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Union Reveals Snails Pace of U.S. Broadband


speedmattersThank the Communications Workers of America for lobbying for high-speed Internet access via the SpeedMatters Web site. After months of collecting data from thousands of visitors to their Speed Test tool, the CWA today published an interactive (also PDF) state by state and even county by country analysis of average speed test results based on their (moderately small) data samples.

Bottom line — the InterTubes are molasses-slow. The below is a screenshot of the SF county data…

slow internets

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USC Center on Public Diplomacy Awarded MacArthur Grant

The New York Times just broke the news that the Center on Public Diplomacy won a generous MacArthur grant to further its research, presence, and to produce future events in the Second Life virtual world. Josh Fouts and Doug Thomas are the co-principal investigators on this $550,000 grant.

Check out the first MacArthur / CPD event at 9 PT this morning. more info here.

(Disclosure: I have been the Center’s Web editor since 2005.)

photo from the public diplomacy flickr stream.

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VC v. Entrepreneur Dodgeball: Labor Beats Capital

Last Friday we witnessed the hilarious and sweaty inaugural Labor vs. Capital Dodgeball Tournament in Santa Clara. Just the kind of back-breaking news you’d expect to come out of Silicon Valley. Fortunately, the entrepreneurs won, effectively socking enough stubborn venture capitalists with rubber balls to get back at even the most reticent of funders. August Capital’s David Hornik (of VentureCast fame) and Hunter Walk (YouTube/Google) organized the event and procured a half dozen plastic trophies for the winning team, unappetizingly named Backsweat. Everyone got bright orange t-shirts and Dodgeball DVDs as well as one stinky excuse to beat traffic and head home early.