The simplest answer to the nonsense of proprietary spectrum advocates is pretty simple. The bidding was rigged. The golden age for spectrum auctions, the 1990s, were marked by outright fraud, some of it perpetrated by investor (and frequent TV guest) Mario Gabelli. A charming fellow. Knows how to fill out a suit. Even has executive-style […]
I watched part of the World Baseball Classic yesterday. Cuba vs. the Dominican Republic. No one mentioned this. The DR guys were BIG. Not just tall, not just muscular. They were steroid-filled freaks. The Cubans? Small, slim, ordinary-looking. Want to get the fight against International Communism out of this argument? OK. Turn to the previous […]
There is a reason the Bells have sicced their friends on the idea of open spectrum. It can kill them.
Recently I wrote about The Broadband Gap, the growing difference between the Internet access Americans can get and what citizens elsewhere enjoy. It surprises many people that such a gap exists. But, thanks to the Bell-cable duopoly, the fecklessness of copyright owners, and the wrong-headed policies of the Bush Administration, the gap is real. And […]
The time has come to demand that technology companies interested in real progress, and real freedom for competition, quit the Progress & Freedom Foundation. Quit it. Now. Leave. Loudly. Otherwise I brand each and every one of you as Luddites. This means you, Sun Microsystems. And you, Microsoft. It means Disney and eBay and BMG […]
Is the only way to fight piracy through Digital Rights Management, copy protection and industry pressure? A small games company called Stardock decided it made no financial sense, and decided to offer their newest game, Galactic Civilization II, without any of it. According to Techdirt, which quotes company officials, the game is now the top-seller […]
When the technology histories are written, this will be called the Gadget Decade. It is the first time in 30 years that client hardware has been the trend: The 1950s were about mainframes. The 1960s were about minicomputers. The 1970s were about PCs. The 1980s were about local networks. The 1990s were about the Internet. […]
The 1960 election was decided, in part, on the idea that a "missile gap" existed with the Soviet Union. Sen. John F. Kennedy used this phony issue to portray VP Richard Nixon, who had made his name as a Cold Warrior, as being "soft on communism." Ambitious politicians now have an extraordinary opportunity to do […]
The following was originally published yesterday in my weekly newsletter, A-Clue.Com. I would be delighted to have you subscribe. Always free. Do We Need To Care About The Internet? No. (This is what the Internet looked like, within the African nation of Togo, back in 2000. It is much, much bigger now.) Caring about the […]
Recently there was a thread on Dave Farber’s Interesting People list concerning a report (later shown to be false) former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had said something minimizing the Holocaust. I responded. The item was not posted to the list, so you get it. (Lucky you.) I’m not a Holocaust denier, but is it wrong […]
