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Richard Roeper's list of pull quotes from the Katrina humanitarian disaster is here; definitely worth a read. I see from my pro-Bush Comcast mail page that the President is taking responsibility again. Didn't he do that once before, take full responsibility, and then not do anything?
Better pictures of Stefan Eberstadt's Rucksack Haus (backpack house), discussed previously here. Thanks to Chihcheng Peng at Eyebeam for reBlogging the post, and Regine at We Make Money Not Art for re-reBlogging it, with additional details and commentary. (Update: my original post now has more pics, as well as an eyewitness report).
Burgertime 3 made this comment in response to the previous post about iTunes:
I like how the "artists' computer company" doesn't offer an mp3 player that's capable of recording at decent quality. The ipod linux project revealed that the hardware can actually record at better quality, it's only limited to a low bitrate because the ipod firmware is crippleware. can't help but think it's because they're in bed with the RIAA.Many hippie communes failed because capitalism provided what was for most people a better life, due to economies of scale, distributed workloads, etc. Communalism in the digital arena, in the form of open source principals, file sharing, and so forth, actually produces a viable alternative to capitalism. Products such as Firefox, Thunderbird, and LAME for mp3-ripping are just as good or better than the commercial alternatives. As I told a friend who is working with Linux, it's important even for those of us who don't use it to have some kind of ideal standard in mind--to know it exists and that it functions in a superior way. Something like the voluntary licensing scheme for online music sales Downhill Battle proposes would work, just like Firefox works, and culture would be richer for it. iTunes, on the other hand, is a compromise scheme; it is a shame that people are embracing it, and that it seems to be on the way to becoming the standard, the way Windows is the standard, just because the record companies are so litigious and have attempted to shut down everything else that threatens their "old" (entrenched, top heavy, corrrupt) way of doing things.