Six Degrees of Aggravation

Leander Kahney quotes Cory Doctorow, who set up an email filter to trash incoming requests from Friendster, Orkut, and the other social networks driving him "completely bonkers." Link to this entry Posted on 1/29/04; 1:48:14 PM

Please send my job to India

Virginia Postrel in the Times recounts the last great offshoring of tech jobs: In the late 1980's, Asian manufacturers began turning out basic memory chips, undercutting American chip makers' prices and inciting a fierce policy debate. Many industry leaders argued that the United States would lose its technological edge unless the government intervened to protect chip makers. In a famous 1988 Harvard Business Review article, Charles Ferguson, then a postdoctoral associate at the Center for Technology Policy and Industrial Development at M.I.T., summed up the conventional wisdom: "Most experts believe that without deep changes in both industry behavior and government policy, U.S. microelectronics will be reduced to permanent, decisive inferiority within 10 years." He denounced the "fragmented, chronically entrepreneurial industry" of Silicon Valley, which was losing market share to government-aided Asian businesses. "Only economists moved by the invisible hand," he wrote, "have failed to apprehend the problem." Link to this entry Posted on 1/29/04; 1:37:35 PM

Powers of Ten animation

Whether or not you've seen the Powers of Ten short film, this Java version at Florida state is a good companion piece. Link to this entry Posted on 1/29/04; 12:06:38 PM

Ottmar & Me

What's on my iPod? At the moment it's "Lone Rider B," a grooving remix from Ottmar Liebert's Euphoria album. So I idly Google the guy and what do I find? Ottmar has a blog, and he linked to me last year. Ottmar also has 8 kids, a solar-powered house, and an iPod of his own. Mine is plugged into a pair of Mackie studio monitors behind my chair instead of headphones. Working from home has its advantages. Link to this entry Posted on 1/29/04; 11:42:42 AM

More on Darknets

My Hawaiian pen pal Alex Salkever, who's probably out surfing right now, filed a BusinessWeek Online piece with the same theme as my latest for Slate, but more focused on the current music market: Big Music's Worst Move Yet. "The RIAA's newest legal assault on file swappers is pushing them to encrypted networks, where the damage could become catastrophic." Link to this entry Posted on 1/29/04; 11:27:52 AM