Our good Senators may soon try to force Hollywood’s broadcast flag on us, via “piggybacking on a Commerce Committee reconciliation” bill, due 10/26/2005. I wonder if our Senators, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl will do the right thing for Wisconsin residents, or simply slide up to the bar with the Hollywood types? Click on the links above and tell our Senators to stop supporting Hollywood power grabs to the detriment of our fair use rights.
Yearly Archives: 2005
Wisconsin Grocers to Roll Out Online Grocery Service
Following in the footsteps of defunct webvan as well as Sentry Hilldale’s ongoing web shopping service, Sheboygan based Fresh Brands will rollout online grocery services starting 10/10.
Broadband: Falling Farther Behind
UK citizens can now order 24mbps broadband for about $43/month. These speeds are 60 to 40 times as fast as those available in Madison, at similar prices.
Municipalities to Spend over $700M the next 3 years on Wireless
Muniwireless’s latest report is out on the scale and composition of the municipal wireless broadband market: This latest report states that $700 million will be spent on muniwireless over the next three years in the U.S., with $400 million spent in 2007 alone. Esme Vos, operator of Muniwireless.com and the organizer of the MuniWireless 2005 conference this week in San Francisco, writes that the growth of networks is irrespective of the size of the town or city. As is often overlooked, public safety operations remain the number one application for these networks, despite the focus on public-access broadband for free or fee.
Sigur Ros Orpheum Roundup
Kristian Knutsen nicely rounds up the local blogosphere’s review of Friday’s sold-out Sigur Ros performance at the Orpheum:
The Daily Page, unlike many others, was lucky enough to attend the Sigur Rós show last Friday night. Sold out some two weeks in advance, the concert (previewed in last week’s edition of Isthmus) was held at the Orpheum Theatre on State. The line for the general admission show began forming in the late afternoon and eventually wrapped around the corner of E. Johnson St.
Bill Would Permit DNA Collection From All Those Arrested
Suspects arrested or detained by federal authorities could be forced to provide samples of their DNA that would be recorded in a central database under a provision of a Senate bill to expand government collection of personal data.
The controversial measure was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week and is supported by the White House, but has not gone to the floor for a vote. It goes beyond current law, which allows federal authorities to collect and record samples of DNA only from those convicted of crimes. The data are stored in an FBI-maintained national registry that law enforcement officials use to aid investigations, by comparing DNA from criminals with evidence found at crime scenes.
Senators Continue to Beat the Stock Market – And Us
Professor Bainbridge on Senator Bill Frist’s HCA stock sale – two weeks before a disappointing earnings announcement which caused the stock to fall 15%. I’ve noted before that a recent study demonstrated that Senators beat the market 12%, while corporate insiders are 5% better than the market and the typical US household underperforms. Unsurprisingly, the SEC is NOT investigating this interesting fact.
Country Collectors
The fact that news of this probably has never reached you attests to what an impossibly distant and godforsaken place Bouvet Island is. Only a few dozen humans have ever left their footprints on it, and it’s a safe bet most of them would happily have passed on the honor.
But there is a small and obsessive group of people scheming, plotting, cajoling and ultimately trying to buy their way there. They are known as country collectors, and they spend their lifetimes journeying to the farthest and most obscure reaches of the globe, from Abkhazia to Umm Al Qaiwain, filling their passports with rare and exotic stamps. Bouvet Island is to them what Everest is to peak baggers, what the British Guiana 1c magenta is to philatelists, what the Apple Tree Girl 141X is to collectors of Hummel figurines.
Only a tiny handful of country collectors — precisely eight by one estimate, “not quite 20” by another — have ever managed to cross Bouvet off their lists. The most recent is a 40-year-old dot-com millionaire from San Francisco, Charles Veley, and he believes this, along with all his other peregrinations, qualifies him as the most well-traveled person in the history of the world.
The Art of Selling
Ben Stein writes well about the Art of Selling, and a good salesperson truly practices art:
In other words, align your interests with those of the buyer. Don’t try to shove something down his throat. Don’t try to hoodwink him. Just listen to what he needs and wants, see if you have the good or service he needs and wants and then arrange to make it easy to buy. Make sure that the buyer is a real buyer with a real need, a real timetable to buy and the real means to buy. Then satisfy that need.
It is also important to be a friend to your buyer. In fact, I observe that almost all success in life comes down to being a friend to someone: a friend to the voter, a friend to the judge, a friend to your spouse, a friend to the client, a friend to your parents. As Miller said so aptly, you have to not just be liked, but “well liked.”
Wisconsin vs. Michigan
Other things to watch: Will Brian Calhoun, who has been stellar in UW’s first three games, run well against Michigan’s bigger, tougher and more experienced defense? And will the UW offense unveil the rumored wrinkles that allegedly include splitting Calhoun out wide at receiver on some plays? Will John Stocco continue in the tradition of UW quarterbacks that do just enough to win, but never quite enough to earn respect, let alone love, from Badger fans? And will the kicking game, a sore spot for Wisconsin in recent years, continue to perform ably in a game that might be determined by special teams?
The Michigan Daily forecasts a Wolverine victory 28-24.