San Francisco Business Interest Group. Events, information, mailing list, networking. Looks interesting. Apparently they sponsored a panel talking about Web Services with John Hagel (author Net Gain), Todd Hewlin (The Chasm Group), and Lawrence Lessig (attorney/professor/author).

BIG-SF: San Francisco Business Internet Group

[ Originally from Nanochick ]

UM... ok... this is a banana dancing. Its weird. I was required to meme this...

This is so humerous [sic] and yet frightening at the same time - Nano

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

On the heels of Decius' recommendation re: WorldCon (pun intended) related comics comes some similar comics poking fun at Dubya and his hard-on for Iraq.

Bush War FRENZY!

Various Worldcom political cartoons...

Worldcom Cartoons

"The secretive federal court that approves spying on terror suspects in the United States has refused to give the Justice Department broad new powers, saying the government had misused the law and misled the court dozens of times, according to an extraordinary legal ruling released yesterday."

The court system is often an effective check against excess by the legislature and executive. This is one of the pieces of the system that works most of the time. Exceptions include drug related search and seizure.

Secret Court Rebuffs Ashcroft (washingtonpost.com)

An article about the sneaky financial dealings of the telecom industry. Time Warner Telecom, Sonus, Qwest, Williams, Winstar, Global Crossing, Corvis, Tellium, Lucent, Sycamore, WorldCom, Alteon, Nortel, and others.

... The fact that companies and their executives profited from investments in fledgling suppliers may help explain why there was such a gross misallocation of capital in the sector, and why networks that cost billions to build fetch far less in bankruptcy auctions.

This article implies a problem that is much more broad then likely existed. There were a lot of these sort of relationships in the industry, and not just between big telecoms and small equipment companies, but also between small telecoms and big equipment companies. There are many reasons for getting involved in a deal like this. Telecoms want cheaper gear and good support for it. Equipment dealers want environments that push the technical limits of their gear and/or need large customers who validate their offerings in the marketplace. Throwing stock into the deal is little different then lowering a price. If the equipment didn't work, or wasn't used, or wasn't really bought, then thats obviously a problem, but the overall value of telecom networks in the current environment has to do with sellers pressured by debt and an overcapacity in infrastructure rather then an inflation of the value of *new hardware.*

Extent of network capacity in most cases was based on demand estimates made by investment firms. Most people were not building capacity just to buy equipment. Its not impossible that this occured, but most of the industry is not guilty of this.

Deals Within Telecom Deals

You work in the IT department.....you're a ninja......sounds logical enough. GO!

This is sweet!

IT Ninja

"Regrettably, the best advice I have is this: Find a different field of endeavor. Unless you're in the top rank, there's little future for you in IT... The supply of programmers exceeds demand "

The IT rust belt

-- Tripp Helms
Democrat
Candidate
U.S. Congress
8th District, North Carolina "

Another anti-DMCA candidate.

Tripp Helms For Congress

Big business record industry caused their own ills. Surprise! Need I remind anyone that big business short-term goals generally 'cause them far more grief than it's worth?

Hit Charade - The music industry's self-inflicted wounds. By Mark Jenkins