Winning the Peace, Part 2. WINNING THE PEACE, PART 2....Glenn Reynolds has a long post today about the need for patience in assessing how we're doing in postwar Iraq:I think it's very important that we work at it, and I think it's ironic that some... [CalPundit]

Some things to think about before we turn our attention to other matters (or have them turned for us). I forget when the last time Iraq was on the front page of the Seattle Times. Today we had more on the continuing Boeing shakedown of the state, increases in local HIV cases,Sosa's corked bat and Hilary's new boo. Al important news I am sure but a real indication that international events are not all that important right now.  9:43:40 AM    

Microsoft Prepares Alternative To Apple iTunes. FuzzyBlog points to Slashdot on iTunes versus the new Microsoft Music Store:

CD: $10.
Song from iTunes: $0.99
Not paying a cent to Microsoft: Priceless

[Universal Rule]

My mom will like this one. But MS seems to be reverting to its monopolistic form so this may not be funny in a few years. It could just be a memory.  9:37:29 AM    

Alfred E. Wiggam. "A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time." [Quotes of the Day]

Samuel Goldwyn. "Television has raised writing to a new low." [Quotes of the Day]

Christopher Morley. "My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed." [Quotes of the Day]

Richard Feynman. "There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers." [Quotes of the Day]

Abraham Lincoln. "If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?" [Quotes of the Day]

A multitude of quotes for interesting times. WHo knew that Lincoln and Feynman would be so relevant.  9:14:38 AM    

Bloggers Report Alt News From G8. News from inside the protests at this year's G8 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, reached the world quickly by way of on-the-spot bloggers. Offering an alternative to mainstream press coverage, some sites uploaded photos from demonstrators' Web-enabled phones. By Elisa Batista. [Wired News]

The article provided one way we can keep tabs on what authorities do. Video-enabled phones will allow pictures to be rapidly uploaded to the internet. Potentially hundreds of views of the same event will help provide a better view than just one. This is where the bottom up approach can defeat the consolidation of viewpoint that is occurring in the world. I wonder what the authorities' response will be? Shut down cell phones? the Internet? It will be interesting?  9:08:28 AM    

Smartcams Take Aim at Terrorists. The Defense Department wants to redirect intelligent video cameras, or DIVAs, from preventing traffic jams to fighting terrorism. The project's director anticipates the system will be a reality by this time next year. By Kari L. Dean. [Wired News]

One major problem I see with this is that people's liberties will be determined by how good the software running these cameras. Like voting software, who vets these to make sure that there are not huge problems (i.e. targeting minorities for special attention; backdoors. etc.). You know that there will mission creep from this so that instead of finding terrorists, it will target almost anything that the authorities decide it will. I would like this if we could also have access to the technology to watch our own government. But that will never happen.  9:03:07 AM    

Girls Teach Teen Cyber Gab To FBI Agents. Back when I was in high school, my after school jobs involved delivering newspapers and serving bagels. Three junior high school girls already have a much more exciting after school job. They're teaching FBI agents how to chat online like teenagers. As the FBI continues to try to track down online pedophiles they need to appear like realistic 13-year-olds online. As much as they thought they were up to date on the latest teen pop culture, it turns out that they were a bit behind the times. Amusingly, some of the agents sounded quite disappointed to find out just how uncool they really were. One of the girls' father is an FBI agent in the group, and realized they need the girls' help after watching her instant message online using terms and phrases that were completely unfamiliar to him. [Techdirt]

I, too, am glad to find out that pos means 'parent over shoulder'. I thought it meant something else.   8:45:18 AM    

First Net-schooled Lawyers Pass The Bar. Back in November we had an article about the first graduating class from Concord law school - the first entirely online law school. The question at that time was how well would the students do on the bar exam. The results are now in. 10 students from the graduating class took the California Bar (the only state bar that would let the students from such a non-ABA-accredited university take the exam) and six of them passed. All in all, that compares favorably with the overall performance - where just over 50% passed the exam. While some have snickered at the idea of going to law school online, those who made it through seem quite thrilled with the overall experience. They say that, contrary to popular opinion, their class was quite social - using instant messaging, email, and phone conversations to stay in touch and help each other out. Also, while some people are saying that having a degree from such a school will not reflect well on them in a job search, most of these students don't care. They didn't go to Concord to follow the traditional lawyer path. Most of them did so in order to further advance their career path at their current non-lawyer job. It will be interesting to see if this "success" story will make some soften their stance towards online education for legal training. [Techdirt]

I find this fascinating for several reasons. First, that only California would allow them to take the bar exams. Says something about the ability of lawyers to limit access to their profession. Second, doing as well as they did for an online course is great. Such onlines course open access to a huge number of people, increasing the diversity of viewpoint. It will be interesting to see what sorts of careers these people pursue. Could there actually be areas where more lawyers with more diverse points of view are needed? We could see. But the final thing I liked was how the students found ways to carry on social interactions. This is a crucial aspect for any online classes. WIthout social interactions, learning is hampered.  8:39:27 AM    

AOL Subscriber Defections Continue, Topping 1 Million. There was a period during the mid-nineties when you could track the growing popularity of the internet by seeing how quickly it took for AOL to put out a press release announcing that they had signed up "yet another" million customers. They started coming quicker and quicker. Somehow, I get the feeling that AOL won't be doing much to promote the same milestones on the way back down. A new report says that the defections from AOL's dialup service have continued to grow, to the point where more than 1 million subscribers have ditched the service for greener pastures. It appears that AOL is getting beaten up from the top and the bottom. Many are leaving to sign up with broadband providers (since AOL did their best to ignore that market for as long as they possibly could). Others are realizing that they can pay less than half what they're paying AOL to get online with discount providers like United Online. In both cases, people are discovering that the "walled garden" content that is only available to AOL subscribers just isn't worth it. [Techdirt]

Is AOL/Time Warner now a failing business model? How does MSN fit into this? WIll AOL/Time Warner go running to the government to get some sort of fix on the Internet to preserve its business?I love the comment that the content AOL provides may not be worth it. This is a decision I made 6 years ago. The cost for AOL made no sense when I saw how much I could get via the Internet. There was nothing compelling that made it worth paying for AOL.  8:32:28 AM