Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Tales of The Sausage Factory: PA HB 30 Now Law *sigh*

, , , ,

Gov. Rendell signed HB 30 into law an hour before the deadline last night (11/30). In a last minute deal, VRZN agreed to waive its right of first refusal against the proposed Philly municpal wifi system. Rendell promises to work with other municipalities to the extent their systems are “viable” to “ensure that they succeed.”

I’ll have more analysis later, including what I think is the likely aftermath in both PA and for other states. Short version: we did surprisingly well for organizing from ground zero the week before Thanksgiving. We have also put a spotlight on the issue of municpal broadband systems (and wireless in particular) that will take this out of the back rooms and turn it into a real issue for public debate.

A copy of Rendell’s statement on the ban and a link to the full text of the statement below.

Stay tuned . .

Continue reading

Inventing the Future:
Inventing the Future: shared persistence

,

The real-time collaboration in Croquet is cool. It provides a very different way of structuring applications that will allow things that nothing else can. The croquet team is working hard on this aspect. But we’re just begining to consider the implications of shared persistence. I think this is just as radical in itself, and will inspire truly extroadinary software when combined with Croquet’s other aspects.

Continue reading

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
TotSF: Industry Mobilizes to Stop Philly WiFi

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! As recorded in this article about last night’s community meeting in Philly, Verizon has mobilized to squash municipal wifi in Pennsylvania. This little gem, called House Bill 30, is a classic: it provides huge new public subsidies for Verizon while squeezing out competitors. My analysis below.

Continue reading

Inventing the Future:
Total Government Awareness going the way of John Ashcroft?

,

A long time ago, I think I mentioned in a comment to something that there was a project at the MIT Media Lab to keep a database of uncorroborated information about government officials, analogous to Ashcroft and Poindexter’s “Total Information Awareness” monstrosity.

The project had been written up in several places, including Wired and slashdot, but now it seems to have shut down.

Why? Lack of interest (we get the government we deserve), or were they shut down? I have no idea.

The TIA project (ephemistically renamed “Terorist Information Awareness”) seems to have disappeared from the DARPA site, too. Does that mean it has been abandoned, or just gone silent.

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
TotSF: The Wireless Circle Jerk

, , , ,

Sascha Meinrath has this blog posting on how Motorola’s acquisition of MeshNetworks is a prime example of corporate welfare gone wild. Of course, in D.C., we call this “the circle of life”. Taxpayers, however, may see it as the Circle of Jerk.

It is unclear to me if Motorola, one of the fiercest foes of expanding unlicensed access, is simply trying to take out a competitor or hedge a bet. I do not expect their filings to change — in fact,I expect them to leverage MeshNetworks as a means of undermining manufacturing comments from folks like Tropos. OTOH, FCC staff are not stupid, and understand how industry filings work.

Stay tuned . . .

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
TotSF: I agree with the American Conservative Union

, , ,

Well, on one thing anyway. ACU — one of the backbones of the conservative movement, is opposing attempts by Congress to pass yet another stupid bill on copyright enforcement. Details in this Wired article. The quote that caught my eye was:

“’It’s just plain wrong to make the Department of Justice Hollywood’s law firm,’ said Stacie Rumenap, ACU’s deputy director.”

Couldn’t agree with them more.

Stay tuned . . .

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
TotSF: Speaking in Philly

,

I will be speaking tomorrow night (Wed. Nov. 17) at a community forum organized by Media Tank on the Phildelphia proposed municple wifi project and why it is cool. Not surprisingly, Comcast and other local incumbents are mobilizing to pounce upon the proposal like my cat Quantum on a lame sparrow — but with much less respect for the sanctity of life than Quantum usually shows. At least Comcast is unlikely to stuff the corpse in the vents between the walls of my house, so that when I try to sell it the inspector discovers a grave yard of bloated, dead municple infrastructure projects. Hmm… I think that analogy went on a bit too long. (Becky, please provide a link in the comments to a suitable picture of Quantum, preferably pouncing on a municiple wifi project in our computer room).

Stay tuned …

Continue reading