news from the web

Interesting article by Charlie Demerjian about the shift in the IT industry away from Microsoft and toward Open Source: The IT industry is shifting away from Microsoft Every so often, there is a big shift in an industry. The shifts are not usually visible until long after they’ve happened, making you look back and say: “Oh yeah, things were different back then”. Interesting analysis about what is making the market start to shift away from Microsoft and its products.

On his own website – brucespringsteen.net, Bruce speaks up about the treatment the Dixie Chicks have received after openly opposing the war against Iraq. He writes: The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they’re terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American. The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce

Slate : The Bush Doctrine: War without anyone’s permission. By Michael Kinsley […] Bush is asserting the right of the United States to attack any country that may be a threat to it in five years. And the right of the United States to evaluate that risk and respond in its sole discretion. And the right of the president to make that decision on behalf of the United States in his sole discretion. In short, the president can start a war against anyone at any time, and no one has

Times Online: Shooting the messenger: lawyer arrested over anti-war T-shirt POLICE have arrested a 60-year-old lawyer wearing a T-shirt saying “Give Peace A Chance”. A judge charged Stephen Downs with trespassing after he politely declined to leave the Crossgates Mall in a suburb of Albany, New York State, on Monday evening, or remove his top, which he had had printed there. Mr Downs pleaded not guilty and cited his right to free speech. He could face up to a year in prison. His son, Roger, 31, avoided arrest by removing

Wired writes about fetishists that really love their Macs and links to a very interesting/disturbing archive of soft porn Mac desktop images: Mac Desktop Pictures : Erotics Desktop

About a month after her initial article (that was actually written in may 2002), Janis has written an equally interesting article: FALLOUT – a follow up to The Internet Debacle Its nice to see all the reactions she got, and it seems like most people agree with her. She got over 2000 e-mails, and only 9 disagreed – of which she was able to sway 5. See my previous posting about her article. [Via Dave Winer]

I am sorry, but I have a hard time taking serious the bill proposal from Californian congressman Howard Berman that would give the entertainment industry the right to hack computers and networks to stop people from downloading music and movies off the Internet. What has he been smoking? Before the ridiculous no-linking cases in European courts, I would have said it couldn’t have happened anywhere else than America. Wired News has an interesting article that highlights the “dark side” of the hacking bill. The way the bill is written it

I saw this on friday and couldn’t belive my eyes, and I have been using the time since I saw the news about the Danish Court decision to make a pre-luminary injunction against the search engine Newsbooster.com for the use of direct linking to try to find words of how stupid I think the whole thing is. I am afraid I need to resort to using bad language to state how it makes me feel. Its fucking stupid. Its ignorant, it screams of ignorance to how the web really works.

Janis Ian writes an alternative perception of the music industry and their “problems” with peer-to-peer networks: If you think about it, the music industry should be rejoicing at this new technological advance! Here’s a fool-proof way to deliver music to millions who might otherwise would never purchase a CD in a store. The cross-marketing opportunities are unbelievable. It’s instantaneous, costs are minimal, shipping non-existant?a staggering vehicle for higher earnings and lower costs. Instead, they’re running around like chickens with their heads cut off, bleeding on everyone and making no sense.

In case you haven’t heard about it. Lets first start with the marketing hype about this new concept from Redmond: Palladium is intended to become a new platform for a host of yet-unimagined services to enable privacy, commerce and entertainment in the coming decades. “This isn’t just about solving problems, but expanding new realms of possibilities in the way people live and work with computers,” says product manager Mario Juarez. After reading that article (on MSNBC), I think the two url’s Doc Searls provide today are interesting reading. The Register