links for 2010-01-29

"If you pay any attention to the endless debates over intellectual property policy in the United States, you'll hear two numbers invoked over and over again, like the stuttering chorus of some Philip Glass opera: 750,000 and $200 to $250 billion. The first is the number of U.S. jobs supposedly lost to intellectual property theft; the second is the annual dollar cost of IP infringement to the U.S. economy. These statistics are brandished like a talisman each time Congress is asked to step up enforcement to protect the ever-beleaguered U.S. content industry. And both, as far as an extended investigation by Ars Technica has been able to determine, are utterly bogus." – sadly, i couldn't be less surprised

i'm torn. i have to admit that my affection for the open web is warring with my pragmatism.

"Let's be clear: It's fine to say that Flash is flawed; it is. (You know who'd agree? The Flash team.) It's fine to hope for alternatives to take root. (Competition makes everyone better.) But let's also be honest and say that Flash is the reason we all have fast, reliable, ubiquitous online video today. It's the reason that YouTube took off & video consumption exploded four years ago. It's the reason we have Hulu, Vimeo, and all the rest–and the reason that people now watch billions of videos per day (and nearly 10 hours apiece per month) online. Without it, we'd all still be bumbling along." – love or hate Flash, and i fall into neither bucket, it should be given its due. compete with it, criticize it for not being open/standards/etc enough, all fine.

but arguing that it hasn't been important is silly.