It is interesting that both said yes, and specifically the way that James Baker described how it has been recognized as official policy for at least 3 of the 4 presidents he served under.

Charlie Rose: "..Most people now consider it, with oil now at $140 a barrel, a national security issue. Do you?..

Warren Christoper: Oh, there is no doubt that our energy is a national security issue and will be for a long time ahead..

James Baker: "Energy has been a national security priority for a long time Charlie. I served in 4 administrations and I know for a fact that in 3 of those we had national security decision directives that said we would go to war in effect to protect our access to the energy reserves of the Middle East and and we in effect did that at one point.."

• Charlie Raises the Question: 27:10
• James Baker's Response: 27:57-28:47
• Carter Doctrine

I first was drawn to the Dinotte line of lights by reviews of their taillight -- which was described as the brightest available.

EXTREMELY bright. There is no way a car won't see you.

This tail light is far and away the brightest, most attention-getting example I have seen. The instructions even caution you to mount it to prevent aiming it directly at the drivers behind you! After years of wondering if the cars coming up behind me actually notice my tail light, I now have confidence they do. What a great feeling!

This tail light is unbelieveably bright!

People have told me that at several hundred yards it still looks "like a star or constellation"

You won't be disappointed with the brightness and there is no reason I can think of why you would need a brighter taillight, although Dinotte does make a ~600 lumen taillight.

The biggest downside to this light is cost, but I'm of the belief that if cyclists want to be treated as vehicles, they should make an effort to be visible at night. For a commuter, think of it as insurance. These lights will probably come down in price over the next few years as LED technology improves. The Dinnote package is one of the first lights that performs like a bike light should.

The second potential downside is mounting options. I have a rack on the back of my bike and my bag blocks the normal seapost mount that Dinotte includes in their package.

I did a little bit of research and built myself a saddle mount for my light. It's based on a Minoura SBH-300 water bottle cage holder that mas been sawed off below the first screw hole. A 1 inch thick PVC pipe (less than $.50) is screwed into the top water bottle mounts, creating a very solid mounting platform. This design will not work if your seat isn't very high above your bag. (For a rack option, see further below)

The 600L headlight is also very bright. The first night I got it, I charged it up, used it for 10-15 minutes as recommended, charged it again, used it for 1 hour, and then charged it fully.

I was experimenting with the blink mode as I was riding and watching the speed limit signs 200 meters ahead flash in the distance. My father happend to be walking through town and thought he saw police flashers coming from around the bend in the road. I now only use flash mode when it is dusk; otherwise I think I'm beyond the point of visibility and becoming more of a distraction.

The big advantance of the 600L over HID and halogen systems is the battery life -- 3.5 hours on high and 7 hours on medium with the lithium ion batteries. Bulb life is also a big advantage-- LED bulbs typically last thousands of hours and are less vulnerable to breakage. Medium brightness is plenty bright for typical road riding, but the battery time is long enough that I'm able to use the high beam for my commute to work (19 miles each way). One time after an extra long day, I forgot to charge my batteries and I still made it through the second day (I used flash mode a lot because it was slightly after dawn and just before dusk).

One of the questions I had when ordering the headlight was whether the beam pattern would be wide enough to take a steap downhill S-turn that is part of my route. I considered the wide lens option, but their excellent support guy, Rob, counseled against it for the road. I took that S-turn at 25 mph one night during a new moon and I was impressed. I have no need for the wide lens, although it is option for mountain bike riders.

Batteries: I chose the 4 cell lithium ion batteries. They are quite small, and I'd go with the 4 cell option unless you're mounting the light and battery both to your helmet, rather than the bike. (Helmet mounting is an option I haven't tried). I debated going with rechargable AA batteries, but I'm glad I chose the lithium ion. The run time is much longer and you can run both lights off of a single battery or use two batteries. If you carry your connector cord and one of your batteries runs out, you could run both lights off the second battery. One thing you might also consider is buying a second charger -- that way you can run both lights on their own battery and charge both overnight with their own charger. It only takes 4 hours to charge, but it's nice not to have to remember to switch batteries later in the evening. You'll notice that the batteries mount to the tob tube or seat tube with velcro straps. It's very convenient to recharge them -- just detach the cord from the light, unvelcro the battery from the tube and connect to the charger. You'll notice the cord doesn't unplug from the light very easily, but that's a good thing. My mom's earlier light tended to loose its connection periodically as she rode.

I was so impressed with my lights that I got together with my brother and dad to get my mom a new set. We had to devise an alternate rack mount for her because she has a rack-mounted bag and her seat isn't as high as mine. Fortunately we were able to mount another trusty PCV pipe on the back of her Trek 520 rack. It's just a 4 or 5 inch long piece of PVC pipe with a slit cut in it. My brother packed it full of rubber strips from an old bike tire. We drilled holes in it and secured it to the rack with an old shoe lace. It's not going to win any design awards, but with the help of the animated knots website, we were able to tie some sort of knot to keep it in place.

I'm the type of person who likes to open the box and start using my new purchase right away. I had scanned the directions (available online before you buy), but I hadn't fully read them. It took me about 3 minutes to realize that my superficial reading was inadequate to correctly cycle between the light modes and to turn the light on and off. I went back inside and read the directions again. Ahah! To turn it on, click the left button twice!

When you first receive your light, you may find yourself seeking out the darkest country roads and alleys in your town. The night after I recieved my mom's light, I was running it through it's initial charging process, when I thought I saw a black cat cross the road in front of me in the distance. I'm not superstitious, so even though the "cat" was on the right hand shoulder, I was about to continue on. But as I got closer, I realized that the "cat" was actually a skunk!

With a lesser light, I might not have detected the difference until it was too late. I slowed down dramatically, rode on the other side of the road, and continued on my way. There's more than cars and branches to look out for at night!

Alternatives: I don't know of anything comporable to the tail light. I have a Cateye LT1000 that I'm thinking of mounting as a backup, but it doesn't compare in brightness. For the headlight, the NightRider TriNewt is a bright LED (500 lumens) that lasts a long time. If the Dinotte were unavailable, I would consider it, but the Dinotte is brighter (at least by spec: 600 lumens), the same price, and the lithium ion batteries can be swapped or shared with the tail light. For a cheaper headlight, I'd consider the 200 L. I haven't tried it, but its probably pretty bright as well.

Related

• Photo Albumn: Dinotte light mounts
• Dinotte Company Website
• Dinotte 400L

Photo: Daniel Miller

Previous generations of writers turned the dictionary and thesaris, but my generation has "google suggests".

Google suggests is the dropdown box that appears in my browser as I type search terms. If I type "american", google suggests:

• american idol
• american airlines
• american express
• american eagle ..

If I type "post vacation", google suggests:

• post vacation depression
• post vacation blues
• post vacation rentals

Well, "depression" may be a little strong, but "blues", yes.

Seriously, google suggests is not a replacement for the thesarus becaused it's designed for search, not general use. But it could be. And it's interesting to think about how technology that was originally designed for a specific purpose could turn into something larger.

Take google adwords. Google adwords was originally designed to display taylored ads in the right hand margin of search results. Mouse click-through rates are logged and totaled, allowing better-performing ads to be displayed more often and unclicked ads to be dropped from the rotation.

This sort of performance tracking is a revolution in the advertising business and is probably making inroads in the newspaper business as well.

Online Newspaper editors can track what stories are most read. They can also experiment with alternate headlines, if their software supports an adwords-type click analysis.

Of the first 100 people to view a New York Times article, the first 50 could be given one headline. The other 50 people would see an alternate headline. The system could track click-through rates and the winning headline would then be show to a majority of subsequent visitors.

I wonder whether an online publication is already doing this sort of thing. If they aren't, I suspect some newspaper will start in the near future.

It's been over a month and I'm over my "post vacation blues", but I'm still intrigued by the idea of performance-tested writing. Does performance testing (or rather popularity-testing) really improve the quality of newspaper headlines? The collaborative news site Reddit would be a good place to test the concept.

Reddit currently gives article submissions a single title field, yielding submissions that range from self-help, to outrage, to overly verbose:

• "7 Secrets of the Super Organized"
• "Pit bull owner shoots man for trying to stop pit bull attack"

• '"IMPEACH CHENEY IF YOU WANT, but do bear in mind that he'll preside over his own impeachment trial"'

Actually its not so much just headlines, but the content too. Performance-tested headlines drive traffic, which drives story selection. But direct democracy isn't always a good thing. Think of it as an "invasive species" that destroys an ecosystem if not properly balanced.

Newspaper editors and sites like Reddit will have to maintain standards or develop moderating systems to prevent the sensational, but popular, from taking over. Think of it as a "national park system" for writing

You can always watch the latest show for free but archived shows cost $.99.

A while back, I showed how to quote Realvideo. I'd be interested in seeing a similar process for quoting Google Video

A quotable moment from last night's show with Alberto Gonzalez occured at 24:02.

Charlie Rose: Senators like Lahey and others including Republicans have said we did not, in voting for that force resolution, vote for any wireting; and it was specific that we did not; and by having a wiretapping provision in congressional legislation it was even more apparent.

Alberto Gonzalez: Well of course we are a nation of written laws not a nation of intentions of specific individuals in congress. Those of us who operate under the laws, members of the judiciary, we have to look at the written text what did congress say in the words that they used not what they think that they passed or what they think in their hearts they were passing.

Update

It looks like google uses javascript to call up specific portions. It would be nice to see a URL api.

Related

• Dilbert: You're Misinterpreting

Take for instance tiananmen vs tiananmen.

via the Floating Sun Weblog

I think it was pretty brave of him to attempt the 9 hour drive from Ontario to Pennsylvania, or maybe just a sign of his youthful optimism. He did make a sign to alert following drivers. It said "Learning Standard: May Stall. May Roll Back."

We were so pleased to see him when he arrived. He told us he had only stalled twice.

Here's a sample of Intellitxt in use. Note that the green advertising links appear on my Windows PC [screenshot], but not my Mac. .

This got me thinking about where to draw the line.

I start by making a distinction between:

• Explicit links - are visible links which encourage the reader to follow them
• Implicit links - are potential, invisible links which are activated by an action of the reader. (ie right clicking)

If Google Autolink is only providing a useful service, it shouldn't mind being part of the right click menu instead of part of the page. But if Google Autolink is really about advertising and affiliate dollars, they will be tempted to go explicit.

I imagined a "link fight" back in November of 2000, but I didn't anticipate that it would be initiated by a major vendor like google.

In the future, I'd like to see new features like highlighting added (more later) to the browser, but I think it's important to draw a line somewhere.

For me the line is: no third party explicit links.

Related

• NYTimes: Ads Embedded in Online News Raise Questions
• A future post about adding "Highlighting" to the Browser

What is Cross Country?

Cross Country is team distance-running sport. Unlike track, it is run on grass or dirt. Each course is different. Some are hilly. Others flat.

How is it scored?

The places of each team's first 5 runners are added together. A teams next 2 runners can "displace" another teams runners, raising the other teams score. The lowest score wins. In the event of a tie, the team with the faster 6th runner wins.

Dual-Meet Scoring

In a meet with 3 teams, each team is matched against the other teams as if it were a dual meet.

Large Meet Scoring

When the meets get large, the scoring method is changed. Scorers no longer separate out the teams because it would be too much work and it is more likely to result in ties.

The result is that scoring of the 4th and 5th runners become especially important. In a dual-meet scored match, teams are often able to win on the strength of their first 3 or 4 runners. A poor 5th runner is a limited liability because the maximum number of points a weak 5th runner can score is capped at 12 (7 opposing runners + 5).

But in a large meet, a poor 5th runner could score 200 points, effectively eliminting even the best team from from medal contention.

The Challenge

The challenge is to take a large meet, separate out each team and score it the same way that 2-way meets are scored. I've chosen the 2003 Pennyslvania Distric 3 meet for the sample data. There are 55 teams, resulting in 1456 pairs of matches.

I've included SQL-Server table definitions, data, and a few hints.

The Solution

There's more that one way to solve the problem and I'd be interested in hearing from people that have non-SQL solutions as well (perl, pyphon, lisp, etc).

In evaluating a solution, I consider:

1. Simplicity - is it easy to read and understand.
2. Performance - does it run in under 30 seconds. Faster is better.
3. Portability - does it use vendor extensions to "standard" SQL

Just so you don't think that you're doing my homework for me, I've posted a solution. I'll eventually open the solution section up, but for now, you have to demonstrate that you've solved the problem yourself by answering this question:

How many wins, losses and ties did Conestoga Valley have:
W L T

If you're looking for other similar challenges, check out the "Yak Challenge".

Note: photos taken by the author at several PIAA District and State meets

When such a market is created, it will appear gradually, and it will need to use real money, or it will be unable to police fraud.

It will not eliminate all spam, but offer a way for legitimate senders to avoid becoming spam filter false positives.

Here's an overview of my views on whether market-based solutions should use "Computer-Time" or "Real Money". The issue reminds me of Hayek and the "Calculation Debate".

Anti-Spam Currencies: Computational vs Monetary

Two of the biggest obstacles to implementing a market-based solution to spam are:

1. Expense: the cost of administering and billing for each email transaction; and
2. Fraud: the inevitable attempts to capture the newly created currency

Expense

The "computational" school of thought argues that a postage or guarantee system that uses real money will cost too much to administer.

Accounts will need to be created, tracked, and billed. With so many transactions, the overhead will be enormous.

A system that requires computers to solve a math problem will require no accounts, tracking or billing.

Fraud

Both approaches are vulnerable to fraud.

If the system uses real money, hackers will surely attempt to steal a sender's key and use it like a stolen credit card.

If the system treats computer-time as currency, hackers will surreptitiously commandeer computers to poach the postage.

Scope Modesty: Certified Mail for the Web

With my proposal for email guarantees, I don't pretend to the immediately eradicate all spam forever. Imagine instead a system that starts as a premium service, much like current-day certified and registered mail.

People and businesses who really value the email they send will set up accounts to guarantee their mail. This will ensure that their messages make it through the spam filters unscathed.

Not all transactions will need to be tracked for billing purposes, only those messages unwanted by their recipients.

Monetary Incentives

Because senders have to pay for "cashed" email, they will limit the unwanted messages they send, limiting the transaction load that their Credit Company needs to process. The Credit Companies can charge a fee to cover the cost of processing the "cashed" email.

To limit the amount of fraud, Credit Companies will track the amount of guarantees that have been collected. Accounts that reach their limit will be frozen.

Credit Companies may offer to absorb the cost of stolen keys, provided that account holders follow certain security practices. If not, the account holder would be liable, up to the limit of their account.

Computational Incentives

In the computational model, senders and computer owners take no responsibility for securing their systems.

A hacker could install a program on my computer that allows him to offload email computations to my computer.

If my credit card is not being charged for the postage he counterfeits, and the hacker is smart enough not to make my system unusable, I am unlikely to devote the resources necessary to:

• avoid getting the program in the first place
• removing it, once I have it

Holding someone liable for poor security creates an incentive to limit the exposure of currency and tighten up security.

Some people may decide that their security is so poor that they are unable to offer a guarantee.

Their messages may still make it through the spam filter, but they run a greater risk of being overlooked.

I propose guaranteed email: email whose sender offers to pay if the recipient is unhappy with the message.

Others have proposed electronic postage as a way to price the junk out of the market. That's essentially what I propose except

1. no money changes hands if the recipient is happy with the message.
2. money is paid to the recipient, rather than a third party like the postal service or Microsoft

Example

I write an email to Dave Winer. Dave gets a lot of email and I want my message to stand out from the spam and other unsolicited "great ideas".

If I were sending Dave a letter, I would be willing to pay the postal service 37 cents; but to make my email stand out I offer 67 cents. Economists call this signaling.

My email client attaches a file to my email and names it guarantee.xml. This file follows a standard format

    <guarantee type> 
            satisfaction guaranteed
            noncommercial
            existing business relationship
            family
            not pornography
        </guarantee type>
    <guarantee amount>
        $0.05
        $0.25
        $0.67
        $1.25
        $7.50</guarantee amount>
    <signature url>http://www.example.com/signature/?username=timlangeman 
    </signature url>
    <signature contents>
      Standard PGP signature used to verify: 
        the guarantee is offered by the sendor,
        applies to the recipient, 
        for the content of the email, 
        with the guarantee type and amount
    </signature contents>

Dave's email client already has filtering software built-in. It would take extra programming, but this filtering software could be modified to parse the guarantee.xml file, lookup and verify the signature, and factor-in the guarantee amount.

To increase Dave's trust that I won't default on the 67 cents, my Credit Card (or some such) agency signs my key in a similar way that I signed the email, asserting that they will back up any email guarantee, for up to (say) $7.50.

"Cashing" unwanted Email

If Dave "cashes" his email, my Credit card company will bill me. If I don't pay my bills, they will revoke their signature on my key.

Since there are a smaller number of Credit agencies, Dave's filtering software can set up a "trusted" set up Guarantors. (This key signing is similar to the way SSL Certificates work).

Email Clients

Ideally every email program will have a button to "cash" an email. Barring that, people could forward the email on to an address to receive payment. Microsoft's Outlook and Hotmail are the biggest email clients. Plugins to these would go a long way in gaining momentum.

Credit Companies

As for the "Credit Companies", this is the most difficult part of this whole proposal. It's going to take a company with experience dealing with fraud and billing, who is also willing to deal in small transactions. I think Paypal might be a good fit. They're not a conventional bank and it would be a great way to add customers.

The upside of this is that they could charge a small percentage for every "cashed" email. That's gotta be worth something.

Related

• ZDNet Discussion: skeptical of any scheme proposed by Bill Gates that involves collecting money
• FogCreek Discussion with similar idea, found after this piece was written
• Vadim Makarov with the same idea, also found after this piece was written
• Bonded Sender
• How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

Ted Nelson's Xanadu project has a vision for hypertext where you can quote a document without copying it. The goal is to have something like a pointer to the the selected portion of the original.

I was reading some of Ted's archives and noticed his use of an open source eprints publishing software. By counting the number of characters a selection is offset from the start of the document, Eprints allows people to construct links to specific selections. Linked selections can then be shown in context or excerpted in raw text.

Seeing how easily sections could be quoted got me excited about performing similar quotations on my website, but I soon realized that it would be more difficult than using simple html links.

The Quoting Architecture: Start with Quoting Proxies

All I want to do is a "remote include", but html and javascript don't allow me to do this directly, so I constructed an intermediary script that acts as a proxy.

The author performing the quotation instructs the reader's browser to ask the proxy to serve it a remote web page:

<script LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.2" TYPE='text/javascript' 
src="http://www.openpolitics.com/transquote/?url=
http://tprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11/01/zifty-d9.txtquote;xuversion=1.0amp;
locspec=charrange:2721/381"> 
</script>

The proxy script connects to the remote web site on behalf of the reader:

     //open a connection with a timeout of 30 seconds
    $fp = fsockopen($host, $port, $errno, $errstr, 30);        

    fwrite($fp, $out);
    $body = false;
    while (!feof($fp)) {
        $s = fgets($fp, 1024);
        if ( $body )
            $in .= $s;
        if ( $s == "\r\n")
            $body = true;
    }
    
    fclose($fp);

    (Full Source)

It retreives the contents of the page and outputs it back to the reader in Javascript output format.

   document.write("The usual story about Xerox PARC, 
    that they were trying to make the computer 
    understandable to the average man, was a crock. 
    They imitated paper and familiar office machines 
    because that was what the Xerox executives 
    could understand. Xerox was a paper-walloping company, 
    and all other concepts had to be ironed onto paper, 
    like toner, to be even visible in their paper paradigm.");

Result:

This javascript output method is the same technique Google uses to deliver its advertisements.

Architecture: Putting the Quotation Logic in the Proxy

It is only because Ted's eprint server allows offsetted quoting that I am so easily able to fetch an excerpt.

For other sites, it may make sense to implement the eprints functionality at the proxy level. This would allow selections to be specified and a greater context shown -- all without requiring the quotee to implement any addition server-side features.

For performance and realiabilty reasons, it may make sense for the proxy to cache a copy of the quotation. For compatiblity, it would be nice if all quotations used a standard syntax to specify a quotation. That way the functionality could be added to the browser and quotation meta could be aggregated by search engines.

A Final Note on Security: Open Proxies

If this were to become common, operators of proxies would probably need to only allow registered quotations, otherwise they would be overwhelmed by requests.

Related

• Php Source Code
• Eprints VLit Transclusion Support
• Credits: Eprints Translusion implementation

I've wanted GIS-camera integration for over a year, but now I've found the perfect marketing strategy to accelerate its adoption. It's an opportunity for Google to introduce its brand even deeper into people's lives, while integrating two of Google's recent acquisitions:

1. the Picasa photo organizer and
2. the Keyhole Satellite Imaging Service

Marketing the Product: Canon Digital Rebel with Google PictureLink

Google will develop a trademark to signify that a Camera :

• is capable of saving GIS data with the picture and
• comes with the software necessary to organize and find photos

For my example, I'll coin the term "PhotoLink."

Google would approach various camera makers about including a GIS unit and Google's software with their cameras. I hear that GIS sensors are now only about $10, so Google should be willing to subsidize their cost if the camera maker agrees to include a Google logo on the camera body.

The Logo would serve a similar purpose to the Intel's Centrino brand, which signifies mobility through wifi and longer battery life.

PictureLink would signify the ability to connect a picture to:

• other people's picturessatellite images and maps

And of course with the Google brand, everyone will know that it will be easy to find the photo they're looking for

Using the the Product

Customers will take pictures as normal, but when they load the photos onto their computer, Picasa will extract GIS metadata stored in EXIF fields.

In addition to the Timeline, Picasa users will have a Keyhole-like way to Enjoy their Photos:

• grouped by location
• overlaid on top of a satellite view

In the "Share your photos" section, Picasa users will have the option of "Sharing with the Public".

Regardless of their own decision to share, Picasa users will have the option of viewing public pictures from the same or a nearby Location.

Collaborative Photography Example

Suppose I take pictures of hurricane damage in Florida. I may only get a few good ones, and I wonder if other people are willing to share their photos. With PhotoLink, I am able to see all other PhotoLink-enabled public photos.

Some professionals may want to participate as well. They could have a publicly indexable thumbnail, but charge a fee for a high quality version.

Related

• Add Geographical Data To Digital Images
• GPSPhotoLinker for Mac OS 10.3

1. developing products with public feedback
2. licensing advertising copy so that customers can create derivative ads
3. promoting open source products

I prefer the first definition because it signals the beginning of a conversation that will improve product quality.

The Bandwagon

If the term does become common this coming year, I expect many companies will try to benefit from the "buzz", but without making any real changes in how they do business.

Open source marketing demands:

• transparency
• authenticity
• willingness to admit you aren't perfect, but eager to improve

BzzAgent, which describes itself as an "open source marketing" company, was profiled in a NYTimes article and shown to engage in deceptive practices. Their agents:

• called bookstores and pretended not to know the the name of a book, while giving a raving description
• posted glowing reviews on Amazon.com for books they're promoting, without disclosing their relationship

To be fair, Bzzagent doesn't entirely control their agents, and has recently taken some steps to open up. If the "open" in "open source marketing" means anything, it's being transparent and honest.

The Open Source Marketing Process

Robert Scoble did a good job of outlining a process of interaction:

1. company project managers start a blog
2. take feedback from the blogosphere
3. send out early demos for webloggers to review

Blogger Reviews

This fits with Dave Winer's suggestion (link?) that companies could get better publicity if they sent product samples out to bloggers and then let the bloggers write whatever they want.

I agree, but I think it will be a tough step for many of them to take.

My guidelines for this would be:

• publicize the list of people you sent samples to
• don't pay them or let them keep the merchandise
• all feedback should be public. Otherwise it's just a focus group.

Astroturfing: a manufactured imitation

Since real people might mix their praises with criticism, there will always be the temptation to astroturf, or manufacture a perfectly green "grass-roots" movement.

This may fool a few people initially, but it won't be long until sites spring up debunking the tactic. Authenticity can't be easily faked. If a company wants better press, they'll do better by listening to customers and investing in product improvements.

The Fear of Admitting it's Worse than it Appears

Most products really aren't all that good, or at least they aren't as good as we pretend them to be.

Dave Winer says the it's hard to choose songs on an iPod while you walk. That may sound bad, but the iPod is still a decent device -- better than the competition.

What Apple should do is read what the the web reviewers are saying and use it to design a better version.

The Cluetrain Connection

To take it a step further and fulfill Doc Searl's vision, companies have to establish a relationship.

"And that relationship isn't just with a "brand." To have real value, the relationsihp needs to be with the people behind that brand."

That means that people know employees names and personalities.

I felt like I could get a sense of some of the Microsoft SQL Server Team's personalities when I listened to their last webcast. Compare that with Apple. The only person I know there is Steve Jobs.

One of the things that Comcast's Cable service does poorly is their TV guide. It's takes up too much screen space, displays too little information, and is slow.

There are hundreds of winamp skins. Most of them are awful, but a few are really good. What I want, is a way to write a "skin" for my Television.

The most important part of the skin would deal with Program Info, but imagine a skin for actual program content. Al Jazera could be made to look like Fox, or NBC to look to like CSPAN. Of course the networks are likely to object because want to preserve a "brand" identity, but I maintain that the networks should only get to choose the "default" and the viewer should have the final say.

(I hear Direct TV offers skins but I don't have any details.)

A month ago, I became the official owner of an '89 Ford Taurus. The transaction took place at a local car dealer which also serves as a public notary. A few days later, I received the title in the mail.

Ownership Society

In his forthcoming State of the Union address, President Bush is expected to describe his vision of an "Ownership Society". He'll use Social Security, HealthCare, and Education accounts as examples of individual ownership. I'd like to use the occassion to focus on Intellectual Property Ownership.

"Royalty Compliance" vs "IP Participation"

Currently, most IP Policy focuses on enforcing "Royalty Compliance". A better approach would emphasize "IP Participation".

Technology standards like the "broadcast flag" (distribution flag) and copy prevention technologies make negative assertions about distribution.

But imagine instead, a positive standard. One that allows me to prove that I own what I paid for. One that allows me to transfer ownership to someone else.