If a service is free and not open source, that means you are the product - in, sold to others - and not the consumer.

it was not enough to push a law like INDUCE act, that criminalizes any app that could be used to copyright infringement (like, ipods, cd-burners, backup solutions, and basically all the internet), lose the military papers about their own president.
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now, a federal system aims to mix commercial and state databases to find potential terrorists (or any other lame excuse their using now to peek into the private lives of their citizens).
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think about the name: Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or M.A.T.R.I.X.. yeah, after the blockbuster movie. doesn’t it sounds like the ultimate weapon of a lame arch-villain in a B-movie?
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plz, it’s not even scary anymore!

the outside, inside
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internet at home. vonage on the way. new project. money from the old project soon. netflix redirected. 50% discount at supermarket (really, they were closing doors), so fridge full of nice food. home the way we like it (minimal & funny). bathtub (in brazil it’s not a commodity as it is here. and damn, it’s therapeutic!)
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when i came here, i asked “to be solid”. and then i made a pact with ganesha. because surely there’s some space for me here, i just wanted the right doors to open. and they did.
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and at the same moment i got solid, my dreams changed, and i remebered what i intentionally forgot (too much to carry, when you have to worry about your basic needs).
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rise and shine, dude.

wi-fi kama sutra
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with a notebook, wi-fi card and no internet conenction at home, i’m exploring new places to work.
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first i was in the bryant park, nice and peaceful place, but now i’m in the chelsea piers. water. sun. wind. lovely.
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today is 4 july, and the fareheint-911 gives me hope american will rethink their dumb move. I would say “option” but i question the election). i didn’t see the movie, but jade did, and we discussed about it. and we drank wine, to the roots.
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(BTW, the 8 circuit theory of leary is here… we were addressing similarities between the 8 and 7 chakras)

no internet at home yet, only (maybe) at tue… so i’m at the bryant park… lovely palce, you can see the nature looking down, and the buildings looking up. bathrooms for our needs (don’t laugh, bathrooms are kinda sparse here in NYC, and you CAN’T pee on the street - well, maybe at night)
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but no power lines, which means that when the computer dies, it dies. go home and sleep.

about vonage
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well, i don’t know about the actual service, i’m still only using their “softphone”, a program that permits you to make and receive calls from anywhere you have broadband connection.
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the service is kinda choppy, but i guess i’m doing something wrong, because ppl are talking wonders about it.
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i used it on hilton hotel, and it worked fine. i suppose that if the service gets popular, the wi-fi providers will start to get angry… coz it probably sucks too much band. or not.
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if i’m not available (computer off, program off, internet off, or the usual 3 rings after), the caller goes to a voice mail service, as usual and i receive a mail telling me i have a new voicemail. going on the website, i can hear (and download, think of the possibilities) the message. kinda neat.
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too bad their site is crammed with irrelevant information. i’d suggest something like:
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- a cookie to remember my login/password (kmon, write it everytime i want to hear a message is clunky)
- a link on the mail, so i could go to the message right away
- better integration with the OS (but i guess the mac version is really new). i tried to use an apple script that bridges vonage softphone with mac’s address book, but it didn’t work with me (everytime i try to call someone, it appears as if THEY are calling me. weird).
- and again with better integration, open the source for some other apps… i’d love to have a program that pops up a textfile for each person, so i could write down what i have to talk with someone, and then when they call me, i’m all prepared.

the dog ate my homework
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a lot of odd things happened with my digital life (i’m writing from an internet cafe near home), as follows:
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• a powersurge kills my sister’s notebook ac adaptor
• we lost our internet connection
• using aol, dial-up, suddenly we lot our land-line conection too
• our cable modem arrives, i got kinda happy
• my (black) cat chews the wire of my notebook, i can’t reboot it
• my sister uses the old adaptor, fair enough
• the cable modem dies on us, dunno why

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and all the while i’m reading all the cyberspace papers from the university (more about it later), it’s just like stop fucking and start reading about it.