I suppose everyone of a certain age is aware of Napster and the music industry’s crusade to crush it. Every few months over the last decade or so the entertainment industry will explode in a flurry of press releases and talking head appearances regarding the evils of copyright infringement, illegal copying and piracy. But...
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This is the latest in an ongoing series entitled, “Everything You Think You Know (ETYTYK) about ‘X’ is Wrong,” designed to illustrate just how much technology and the internet have changed key industries (the X). It is also about how we as consumers and most especially how the industries themselves are mostly failing in...
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While tout le monde flakes off on their state-subsidized and/or mandates three week vacations, those of us who live in the utopian wonderland that is the USA continue to work away to pay for our bestest-in-the-world health care and stuff. Not a whole lot going on in technology and politics… But I look forward...
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Another post that starts with a book plug. The Transparent Society by David Brin. Brin is a SF writer by trade and an prolific libertarian-leaning writer of nonfiction. The premise of The Transparent Society is that basically privacy as we know it is nonexistent. “The Man” has access to every aspect of our lives...
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Even if you aren’t really into Science Fiction, if you want your mind to be totally blown, try Accelerando, by Charles Stross. It is a collection of nine interconnected short stories telling the tale of three generations of a disfunctional family before during and after a technological singularity. Acelerando won the Locus award and...
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Nothing Earth shattering here. Just neat that these two little robots are still truckin’. They were built, launched 27 millionmiles, and landed on Mars for about $820 million. One shuttle mission on the other hand will set you back $450 mil. Originally designed to last for 90 martian days (24 hours, 39 minutes), Spirit...
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