Tales of the Sausage Factory: Action Alert on Broadband

I’ve been distributing this for anyone interested in using unlicensed spectrum in the broadcast bands.

BTW, due to major issues going on at work (we are losing one of our three attorneys and reorganizing), I’m likely to post terse, infrequent things over the next month or two. Sorry. I swear I’ll keep trying.

Stay tuned . . . .

Continue reading

Inventing the Future: What is Croquet?

Croquet is an ambitious project to develop an entirely new way to work with computers, including 3D user interfaces and real-time collaboration between separate people manipulating the same virtual objects. Although this could be used in many domains, the focus of the core developers is on educational uses.

See croquetproject.org

Imagine you could make computers work however you wanted. What would you have them do? That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Fast machines. Graphics coprocessors. Fast worldwide networks. And it’s only going to get better.

Continue reading

So much for my career as a professional prognosticator

Well, the only thing I can say in my defense is that a fair number of oher folks believed the same thing on Tuesday afternoon. At 5 p.m., exit polling looked very good for Kerry in almost all battleground states.

While something may turn around in OH, I admit I don’t expect it. It appears that a small but sizeable majority don’t care about economic issues nearly as much as keeping gay people from marrying. Not sure how we survive the next four years economically, but right now, I’m off to get some sleep.

Tales of the Sausage Factory: All Quiet on the W. Va Front

Live from the W.Va Voter Protection Project in Wheeling, W. Va. The big news is- no news. So far, no one has called to complain about any sort of voter supression or inappropriate behavior.

No word on other states. W. Va was likely to be quiet, given that the local government is Dems not Republicans (unlike FL and OH). Still, it’s good to be bored. As they said in the training: we’re in the recount prevention business.

Stay tuned . . . .

Prove my father wrong — vote Kerry!

A Wetmachine Quasi-Editorial Endorsement (speaking for myself only, not all Wetmachiners).

I was talking with my old man last night by telephone. He’s a retired guy, spent his whole life in finance. Was Chief Financial Officer for three different multi-national companies, and at one time president of a national society of CFOs. A depression kid who came from nothing, he was a “Flying Fortress” navigator in 1945, worked his way through college (driving 18-wheelers) and put all seven of his children through college, and several of us through private high school as well. He follows monetary policy as naturally as I follow baseball. He voted for Eisenhower and Nixon, and has always extolled the values of work, private enterprise, and initiative.

My brother Mike and I went to Xavier High School in New York CIty, a Jesuit, military school whose most famous grad is Antonin Scalia. My father’s motto is “a place for everything and everything in its place.”

What do you suppose he thinks about Kerry and Bush?

Continue reading

Tales of the Sausage Factory: Homeland Security and the Rubik's Cube

While busier than I could have imagined, I just have to share this.

According to the Daily Oregonian, the Department of Homeland Security is now keeping us safe from Rubik’s Cube Knock-Offs. What next threat to our national security will they foil? Perhaps they will save us from those counterfeit “Garfield” dolls with suction cups? (Does anyone even _buy_ Rubik’s Cubes anymore?)

Stay tuned . . .