Kaplak

"As the Open Government project's third phase draws to a speedy close, we are left wondering whether the initiative ran too silent and too deep for the average American to know or care about it, let alone feel that he or she could contribute to a meaningful, measurable dialog. Do you think the U.S. government did an adequate job of publicizing its Open Government efforts? Do you think political and technology bloggers with a critical mass of traffic should have done more to spread the word and encourage user participation, much in the way that music television channels consistently harass youngsters to "rock the vote"? Do you think that trends of citizen apathy have finally peaked to a point that - even when tools for participation are free and available via a simple Internet connection - no one cares enough to weigh in?" - Morten Blaabjerg via Bookmarklet

I'm sure there is endured committment - I hope there is. Looking at it from the outside (I've not taken part in this & not a US citizen) I'm a bit concerned when I read there hasn't been any moderation or effort to lift the exchanges taking place above the mudslinging unprettiness which have become a familiar facet of internet discussion - at least within certain types of architectures.... more... - Morten Blaabjerg

"Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde has informed TorrentFreak that the site will soon decentralize and stop running a BitTorrent tracker of its own. Instead they will encourage their users to use a yet to be launched third party tracker for their torrents. To decentralize even further, the torrents that will be listed on the site wont be hosted on The Pirate Bay’s servers anymore. In the near future the site will use a new torrent hosting service that will store the torrents for them. This new hosting service will be open to other torrent sites as well and can be accessed through an API. In the end The Pirate Bay is making these changes to ensure that the BitTorrent ecosystem stays intact no matter what happens, Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak. By decentralizing the different aspects they hope that BitTorrent users will be less reliant on the uptime of The Pirate Bay’s servers alone. The burden will now be spread among several independently operated services." - Morten Blaabjerg via Bookmarklet

Can't imagine a more atypical TPB user than the one you just drew up there ;-) My guess is though, it will be easier, not harder, to get the latest Britney Spears album. In spite of whatever happens with TPB. - Morten Blaabjerg

jeg har aldrig været den helt store fan af TPB, selvom jeg ser at de selvfølgelig har haft en funktion. Dem der står bag TPB er ikke altid folk med en god hacker-ethos. I stedet har vi en hel del folk i jakkesæt som misbruger den almindelige torrent-bruger til at tjene penger på reklamer og hvad ved jeg. På den anden side har TPB også medført nogle spændende tanker og nogle vigtige debatter i forskellige land - Raymond M. Kristiansen

Det er også med blandede følelser for mig. Men TPB har næsten egenhændigt udbredt bittorrent-teknologien fra at være noget obskurt teknisk og nørdet - og dermed utilgængeligt - til at være næsten allemandseje. Og det er en fantastisk bedrift. Men jeg er ked af, at de hellere vil "sælge" end at frigive deres software under GPL. Jeg fatter ikke, at de alle dage har været så "lukkede" i deres måde at udvikle både site og software på. - Morten Blaabjerg

"TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it's value if the money would be the interesting part. It's not. The interesting thing is that the right people with the right attitude and possibilities keep running the site. As all of you know, there's not been much news on the site for the past two-three years. It's the same site essentially. On the internets, stuff dies if it doesn't evolve. We don't want that to happen. We've been working on this project for many years. It's time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen! If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And - you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That's awesome and will take the heat of us." - Morten Blaabjerg via Bookmarklet

"The International Free Software Forum (FISL) is an annual event sponsored by the Free Software Association taking place in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The event sees the coming together of researchers, social movements, entrepreneurs, hackers and free information advocates, this year including Peter Sunde, spokesman for The Pirate Bay. At the event yesterday was a rather high-profile individual, Brazil’s President Lula. The President took the opportunity to publicly criticize the legislation supported by Senator Eduardo Azeredo. “In our government it is prohibited to prohibit,” said the president during his speech at the event. “I consider this bill a form of censorship,” he added. After meeting with others including Richard Stallman, President Lula noted that “..the Internet must continue free,” adding ”..the freedom is the source of the creativity”." - Morten Blaabjerg via Bookmarklet

"The European Commission has issued a document in which it called for greater international oversight of ICANN, the organization that assigns domain names." - Morten Blaabjerg via Bookmarklet

"As in the US, the EU is increasingly finding its member states' economies dependent upon goods and services ordered and sometimes delivered via the 'Net, and many government services are being moved online. All of these trends undoubtedly exacerbate the Commission's sense that an essential function is out of its control. All of this makes the EU's request for formal oversight capacity seem fairly reasonable." - Morten Blaabjerg

"Microsoft grabbed 12.1 percent of U.S. Internet searches for the work week June 8-12, according to data released by industry tracker comScore earlier on Wednesday. That is up from 11.3 percent in the June 1-5 period -- the week in which Bing was launched -- and up from 9.1 percent the week before that. ad_icon For comparison, Google got 65 percent of U.S. searches in May, the last full month for which figures are available, followed by Yahoo with 20.1 percent and Microsoft with 8 percent. Analysts and investors are keenly awaiting data for all of June to see if Microsoft can hold onto early gains." - Morten Blaabjerg via Bookmarklet

Talk by Mike Masnick, who analyzes in depth the methods used by Trent Reznor to “connect with fans” and give them “reason to buy” and create a very well functioning business model. - Morten Blaabjerg via Bookmarklet

"Information which spreads quickly, explosively and loudly isn’t necessarily reliable, accurate or helpful, and we’d do well to remember that before believing, acting on, or passing it on blindly." - Morten Blaabjerg via Bookmarklet

Via @informeren http://twitter.com/informe... - Morten Blaabjerg

Utterly and nonameably disgusting : "Robust legal and regulatory framework to combat Digital Piracy - ... that’s what has many concerned most, for it involves unspecified “technical measures” to punish repeat file-sharers along with other solutions to ensure that “investment in content is at socially appropriate levels by allowing investors to fully appropriate returns on their investment.” - Morten Blaabjerg