How Depressing Is This?
Dan Gillmor on the proposed “Peer to Peer Piracy Prevention Act,” under which the music and movie industries would be legally allowed to hack into computers running file-sharing programs. Dan puts it very gloomily.
Common Sense Is The Victim Of Unthinking Bureaucracy In American Airports
This OpinionJournal editorial by George McGovern is an incredibly eloquent statement of how ridiculous and unthinking airport security bureaucracy has become. Read it, tell your airlines that you’ll avoid flying and they are more likely to go out of business because of this static, backward-looking approach to making us feel safe that instead just makes …
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Spontaneous Order Distributed Networks In Telecommunications
The telecommunications industry is currently in an incredible state of flux — financial concerns, business model issues, and regulatory treatment are all affecting the industry at once, in this uncertain investment climate. This fascinating InfoWorld article makes a crucially important point about technological change and the future of the telecommunications industry: Keeping the Internet an …
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Pluralistic Technology Platforms?
This article from Wired News gives a nice, concise description of the implications of Covalent’s (open-source Apache server’s) decision to support Microsoft’s .Net technology. This decision will create more choice in the web server market, and also bodes well for the good experimentation consequences of pluralistic technology use and development. However, this NYT article suggests …
Honda Takes The Lead, Quelle Surprise
Honda announced today that they have secured a license from the US and California governments to sell fuel cell vehicles in the US. The article does a nice job of describing the realistic timeframe for the diffusion of fuel cell vehicles, including the pesky issue of the network infrastructure for hydrogen refueling. Is this cool …
This Is Snazzy
According to this press release, the municipal utility in Austin, Texas has installed a natural-gas-fired fuel cell combined heat and power system. Austin Energy installed the 200-kilowatt fuel cell system, which also produces 900,000 BTUs of usable heat per hour, at the Rebekah Baines Johnson Health Center. Electricity produced by the unit is fed into …
Rainey Wildlife Refuge
They also remind you of good stories about how it is that market mechanisms actually deliver sound environmental policy better than any existing alternatives. My colleague at this Institute for Humane Studies seminar, John Hasnas mentioned in his lectures the case of the Audubon Society allowing natural gas drilling in the Rainey Wildlife Refuge in …
Mill’s Harm Principle
One of the best things about hanging out with philosphers is that they remind you of cool stuff you read way too long ago, like this quote from John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty about the harm principle and individual liberty: “… the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with …
Outta Here
I’m leaving Saturday morning for Pennsylvania, to teach at a seminar given by the Institute for Humane Studies. Promises to be very good fun, and lots of great brain candy.
Prescription Drug Prices
Run, don’t walk, to Megan McArdle’s house for a superb analysis of why Canadian prescription drug prices are lower than in the U.S., and the likely consequences for pharmaceutical R&D. I can vouch for the business reality of her argument; when I worked as a tax consultant I had clients that confronted this painful reality.