Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters: “And to understand what influence our music technology can have, it helps to know what influences it has had.” A very interesting article. I’ll be curious to see tomorrow’s installment that covers Napster, etc.
Yahoo featured a site called Solarbuzz today. Looks like a site chock full of great information about solar power. Good stuff for anyone interested in clean energy or additional energy, as in the case of California. Solar Cost and Price Trends: “In 2001, a residential solar system costs about $8,000 per kWp installed.”
Yahoo - 2001 Ann Arbor Art Fairs: A New Face on an Old Favorite: “Come see for yourself from Wednesday, July 18 to Saturday, the 21st when the Fairs will once again turn the streets of Ann Arbor into a living, moving, vibrant art installation.
The largest of the three Fairs, the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair, will also have the most dramatic changes.
Read more…
Great articles on Slashdot and Salon regarding the major labels paying radio stations to play their music.
Napster users have often questioned why a CD costs $16. Courtney Love told the story of how that $16 is certainly not going to the artists. The profits of the major labels, while significant, are not so high as to imply that they are getting all of that $16. Here are the parts of the cost that seem to exist, though I’m not sure how much each one makes up:
Read more…
If you’re curious what a typical weblog article/discussion is like,
this article on kuro5hin is the only one you need to read.
In a case that is decidedly not one of preaching to the choir, Microsoft’s Craig Mundie is going to be speaking at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention. That should make for an interesting session, and I hope it’s going to be webcast.
Brent Ashley has posted some thoughts about patents and The Software Commons on his blog, following the news that NetObjects has a patent on WYSIWYG HTML editing. A few thoughts follow…
NetObjects is likely to go after large companies with large bank accounts and vast hordes of lawyers (eg, Microsoft) to try and collect on their new patents. Microsoft won’t just settle such a suit, because they have too much invested in WYSIWYG HTML (MS Word and FrontPage come to mind). They’d be a lot more likely to just buy NetObjects. The least costly solution, however, would be to dig up some prior art… and odds are that it exists.
Read more…
Yahoo - Sun defends Java platform investment: “The company says it makes money by building services and hardware systems around Java, which it manages in a semi-open process.” I’m certain that Sun has generated business as a result of Java. It has been good for them both in terms of marketing, and in terms of providing technology that enabled developers to use their systems.
Read more…
The Doomsday Algorithm is a neat diversion (or party trick, depending on your frame of mind). It helps you figure out the day of week based on the date for any month and any year. Clearly, this was created by someone (Conway) who likes finding patterns in things.
Top 200: The Rise of Corporate Global Power: “Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; only 49 are countries (based on a comparison of corporate sales and country GDPs).” This is important stuff to be aware of. In a way, every dollar you spend is a vote. If you don’t approve of how a company operates, you should vote for another company whose ideals are more like yours.
