Cox Crow

Monopolies, the telecommunications kind

I keep thinking about AT&T. Not the AT&T of 2002, but that before 1984, before the divestiture.

Was the death of the Bell System a necessary prerequisite for the birth of the Internet-as-we-know-it?

6:08:55 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry

Wants v. Needs

I have a toddler. She's two, as of yesterday. I don't think you should put off teaching proper use of the language just because your child "doesn't understand the difference." Doing so merely stifles her understanding. People, children especially, have a wonderful ability to grasp complex things, like grammar, quickly. So I have no tolerance for allowing a child to continue speaking poorly: "Me need that!"

If my daughter can understand the difference between "need" and "want," and know the proper use of pronouns, I think certain others can as well. Unless there is need, you must persuade us to want. Is this so hard? It's much easier if you can discern what we already want, even if that want is unrealized.

As Steve Jobs put it to John Sculley, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or change the world?"

6:05:06 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry, Language, Media

Marketing Inefficiences

Doc follows up on an observation I made last week. If we all know this, why aren't we making the big bucks?

4:02:15 PM # Google It!
categories: Media

Smart Cookie

[James] Bach, who has worked as a contractor for Microsoft, had created the new version using Windows XP Embedded, a commercial version of Windows designed for specialty devices such as cash registers and automatic teller machines.

....

"I'm going to allow Mr. Bach's testimony primarily for the reason that I think the information should be presented to the court," Kollar-Kotelly said. "I should have it."
Judge wants demo of "modular" Windows," [Reuters]

This judge is a smart cookie.

3:27:40 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry, Law

Earth to Spammers

Don't you think that if I were looking for ways to increase the size of my penis that I would be looking for them? There's no need to bombard my mailbox with this tripe. If I want to be serviced, I'll come to you.

2:51:37 PM # Google It!
categories: Media

The Spectacle

Are Weblogers [sic] Situationists ? So true:

The 4 hours you as an average citizen spend in front of the television is what keeps the general popualtion shackled to the teet of the beast. You are not relaxing when you watch, you are being fed. And the diet is not healthy.
[Adam Curry: The Big Lie] via [s l a m]

12:46:34 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry, Language, Media

The Evening News

I don't want to skip just ads: I want to fast-forward past the bit about the two-year-old boy being run over by a lawnmower.

11:05:00 AM # Google It!
categories: Media, Sadness