Posts from — September 2003

More on Structural Changes. Tim Oren, a VC, in California: Eating the Valley's seed corn, describes some of the structural changes in engineering staffing.

For the startups that I deal with, the idea of having a chunk of the engineering overseas is already routine. If we see a plan with engineering in India, China or … [Onto Something Good]

academic job hunting is like hunting season for turkeys, only you are given a blindfold, a slingshot, and a turkey call, you can guess the outcome.

The new cartography. Social borders have their own sort of cartographies.- David Harvey, Justice, Nature & the Geography of Distance, 1996, p. 282…. [Blog de Halavais]

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I think this is somewhat the same idea as Georg Simmel had in his book on metropolitan life. It is a classic insight and one that I've found very useful in many discussions.

Latest news on World Summit on the Information Society.

The latest E-Flash relating to the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (organized by the ITU) is available with links to WSIS documents for the upcoming Third Meeting of the Preparatory Committee for WSIS (PrepCom3), Geneva 15 – 26 September 2003. This meeting will attempt to finalize the working documents for the Summit which includes the draft Declaration of Principles and the revised Action Plan. 

The inventor of the worldwide web, Tim Berners-Lee, will participate in The Role of Science in the Information Society conference which will be held in conjunction with WSIS on 8-9 December.

[ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

Privacy and Human Rights 2003.

Today, EPIC & Privacy International launch ‘Privacy and Human Rights 2003, an international survey of privacy laws and developments’. It is a meaty tome that summarises developments in privacy law and policy in 55 countries during the past year.

There’ll be a webcast of today’s launch at the National Press Club (1300 ET) on the EPIC home page.

[Crooked Timber]

Privacy is important even though it is socially constructed and seems to be highly disputed as a category

Italy forbids unsolicited email. “Sending e-mails without the permission of the receiver is against the law in Italy. Offenders now risk fines of up to 90,000 euros and between six months and three years in prison, if it is proved that they did it… [InternetPolicy.net]

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somebody had to do it, now to get an italian isp.

Debunking IPv6 Myths.

Geoff Huston has written an opinion piece in the Internet Protocol Journal debunking myths about IPv6.

[ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

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This is an interesting and somewhat insightful paper that brings to light some of the questions we should ask about technological implementations.

PHILOSOPHY LESSON. An oldie but goodie received from an old friend via e-mail: A professor stood before his Philosophy 101 class and had some items in front… [OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY]

GUI vs. CLI: A Qualitative Comparison. 4 Sep 2003: In this article, I will be analyzing the specific properties that make the command line unique and irreplaceable. I will likewise analyze the graphical UI's features–though only giving it a cursory look, since I assume my audience does not need to be persuaded to make the most of its video hardware. I will be looking at the Unix shell, since it is the most full-featured and powerful of such interfaces (DOS, of course, had very few features worth talking about; it must be given its due, tho [RootPrompt.org -- Nothing but Unix]

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more dissertation related stuff is good

Library Association shares RIAA's lawfirm [bOing bOing]

this is somewhat worrisome, they are getting the same sort of legal advice from one institution.