Jack Saturday

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Anti-Job, Pro-Freedom Quote Of The Week 34

On the slow-moving road to seamless wireless coverage, I can't help but whine, "Are we there yet?" In the meantime, this key-fob Wi-Fi finder comforts me by identifying 802.11a, b, and g hotspots at the flick of a switch. The ZyXEL quickly hooks me up with the local wireless vitals -- signal strength, number of available connections, which of them are password-protected. Turns out, I can pop onto open networks near the Santa Monica Pier and in a sweet waterfall-equipped park just a hop, click, and jump from the office. Bonus: At my wine-country cottage, the ZyXEL detected signals that my ThinkPad's internal Wi-Fi card missed. Though the finder's display lacks backlighting for late-night searches, this gizmo has me bemoaning a new problem: Why the heck are we stuck in the cube farm when we could be chillin' with our laptops in the park?
Erika Stalder
WIRED Gadget Lab
Nov 22, 2005

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Anti-Job, Pro-Freedom Quote Of The Week 33

The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.
Mark Twain
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Anti-Job, Pro-Freedom Quote Of The Week 32

Labor represents a part of the human person. A person, however, cannot be bought. Neither can he sell himself. Any purchase or sale of labor is a type of slavery.
Paulo Frieire
Pedagogy Of The Oppressed

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Anti-Job, Pro-Freedom Quote Of The Week 31

To see the news you need to pay with money or with your time spent watching ads (usually for cars) or both. To create the news you need to pay expensive public relations consultants. To write the news you need to obey corporate news values, making stories on a production line, for maximum advertising impact at minimum cost. To edit the news you need to be a global stock market newswire service or a multinational media company. To distribute the news you need to have one of 6 TV transmission towers in a city of millions. Media corporations assume the viewers are stupid. In their eyes the total creative potential of the audience is Funniest Home Videos. Creative people do not buy more stuff, they make their own. This is a problem for media multinationals. They do not trust their audience to be creative. It might be bad for profits, bad for executive salaries.
Matthew Arnison