Dave Winer's point about Monoculture, which I hadn't read until a few moments ago, is exactly the point that Rich and I were discussing at dinner the other night. We can't see it now, but centralization is approaching a vanishing point and then from that point the wave expands based on the collective knowledge of people who act and think independently. Dave talks about Monoculture. To me it's a "Parallax" sort of thing. Either way, we agree. Centralization, you'll always be around, but...you're going to have to take a serious cut in pay.
4:14:03 PM
We are considering a new, flashier name for our multi-author website (now "Radio for Lawyers") and I'm thinking I need to get the book for some ideas. I think there's already a blog called "UFO's ate my brain" or maybe that's the name of that new dive-bar breakfast joint down the block...I can't remember....
2:45:35 PM
Another laptop down...
Kinda eerie that Peter Drayton's penultimate blog entry was: Ouch! The guy at the lapstop station next to me just smoked his laptop. The phone connections in his country look exactly like the power connections in the Netherlands, and he just hooked his internal modem up to 230V AC :-(. [Sam Ruby]
When the chain's access provider went bankrupt, however, [Hilton Garden Inn manager] Kurre began hooking up guest rooms free of charge to the hotels' own [high speed] internal lines. The free service, which is being tested at three dozen Hilton Garden Inns, has increased the usage rate to 25 percent [from 3 percent, when the hotel charged $9.95/night]. But isn't Kurre losing money by giving away a service he once tried to sell? " I'm leaving zero revenue on the table because I'm making it back on rate and occupancy," he says. "Travelers are checking out of other hotels and coming to us and paying $5-to-$6 more a night just to get the high-speed access free." [Joe Bercantelli's Tactical Traveler]
Amen. Charge me whatever you want - just give me high speed access. I'm sick and tired of dialing up on rusted copper. I actually connected to AT&T's network this week at 12,400 baud (on a 56k modem). I wrote about this a few months ago; I'm thrilled to see that some hotels are getting creative. I haven't stayed in a non-Hilton chain hotel in nearly a year (I'm a slave to the HHonors program, where I'm a Diamond member), but I would switch allegiance in a heartbeat if it meant I could have reliable connectivity when I travel. Are any chains listening? via [tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]
And a hallelujah over from this side of the congregation, Brother Rick. Give me broadband, or give me .... well, just give me broadband please.
1:58:04 PM
"A Miami jury awarded $8 million to a woman who asked for $3.2 million in damages in a suit asserting her breast cancer spread into her bones and liver after doctors failed to notify her of the results of her early-detection mammogram test. The plaintiff's attorney, Virginia Forbes, contends that the higher verdict was the direct result of widespread anger over the managed care system." [Law.com]
11:13:11 AM
You read it here first - Blogging Fact #457
"Blogging is simply the widespread dissemination of inchoate verbalizations of neural misfirings."
- oveheard in an Instant Message conversation....
10:43:03 AM
Okay now this may be a copyright problem, and I mean it.
Dave writes today "Dude. I own Hey Pocky Way on Google. Without a doubt." [Scripting News]
Yeah, but that's a New Orleans music phrase and we would like you to return it to us as soon as possible.
10:30:36 AM
Since late April, visitors to NavyDallas.com, formerly the home page of the Navy's Dallas recruiting district, have been redirected to How-to-find-porn.com, a portal that features links to numerous hardcore pornography sites. [GigaLaw]
I think the Government should stay out of the porn business and leave it to private enterprise. This is not a job for amateurs (remember what a consumate professional the character that Burt Reynolds played in Boogie Nights was. My favorite line? When he turns to the assistant after reviewing one of those Ooh! and Ahh! scenes and harrumphs "you know this is our best work yet!")
7:40:11 AM
The FBI has ordered an Internet provider to cease distributing the unedited video of journalist Daniel Pearl being brutally murdered. FBI agents from the Newark field office told a Virginia company to delete the 4-minute video, which a customer had posted on the ogrish.com site. [GigaLaw]
I don't know .... they say that "bad facts are what make bad law" and that's almost always true where the First Amendment is involved.
7:34:19 AM
It's neither clever nor original, yet the latest variation of the Klez e-mail virus has now been declared the biggest and baddest worm in history. via [Wired News]
