I feel like I'm cheapening the "Favorite this video" action on Youtube because I want to do it for every TED Talk I watch.  Actually, I'm probably cheapening the TED Talks; they are some of the most insightful, relevant and intelligent material I've ever watched. Larry Lessig did a talk in 2007 on the shear [...]

I was reading a really interesting blog post on copyrights, and this amazing paradox about copyright struck me. Right now, the internet is changing the way text, music and video are distributed.  Part of that change is the ease with which data can be copied.  If you look at what the U.S. supreme court said [...]

Here’s the thing about using commercial (proprietary) software: you are not buying software, or even software-as-a-service.  You’re buying into an ecosystem.  Let me quickly provide examples, rather than pontificating endlessly. Take the iPhone.  I really like the iPhone.  A good friend of mine just bought a shiny new iPhone 3G S.  She was moving from [...]

It can be really difficult to tell the difference between a skillful troll and someone who really is that clueless.  For that matter, it can be really difficult to tell the difference between parody and reality, especially when one predicts the other. That said, I honestly have a really hard time figuring out whether the [...]

I’ve been wanting to pick up one of Asus’ EEE PC computers since I first saw one in the middle of 2007, but the features had not really hit the sweet spot for me until they announced the EEE 901 model back in May. Originally, one of the big draws to use EEE for me [...]

Senator Obama, As a Software Engineer, I am very impressed by your stance on technological issues. You position is well thought out and reasonable. I wish to highlight the importance of a couple of areas that you don’t specifically mention in your position discussion, but I am sure you are aware of. These two areas [...]

This will be short. I recall someone wrote the six word guide to eating well: Eat, not too much, mostly plants. This really captured a lot for me, and I found a similar version for investing today from New York Times personal finance columnist Ron Lieber, this time in seven words: Index (mostly). Save a [...]

I got into a conversation recently about the events surrounding the liberalization of C-SPAN’s policy regarding the use of their videos on the internet. This initially became an issue in early 2007 when speaker Nancy Pelosi purportedly violated copyright law by posting a video of a committee hearing (not congressional footage, which would be in [...]

It occurred to me that the patent system was created to encourage innovators to release the results of their work to the public so that the society could benefit as a whole from the work of the individual. The obvious way to achieve this is to give the innovator exclusive rights to the innovation in [...]