One hallmark of Amazon.Com, back in the 1990s, was their ethics. They had an "associates" program that let you make money advertising their wares, and it paid off. They were careful in their e-mail policies. And you knew what they sold. Those were the days. Amazon is now the Wal-Mart of the Web. They sell […]
The common view on Jimmy Carter is he was a poor President but a great ex-President, a decent man overwhelmed by events. The events of this decade demand a revision of that judgement. Jimmy Carter was a great President. The fault lay in us, not in him. He just didn’t lead a great country, only […]
By trying to appear "tough on crime" Democrats are undermining the open Internet. A Democrat, Diana DeGette of Colorado, is behind a move to mandate a full year of ISP data retention, thus raising a high wall against the creation of competitive ISPs. She is doing this in the name of "fighting child pornography." Republicans […]
The story has spread over the Internet this weekend like wildfire. Verizon has won a ruling that it can charge local calls to ISPs as toll calls. The issue specifically involves an outfit called Global NAPs, which acted as an "ISP’s ISP," offering a huge modem bank to several other ISPs for dial-up service. The […]
No. Neither are the cable companies. Phone and cable companies deliver last-mile Internet service, and phone companies own most of what’s used for backbone Internet traffic in this country. But if they both disappeared tomorrow, would the Internet die with them? No. The Internet is just a means of moving bits between networks. It is […]
My goal is to discover the new rules underlying this new economics, and the new political dynamic, so that your parents and leaders can understand them.
Patents were designed as an open source process. It has become a closed source process, and needs to be reformed back to the "original intent" of the system's founders.
Right now, the American military can take on and defeat, not just any other military force, but all other military forces combined. We assume this gives us responsibility, that it makes us the world's policeman, that our military is the only guarantee for world peace and stability. Bullshit.
This decade has been marked by a complete lack of real jobs. Real jobs include health benefits. Instead we have had an enormous rise in non-job jobs. Wal-Mart jobs are non-job jobs. Immigrant jobs are non-job jobs. Freelance jobs are non-job jobs. You can’t really live on a non-job job, only survive. This is not […]
Recently I began a game here called The 1966 Game. The idea is that our present political myths, which emerged from the Nixon Era, are in the process of dying out. Thus, the question, who today has the roles played in 1966? We first identified John McCain as akin to Hubert Humphrey, because he is […]
