Trapeze lays off 30 percent of staff

According to the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal Trapeze Networks just laid off 30 percent of it's workforce:

Trapeze Networks, a Pleasanton-based startup designing wireless networking equipment, has laid off 30 percent of its workforce in an effort to reduce its size to a level more on par with its industry peers.

T-Mobile Sweetens Its Weekend Minutes Pot

As many of you know, November 24th marks the first day that Federal Cellular Number Portability rules go into effect. This means that you will be able to change cell phone providers and keep your cell phone number. While, many of the cell phone companies hate the idea, it appears that it is already starting to spur a new round of competition in the space, and that will be good for consumers. In this article from WirelessWeek.com we learn that T-Mobile is promoting a new "unlimited weekend" plan where the weekend starts on Friday instead of Saturday.

What will be music to some callers' ears, T-Mobile USA Inc. is declaring that the weekend officially starts on Thursday night by expanding its unlimited weekend calling plan. The carrier is now offering subscribers an unlimited weekend calling plan that kicks off on just after midnight on Thursday, virtually turning the weekend into a three-day event, T-Mobile spokesman Bryan Zidar says. Typically, unlimited weekend calling plans run from 12:01 a.m. Saturday to 11:59 p.m. Sunday.

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

Cory Doctorow is up in arms about new shrink-wrap licenses that are coming with wood working tools in this post he says:

The vile, anti-customer shrink-wrap licenses that are universal in software have started showing up in hardware; particularly, jig-makers are requiring those who buy their templates to aver that they will not loan, sell or allow re-use of the templates they buy. This is revolting: it comes down to the idea of expecting the world to pay your living, even though your business isn't sustainable. Copyright doesn't give you the right to restrict sale and lending of your works, but it does give you the power to shrink-wrap all of the copies of your work with a contract that claws back all of the public's rights in copyright, including the first sale right that enables reselling and so forth.

I agree with Cory much of the time, but here I just can't bring myself to do it. Yes, I agree that business need to adapt to new landscapes as their customers evolve, but this is a legitimate way of doing it. If the consumer really objects to the license then he won't buy the product. This is exactly what happened to Intuit last year when they packaged strict anti-piracy code with turbotax. People complained and sales went down. These practices are not anti-consumer, they are pro-business. It's not up to a business to look out for consumers, it's up to consumers to look out for themselves. Businesses will react based on sales. When people stop buying woodworking tools with shrink-wrap licenses as opposed to those without, then the licenses will go away.

Second Song: A Day In The Country

I've put together a new song for everyone to sample. This one has a more bluesy feel than the last one. I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on these. You can download the new song: A Day In The Country
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

PCWorld.com - High-Frequency Wireless Gets Go-Ahead

PCWorld.com is reporting that the FCC has approved the use of high-frequency wireless to a firm in Hawaii.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday adopted service rules for the commercial use of a wireless technology that uses high-frequency spectrum bands to deliver large amounts of data at high speeds. The point-to-point technology, developed by Loea Communications of Lihue, Hawaii, got the nod by the FCC to operate commercially in the 71-76 GHz, 81-86 GHz, and 92-95 GHz bands, the FCC said in a statement.

Apple - iTunes

Apple - iTunes is now available for Windows. It allows you to sync your ipod and purchase and listen to music from the iTunes Music Store.

Lawrence Lessig: Great Lawyers

Lawrence Lessig, who just recently came back to blogging after the birth of his child, has this story on his site this morning.

So imagine this: An employee works for a software company. He discovers a problem with the software, tries to warn the company, but it does nothing. He quits, and then sends email to all the customers of the company, informing them of the security problem with the software. The flood of emails brings the email server down for a bit, but that admittedly does not cause significant damage. Nonetheless, the employee is criminally prosecuted for causing an %u201Cimpairment to the integrity%u201D of a computer system (by revealing its flaws) which resulted in more than $5,000 in damage (because now it was known to be flawed).

Click the link, for the rest of the story. It came out well.

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Why I've Cancelled my EMusic Subscription

Dan Gillmor on why he decided to cancel his emusic.com service.

was becoming a fan of EMusic, the MP3 download service that a) treated people like non-thieves and b) had a sensible business approach. But the company has gone through a merger and just drastically revised the terms of service to include this downgrade:

"As of November 8, 2003, EMusic will be discontinuing the unlimited service offering and replacing it with a new service offering that places a reasonable limit on the number of downloads available to each subscriber in a month."

I haven't decided yet if I will cancel my account, but I am leaning towards canceling.

The S-Train Canvass: Thy rod and thy staff...

There are times in a person's life when he has to make a decision without all the information he would like. Sometimes those decisions can have huge consequences. Here is one example: The S-Train Canvass: Thy rod and thy staff...

I awoke to the sound glass breaking. It wasn't that drinking glass-breaking sound. It sounded like a window breaking. I proceeded into the family room (where I heard the sound). I peeked around the entrance and there is this guy just standing there looking around. Then I see another guy coming through the broken window. And then I noticed that the first guy is carrying a gun. Now I'm thinking at warp speed to myself, 'Should I announce my presence or should I shoot?

Click on the link to find out what happened.

kuro5hin.org || Rush Limbaugh - there but for the Grace of God ...

The recent news that Rush Limbaugh is addicted to pain killers has sparked a new debate about how we, as a nation, handle the issues surrounding drug use. When Ronald Reagan introduced us to the war on drugs 20 years ago, it sounded like a good idea. It sounded like we were saving the nation, but today when we look around, can we honestly say that? Drug use is a problem for many, but I don't think it's a crime. The most damaging effect of our "War on Drugs" is that we have made drug abuse a crime, and instead of helping people we lock them in prison. In this Op-Ed piece on kuro5hin.org the author relates his own story with drugs.

There's a deeper and more profound question we should be asking - if an obviously intelligent man with a strict and demanding sense of morality can fall prey to drug addiction, what of the rest of us? Are we stronger? Wiser? More strict? Or, perhaps, just more fortunate? And what does this suggest our drug policy should be?

Yesterday, on NPR there was a very one-sided story about the use of drugs to help ease pain. The piece talked about how drug laws and the potential complications that come with them have stilled doctors from perscribing pain killers, or treating pain. I think it's time for a new national debate on drug abuse. I think it's time that we really examine the essence of how drugs hurt our society, and whether the criminalization of a generation is a worthy cost for our drug free ideal.

Another SDIO WiFi card is out

A company called C-Guys (no, I've never heard of them either), has released a SDIO WiFi card. Right now it's compatible with Windows CE machines only.

Nelson's Weblog - politics : airportSecurity

Cory Doctorow gave his friend a wallet-sized copy of the bill of rights stamped in sheet metal. His friend made this post on his own weblog about how he was going to get it home.

I'm not one to make displays like that so it was an accident it came with me to New York. But now where do I put it going home? In checked luggage, where security may find it while I'm not around and decide to punish me for being clever? Or in my hand luggage, where it may cause my bag to be searched and an awkward conversation? Maybe I should just leave it behind.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated

Then I realized, I was stressing about what people would think about me having a copy of the Bill of Rights! It's a terrible thing we've done to ourselves.

Do Not Call 317-816-9336

Telemarketers are suing the National Do Not Call Registry in the US, which is a place where you can register to block telemarketers from calling you. 50 million households have signed up. I think this is a good idea, they obviously don't. In his column, David Barry of the Miami Herald published the phone number of the American Teleservices Association, a telemarketing company.

David Barry @ Mami Herald

It turned out that a lot of you were eager to call up the telemarketing industry. Thousands and thousands of you called the ATA. I found out about this when I saw an article in a direct-marketing newspaper, the DM News, which quoted the executive director of the ATA, Tim Searcy. Here's an excerpt from the article: "The ATA received no warning about the article from Barry or anyone connected with him," Searcy said. ". . . the Barry column has had harmful consequences for the ATA. An ATA staffer has spent about five hours a day for the past six days monitoring the voice mail and clearing out messages." That's correct: The ATA received NO WARNING that it was going to get unwanted calls! Not only that, but these unwanted calls were an INCONVENIENCE for the ATA, and WASTED THE ATA'S TIME! I just hope nobody interrupted the ATA's dinner.

Ha! This is great. The hypocrisy and the irony are truly monumental. The ATA changed their phone number, but the new one is 317-816-9336. Maybe I'll call them and ask them if they know about Stealth Disco... Via The Daily Irrelevant and Joi Ito's Web

First Song Posted...

Music has always been a hobby of mine. This year, my wife bought me some great music composition software for my Mac, and I have been playing with it for quite a bit. Today she and I sat down and composed a song together, mixed it, and exported it as an MP3. This is our first attempt at releasing a new song, so we are both anxious to hear what you have to say about it. This song is released under a creative commons license, so feel free to do whatever you like within the bounds of the license (see below). You can download Sunday Afternoon from our server. Let me know what you think.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

The Second Annual Blogger Boobie-Thon for Breast Cancer :: Photos

The Second Annual Blogger Boobie is, as one might guess, a web page full of boobs. But these are boobs, which are doing their best to raise um, money for breast cancer. Apparently, given the title, this is the second year for this particular fund raiser. Here is the link, which is not safe for work: The Second Annual Blogger Boobie

Only covered boobies (hands, props, food items, bras, etc.) will go on the main photos page. There will be a separate, passworded "pay-per-boobie" page for bare-breasts, available to donors of $50.00 or more.

NEWS.com.au | Branded anything but Unique (September 29, 2003)

I guess it's better than a boy named Sue. NEWS.com.au reports on some odd names for kids in America in the last few years.

A trend for naming children after favourite possessions is accelerating in brand-driven America. The records show that in 2000, 49 children were named Canon, followed by 11 Bentleys, five Jaguars and a Xerox. There is also a Gouda and a Bologna, who are named after the cheese and the sausage rather than the places.