Five Links About Freedom

Stand Up for Freedom: The ACLU is sponsoring a contest for young people (17-29) to write essays and 30-second public service announcements on the importance of freedom. The results should be interesting. The link above seems to be blocked (perhaps the work of various right-wing nut-groups that see civil liberties as a dangerous idea)? Persevere. Thanks to whoever pointed me to this (having an over-50 moment).

What Business Can Learn from Open Source: People work a lot harder on stuff they like. Lots more stuff on Paul Graham’s site worth a read too. Thanks to Amy Gahran for the link.

Call Landline Phones from Skype (Almost) Free: For the one-time price of one euro, you can now open a VoipBusters account that will let you use Skype to call any landline (non-cell) phone in the US, Canada, UK, most of Europe, China, Taiwan and Australia, free. Thanks to Stu Henshall at SkypeJournal for the news.

Overpriced Brands and Major Media in Joint Suicide Pact: Rob Paterson links to this post from the inimitable Hugh Macleod. Just go read it.

Blocking Peer-to-Peer at Work: Valdis Krebs points out this article in Computerland that suggests more and more companies are using dubious ‘security concerns’ as a pretext to prevent and reduce peer-to-peer communications in and between workplaces.

‘Intelligent Design’ cartoon by Tony Auth. Thanks to Mike Capone for finding it.