics (eg: esp. the techno-illiterate politicians) as well as their customers to be … Continue reading

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Openness and good customer service

I got a Sears Craftsman router a while back and have been quite happy with it. And I’ve bought a Porter Cable dovetail jig. It turns out though that there is no open standard for router bushing guides. So my … Continue reading

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