Props to TDS for taking the plunge locally. TDS’s fibre to the home service supports 10mbps down and 4mpbs upstream. Not a bad start. Jeff Richgels . Bundles range from $64 to $89/month.
David Eisenberg notes the need for net neutrality amongst the telco’s.
Monthly Archives: December 2005
The Year in Ideas – 2005
These are the ideas that, for better and worse, helped make 2005 what it was. You’ll find entries that address momentous developments in Iraq (“The Totally Religious, Absolutely Democratic Constitution”) as well as less conspicuous, more ghoulish occurrences in Pittsburgh (“Zombie Dogs”). There are ideas that may inspire (“The Laptop That Will Save the World”), that may turn your stomach (“In Vitro Meat”), that may arouse partisan passions (“Republican Elitism”) and that may solve age-old mysteries (“Why Popcorn Doesn’t Pop”). Some mysteries, of course, still remain. For instance, we do not yet have an entirely satisfying explanation for how Mark Cuban, the outspoken Internet mogul and N.B.A. owner, came to be connected with three of the year’s most notable ideas (“Collapsing the Distribution Window,” “Scientific Free-Throw Distraction” and “Splogs”). That was just one surprising discovery we made in the course of assembling the issue. In the pages that follow, we’re sure you’ll make your own. Go to the Issue
“Internet Aids Civic Action
A new study suggests the Internet is used as a resource for influencing participation in civic affairs more often than general media and face-to-face communication.
Conducted by University of Wisconsin journalism and mass communication professor Dhavan Shah, the study tested the change in media exposure over time. Shah’s work analyzed various forms of data conducted before, during and after the 2000 presidential election.
US Delegation Votes via RSS
Very slick, by the Washington Post:
This site offers an RSS feed for every current member of Congress, so you can get notified each time your elected officials vote. Each member-specific feed includes the member’s position in the latest 10 votes.
Tammy Baldwin’s RSS voting feed is here
Air Travel: The Battle over the Wright Amendment
Virginia Postrel nicely summarizes the battle over the Wright Amendment which limits air travel from Dallas’s Love field:
Schnurman’s tough-minded coverage of the issue demonstrates the great virtues of distant newspaper owners. His paper is owned by Knight Ridder, which isn’t entangled in local crony capitalism. The Dallas Morning News by contrast seems terrified to even voice an opinion on the issue. (And I’m not just annoyed that they turned down this piece on the grounds that they’d already run too much on the topic. In fact, I’m delighted. D Magazine paid me twice the DMN’s rate, and I like them better anyway.)
Viewed up close, the whole Wright discussion demonstrates the wisdom of my old boss Bob Poole, who has spent at least two decades arguing for airport privatization. Locally, the only thing any politico seems to care about is what’s good for DFW Airport and, secondarily, for the airlines. The traveling public doesn’t count–either in the political equation (too diffuse) or, apparently, in airport management. Anyone who’s had the misfortune of traveling through DFW knows that, with the exception of its new Terminal D, it’s hardly a comfortable or accommodating place. Neither does it seem to maximize revenue. No mall developer would use space so pathetically.
The article is also an interesting look at the “devils bargain” that sometimes occurs between politicians and the mainstream media.
The Next Revolution in Interactions
Bradford C. Johnson, James M. Manyika, and Lareina A. Yee:
In today’s developed economies, the significant nuances in employment concern interactions: the searching, monitoring, and coordinating required to manage the exchange of goods and services. Since 1997, extensive McKinsey research on jobs in many industries has revealed that globalization, specialization, and new technologies are making interactions far more pervasive in developed economies. Currently, jobs that involve participating in interactions rather than extracting raw materials or making finished goods account for more than 80 percent of all employment in the United States. And jobs involving the most complex type of interactions—those requiring employees to analyze information, grapple with ambiguity, and solve problems—make up the fastest-growing segment.
This shift toward more complex interactions has dramatic implications for how companies organize and operate. In the mid-1990s, McKinsey studied the growing impact of interactions on the way people exchange ideas and information and how businesses cooperate or compete. In 1997, “A revolution in interaction” presented the findings of that research.
Helicopter Panoramas
I’m Ed Fink, and these are my 360 degree panoramas. I believe I’m the first VR photographer in the world to do full spherical (180 x 360) panoramas from a helicopter.
The helicopter is “Photoshopped” out of the panorama, but don’t let that mislead you – my aerials aren’t artificial, computer generated images – they’re real photographs that I shoot while leaning out of a helicopter and stitch together on a computer. Like all my 360 degree panoramas, when viewed online they’re perspective corrected in real time as you move around.
Signs of A Bubble?
As we near the end of the year, I realized that it’s been about half a decade since the bubble burst on the dotcom world. At the same time, it seems that a number of similar bubble signs may be showing up again. Based on my personal experience, I’d like to present what I consider the top five signs of a bubble being in place. Some may overlap but I’ve tried to define some generic rules that can be applied to all bubbles, not just the ones in technology
City Casino?
Two weeks back, Isthmus reported that the Ho-Chunk tribe may be expanding its De Jope bingo hall on Madison’s southeast side, adding new machines as well as poker and blackjack tables.
Ho-Chunk spokesperson CaraLe Murphy confirmed the new gaming tables and machines are under consideration, but insisted no decisions have been made. “We’re looking to expand that because we want to bring in a younger crowd,” she said, specifically citing the tribe’s desire to attract more college students.
Barnett: Is the Military – Industrial Complex Winning?
I want to agree with both sides of this argument, but I won’t. Given the aging of our population and the competitive pressures of Friedman’s “flat world,” I think we need to make some choices in this Global War on Terrorism. I think that if we’re going to shrink the Gap, we’ll need a lot of manpower help, so moving toward strategic alliance with China kills two birds with one stone: takes great power war off the table and frees up resources within the Pentagon for more intensive focus on postconflict (which does cost, buddy, no matter what anyone tells you) while giving us historic access to allied troops we’ll need for the “long war” effort that will be shrinking the Gap.