Neutrino:
Eleven Electric Lies & The Seventh Rule — Chapter 3

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Eleven Electric Lies, cover illustration by Cheeseburger Brown

ELEVEN ELECTRIC LIES, cover illustration by the author

Before we continue with the current serial, I’d like to mention that my latest round-up of stories is available in a new printed edition, available today via the presses of Lulu. If you still like books, or know somebody else who still likes books, or just like supporting independent publishing by putting money in the pockets of the artists you enjoy, please consider ordering a copy or two of Eleven Electric Lies: Collected Stories Volume III.

Meanwhile, here’s the third installment of The Seventh Rule…

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Inventing the Future:
Controlling Time: Intro

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Six years ago I was hired by the University of Wisconsin to lead its development team on an internationally distributed open source project. Later a company named Qwaq was formed by project leaders and it later hired me and some of the other developers from various institutions. That company is now called Teleplace and its product sounds like science fiction, but it works. I’ve been blogging about the work since day one, and papers have been published by many people, but in the next six entries I’m going to try to bring together what I feel are the most significant accomplishments of all the various developers, and the science that has made them possible.

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Neutrino:
The Seventh Rule – Chapter 1

The Seventh Rule

Today we begin new a piece, The Seventh Rule, a serialized story delivered in seven short parts.

In a break from my usual method of electronic publishing, the complete story will be available on my main site and in various eBook-friendly formats only after the last chapter has gone live via blogging/RSS. In part this is because reader Anders Hovmöller has generously created a python script that automatically discovers and converts new stories posted to my main site and I don’t want to foul the process by posting incomplete works; mostly, however, this is because formatting all the HTML pages for a chapter-by-chapter delivery is a nuissance because, unlike most denizens of the twenty-first century, I still code my pages by hand.

While we’re chatting, I should probably also mention that I’ve been invited to appear as a guest at the Toronto Comic Con, March 18 – 20, at the Direct Energy Centre. Special thanks go to Stephen Shamus for making this happen. If you’re geographically proximate I hope you’ll consider dropping by to say hello, or to offer vicious spit-flecked criticism, or whatever.

And now, without further ado, the first installment of The Seventh Rule…

 

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Upcoming Speaking Events (Both on Net Neutrality)

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Network neutrality remains the issue that will not die, despite the pending court challenge and the actually timely filed court challenge sure to come once the final order is published in federal register (you can read the story behind why this is taking so long here). So my next two speaking engagements focus on the FCC’s Open Internet Rule.

This Tuesday, March 1, I will be at an event called Decoding the FCC’s Net Neutrality Order sponsored by TechFreedom.Org, a relative newcomer to Policyland as an org but run by many familiar faces. After opening remarks by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), we’ll discuss Larry Downes testimony and expanded paper on why he thinks the FCC’s Open Internet Order was bad bad bad with a side order of not needed and a side of death-to-freedom fries. But while the anti-NN Order folks certainly have the home team advantage, I and Open Internet Coalition representative Markham Ericson will give them a run for the money.

On Monday March 7, I’ll be speaking on a panel at the American Bar Association Regulated Utility section meeting called “Market Power Analysis in the FCC’s Open Internet Order” where I will reiterate a lot of the ideas from here, here, here, here, and here.

Hope folks will attend. Should be fun, even if we are revisiting old ground.

Stay tuned . . . .

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
How NCTA Protects Us From An Army of Lazy, Easily Frustrated Terrorists Inspired By “Family Guy.”

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All of these years, I wondered why you find folks in the cable industry who are such a pain in the neck about maintaining and getting stuff from their “public file.” Now I understand that this was really a last line of defense against an army of terrorists and saboteurs bent on destroying our way of life. Unfortunately, according to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), the FCC’s recent action approving the technology for the broadcast white spaces may undermine this defense of our vital public infrastructure. How? Read below. And pray, PRAY, that the FCC heeds this warning and helps NCTA protect us from the army of lazy, easily frustrated terrorists inspired by Family Guy to destroy cable head ends that apparently surrounds us.

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
How Dynamic Is The Mobile Internet Marketplace? Good Question. No, It Really Is A Good Question.

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I’m torn between whether or not to respond to Adam Thierer’s post on this subject at Techliberation. Part of the problem is that I’m not exactly sure what the post is trying to say other than that those of us who doubt that we have what I have previously referred to as GMPBIITGBCGHEGMOTFOTE (“God’s Most Perfect Broadband Infrastructure in The Greatest Best Country God Has Ever Given Man On The Face of the Earth”).  As far as I can tell, the argument goes:

1. This post here shows that lots of cool things happen in wireless.

2. The fact that cool things happen proves we have GMPBIITGBCGHEGMOTFOTE. Since regulation is only warranted if we don’t have GMPBIITGBCGHEGMOTFOTE, and since we obviously have GMPBIITGBCGHEGMOTFOTE, anyone who calls for regulation of anything is a moron.

3. Neener neener.

This is a pretty common mode of analysis here in D.C., give or take a few neeners. It proceeds from what I refer to as the “binary” fallacy, which holds that a market is either “competitive” or “not competitive.” A few more nuanced folks might go so far as to say there is a third category called “not competitive enough.” But as far as I know, I’m the last die hard who thinks this is probably not a terribly relevant question.

More below . . . .

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