Book Reviews


[Day Permalink] Wednesday, December 7, 2005

[Item Permalink] New book reviews -- Comment()
I published here four new book reviews (written in Finnish): These are all published in the Tietoyhteys magazine.


[Item Permalink]  -- Comment()
Preventing DVD Playback on Linux Like Prohibition in the 1920's: "Prohibition of alcohol (1920-33) in the US failed. People thought it would reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and ghettos, improve health and hygiene. It was a miserable failure on all counts. It affirms the economic theory, which predicts that prevention of mutually beneficial exchanges fails."


[Item Permalink] Linux, Finland and who is the most competitive -- Comment()
The only thing worse than flying is open source code. "The only thing as goat-rendering awful as flying has to be the progression of open source code. [...] I'm not sure the US can take 10 more years of this and remain a productive nation. [...] I'll leave you with one thought. Finns are socialists. Linus Torvalds is Finnish. Linus Torvalds got here on an airplane."

Contrast this view with the fact that Finland is rated as the most competitive economy in the world: "The survey of growth competitiveness published at the end of October was the second in succession that ranked Finland as the world's best economy ahead of the United States, Sweden, Denmark and Taiwan. [...] And in the WEF's survey of business competitiveness, Finland was also placed in first position this year, having come second in 2002."


[Item Permalink] Al Gore and who invented the internet -- Comment()
When someone is labeled a liar, all news connected to him or her are interpreted according to the "liar" schema. Thus this is a powerful weapon in the hands of political spin doctors.

I bought the "Al Gore is a liar" schema, and didn't think even for a second that perhaps a) Al Gore never said so, and b) perhaps Al Gore really influenced the birth of internet.

Al Gore "invented the Internet" contains among others the following quote: "... we study an example where Al Gore was falsely attributed with saying that he "invented the internet." We show that the false version of Gore's statement dominated the true one in mainstream political discourse by a wide margin. This is a clear failure in the marketplace of ideas, which we document in detail."


[Item Permalink]  -- Comment()
Wikipedia in podcasting turf war: "Former MTV veejay and podcasting entrepreneur Adam Curry appears to have been caught anonymously editing the podcasting entry on Wikipedia to remove credit from other people and inflate his role in its creation."