I’m in the market for a new “birthday greeting” application for Facebook, because the one I have right now sets my teeth on edge due to interface cluelessness.
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Monthly Archives: July 2008
Book Revision: Wikinomics
PenguinGroup tells us that Don Tapscott has updated Wikinomics (“expanded” edition, not “second” edition) with “a new introduction and a new chapter.” Great. But for those of us who bought the original book, why not make these two chapters available as a PDF for free or for a nominal fee?
I wandered over to the book’s website to see if they were offering these updates. Nope. The “sneak peak” link (pdf) is from the 2006 edition of the book, even though the webpage text focuses on the “expanded edition.”
When Sam Harris updated The End of Faith (hardcover to softcover transition) and added an afterward, I sent him an email and said, “It would be lovely if those of us who have the hardback could read the afterward that is part of the paperback … without having to buy another copy of the book.” Sam kindly sent me a PDF of the new chapter. Wonder if Tapscott will do the same thing? I’ll let you know if he does.
x-posted to summer’s economics class blog
The Faux Charge About Congressional Use of Social Media
Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) uses Twitter to communicate with constituents (and other folks). But according to TechDirt, he has been using that potent networking tool to “ignite a totally misguided partisan war, pretending (falsely) that Democrats are trying to prevent him from using Twitter.”
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Technology and Wind Power; Pickens To Invest $12 Billion
ArsTechnica reports that NASA’s JPL scientists have identified optimal wind farm locations by analyzing eight years of global satellite data. And I missed this announcement: oil baron T. Boone Pickens (personal networth: $2.7bn) is investing $12 billion in a wind farm in west Texas. True to Texas mythology, it will be the largest in the world when completed, and it will start generating power in three years.
Newsweek compares the Pickens campaign with that of another Texan, H. Ross Perot in 1992. After all, oil prices and imports is not a headliner for either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain, the presumed D and R presidential candidates. And Congress and the President aren’t talking about it either.
Pickens — who kicked off his $58 million campaign with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal — thinks spending $700 billion annually on foreign oil — to import about 70% of the oil we use — is “dangerous, and it threatens the future of our nation.” He has done a complete about face on this topic (if he were a politician, someone would accuse him of flip-flopping) — in 2005, he pooh-pooed the idea of wind-based energy: Continue reading
