May 2002 Archives

Tom Friedman was in town last week talking at Temple Emmanuel, and somehow, I only just now found out about it — from the Jewish Bulletin, of all places. Anyway, some of the best sound bites:The motivations of terrorists:"'People don't fly planes into buildings because they're poor...They fly planes into buildings because of a 'cognitive dissonance' that comes from severe jolts to their faith — the result of being castigated to the fringes of society [n Europe] and also by seeing so many Christians and Jews who are living more powerfully than they are as Muslims.'" Bush's "foreign policy""'Bush's initial foreign policy was "if Clinton was for it -- then I'm against it,"' an attitude Friedman said formed the crux of Bush's Middle Eastern diplomacy until Sept. 11."Sharon"I think Sharon went to Temple Mount after he realized that Netanyahu's political career had been revived. I believe that the competition between these two men has been deeply destructive for their political party and for Israel." The other interesting article was in yesterday's Washington Post and today's Chronicle, about Microsoft trying to pressure the Pentagon into dropping its use of open-source software on the grounds that it's a security risk and "un-American." Funnily enough, that's not what the government itself found when they did a study on the merits of open-source versus proprietary...if Microsoft gets its way, the terrorists have won, in my opinion. ;-)

According to this article in today's Chronicle, people tend to stay put in the Bay Area and put down roots. "Though the Bay Area has a reputation as a highly mobile place -- where new arrivals come to seek their fortune, and longtime residents get sick of the congestion and leave -- it is actually a pocket of stability compared with the rest of California, according to new census information that also shows residents are moving around less than they were 10 years ago." Not too surprising, since once you find a place to stay here, you tend to hold on to it (with teeth and claws, if necessary)

OK, not really. but these are the photos from New Orleans that Michael took.

There's so much cool stuff I can do! Like work with MySQL. (Yeah, yeah, if I learn it properly first. Still working on that.) But there's a growing number of GUI apps for it, like here...I've got my eye on SQL4x Manager.Also, now that I have AirPort access, this list of 802.11b access points may come in handy...

...According to this article in Ha'Aretz Jewish papers in Argentina are filled with ads from communities everywhere from Ecuador to Switzerland inviting them to come make their home there. (I had no idea Ireland had such a tiny Jewish community...I think if it was up to me, that's the one I'd pick!) Yet Israelis (many of whom are looking to start over elsewhere) are not welcome in many of those places because they are perceived as not contributing to the local (Diaspora) community. (Which begs the question...how can anyone believe there's a global Jewish conspriracy when we can't all stand each other!!?!)

Courtesy of Michael, this interview with Larry Lessig in BusinessWeek Online. "Think about other platforms in our lives, like the highway system. Imagine if General Motors could build the highway system such that GM trucks ran better on it than Ford trucks. Or think about the electrical grid. Imagine if a Sony TV worked better on it than a Panasonic TV. The highway and electricity grids are all neutral platforms -- a common standard that everyone builds on top of. That's an extraordinarily important feature for networks to have."And..."There are lots of solutions that would promote innovation. For example, Congress could do what it has always done -- establish a flat compulsory licensing fee [such as the one radio stations pay to music publishers for playing their songs] so that any company can compete in the marketplace. That's what Napster [the free-music sharing Web site the recording industry sued out of existence] asked Washington for all along -- a compulsory license. That could deal with 80% of the problem of existing content. But these solutions are never recognized because, while the future under perfect competition would produce an industry with much greater income to artists and greater opportunities to consumers, the fact is that the concentrated players are going to lose. The problem is, we've given control of the future to the people who will lose even under best possible plan. It's like giving the communists control over the future of the new Russia. Congress continues to have them come down and testify. And they step forward and say they want communism to be protected for the next 100 years."