Month: July 2009

Will The Broadband Stimulus Package Get Strangled In The Craddle? And Why That Would Be A Disaster For Policy.

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More and more, I’m feeling like a volunteer for the “Mark Sanford in 2012 Committee” finding out what “hiking the Appalachian Trail” really means. I have been a huge supporter of this program from the beginning. Even though I have had some concerns along the way, I have tried to keep the faith.

But the more I see about how this will get implemented, and the more deeply I delve into the details, the more I worry that a potentially great program capable of fundamentally altering our broadband future for the better to something so ridiculously screwed up that we will actually lose ground on both future funding and future policy.

The thing that finally broke my willingness to believe was this eyewitness report I got from my brother and business partner, Shmuel Feld, who attended the first NOFA Workshop held Tuesday, July 7 here in DC. A representative from RUS was explaining how applicants must fully document “unserved” and “underserved” at the census block level — but without access to any carrier data because carriers regard this as proprietary. Then, assuming the application survives to the NTIA/RUS “due diligence” round, the agency will invite broadband access providers in the area to submit confidential information to demonstrate that the area designated by the Applicant is not underserved or unserved. The applicant will have no opportunity to rebut any evidence submitted against the Application. From my brother’s report, this prompted the following exchange:

From Audience: If we, the people, do not know where the (BB) structures are or what the penetration numbers are and the big companies are not sharing these numbers or can deny them in the second round (when it is convenient) under the due diligence investigation, then how will we find out all of the information necessary for the application?

(Direct quote of RUS guy): Well that’s quite a challenge, isn’t it?

The RUS guy’s next line was a suggestion like “boots on the ground and canvassing a county” I could not hear him clearly because of the (I am serious) laughter.

OK, let me explain something to anyone from RUS or NTIA reading this. Giving Applicants an impossible task is not a “challenge.” It is a recipe for failure and a sign that you — NTIA and RUS — have screwed up big time.

I explore what I think is happening, and how it might still get fixed in time to save both the broadband stimulus package and the future of BB policy for the rest of the Obama Administration, below . . . .

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Yes, Kat, it's true! I do love you! I love anybody who buys one of my books, especially if they blog about me!

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Sure, my books are available for free download. But when you buy an actual printed copy, I’ll inscribe it any way you like, as for example, here:

cover page of the pains with my handwritten inscription

It says, “Kat, I love you madly, but it has to stop here. To continue on as we have been doing would be MADNESS!”

Yes, it’s like a Governor Sanford or Senator Ensign letter to a mistress, declaring love but calling off the affair. What’s different about the affair between Kat and me, however, is that we’ve never actually met each other. Or even had a conversation.

Details at her blog. Her review of The Pains is here. I do wish it had been a little more enthusiastic, but I’ll take what I can get. After all, Kat was probably a little bit heartbroken as she wrote it.

The key point is, buy my one of my books and you too can get your very own personalized declaration of undying love in permanent ink. Or whatever else you want me to write. (One of the best things anybody ever asked me to write was something like, “Dear _______. I wish I could write as well as you do. But this crap was the best I could come up with, so it will have to do.”) Go wild! Make me be your dancing monkey! Included FREE with the purchase of a book. As Billy Mays might have asked, “NOW how much would you pay?”!

CellAntenna Scam Continues To Gain Momentum — Bummer.

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Regular readers may recall that I find CellAntenna’s continuing effort to leverage the problem of contraband cell phones to get the law changed so that they can sell cell phone jammers legally in this country not merely obnoxious and offensive, but downright dangerous. CellAntenna has proven real good at persuading state prison wardens that this technology solves their problems, despite the statements of frequency coordinators and public safety orgs that this is a real bad idea. The mainstream media, as is all too common these days, has generally acted like mindless cheer leaders without troubling to dig into whether cell phone jamming will actually work or not. The only decent in depth coverage was this Wired piece by Vince Beiser. For one thing, Beiser notes that prisoners can beat the jammers with a few sheets of aluminum foil.

I’ve blogged in a little more in-depth on this over here at Public Knowledge. We also (with additional sign ons from a number of other orgs) sent this letter to the Senate Commerce Committee in advance of tomorrow’s hearing so that at least someone is on record opposing this scam. Finally, for those of you who prefer the short, pithy medium of me staring into a camera and yakking about this, I give you my latest Five Minutes With Harold Feld The Prison Problem: Cell Phone Jamming and Shrimp Scampi.

Stay tuned . . . .

Further Adventures of a literary nobody

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Latest installment of a continuing series. In this issue: I get snubbed by the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival.

So the other day I sent a note to the organizers of the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival inquiring about setting up a booth there from which to do my Billy Mays thang. (I remembered having been turned down two years ago, the last time the MV Book Festival was held, when I made a similar request. But I couldn’t remember the rationale given. Had I missed a deadline? Had they run out of room?) Anyway, their response this time was <Wayne Campbell voice> DENIED! </Wayne Campbell voice>.

I thought their DENIED notice was a little bit snotty, so I replied with a note of my own that was also a little bit snotty.(But not too snotty, I hope. On a snottiness scale of one to ten, I would put our exchange at about a “2”. Read on and you can judge the level of snottinessosity for yourself.)

Below the fold: The prissy exchange, plus! what’s the difference between being a “Vineyard Writer” and “A writer who trades on the Vineyard”?

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What's in a name?: Application Collaboration

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<%image(20090711-application-collaboration.png|433|347|Application Collaboration)%>
It has been hard to express the character of this new way of working through collaborative 3D virtual worlds. I’ve made lots of explorations of the many ideas, but two of the biggies have been that:

  1. Applications are shared by many people simultaneously. This does not mean just that one application program license can be used on many computers, or that copies of an application’s document can be passed around, although these are true. I think the unique thing is that the live combination of application/document can be used by many people simultaneously, as though looking over each other’s shoulder.

  2. Each person can use many applications simultaneously. This does not mean just that a user can switch between application windows on their own desktop, but rather that they can easily be arranged and used in a persistent context that is shared in real-time between users.

We call this “application collaboration” to distinguish it from other forms of collaboration that do not have this dual nature. I’m still wrestling with the term.

I think the above picture of today’s Forums gets at this very nicely. Below is a picture of Croquet from more than two years ago. It’s interesting to me that they are functionally equivalent, and yet today’s picture makes the point of application collaboration so much clearer in both picture and practice. (I showed the two pictures to my wife. She said it was my strength and my weakness that I could see that both were illustrating the same concept.)
<%image(20060507-multi.jpg|433|275|Croquet Application Collaboration)%>

Speechless

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A few years ago Wetmechanic Gary Gray and I interviewed my pal Cory Doctorow, the peripatetic author, hep cat, technogeek, futurephiliac, etc, etc, in the lobby of a hotel in Boston. We podcast the interview (in 3 parts) here on Wetmachine. (I’m too lazy to look for the links now, but you know how to use that search tool.) Anyway, Cory’s a good guy to interview because he has lots and lots of interesting things to say and he’s friendly & good natured. But conversations with Cory are half-duplex. (A term that any ancient geeks reading this post will remember. But for you young’uns I’ll explain: in full duplex communications, both ends of a link can send and receive messages. In half-duplex, one party sends and the other party receives. What I’m saying is that Cory is smart and nice and funny and interesting, but he doesn’t listen to a fucking word you say. (Or, in any event, he doesn’t listen to a fucking word *I* say.))

My favorite part of our conversation is where we’re talking about the costs and benefits of societal change, especially change brought about by technological advances. We’re talking about the possible end of the art form known as “the movie” as we know it today. What if digital duplication and peer-to-peer technologies make it economically infeasible for a studio to invest the sums necessary for a “real” movie like those we’ve become accustomed to for three quarters of a century or so (think: Lord of the Rings)? Cory makes the observation that with the Protestant Reformation came the end of the era of great cathedrals: because of the Reformation, no more grand cathedrals will ever be built. Cathedral-making is an art form that died because it had to die. But in exchange for that lost art, Cory says (I’m paraphrasing from memory), we got the Reformation. And then he asks “Was it worth it?”

If you listen closely, you can hear me responding, “that’s an interesting question.” (I know you’re not going to go find and listen to the podcast, but just pretend, OK?) Indeed, I thought it was a very interesting question. I was actually thinking about the costs, in blood and war and terror and murder and rape and rapine and starvation and hatred and blind tribal ignorance, that came with religious wars that accompanied the Reformation. And I was thinking about the mysterious awe-inspiring beauty of the (admittedly somewhat perverse) art form of the cathedral. And I was wondering, for the first time, what might have happened to the art form of the cathedral if the Reformation had never happened. I’m a technophobic & nostalgic guy, after all. I was thinking, “what if ever more and more beautiful cathedrals had been built?”

For Cory, of course, it was a rhetorical question, not a real question, and the answer was “yes”. Yes, losing the art form of the cathedral was an OK price to pay in exchange for the Reformation. Cory didn’t even hear, much less respond to, to my ambivalent response. He just steamrollered right over it. Of course the trade-off was worth it. Of course the new art forms that arise when old art forms are killed are “worth it”. The emergent art forms will offer new and unanticipated beauty and splendid insights into our human condition. So, he said (paraphrasing again), the old art must die so that that new and even more profound art can emerge.

As my 4 long-time readers might guess, I was skeptical about this. For I am given to worrying all the time about the wanton destruction of culture in the name of a bogus and ephemeral “progress”. I’m very skeptical about “progress.”

But then I saw the video embedded below, which I found on Spocko’s website — (and Spocko, in fact, actually discovered it on Cory’s own site Boing Boing). And now I’m starting to think, “Cory was right.” Not because this video is more beautiful and satisfying than (name your favorite movie (or cathedral)). But because this is a new art form. It’s shocking. It’s breathtaking. But it’s not shocking in the elitist “Épater la bourgeoisie” sense. It’s shocking because it’s so entrancing and fun, while at the same time implicitly raising a thousand deep questions (and I don’t even speak Korean). It’s just so unexpected, so friendly, so welcoming and so beautiful that I really can’t find words to respond to it. Sure, it’s just a little music video, and Lord knows a music video is not a new thing. But for now, tonight, this one feels to me like someting really really big. As big as the Iranian revolution on Twitter; or, more precisely, it’s an artistic exploration of the possibilities implicit in that revolution. And a big part of the reason for that is that it’s so human, so un-Godlike, so small.

UPDATE Below the fold, a minor elaboration.
UPDATE 2 On Ultrasaurus, Sarah Allen blogs about this post. I like what she has to say, and am impressed that she went back and actually listened to the interview.

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Fun Event On Capital Hill Next Monday: I Take On The Neocons On BB Policy

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One of the fun things here in D.C. is getting to go to events that are (a) informative on issues, and (b) offer a free lunch. Such is the Broadband Competition Panel sponsored by The Technology Policy Institutenext Monday, July 13, at Noon (for details, follow this link).

TPI has a fairly antiregulatory/UofC/“Free Market” bend to it. Happily, the event organizer, friend and occasional sparring partner Scott Wallsten, likes panels where folks get to mix it up a bit rather than panels where everyone agrees. so he’s asked me to come as the more “regulatory” (or, as I prefer to say “practical and empirically grounded”) panelist to defend how things like net neutrality and more rigorous antitrust enforcement are good things not bad things because they create jobs, spur investment, and protect fundamental freedoms and stuff.

Should be fun. They will provide lunch, but register first. You know what a mob scene these policy debates can be — especially given the hordes of hungry Congressional interns.

Stay tuned . . . .

My Latest 5 Minutes: The Newspaper's Lame Blame Game

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I propose the radical notion that not only is changing the copyright law to preserve existing newspapers a bad idea, it doesn’t address the problem and won’t work. The New York Times needs to get with the times and get over themselves.

Of note, Tribune, the bankrupt newspaper/TV chain, continues to have a profit margin of 8%. That’s right, they are making money. Just a heck of a lot less than they used to and not nearly enough to service their debt.



And, for amusing contrast, Jason Jones’ report on the NYT. Comedy Central has better production values.

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I Have Fun On CNBC: “Antitrust Is the Best Stimulus.”

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I got tapped this morning to do Power Grid on CNBC’s Power Lunch as a follow up on my quote in the Wall St. J. and my blog post from yesterday. I think it went reasonably well, as these talking head debates go. We each made our points and followed the rules on time and avoided ad hominem attacks. Anyway, you can all judge for yourselves.

Stay tuned . . . .

DOJ May Investigate Telco Market Power: The Dawn of a New Paradigm For Antitrust?

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Although the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) has not confirmed it, the Wall St. Journal reported that DOJ is internally considering whether or not companies “such as AT&T and Verizon” have abused their market power. Most traditional antitrust lawyers I’ve seen quoted don’t think it likely the telcos have market power — especially given the hostility that courts have recently shown to antitrust. Indeed, in a world where even potential competition is supposed to be part of the market analysis, how can a modest 60% of the wireless market shared by the two companies, with no evidence of price fixing or coordinated behavior, support any sort of antitrust action?

Welcome to the more grown up and sophisticated view of market power in the more complex real world. After more than 25 years, U.S. antitrust authorities may be ready to reexamine the underlying limitations of antitrust in light of a new generation of economic scholarship on the subject of market power and the exercise thereof.

So are we at the dawn of a new age of antitrust, one that recognizes such modern economic phenomena as network effects, the power to constrain choice through non-disclosure agreements that create information asymetry, and the power of vertical integration to eliminate traditional geographic and product market distinctions? Will Christine Varney and John Lebowitz do to the the U of C worshipers of the gods of the marketplace as Copernicus and Galileo did to Ptolmey and his fanatics who preferred to reject the evidence of their eyes in favor of ever more complex theories of deferents and epicycles? Or will the judicial activists of the D.C. Circuit and the political might of the incumbents once again force regulatory agencies to abjure, curse and detest such heresies?

E pur si muove below . . . .

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