fozbaca.org

The iMac Rack-Mount Project: A Reality!

A Ladies’ Man and Shameless by John Perry Barlow

I’m not as optomistic as engel after reading Cringely’s Don’t Touch That Dial piece. Regardless of the connection to local and network TV the concept of everyone haveing high speed acccess to the internet is a good thing.

The problem is who will run it and what type of control will they exert over content? I don’t trust the national network TV execs. I do think that they are the players that will push for broadband not just for internet content, if they don’t they will go the way of the Passenger Pigeon. Just look at technology like TiVo, buypass the scheduled program times and buypass the comercials. Look at what great broadcasting the networks have given us, Friends, Perfect, Party of Five, etc. Do you want them feeding your internet content?

“If the station owners are smart, that’s what they will do, subvert I-Beam by creating something even better. Let the best technology win. And that would be good for us all.” Cringely

Not saying that the local affilates are any better but there are more of them, more potential for competition. In order for broadband in every home, and all communications traveling over the same pipe, the system will have to follow the basic principals of the internet, distributed and decentralized. Otherwise what we get will be usless.

My mind got ta thinking after reading Cringely’s Piece on the future of broadcasting. I think it would be awesome to have all of our media come through one high-speed line for cheap.

I mean, think about it: what if by getting a $40-$50 DSL/cable connection, you could have: free long distance calls, free phone, cable (actually, any broadcast station in the world), ‘radio’, and internet access all in one line?

A friend of mine, Steve Cook, once said that instead of breaking up the Bell Monopoly in the 80s, the government should have given Bell a choice to either break up OR finance about 10 strands of fiber-optic cable to every house in the US.

Instead of forcing companies, including Microsoft, to break up, maybe the governement should give them a choice to ‘do the right thing’. Could you imagine the shape of the internet and media today if every person had a much-faster-than-LAN speed connection? Could you imagine being able to have enough bandwidth to do whatever you wanted PERIOD and not have to worry?

Feedback: Who Owns Ideas JonKatz speaks again.

Cthulhu For President The Dawning of a New Era

Tales form the Inbox

The following is the Customer Service number for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation. Dial the number and listen to their message, until the time you are requested to choose an extension-and then you can hang up. The opening message is priceless, and worth the toll-free call.