“Rafael Macedo de la Concha, Mexico’s Attorney-General, now has a non-removable microchip in his arm, to track his movements and to give him access to a new crime database, according to Bloomberg. The article says that eventually around 160 Mexican officials will have a chip implanted.”
Democracy’s Decline
Today’s WSJ editorial correctly identiifes the major problem we, as a democratic society have with limited, or no ballot choices. I believe one of the reasons for this problem is the increasingly cozy ties between a concentrated media (which growing numbers of citizens are turning off) and politicians.
Cheney & Davies Award
Interesting summary by Tom Schultz on the link between Watertown’s Davies Award, the UW and controversial VP Dick Cheney.
Used book sales “threaten” the publishing business
Is Amazon.com becoming the Napster of the book business?
The analogy may not be far off, say some observers of the used-book industry. Publishers, particularly textbook publishers, have long countered used-book sales by churning out new editions every couple of years. But the Web, particularly sites like Amazon and eBay, have given millions of consumers an easy way to find cheap books – often for under $1 – without paying royalty fees to publishers or authors.
Mass-market publishers are not certain the used-book phenomenon is a problem worth addressing, but others in the industry have already made up their minds.
Buying a Car on the Internet
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I’ve summarized my recent experience shopping and buying a new used car on the internet here. Quite a change from 10 years ago.
Impressive Internet Radio Site
http://www.publicradiofan.com/ provides a very useful schedule of public radio streams around the country (and schedules). Some are in friendly mp3 format, while others lock up the audio streams in proprietary formats such as real and windows media (not very public). Via Doc Searls.
Maytag Skybox Blog
Maytag recently introduced a “personal beverage vendor”! Thinking ahead, they have a business blog devoted to the product. (the product is not for me, and has been slammed as a “product for people who can’t get off their ______ and get a cold drink in the kitchen”.
This is another example of the changing advertising and customer relationship game.
Monopolies, Microsoft & Newspapers
Barry Ritholtz nicely summarizes the monopolist’s modus operandi:
Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop — and because of that, there are certain behaviors they are legally restricted from engaging in (at least, in legal theory). Microsoft should not be able to disadvantage competitors by leveraging that monopoly in a way that restricts competition.
Search is a perfect example: By setting the default to MSN search, and making it extremely awkward to change it, they automatically become one of the top 3 players in that space. What would take any other company billions of dollars to do, they get for, oh, about nothing.
Clearly, in the case of newspapers, protected by the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970, it’s rather simple to create additional print publications, that for others would be expensive. Similarily, they can use this monopoly postion to give away advertising products & content, if necessary, to kill competition (just like Microsoft gave away Internet Explorer, to “cut off Netscape’s air supply“).
Pic du Midi VR Scenes
Gilles Vidal sends notice of a beautiful set of VR scenes from the Pyrenees: Pic du Midi.
Ditka for Senate?
Mike Ditka for Senate? Why not? 🙂 via instapundit.