…may never die, or at least need to change a light bulb. This story on BBC News Online starts with one of the most astonishing paragraphs I’ve ever read:
“One of the most important principles of physics, that disorder, or entropy, always increases, has been shown to be untrue. “
Shout if you can see the J-curve from where you are.
Astonishingly light piece around the UK’s version of BigBrother on how people will want to pay for ‘high quality broadband content’ in the media guardian today.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t find a single figure in terms of usage or revenue to support the case that the content-providers are making in the piece.
I think this makes it three weeks in a row that the mediagrauniad have written a puff piece about broadband content providers. All have pretty much been pegged around a report that the British Government released a few weeks back which said that high-quality content was the essential spur needed to drive take-up of broadband. As far as I can tell, this report was written by a working group dominated by those who would profit from the creation and subsidy of a ‘broadband content industry’.
On receipt of the first piece the mediagrauniad ran, Cory wrote an excellent rebuttal (here and furthermore, here), and Steve Bowbrick wrote an interesting supporting piece (but his permalinks aren’t working… so go to http://www.bowbrick.com/bowblog/ and scroll down to the july 3rd entry).
Despite working for a ‘content company’. I’m on Cory’s side. I’d love to see there be a dialogue on this issue between the onlinegrauniad and their friends in the media section. Or at least a bit of representation of opposing views or at the very least an intelligent critique of some sort in the media section, instead of it merely serving as a mouth-piece for those who ‘would say that wouldn’t they’.
From an interview with Phil Condit, CEO of Boeing:
“In the six years since he and his executive team put together Vision 2016, they have transformed Boeing from a maker of airplanes into a “systems integrator”, a vision, he says, buttressed by this week’s merger. Now, building on the experiences of the war in Afghanistan and, with savage irony, the opportunities provided by September 11, he wants to go further and place Boeing at the forefront of what the Pentagon calls “system-centric warfare”: commanding and controlling the low- or no-casualty (of friendly forces) battlefield of the future.
And, going beyond that, helping to revitalise big cities with an integrated transport network that overcomes congestion and enables the public to be “mobile and connected”, capable via broadband of communicating while travelling.”
With my carfreelondon hat on, I’ve been trying to find more stuff on the ‘integrated transport network’ mentioned in this article with no avail. Anyone got any leads for me?
Petafloptimism 