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Monday, July 19, 2004 |
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Tuesday, June 29, 2004 |
How Free Software won the hearts of hackers, capitalists, commies and academics. My friends Biella and Mako have written a good, short academic paper on how it is that "Free and Open Source Software" can be seen as tactically advantageous to big corporations, Starbucks-smashing anti-globalists, and liberal commons-oriented IP wonks.
While the money behind IBM's advertising machine makes their take on FOSS particularly visible, they hold no monopoly on the interpretation of FOSS's meaning and importance. This is evidenced by the extensive use of FOSS as an iconic tactic by leftist activists around the world. Also bearing a three letter acronym, the Independent Media Centers (IMC) are a socio-political project whose mission and spirit are completely contrary to the goals of a large corporation like IBM. Link (Thanks, Biella!) [Boing Boing]
7:41:57 AM 
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Friday, June 25, 2004 |
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Thursday, June 24, 2004 |
Schneier: More police power = less security. Bruce Schneier's just published a fantastic editorial about how expanded police powers make us less secure:
The United States is admired throughout the world because of our freedoms and our liberties. The very rights that are being discussed within the halls of the Supreme Court are the rights that keep us all safe and secure. The more our fight against terrorism is conducted within the confines of law, the more it gives consideration to the principles of fair and open trial, due process and "innocent until proven guilty," the safer we all are.
Unchecked police and military power is a security threat -- just as important a threat as unchecked terrorism. There is no reason to sacrifice the former to obtain the latter, and there are very good reasons not to. Link (Thanks, Bruce!) [Boing Boing]
9:44:05 PM
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Thursday, May 13, 2004 |
MP3 interview with security expert Bruce Schneier. Amazing interview (available as a text transcript or audio file) with security guru Bruce Schneier, who really should be hired to run Homeland Security.
Doug Kaye: Now a recurring concept in your book is probably typified by this example: “A terrorist who wants to create havoc will not be deterred by airline security; he will simply switch to another attack and bomb a shopping mall.”
Bruce Schneier: This is, I think, really important. I just did a hearing two days ago on Capitol Hill about CAPS II, about airline profiling, and one of the things I’m always struck with is how good we are at defending against what the terrorists did last year. We’re spending a lot of money shoring up our airlines, we’re now talking about shoring up trains. And money that we spend that simply causes the bad guys to change their tactics is money wasted.
You have a red and a blue door, and the terrorists go through the red door, and you say, “We must secure the red door,” so they go through the blue door the next time. What did you actually buy? Link [Boing Boing]
5:29:18 PM
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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 |
Intel IT manager simulation simulates sexist workplace assumptions, too. Amy sez, "Intel has a game on their website called 'The Intel IT Manager Game - The simulation of an IT department.' It's supposed to simulate the tasks of an IT manager, including hiring new people. But guess what? All of the characters are male! You couldn't even hire a woman if you tried, because there are no female characters!! Link (Thanks, Amy!) [Boing Boing]
10:58:42 AM
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Why MySQL Grew So Fast. jpkunst writes "Andy Oram, who attended the MySQL Users Conference which was held April 16-18 in Orlando, Florida, attempts to explain MySQL's popularity in ... [Slashdot]
10:57:21 AM
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Saturday, March 20, 2004 |
© Copyright 2004 John Finnerty.
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