Monthly Archives: November 2004

Under the Hood – With Big Brother

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Bob Gritzinger on Orwell’s 1984 paranoia made real in our cars:

Someday it?ll happen, probably when you least expect it. Just as you countersteer while drifting out of a tight corner, or after you punch the brakes hard, you?ll hear the mechanically animated female voice emanating from your car?s audio system:
?Collision detected. Calling OnStar.?
You need not be anywhere close to a collision, really. For our road test team this summer, it was just a matter of running a routine slalom in a Chevy Malibu Maxx?without so much as hitting a rubber cone?when OnStar called to check up on our driver?s health.
If you?re anything like us, it won?t be until after you?ve explained to the distant helper that you didn?t have an accident, the airbags did not deploy, and you don?t need assistance, that you?ll begin to experience an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach.
How?d they know that you were driving like that? What else do they know? And who else knows?

Best Law Money Can Buy – Lessig @ Bloggercon IP Discussion

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Click to view additional Bloggercon photos.
Larry Lessig opened Bloggercon with a useful statement:

In normal times, people come to univerisities to learn things, these are extraordinary times: Universities (such as) Chicago, Harvard, Northwestern don’t have a clue – we need to go out and find things, bring people here who are doing interesting things. (I’m paraphrasing)

I had the great pleasure of participating in his lively Law section. Lessig provided a very useful overview, including a color coded slide of the current copyright morass and mentioned Creative Commons as an alternative universe for creative folks. He also mentioned that our “fair use” rights from the RIAA/MPAA perspective generally means that we have the right to hire a lawyer (!). The session also included some very informative comments from Hummer Winblad’s Hank Berry, an active participant in the Washington lobbying wars, including the recent induce act madness.
Berry mentioned the following points (check out the video (127MB – about 60% of the session) and listen to the forthcoming mp3’s for more details)

  • Utah Senator Orrin Hatch visited Microsoft 3 weeks before he, along with Vermont Democrat Pat Leahy introduced the induce act (I find this rather ironic as Hatch was a proponent of breaking up Microsoft).
  • Yahoo evidently refused to discuss the bill, which killed it. Hank said that this was the first time a Silicon Valley firm refused to deal with the RIAA/MPAA folks (kudos to yahoo)
  • We also discussed the WinTel “trusted computing” – an oxymoron – scheme. A number of folks expressed concerns that Microsoft and Apple could pull the plug on MP3 support via a software update and thereby kill fair mp3 use…..

Lots of great stuff at Bloggercon. Kudos to Dave Winer for making it happen.
Later: I asked Larry: how do you like the west or east coast approach (He was at Harvard before)? “This is better, people talk…” (vis a vis harvard, nw, chicago, etc.)
9.4MB MP3 | 127MB Quicktime

The Next “Big Thing” in Travel – Good News for Madison

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Jay Palmer on the booming world of private jets; or why the emerging micro jet based air taxi services will improve Madison’s transportation options:

It used to be that if you wanted to use a private jet, the only choice was to go out and buy one, and that’s still the way that most of the 25,000 corporate aircraft in the U.S. are operated. Out-and-out ownership is still rising, but the biggest growth is coming elsewhere.
Aircraft charter activity, for instance, is booming. Todd Rome, president of Blue Star Jets, claims 350% annual growth in business since the company’s founding in 2001. Other schemes are also taking shape, particularly the idea of small “air taxis” that you could simply summon to a local airport for a quick hop at a reasonable rate.
Don Burr, founder of the erstwhile air pioneer People Express, and former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall have joined ranks to set up such a service in Connecticut and southern New York state, with plans to eventually expand down the Eastern seaboard. Finance permitting, Pogo, as the company will be named, will start next spring using a new breed of four-passenger “micro jets,” which are less expensive to manufacture and operate than traditional jets. Though a round-trip fare will be higher than a first-class commercial ticket, it will be far less than chartering a private jet.
But such deals remain small beer compared with the real action, which is in fractional ownership schemes — a form of time sharing at 30,000 feet. NetJets, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, is easily the world’s biggest operator of business jets, with a fleet of than 535 planes, including some based in Europe and a small fleet in the Middle East. Its three big rivals are all owned by the major corporate jet builders, Bombardier’s FlexJet, Raytheon’s Flight Options and Textron’s CitationShares.

Now, if we could only get wireless internet access at the Dane County Airport (it is nearly 2005, after all).

The Renaissance – A Milwaukee Documentary

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Tom Daykin writes about a film that documents that restoration of Milwaukee’s Renaissance Building.

“The Renaissance,” a one-hour documentary by independent filmmaker Chris Smith, features interviews with about a dozen people who operated businesses at Heartland’s Renaissance building, 309 N. Water St. Most of those businesses featured in the film – including Smith’s film production company – have since moved out.
Smith said the film discusses the sense of community that existed among the 19th century building’s arty businesses, which also included ad agencies, a recording studio, and a graphics design firm. The film focuses on how the remodeling work affected that community, including reactions of some tenants who face the prospect of leaving the building – and their friends, Smith said.

Joyce Berg Interview

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The Motley Fool interviews Joyce Berg, director of the Iowa Electronic Markets:

The Iowa Electronic Markets are real-money futures markets in which contract payoffs depend on economic and political events such as elections. These markets are operated by faculty at the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business as part of our research and teaching mission.

Interesting stuff.

Lessig @ Bloggercon

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Larry Lessig welcomed Bloggercon participants to Stanford Law School this morning with a useful comment (I’m paraphrasing):

“In normal times, people come to univerisities to learn things, these are extraordinary times: Universities, Chicago, Harvard, Northwestern don’t have a clue – we need to go out and find things.

Check the bloggercon site for mp3’s later.

Lands End Parent Sears Stock Jumps on Vornado’s Ownership Disclosure

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Dodgeville based Lands End parent Sears’ stock rose 23% today based on news that Vornado Realty Trust has acquired a 4.3% in the retailer, in an apparent real estate play, according to Constance L. Hays:

In July, Vornado began buying Sears stock as well as derivatives held by a bank. Its move seemed to suggest that Sears might be worth more as a collection of real estate holdings than as a purveyor of clothing, housewares and other goods. Sears owns about 60 percent of its 870 Sears stores, a spokesman said, and leases the rest. There are also 1,100 independently owned and operated outlets for appliances and tools.