Buy this dress

Posted by Richard Bennett

Either you or someone you know needs to own the sophisticated yet whimsical slip mentioned in the final paragraph:

Leontine opened in November on a cobbled lane in the rapidly redeveloping wilds of the South Street Seaport. Down here, foot traffic is minimal, and last week the snow lay crisp along the sidewalks. Perhaps this accounts [...]

Leading Economists Agree: Net Neutrality does more harm than good

Posted by Richard Bennett

This is good:
Network neutrality is a policy proposal that would regulate how network providers manage and price the use of their networks. Congress has introduced several bills on network neutrality. Proposed legislation generally would mandate that Internet service providers exercise no control over the content that flows over their lines and would bar providers [...]

The Kathy Sierra flap

Posted by Richard Bennett

I’m not getting this whole Kathy Sierra thing. Apparently, Frank Paynter set up a blog called Mean Kids where people were encouraged to be rude and childish toward various objects of derision, including Sierra, tech writer of some note. Somehow this derision escalated to death threats, and now we have this:

As I type this, I [...]

Who’s your daddy?

Posted by Richard Bennett

The illustrious Dr. Frank clued me in on the story about the sheep/human chimera, a man-made creature with 15% human genes and 85% sheeply ones. These critters are an experimental stage in the production of an organ-donor pool for sickly humans.
Now from the journal Nature we find that genetic mixing isn’t just for the laboratory, [...]

The coming bumper-crop of news

Posted by Richard Bennett

My old blogger buddy Jeff Jarvis is trying to figure out what’s happening to the news, and how to inject a little optimism into the business:

This Friday, I’m giving a keynote at the University of Texas International Symposium on Online Journalism. My topic: “The end of the mourning, mewling, and moaning about the future of [...]

Until they’re old enough to drive

Posted by Richard Bennett

I’ve always wondered how the Google kids get to work, and now I have my answer:

Google is improving its green credentials by offering all of its employees a free bike to ride to work.
The bikes, manufactured by Raleigh Europe, will be offered to around 2,000 permanent employees of the search engine giant in Europe, the [...]

The Viacom Deal

Posted by Richard Bennett

This explains it all.

Unlike Larry Lessig, Demetri is honest enough to explain that Google is a party to the suit, and that the issue is money.
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Shoot first, ask questions later

Posted by Richard Bennett

The FCC has issued a “Notice of Inquiry” on net neutrality, a move that allows them to take comments on an issue in order to determine whether there’s any reason to consider new regulations. While you’d think net neutrality advocates would be happy about this, they’re anything but. This move calls their bluff, forcing them [...]

Hanging the monkey

Posted by Richard Bennett

See A monkey hanger’s guide to Net Neutrality:

During the Napoleonic Wars, 1805, legend has it that citizens of Hartlepool tried and hung a monkey … believing it to be a French spy.
Last year, the US Congress almost “hung the monkey”, too.
The piece is both entertaining and informative. Britain’s take on net neutrality: “an answer to [...]

Jane Austen meets Bollywood by way of Tollywood

Posted by Richard Bennett

Jane Austen must be the most prolific dead screenwriter. She’s got to be the most widely adapted novelist, as hardly a year goes by without a new adaptation of her principal novels, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Mansfield Park. BBC seems to do the best all-around faithful-to-the-spirit productions, especially if you [...]