Just a quick drawing this time.

From Slashdot - for those who haven’t seen it - comes a review of 10 Web operating systems. Web operating systems are operating systems which operate within the browser, essentially leap-frogging the operating system into the application layer of computing.

Swapping between a series of computers, I find netvibes extremely useful at the moment - although, almost entirely for their RSS feeds, rather than the broader functionality, which is a bit uncomfortable.

However, Goowy, linked to in the piece, is very exciting. Maybe not a replacement for Netvibes yet, but a great shape of things to come.

Pokies are evil … we will say more along the way.

- Greens member Greg Barber setting up a new season of hysterical paternalism in his maiden speech to the Victorian Parliament

Adobe has announced an update of the PDF document format, MARS, in response to Microsoft’s new XPS format - a much more noble response to their new competitive challenge than lobbying competition regulators.

I wrote about software design by competition law in the December IPA Review, here.

My collegue Richard Allsop has a piece in todays Age: “It’s time for the Liberal Party to live up to its name“.

For starters, the Liberal Party should always be seen as the party of small government. Its MPs at state level need to do some hard thinking about how that principle can be enunciated in this era when state governments are awash with cash.

Its an important and interesting article, and details some specific policy areas where the Liberals could make a proper splash. Although it has depressing implications: until Richard’s article, I’m not sure I had seen the idea that the Liberal Party should actually be liberal in the press.

And the tired, inexplicably popular “Liberal Party rejects Menzies’ legacy” line is not an adequate substitute.

The December IPA Review arrived from the printer today, full of articles you won’t read anywhere else. And it’s attractively designed, full of pictures.

I have a few short articles scattered through this latest addition, including “Software design by competition law“, and a book review of The Box: “Containers and their enemies“.

The table of contents, and editorials, are available here - note the eloquent, influential and insightful writers, and the myriad of fascinating subjects they expound upon for your enjoyment.

Did you know that subscriptions to free-market magazines make great Christmas presents? And the bargain basement price of the IPA Review subscription - $33 for one year, or even better, $55 for a full IPA membership, complete with other great IPA publications - means that it is the perfect present for those you love, and those you merely like.

Once you have finished digesting this post, go here to subscribe.

The Economist Blog writes:

Why are there so many well-padded books out there that really ought to be nice, long articles?… Journalists, like many non-economists, do not properly understand sunk costs.

The rapidly diminishing returns of writing a book rather than a longer article are even more pronounced when the FUTON (full-text-on-the-net) bias is taken into account - it is not unlikely, as more and more research is done purely online, that the original article - hopefully freely available online - could be much more influential than the subsequent padded book.

Media proprietors can use their influence over editorial staff to push their own personal beliefs. This is the implicit argument of ownership regulation of the media - otherwise, why deviate from standard, economy wide competition policy?

But it is more likely that preceived and actual media bias is a reflection of consumer demand, rather than an insidious plot by media moguls to influence public opinion. A new paper by Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro sheds more light, ‘What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers‘:

The role of ownership in determining slant is signicantly smaller than the role of consumer characteristics… Direct proxies for owner ideology, such as patterns of corporate or executive donations to political parties, are unrelated to a newspaperÂ’s slant.

The most striking aspect of the Democratic Labor Party is not their policies - which are just a smattering of random positions lifted from every side of the political spectrum - but the fact that their policies have been written in Comic Sans, like they were teleported into the future from 1998.

UPDATE: Although, this policy nearly beats their font choice for bizarreness:

Restrictions on the publication of “so-called” public opinion polls during the period of an election to limit media manipulation of voters.

[Quote marks added for rhetorical effect]

I did one of those radio essay thingos, well, a few weeks ago, but it was broadcast yesterday on Radio National, “Australian mistakes“. I intend to continue my own little war against the 1905 Wireless Telegraphy Act as long as anyone will listen to me.