OpenLife

If it is true that Bill Gates has threatened the Danish PM as is mentioned in the blogpost below, it is obviously completely unacceptable behaviour. Microsoft has already denied that threats were made by Bill Gates during his meeting with the Danish PM. However, the wording of Microsofts rebuttal is very vague and it is unlikely that the Danish business newspaper would have misquoted the Danish Mircrosoft representative to such an extend.

This incident should in any event provide a wake-up call for Danish politicians!

Gates utövar utpressning på Danmark?: “

Enligt danka tidningen Børsen träffade Bill Gates de danska stats-, finans- och vetenskapsministern i november förra året och hotade med att ett företag i Danmark som MS köpt skulle flyttas till USA om inte Danmark röstade för mjukvarupatentförslaget i EU.

Enligt the Inquirer som rapporterar om samma sak, så ska även VD:n på Philips ha utövat ungefär samma påtryckningar på Holland.

Länkar:
Artikeln på Børsen
Artikeln på the INQUIRER
Slashdot rapporterar också om det

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(Via Gnuheter.)

Nikolaj is back with his new weblog at http://nyholm.net/decibel/. A primary purpose with his weblog is to get a conversation going with community and stakeholders about the Organic Network project.

[Full disclosure: I am a shareholder in and chairman of the board of Organic Network ApS.]

Det er sjældent, at jeg tager mig sammen til at læse noget så skævt som moderne dansk litteratur. Men det sker. Og det er altiden spændende oplevelse. Jeg besidder ikke den baggrund, der gør, at jeg kan vurdere, om moderne litteratur er “god” eller “dårlig”. Normalt kan jeg alene vurdere, om “det var det værd”, eller om det var “spild af tid”.

Nu fik jeg så læst det Den Store Magasin Schäferbog, som er udgivet i efteråret 2004 af Magasin Schäfer. Og det var bestemt ikke spild af tid. Gode historier og frem for alt indblik i nogle hjerner, der oplever (og oplevede) København på en anden måde, end jeg gør.

9 February 2005, My father, Jeanne and I attended a very beautiful debut concert with young pianist Søren Rastogi at on the concert hall of the Royal Danish Library.

In particular, I enjoyed the SONATA No. 1 OP. 22 (1952) by Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera. Really great modern piano music with a jazzy rhythm.

Henrik Føhns and I are setting up a podcasting site that we have named Mimertalks. We are not there yet so the site is extremely beta. I have been playing around with some recorded conversations. The first audio is a conversation with Martin Thorborg - one of the founders of Danish yahoo equivalent Jubii and now founder of SpamFighter and SupportFighter.

Download the conversation from http://mimertalks.unicast.org/martin%20thorborg.mp3.

Jeanne’s and my good friend Jacgues Blum - who is the father of David, who is the best friend of our son Vilhelm - turned 60 today.

Adapted from a Woody Allen joke: “Jacques, this is great. You don’t look to be a day over 59″

Great news last week. My good friend Charlotte Fischer got elected for a seat in the Danish parliament. She won in a close race with another friend of mine - Christian Friis Bach - the contest for the one seat that her party - The Social-Liberal Party - obtained in her electoral district.

Lotte really deserves this success. She has worked very hard. Actually, she won a seat in parliament in the 2001 election, but she was deprived of her victory due to a very unfortunate formal error on the part of her party officials. And quite contrary to any principles of fairness and decency the runner-up refused to give up his seat to Lotte.

Det kommende folketingsvalg har virkelig fået mine øjne op for et personligt dilemma. På det ene side har denne valgkamp som aldrig før bekræfte mig i, at det nuværende politiske system på mange fundamentale områder ikke fungerer. Der er ingen visioner med i valgkampen, og det er stort set umuligt at se forskel på midterpartierne, samtidigt med, at de såkaldte fløjpartier overhovedet ingen reelle alternativer stiller med. Politikerne står i kø for at “bestikke” de store grupper indenfor vælgerkorpset med “gaver”, som betales af staten og særligt af fremtidens generationer af skatteydere.

På den anden side, så stiller der ved dette folketingsvalg flere kandidater op, som jeg kender personligt, og hvis integritet og fornuft jeg helt klart anerkender og værdsætter. Det er personer, som jeg ville stemme på, stort set uanset hvilket parti, som de måtte have været opstillet for.

Jeg kunne ikke drømme om at stemme på et parti, men jeg stemmer gerne personligt! Her er nogle af mine favoritter:

Charlotte Fischer. Lotte, som foroven posere sammen med min søn Vilhelm uden foran vores hus i Store Kannikestræde, er min personlige favorit. Hun stiller op i min kreds, og hun får min stemme.

Morten Helveg Petersen. Morten er den fremmeste IT-politiske ordfører på Christianborg, og han gør meget for at fremme en afbalanceret og informeret IT-politik i Danmark.

If you are a Glenn Gould fan I recommend the biography “Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius” by Peter Ostwald.

Even though the biographer at time seems not to be able to make up his mind as to whether he wants to really criticize his subject due to the fact that they were close friends the book gives a very interesting look into the mind of genius with all its eccentricities but also at times human pettiness.

An interesting aspect of the book is also that it brings attention to that amidst the genius and mastery of Glenn Gould’s piano playing, he never seem to arise above mediocrity with respect to being a composer himself.