Imagine we had a bunch of kids and teachers and hobbyists who wanted to take today's chips and make something with them, something that had never existed before. Imagine these folks were getting together in the Valley and meeting every month, as was done back in the day. Could they come up with anything? Are the pieces there to support a 21st century Heathkit, a 21st century Byte Magazine, a 21st century start-up called Apple?
What I hope we're finding is a growing pent-up demand from WiFi users, demand that can be exploited. If makers of WiFi gear put flyers in their boxes, or sent e-mail to their registered users, demanding more spectrum in order to deliver faster service, that might have some impact.
Despite press claims that the blogosphere is just about crazy, misleading back-and-forth, the blogosphere (like the Internet itself) is not any one thing. It's a medium through which anything can be sent, and seen, no matter how few believe.
The last game piece offered was backwards, and a poser. Who was Joe Lieberman then?
The tool to meet these challenges is in your hands, it's right in front of your eyes. This medium. Yet the idea of applying the lessons learned in building this medium to any other sphere is untested, untried, and (we assume) elitist.
Exclude punitive liability from coverage, and punitive damage awards are guaranteed to go down. Juries will not be able to do more than break defendants. Appellate courts will then have a real basis on which to decide how much punishment is enough.
A generational crisis always results in a battle within the newly victorious party. This is usually a war between insurgents and establishment figures, or between the New Thesis and the Old Anti-Thesis.
Laughter is the best medicine against Fear. What Fear fears most is ridicule. Jon Stewart , Stephen Colbert, and Bill Maher have become major figures because laughter trumps fear, just as paper covers rock. When you're laughing at what scares you, it will eventually cease to scare you. You'll see the caricature in time and the Emperor will become naked without realizing it.
You're looking for something that is semi-handmade, something made in your local area, something useful. Can you design it yourself? Go for it. Can't? Find someone who can. Concentrate on local color, local materials, and local labor. You want to emphasize that in your marketing.
The move from an economics of scarcity to one of abundance is just as wrenching. And the resistance is greater. That's why we haven't seen many new technologies emerge this decade (the commercial Internet is over a decade old). Our policies favor scarcity over abundance. They even try to force scarcity (as in digital goods) where non exists.
