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Amusing
–by Andrew McCaskey
You don’t have to be truly paranoid to think that there are big things afoot that most of America is not even thinking about. You just have to follow some of the stories relating to the junction of business, technology and politics that we cover each day.There are tremendous forces at work, trying to manage this inflection point and set the stage for the next 30 years or so.
It’s not unusual, of course, to have industry groups or politicos pushing for advantage or seeking justice with a thumb on the scale. What strikes me, though, is the lack of subtlety in their approach.
Whether the latest news concerns blocking VoIP calls, telcos lobbying against community WiFi, the gradual death of material moving into public domain, or tiered service levels it is all indicative of power making its move.
It looks like there is little need for stealth - when most of the attention is either directed elsewhere in an organized manner, much like the magician’s re-direction by glance or gesture. I need to dig out the book by Neil Postman from about ten years ago – maybe twenty. He talked about a future where distractions and pleasures were the actual means whereby freedom was lost.
It was called “Amusing Ourselves to Death” .
The preface to the book gives a good idea of the basic premise, and specific comments on television. (Remember, this was in the early 1980′s .. the hundred channel universe was not yet revealed )
A more lengthy summary is found at WikiPedia.
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Interactive Touchscreen Demo: a video of a really cool touchscreen interface – about ten times better than the Bill Gates demo at CES. Hard to describe, about three minutes long.
Hope that you will be able to have a look at the Wombat Page at the SDR site The WOM Badge is a new way for bloggers to tag and display a badge of other blogs or podcasts. Ranging in size from the discrete Podcast411 to the Bumper Sticker from Libsyn, they are are kind of fun -and if you have a badge from WordofBlog.net let me know and I’ll be glad to add it.
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Now a really useful guide to Fixing Windows with Knoppix has appeared online, a reprint of a chapter in the book Hacking Knoppix from Scott Granneman . You might want to plan ahead, print out the chapter and put it alongside a fresh burn of Knoppix STD when you get the call.
I came across Google SMS again today- a way to pull all sorts of useful stuff from Google with the fast SMS from your cellphone.
Be sure to sign up for our upcoming roundtable. We will be using GoToMeeting. Also, be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techroundtable.
If you happen to own a Motorola ROKR or RAZR, Nokia 6620, 6630, 6683, or the Sony Ericsson k700, s710 or k750i, check out the Melodeo Mobilcast cell phone podcast player. .
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