internet (19)

1. If I own a physical copy of the album (BluRay, DVD, CD, tape, LP), does that entitle me to freely download or stream the same album?
2. If I purchase or am entitled to a digital copy of the album, can I lend it to my friends? my wife? my daughter?
3. Can I store my legal digital copy on a streaming server for me to enjoy anywhere I go?

Affirmative answers to these questions would open up new ways of distributing music content that no one seems to be contemplating today.

Here are some questions I often wonder about concerning issues of online openness versus privacy:

• As a netizen, do I have the right to retrieve my own information from any Web application where I deposited it?

• Do I have the right to completely erase my own information from any Web application?

• Can I receive proof that the totality of information referring to me is actually accessible to me?

• Can I examine the physical tables of those Web applications to ensure that my information is not at risk?

The question of how Twitter will ever make money is on many minds.

For starters, Twitter cannot charge its users. Because all of Twitter is user-generated content, it doesn't make sense to make them pay. Paraphrasing the words of a co-worker: Twitter is doing nothing that can't be achieved using RSS and a 140-chars textarea :-)

The problem is compounded with the fact that Twitter has an API that can help bypass the site altogether, thereby ruling out the traditional - and failed IMO - online advertising revenue model.

What's left? A Twitter Pro with higher level of service?

Structure of the documentary:

• Introduction to the sad state of humanity: Krishnamurti.
• Description of the current debt-based monetary system: from the Fed to economic hitmen.
• Technology as the answer to scarcity: the Venus project and the resource-based economy.
• Change of the individual from submissive to ideologies, to active actor in the "emergent", "symbiotic" universe.
• A call to action: stop supporting the system.

The Internet is defining new social ethics: they are called Netiquette.The most well-known instance is email etiquette. I recommend those short email etiquette guides.

What are ethics?

What started as a text-only information exchange is now used to channel a bewildering array of media, replacing or incorporating old networks along the way. After text came pictures, then audio, then real-time voice, then video, and now HD video streaming. In addition to providing the biggest information storage capability ever devised.

As far as media are concerned, on the Internet it's enjoy first and pay later (maybe). If I like it enough to want to support your thing.

I've been using the Internet as a culture box. I am referring to that part of TV that is supposed to enrich our personal and collective culture, rather than dumb us down by lowering our standards as consumers of media. That's what the Net can provide and in increasing quantities.

Here are the tools I am using so far in no specific order:

01 A computer hooked to the TV and to the sound system. In my case, I am running a Neuros LINK which is an Ubuntu box configured for HDMI TV and Surround audio output.

I've been shifting my home entertainment from TV to the Web. It makes me sometimes feel like I'm back to the days of Marconi and Farnsworth as far as maturity is concerned, but that's for another post. For now, I just want to congratulate Last.fm on the excellent job they've been doing at creating an enjoyable experience that traditional one-way radio will never achieve (unless it starts using the Internet).

The key to using Last.fm is to register an account and to feed your account's library with your favourite artists and albums.