If you read my blog often, you’ll know that I am a big fan of wireless everywhere. I think it is an inevitability. Anyway, the city of Philadelphia was considering launching a city-wide WiFi service, fully funded. Great idea, but according to Lawrence Lessig, it might not go ahead:

But as Public Knowledge now reports, a bill on the Governor’s desk would now make it impossible for Philadelphia to offer such a service, because it “competes” with private businesses offering the same service.

That really sucks. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense either, as Lessig also points out:

So, let’s see: If I open a private street light company, selling the photons my lights give off, can Philadelphia offer “free” street lights? Or does the fact that Guards To Go offers services in Philadelphia mean we need to disband the Philly police department?

Good call. I don’t think such a service would really compete with companies offering the same service. In fact, if it does compete, the companies obviously aren’t offering a good enough service. Public WiFi probably won’t be screaming fast, nor will it be secure or completely reliable. Those three things can be offered by private businesses, and people WILL pay for it.

Australian IT has a story on podcasting and how it has taken off in recent months – worth a read if you keep up on all the podcasting news. The story comes just days after the G’day World podcast was officially launched by Mick Stanic and Cameron Reilly. They are good guys, give their show a listen! In their first episode you can learn how to speak Australian properly!

Tonight was the finale of CBC’s Greatest Canadian. When all was said and done, Canadians voted Tommy Douglas as the greatest Canadian of all, fitting I guess considering so many elections these days focus around health care. Some interesting numbers:

A total of 1.1 million votes were cast by the Canadian public via telephone, e-mail or text messaging. Since Saturday, more than 342,000 ballots were turned in before the Sunday midnight voting deadline, according to a CBC spokesperson. The only change triggered by Sunday night’s impassioned TV debate was that both Pearson and Trudeau enjoyed 37 per cent increases in their tallies, the official said

Only 3.6% (roughly) of the population voted?! Probably less with multiple votes (I am not entirely sure of the rules here). Maybe that’s why Don Cherry beat Wayne Gretzky. What’s up with that? A travesty I say. My pick for #1, Sir Frederick Banting, came fourth overall.

Read: Canada.com

I have been catching up on podcasts lately, so I am kind of behind. I just listened to a Dawn and Drew show from November 21st, in which they have sex to try and boost their rating on podcastalley.com. Quite possibly the funniest six minutes I have ever heard. Listen here!

While you’re checking it out, vote for us too!

Okay, as I mentioned previously, we have Skype all set up. Call us now! Think of it as your chance to get on the air! Our Skype name is “blogosphereradio”.

I just did my first test recording using SkypeOut. After the long distance bill came in for the first month of BlogosphereRadio calls, I decided I should explore some other options. Not only is SkypeOut much, much cheaper, it also is a lot easier to record as it’s already on the computer. The test went extremely well – easy to setup, sound quality was great.

Actually, I like Skype so much that we’re going to add the ability for listeners to talk to us via Skype! Why Skype over a competing product? Well, aside from the fact that it works very well (except on my Tablet), almost 39 million downloads means that the user base is already sufficiently huge. And Skype also supports conference calls of up to 5 people, which should come in handy. If they add the SkypeIn feature that has been discussed (so normal phones can call Skype clients), it will be perfect!

So watch BlogosphereRadio.com soon for the addition of Skype!

I am off to sleep, but I figured I would leave you with this wonderful site I stumbled across tonight. It’s called Book-A-Minute Bedtime, and is a collection of classic stories compressed into one-minute bedtime stories, like the infamous Corduroy by Don Freeman:

Corduroy: No one will buy me because I’m missing a button.

(A girl BUYS Corduroy and makes him a BUTTON, and there are WARM FUZZIES.)

THE END

Enjoy, and goodnight!

Have you heard about TiVo lately? Along with some other news, they recently announced plans to show advertisements while you are fast-forwarding. Kind of defeats the purpose, don’t you think? Well there are lots of bloggers who felt that way, some who disagreed, and some who just said “deal with it”. Put it all together and what do you get? A blogroversy.

So in the newest episode of Blogoversial, titled Blogoversial: TiVo Fast-Forward Ads, we take a look at what the blogosphere is saying about the decision. Check it out!

Listen Now!

Have you been following the Ukraine election fiasco? It’s a pretty big story with Canada, the United States, and a bunch of other countries refusing to recognize the declared winner. Some good news appeared recently however, as the results have been put on hold:

Ukraine’s Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked the victory of Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich in the disputed presidential election, barring publication of the Central Election Commission’s results until the court reviews complaints of widespread fraud and abuse.

With civil war becoming a greater possibility with each passing hour, we can only hope that they get the mess sorted out with as little trouble as possible. And I think they will, partially because Canada and other countries have taken the hardline, threatening “consquences” for their relationship with the Ukraine unless an objective review takes place. Someone has to look out for democracy!

Read: New York Times

Just came across this very interesting article from The Globe and Mail. The writer, Jan Wong, lists ten things that are better in China than they are here. And apparently, she left a lot of things out. Since I hate bad drivers, this is my favorite:

2. Informative stop lights

In Tianjin, a city of 13 million people, traffic lights display red or green signals in a rectangle that rhythmically shrinks down as the time remaining evaporates. In Beijing, some traffic lights offer a countdown clock for both green and red signals.

During a red light, you know whether you have time to check that map; on a green light, you know whether to start braking a block away — or to stomp on the accelerator, as though you were a Toronto or Montreal driver. (That’s probably why Montreal has a few lights with countdown seconds for pedestrians.)

Their cellphone coverage is better too, but almost anywhere in the world is better than North America. Worth a read!