Category: Technology

Commentary and analysis about new technology and business developments.

We Need the Law of Unintended Consequences

The Street Finds its Own Use for the Law of Unintended Consequences is the single best argument I’ve read for why legislation like the DMCA or the CBDTPA isn’t just bad for consumers, it’s disastrous to a prosperous United States.

I hate to continue to beat on this theme, but I keep finding great resources to share. The Street Finds its Own Use for the Law of Unintended Consequences is the single best argument I’ve read for why legislation like the DMCA or the CBDTPA isn’t just bad for consumers, it’s disastrous to a prosperous United States.

The Law of Unintended Consequences applies in spades to new technology; telephones were invented to bring opera into people’s living rooms!

The fact of the matter is that no group of engineers in a boardroom can ever anticipate what normal people will do with their inventions. … Indeed, the measure of a product’s success is how far it diverges from its creator’s intentions.

When the coked-up Hollyweird cabal tried to ban the VCR in the mid-eighties, they thought they were fighting for their existence. They did not imagine…the pre-recorded tape market, which has become the backbone of their industry, providing revenue long after Police Academy n-1 has left the big screen.

Laws like the DMCA or the CBDTPA put incredible restraints on the use of technology, and will prevent the kinds of innovation that have put the US at the front of the technological revolution.

Read Cory’s article, and then fax it to your congressperson.

Verisign Sucks

Verisign, through it’s Network “Solutions” division, handles the domain name registration for the majority of the Internet. And they do an absolutely terrible job of it.

Verisign, through its Network “Solutions” division, handles the domain name registration for the majority of the Internet. And they do an absolutely terrible job of it.

I’ve had my own horrible experiences with Network Problems, back when I first registered a few domain names. There was zero concept of customer service, actually getting someone on the phone was virtually impossible, and getting to someone who could actually help me was impossible. I eventually transferred all of my domain names away from Network Problems.

As much as I hate them, other people hate them even more, and have called for the corporate death penalty. I think it’s a good idea. If you have an Internet domain name registered with Network Problems, transfer it away from them. Domain Direct is a great registrar, and they are considerably cheaper to boot.

I Want a Segway HT!

I just read a really insightful review of the Segway Human Transporter by Dan Bricklin (creator of Visicalc, the first spreadsheet). There’s been a lot of hype around it, and that’s caused a lot of people to dismiss it, thinking it’s just a better motorized scooter.

I just read a really insightful review of the Segway Human Transporter by Dan Bricklin (creator of Visicalc, the first spreadsheet). There’s been a lot of hype around it, and that’s caused a lot of people to dismiss it, thinking it’s just a better motorized scooter.

Dan explains Why It’s Not Just A Scooter. Things like bicycles, scooters, and skiing all require very constrained movements and positions. We learn to operate in the small “comfort zone” where the device operates predictably and controllably. If you venture outside of those, they behave “non-linearly,” and you fall, or crash.

The Segway HT, by comparison, has an extremely wide range of movements and positions where it behaves linearly, and it is highly reactive to your natural body motions, actively keeping you in the (much wider) comfort zone. It’s most like walking, e.g., bending to pick something up, or bumping into someone else, or hitting a bump, or stopping suddenly while you’re in motion is not a dangerous incident. Learning to ride a Segway almost a non-event.

This means it’s an inclusive technology, not an exclusive technology. My mother would never get on a Razor scooter (for that matter, neither would I!), but she would be extremely comfortable, even confident, on a Segway HT.

At a conference Dan attended, most of the people who used (and loved) the Segway were 50+ years old. With a Segway, the notion of “walking distance” for an older person with bad knees is suddenly not “to the car and back,” but something more like what it was when they were 20. That’s powerful technology!

It’s hard to imagine it today, looking at the “cute” little Segway HTs, but the active mechanics behind it is disruptive technology. When Steve Jobs says “people will design cities around these,” it’s only a little hyperbole. Think of the active mechanics in the first Segway HTs as the first microprocessor, and look at how far we’ve come from those processors. That’s why people get excited about the Segway.

A Good Keyboard Is Worth 1000 Words

I have written several times about my search for an acceptable keyboard to replace my beloved Apple Extended Keyboard, which I can no longer use with my Mac, due to the retirement of the ADB interface. At long last, my search is over, with the purchase of a Ballistic USB Extended Keyboard.

I have written several times about my search for an acceptable keyboard to replace my beloved Apple Extended Keyboard, which I can no longer use with my Mac, due to the retirement of the ADB interface.

Well, my search is over. About three weeks ago I received a brand new Ballistic USB Extended Keyboard (Graphite) from Mac Station, and have been beating on it regularly since then. It’s everything I have been looking for in a keyboard, with the exception of not having the groovy Volume Up/Down/Mute and CD Eject buttons that the Apple Pro Keyboard has. And those I can live without, in return for the right feel on the keys.

If you’ve used and been a fan of the old Apple Extended Keyboard, the Ballistic will delight you, and at $75 Canadian (under US$50), it’s actually cheaper than any of the bad keyboards I’ve tried.

Highly, highly recommended.

Something Very Exciting Is Going on Right Now

Something really, really exciting is going on in technology right now. It’s not really clear where all this is heading, but the amount of activity, creativity, and energy going into building and combining new Web-based services is large and growing, in a way we haven’t seen since about 1994, when the Internet first started to take off.

Something really, really exciting is going on in technology right now. It’s not really clear where all this is heading, but the amount of activity, creativity, and energy going into building and combining new Web-based services is large and growing, in a way we haven’t seen since about 1994, when the Internet first started to take off.

Some data points:

Paolo Valdemarin summed it up thus:

Basically what is happening is that every piece of information, every idea, every concept, every document is getting its own url. You can access it and reuse it. All borders between you desktop and the rest of the universe are fading, you can borrow the search capabilities of Google’s powerful servers from within your favourite application, or you can read news from the New York Times on the same page containing the news from your co-worker telling you what’s up today.

It’s safe to say that we’re in the period of wild experimentation and innovation, where no one really knows what they’re doing or has a complete vision of what is to come. But it’s also safe to say that we’re going there fast, and it will change the way we use computers (again). And the ride itself is going to be a lot of fun.

Buckle up!

What’s Next?

Dave Winer is at the heart of all this energy, he’s involved with or creating every one of the major elements that make up this exciting soup.

Dave Winer is at the heart of all this energy, he’s involved with or creating every one of the major elements that make up this exciting soup. He’s written a bit about what he thinks is next:

Before this release, from Google’s point of view, we were all users. Now some of us are developers. We get another chance to define what that means, based on what we learned being developers for Apple, IBM, Apple again, Netscape, the Internet, Microsoft and now the Internet again. It’s a good time for a fresh start.

We’re at the Hello World stage again. It’s like the hobbyist period of personal computing, or MacWrite/MacPaint in 1984, or the early days of the Web when the blink tag was a minor miracle. Same idea.

DigitalConsumer.org

DigitalConsumer.org is a new organization whose purpose is to promote a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights, to “positively assert a consumer’s rights to fair use, […] and guarantee [the] ability to use digital media in the way that you choose.”

DigitalConsumer.org is a new organization whose purpose is to promote a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights, to “positively assert a consumer’s rights to fair use, […] and guarantee [the] ability to use digital media in the way that you choose.”

So what does this mean for you? It means it’s now extremely easy for you to let the politicians in Washington know that you don’t want to lose the ability to download music you’ve purchased on CD to your MP3 player, or the ability to play CDs on your computer, etc. DigitalConsumer.org can fax your letter of support for the Bill of Rights to your elected representatives, simply by entering your name and address on a web form.

Do it today!

Go Mo Fo!

MoFo is suing a spammer for sending their employees lots of spam, and is likely to cost the spammer a lot of money. If nothing else, seeing one of their own get sued by a world-class law firm has got to put a little fear of god into those slimy spammers.

How often do you think kind thoughts about lawyers? Well, if you get as much spam as I do, you’ve got to think well of Morrison & Foerster, fondly known as “MoFo” by those in the know — or those who look at their URL.

The reason is simple: MoFo is suing a spammer, for UCE sent to MoFo itself, and is likely to cost them a lot of money. If nothing else, seeing one of their own get sued by a world-class law firm has got to put a little fear of god into those slimy spammers.

Go, go, go MoFo!

Shoveling

An ode to a startup, and what it’s like to be inside, shoveling.

One month before our web site went live, and about 10 months before we went bankrupt, one of my co-workers at Cymerc sent this around:

You ever feel like you are in the engine room of a submarine?
And you are shoveling coal into the engine.
And building the ship at the same time.
You are not sure where you are going.
And you haven’t seen the sun for some time.
But you are pretty sure someone is steering
Because you haven’t hit anything yet?

I still love it!

(Note: I don’t know if it’s original, but I’ll credit it to Clark Weber until I hear differently.)

New Channel: Haightlife

Rochelle has a firm belief that people who live in San Francisco should have to justify living here, by taking advantage of unique aspects of living in the city on a regular basis. This new channel will cover some of those unique things, or other random stuff that we do on our days off, that would otherwise end up in the Miscellaneous category.

Rochelle has a firm belief that people who live in San Francisco should have to justify living here, by taking advantage of unique aspects of living in the city on a regular basis.

This new channel will cover some of those unique things, or other random stuff that we do on our days off, that would otherwise end up in the Miscellaneous category.

Today one of those unique things is going on at the Toronado, SF’s best beer bar. That’s right, it’s Belgian Beer month, and today is the kickoff.

You should be here.

Odd Todd

Odd Todd is probably the funniest of the various “I’m unemployed and have lots of time, so I’m going to document what’s it’s like to be unemployed on the Internet” sites.

OK, here’s another one. Odd Todd is probably the funniest of the various “I’m unemployed and have lots of time, so I’m going to document what’s it’s like to be unemployed on the Internet” sites.

The weirdest thing about this one is that the narration is in a voice that sounds a lot like one of Rochelle’s co-workers, who I met just after viewing the cartoon. It made it very difficult actually hear what he was saying, instead of just marveling at his voice…

Anyway, there’s a couple cartoons, and while the visuals are very stick-figure, the narration and audio is terrific. Recommended.

Unemployed Theo

Unemployed Theo is an amusing little web site that lets those not in the technology industry see what the life of a dot.bomb victim is like.

Unemployed Theo is an amusing little web site that lets those not in the technology industry see what the life of a dot.bomb victim is like.

Rochelle and I were doing this ourselves, about a year ago. Not coincidentally, Rochelle will be getting her Masters in Tequila later today, and mine should come in another month or so. If we’d stayed unemployed, I’m sure we’d be getting ready to receive our doctorates instead…and living in the basement on macaroni and cheese…