18 June 2002

Telecom Outlook: First the Bad News, Then the Bad News. In light of a wave of bad news last week, some analysts say the telecommunications industry's problems could become worse before they become better. [New York Times: Technology]

WOD: TANSTAAFL TANSTAAFL /tan'stah-fl/ From TUXEDO.org -- [acronym, from Robert Heinlein's classic SF novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".] "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked when someone is balking at the prospect of using an unpleasantly heavyweight technique, or at the poor quality of some piece of software, or at the signal-to-noise ratio of unmoderated Usenet newsgroups. "What? Don't tell me I have to implement a database back end to get my address book program to work!" "Well, TANSTAAFL you know."

We're Broke. The Economics of a Web Community KURO5HIN.org -- When facing the reality of going offline for lack of funds, Rusty the K5 founder writes "Advertising is not a means of supporting media. Media is an excuse for presenting advertising."

Disney Does Linux NYT: Disney Shifting to Linux for Film Animation. The Walt Disney Company, the doyen of animation studios, is joining Hollywood's embrace of a technological upstart - the GNU Linux operating system. [New York Times: Technology]