Say no to "freedom phones" : openpolitics.com

Say no to "freedom phones"

A California Congressman has drafted a law that would require postwar Iraq use the CDMA cell phone standard. The bill would benefit Qualcomm corporation, whose headquarters are in his district and set the tone for Iraq's post war reconstruction.

Darrell Issa demagogues for his cause by calling the competion (GSM) an "outdated French standard". The important question to ask is not what an American Congressman wants, but what is in the best interests of Iraq.

GSM already has 60 million customers in the region and coverage in:

Kuwait
Jordan
Israel
Turkey
Saudi Arabia
Egypt
Syria
Iran

America is not likely to gain new friends in the region if exhiles and visitors to Iraq need to purchase new dual chip cell phones.

Darell Issa's Letter: Parlez-vous fran?ais?
Congressional Lawmakers Balk At Plan To Deploy French/German Cell Phone Technology In Post-War Iraq
The Guardian: Battle over Iraqi mobile network begins Internet
News: CDMA Pushed on Postwar Iraq News.com: Legislator makes call for Qualcomm
Salon: To the victor go the spoils
Wall Street Journal: Lawmaker Wants Postwar Iraq To Use Qualcomm Technology, by Jesse Drucker
Reuters: Lawmaker Urges U.S. Wireless Standard for Iraq Slashdot: CDMA vs. GSM in Post-war Iraq
Computer World: Citing antiwar views in Europe, U.S. lawmaker pushes CDMA technology

Update

U.S. push for CDMA standard rebuffed

2003/03/24 # Permalink

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Links

Youtube: Ted Nelson demonstrates Xanadu Space

I don't like his interface but I do very much like the concept. What I find puzzling is that this paradigm could be implemented using current web standards so why did he make this new program with an interface that's entirely foreign to us.

I don't think Xanadu will catch on but everything he demonstrated will eventually make it into browsers and websites, but at a much slower pace than Mr. Nelson is comfortable with.

Ted Nelson on Tim Berners-Lee

First of all, I think the WWW was a brilliant simplification. As I understand it, and maybe I have this wrong, but Tim Berners-Lee came and we had lunch, in, oh I guess it was 1989, 90, something like that, in Sausalito, and I really liked the guy, and he'd done this very simple thing, and it sounded too trivial to me {laughs} but he certainly was a nice fellow and I expected to keep in touch with him, although I am a very bad correspondent, and the next thing I knew suddenly the thing had caught on.

.. What would I recommend to a young visionary today? {laughter} Very straightforward, learn to deal with short term goals and not delegate.

How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit

And although most communities treat their members with gentle regard, Reddit prides itself on winnowing the wheat from the chaff. It relies on the collective judgment of its members, who click on arrows next to contributions, elevating insightful or interesting content, and demoting less worthy contributions. Even Mills says he was impressed by the way in which redditors "marshaled their collective bits of expert knowledge to arrive at a conclusion that was largely correct." It's tough to con Reddit.

What's the Worst That Can Come of the Bachmanns' Swiss Citizenship?

In 1792, French citizenship was bestowed upon George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. Thomas Paine served in the French National Convention.

5 Don'ts of Startups

Don’t scale too early. This is the No. 1 cause of startup failure. Startup Compass has found that 70% of startups crash because they scale prematurely.
Don’t work part time. Sleepy? Get used to it. People who work full time on their startups raise an average of 24 times more funding than those who work part time.
Don’t go it alone. Maybe you are the smartest guy in the room. But solo founders raise less than half the money that two to three co-founders raise.
Don’t ignore customers. Yes, they’re annoying. (What do they know?) But startups that track customer metrics have 400% more user growth.
Don’t forget about the technology. Startups without a tech-oriented co-founder are twice as likely to scale prematurely and have three to five times less user growth.