Humans will 'sail to the stars'. Scientists present new ideas for the future exploration of planets that circle far-away stars. [BBC News: sci/tech]

The solar sail and a whole lot more. I especially like the thoughts at the end on the ways that the travellers would differ from those who stayed on earth after a 500 year period.

8:52:12 AM    

FCC Rewards Phone Monopolies [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

This is an incredibly bad thing, especially in light of how Europe is threatening to force carriers to open up their "last mile." The only alternate solution is if a two way wireless broadband system comes to light soon.

Bad move by the FCC.

8:42:52 AM    

Content management, security top 2002 IT shopping lists [IDG InfoWorld]

I once worked for a company that had to have certain information in every files that was to be put out to the public. Boilerplate, but specific to what was on the materials that the world could see.

Unfortunately, the folks in charge of approving the text would bounce your files back to you, telling you to append your file after a two to five day approval proccess.  A better practice would have been putting said boilerplate up on the network so that everyone could grab what they required buffet style, speeding the approval proccess and helping insure that information was delivered on time.

The point: By sharing knowledge everyone benefits. Keeping secrets maintains the seperate feifdoms that tend to develop in corporations, which is never a good thing.

8:36:53 AM