Neutrino:
Heinlein predicts again

Starship Troopers was Robert Heinlein’s novel about future soldiers. One feature of the book, besides a very right-wing political stance, was the suits worn by the soldiers in battle. Just as inventors made real the remote controlled hands in Heinlein’s novella Waldo, the military is looking to nanotechnology and MIT to make battle suits.

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Tales From the Sausage Factory: Telephone Competition in the U.S.

I’m taking the opportunity to post a little essay I wrote when I moved last March. It illustrates the problems of implementing domestic phone competition in the U.S. I have no reason to believe that anyone in either company (Verizon or Cavalier Telephone) were trying to screw us or were playing fast and lose with the rules. Each one was genuinely trying to do its job, and all the people I talked with were uniformly polite, friendly, and well intentioned. I love well intentioned people, they provide me with such great paving stones that the handcart I’m in rides smooth to the end. . .

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
For Copyright Buffs in Europe

I got this notice from the Consumer Project on Technology, which is a public advocacy organization I’ve worked with and respect. CPT has been very active on a variety of fronts seeking to limit abuses of intellectual property.

The Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (http://www.cptech.org) is planning an event in Brussels on Feb 4 on digital copyright issues. If people are interested in this, the should contact Jamie Love (james.love@cptech.org) or Manon Ress (manon.ress@cptech.org) for more info….

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Tales From the Sausage Factory — The Media Compromise

Hello all.

As this is my first post, a brief introduction. I am Associate Director of a non-profit public interest law firm, the Media Access Project (www.mediaaccess.org). I love communications policy, which as you might imagine is all the rage at cocktail parties. I cannot tell you how many women I have seduced by whispering to them “let me tell you about TELRIC pricing!”

12/24, I’ve moved the bulk of this essay below the fold.

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Neutrino:
word for the day: neuroeconomics

I first heard the term neuroeconomics in a review of Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics by Paul W. Glimcher in the journal Acumen . (Another review can be found at human-nature.com.) My interest piqued by this new (to me) turn of phrase, a-Googling I did go, and turned up neuroeconomics.com, a blog run by Kevin McCabe, who runs the Behavioral and Neuroeconomics laboratory at George Mason University.


Like the pure psychoanalysts who shuddered to find their theories applied to advertising, I find myself discomfited at seeing my own interest in how the brain works specifically applied to matters of money.

Neutrino:
How to make a killing in nanotech without really trying

You know, you can spend millions of dollars on research, burn the midnight oil, and pour out your blood, sweat, and tears to make money off of nanotech. Or, you could just accidentally include a future buzzword du jour in your company’s name and accidentally reap the rewards.

Fools are tossing their money at anything that remotely sounds like the new new thing. I guess the economy is picking up.