Shoppers Bite Back

This was out a little while ago, but it bears repeating for a couple of reasons.

1. Corporations can be just a beureaucratic as government, are fundimentally less accountable and lack even a notional mission of "public service." Remember that when you listen to Republicans talking about how this or that should be privatized.
2. An increasingly democratic distribution of media power (thanks to the internet, peace be unto It) is the 21st Century's freedom of the Press from a checks and balances perspective. Traditional "press" institutions are clearly failing their role as a Fourth Estate. Better to decentralize and distribute that responsibility now that it's technically feasible to do so on a national or global scale.

Update patch for Civ4... it helps. Beta, so beware, but it should increase speed significantly.

I got my copy of Civilization 4 in the mail today, which was exciting. However, I've fallen victim to one of the traps of early-adoption. As most of the Amazon reviews have pointed out, this game is enormously resource-intensive. And for no good reason as far as I can tell. The graphics are nice, but hardly mind-boggling. I've seen games do a lot more. I suspect that the port was rushed, and hope that future patches give it some boosts in performance.

Update: for anyone else wrestling with this, the fanatics forums may be helpful.

An interesting little Trellon/Drupal project -- we made a polling module that keeps track of vote sources. It also lets you drill-down in the answers section. The client, a new non-profit called The Sunlight Foundation (tres cool), has just rolled out the first big public use. Try it:

I think this poll is going to be pretty lopsided, but I can see future uses that are much more interesting.

An interesting little Trellon/Drupal project -- we made a polling module that keeps track of vote sources. It also lets you drill-down in the answers section. The client, a new non-profit called The Sunlight Foundation (tres cool), has just rolled out the first big public use. Try it:

I think this poll is going to be pretty lopsided, but I can see future uses that are much more interesting.

I go on about this "Net Neutrality" thing and our need to "Save the Internet" from time to time, and I know I don't do the greatest job of explaining it. I probably could if I spent more time on it (or I was a ninja), but luckily for me there are even more brilliant and articulate voices out there, and my blockquotes know kung-fu.

Doc earls Suitwatch^*:

Yes, there are costs -- very large ones in some cases -- to bringing fiber-grade internet connections to homes and businesses. And there are costs for connecting to backbones. But we need to depend on carriers to fund the capacity? Put another way, Why should we depend on companies that accelerate into the future with one foot on the brake pedal while they park in the middle of intersections and charge us to cross them?

The short answer is, We shouldn't.

That means we have to depend on ourselves.

And the tide of history. Because that, more than anything else, is on our side.

...

"Broadband" is like "long distance": just another name for transient scarcity. We want our Net to be as fast, accessible and unrestricted as a hard drive. (And in time even that analogy will seem too slow.) The only way that will happen is if the Net becomes ubiquitous infrastructure -- something which, in a practical sense, nobody owns, everybody can use and anybody can improve.

There is infinitely more business in making that happen, and using the results, than Congress can ever protect for the carriers alone.

Doc closes with a jab at the carriers ("Will someone please tell them?") in regards to this greater potential for business with an open platform. I think this is pulling a punch, really. The current conglomorates which control telecommunications in the US are a very long ways away from seeing the light on this issue, and everybody pretty much knows it.

It's possible that if they loose this fight they may be saved by their own incompatence, and seeing the error of their ways embrace a radical and new way of thinking about how to maximize shareholder value, but somehow I doubt it. That's not how boards of directors work in my understanding.

Let's be clear, I don't want the Government to control the internet any more than William Fucking Buckley does. There are tons of potential problems with that, some more troubling than likely, but frankly I resent the characterization.

I'm even more annoyed that this rhetoric seems to work with congresspeople. I'm sure the bribes PAC Contributions help, but it seems so juvinile. Everyone recognizes that the government isn't the the right outfit to run the show here on anything like a day to day basis -- jeesus, do we have to keep saying this? we're not fucking communists, people -- but that doesn't mean I want to leave all decision-making power in the hands of these corporate fatbck imbicilles.

I want a well-regulated market for access to the internet, with true local, regional and national competition, a broadband "dialtone" for everyone who wants it, and no upper limit on what any individual, community, municipality, or corporation can do. Wouldn't that be nice?

That's a feasible idea, and a real possible outcome if we keep a level playing-field. It'll be a big win for everyone. I realize there's an element of manifest destiny in this kind of thought, and we've got to keep that in check, but come on: there's plenty of bandwidth, let's use it.

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^* This is a public email list. Doc's Suitwatch Archives are open and public, and well worth reading too.

I'm about to start begging people for money for a project I've been talking with people about. Gonna lead with a video pitch. Let me know what you think:

The site we're working towards is here: www.looseconspiracy.net.

God I hate the sound of my own voice. Nerd!

I'm about to start begging people for money for a project I've been talking with people about. Gonna lead with a video pitch. Let me know what you think:

The site we're working towards is here: www.looseconspiracy.net.

God I hate the sound of my own voice. Nerd!

John Robb Sez:

Basically, it is a cynics play on our broken patent system. He and a team of lawyers use shell companies to snag undervalued patents. They have also built a patent factory in order to lock up entire fields of endeavor. The end product is an idea tax via royalties and penalties for non-payment. The big difference between this venture and other attempts at this is the amount of money and sophistication -- its an order of magnitude more.
...
IF the future of American innovation is rentier economics, then count me out. The cynical nature of this makes you want to root for Chinese knock-off artists.

A commentor adds:

[T]hese men are much worse than the robber barons. The robber barons typically had to actually build a railroad. Not just open up an office and persecute inventors.

Indeed. There's a deep and strong strain of business culture that sees nothing more attractive than locking up technology in a box, hardening the dividing line between creators and consumers in the digital age. It's the pure zero-sum fatback mentality: lock down something people need (like a bridge, or now a good idea) and charge a toll for using it, the kind of "entrepreneurialism" that holds everyone back. Nice.

Procedural literacy (the knowledge of how things work and thus how to change them and make new things) is already at a premium thanks to decades of proprietary thinking in the technology sphere. These kinds of ventures seek to extend the proprietary shell game beyond working products and into the realm of ideas themselves. Boo hiss indeed.

Paging Chris Messina...

Season Three has begun. I'm showing this to Mark and Kelly from the beginning, so I'm not watching the new stuff yet, but I'm psyched. Check the torrentfeed, yo.