Jeff Jarvis writes on SOPA/PIPA:

The question of fact is difficult to answer as it is an attempt to prove a negative: How do we know how many copies of a work pirates would have bought if they hadn’t pirated? How do we know how many more people discovered and bought a work because it was pirated? How do we differentiate between shrinking industry sales caused by piracy or by a new abundance of competition?

The matter of principles is this: Where will the White House and government put their priorities: in protecting the interests of a shrinking industry or in protecting the interests of innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic expansion? Will they favor protecting the interests of a closed industry or the freedom of speech?

Bills like SOPA and PIPA don’t work because they are written by people who do not understand the Internet. SOPA was written by the entertainment industry as a catch-all maneuver to combat piracy.

The problem is that the bill is so vague that it allows for the take-down of legitimate websites and services and undermines existing provisions in the DMCA. It grants not only the government but also private organizations to block web addresses with little more than an accusation.

Without doubt, SOPA/PIPA will be be a devastating blow not only to the tech sector, but to jobs, security and innovation.

Learn more, then take action against SOPA/PIPA by contacting your member of Congress and signing this petition.

Also: End Piracy, Not Liberty

Here’s a short piece I recently wrote about a group of Texas counties collaborating on GIS solutions. This will be of interest to anyone who attended my presentation at SXSW last year on the importance of open data and data visualization in government.

The consortium operates under the direction of the East Texas Council of Governments (ETCOG), an already chummy and productive network of counties and other governmental entities with a shared commitment toward smart government. GIS encompasses the technology and analysis of electronic maps and the data they represent. It’s like your GPS, but with a brain and a hard drive, allowing officials and workers to spot geographic trends with satellite images without so much time in the field. The East Texas GIS Consortium’s goal is to share otherwise costly GIS systems, similar to a co-op, creating savings that ultimately benefit East Texas taxpayers. The city of Rusk, for example, mapped its fire hydrants and analyzed the data to identify underserved areas. By spotting deficiencies in hydrant service, officials can preempt disasters and other emergencies.

Read the entire article.

via InfoWorld:

Until something changes in the law or in future court rulings, owning all the equipment an employee uses does give a business the most control over its data and communication. Of course, that contradicts the trend to let people use their home PCs and personal devices, which many businesses like for the cost savings and lower accounting and asset-management overhead. The real question: What’s that control worth to your business?

Applies to most traditional retail, really. Link.

The pace of training is increasing to about two flights per week, faster than my ability to blog each flight. Tonight I conducted five touch-and-gos at Austin Bergstrom. Remaining in the pattern at Austin is slightly more perplexing than the usual flights we take to smaller, more rural fields like Lockhart. Winds this afternoon were 15-25 knots, presenting strong cross winds that were compounded by heavy thermals over paved areas and highways around the airport. Traffic wasn’t especially heavy, but we were regularly position between MD-80s and 737s as early evening arrivals picked up around 5pm.

Just before the Labor Day weekend, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler went hands-on with a prototype of the upcoming Amazon Kindle tablet. Siegler writes that the color tablet will feature a deeply branded reboot of the Android OS. Amazon is eyeing a November release, according to the report.

Again, the device is a 7-inch tablet with a capacitive touch screen. It is multi-touch, but from what I saw, I believe the reports that it relies on a two-finger multi-touch (instead of 10-finger, like the iPad uses) are accurate. This will be the first Kindle with a full-color screen. And yes, it is back-lit. There is no e-ink to be found anywhere on this device.

I’m a huge fan of the Kindle for two reasons. The first being that it’s neatly tied to Amazon, allowing me to purchase content and send it directly to the device, or access it through my iPhone or through the new Web-based reader. Second, e-Ink is incredibly readable; It’s far more easy to read for extended lengths than my iPad’s screen. It will be a shame if the Kindle Tablet doesn’t retain that level of readability. Expect leaked images of the prototypes screen at any time.