Saturday, January 14, 2006

Conversations with a Ghost: The Abbie Hoffman Interview. In 1986 I interviewed 60s radical Abbie Hoffman for a New York publication. Based on five hours of conversation, the edited transcript never appeared in print. Hoffman died, at his own hand, in 1989. Thanks to the magic of blogging, his wit and energy live again through this Q&A, appearing for the first time on Kesher Talk. Read the rest in ... Kesher Talk [PJM - Top Stories] 11:54:12 PM    comment []

Leaving messages. Within three generations, people start to disappear. A century and a half from now, there will be no-one who remembers first-hand what you were like. You will exist to your family (who will be large and many branched by then) as faint traces from the past, appearing only randomly in whatever mementoes sheer luck and institutional planning have created. While scientists continue to work on understanding probabilities of disease and predilections in our double helices, a simple name is the visible DNA that anyone can trace and interpret. A family name is the marker. The context in which it appears is the story it tells us. If we're lucky, we might have a small faded envelope of photographs from earlier generations, images taken for friends or family or jobs, marking occasions, holidays or applications. The original context was for a limited audience - the people in the photograph, perhaps, their family, visitors of their homes. A scribbled note on the back may or may not give clues. Continue reading at Post Prandial By Andrew Losowsky, Post Prandial. [PJM - Top Stories] 10:42:32 AM    comment []

the fiction zone that DC has become. The Washington Internet Daily (which apparently is not on the Internet) has a story predicting the Telecom Bill will pass the House this year. The only sticking point seems to be the "controversial" "net neutrality" proposal. Says Howard Waltzman, the committee’s majority chief telecom counsel, and "net neutrality" opponent: “We’re going to rely on the market to regulate these services and not have a heavy hand in government regulation." Waltzman thinks net neutrality regulation would turn "broadband pipes into railroads and regulating them under common carriage." As he explains: “The reason the Internet has thrived is because it’s existed in an unregulated environment. Regulating... under common carriage would be a complete step backward for the Internet.â€� So half right, but wholly wrong. For of course, when the Internet first reached beyond research facilities to the masses, it did so on regulated lines -- telephone lines. Had the telephone companies been free of the "heavy hand" of government regulation, it's quite clear what they would have done -- they would have killed it, just as they did when Paul Baran first proposed the idea in 1964. It was precisely because they were not free to kill it, because the "heavy hand[ed]" regulation required them to act neutrally, that the Internet was able to happen, and then flourish. So Waltzman's wrong about the Internet's past. But he's certainly right about what a mandated net neutrality requirement would be. It would certainly be a "complete step backward for the Internet" -- back to the time when we were world leaders in Internet penetration, and competition kept prices low and services high. Today, in the world where the duopoly increasingly talks about returning us to the world where innovation is as the network owners says, broadband in the US sucks. We are somewhere between 12th and 19th in the world, depending upon whose scale you use. As the Wall Street Journal reported two months ago, broadband in the US is "slow and expensive." Verizon's entry-level broadband is $14.95 for 786 kbs. That about $20 per megabit. In FRANCE, for $36/m, you get 20 megabits/s -- or about $1.80 per megabit. How did France get it so good? By following the rules the US passed in 1996, but that telecoms never really followed (and cable companies didn't have to follow): "strict unbundling." That's the same in Japan -- fierce competition induced by "heavy handed" regulation producing a faster, cheaper Internet. Now of course, no one is pushing "open access" anymore. Net neutrality is a thin and light substitute for the strategy that has worked in France and Japan. But it is regulation, no doubt. So while it is true that we have had both: (a) common carrier like regulation applied to the Internet, and (b) basically no effective regulation applied to the Internet and it is true that we have had both: (c) fast, fierce competition to provide Internet service and (d) just about the worst broadband service of the developed world it is not true that we had (c) when we had (b). We had (c) when we had (a), and we have (d) now that we have (b). But in the world where the President has the inherent authority to wiretap telephones, who would be surprised if facts didn't matter much. Broadband is infrastructure -- like highways, if not railroads. If you rely upon "markets" alone to provide infrastructure, you'll get less of it, and at a higher price. (See, e.g., the United States, today.) [Lessig Blog] 10:42:05 AM    comment []

Chinese Lunar New Year hailed with kitschy pop songs at malls. Xeni Jardin: The year of the dog is approaching. Boing Boing reader "Qin Pan Zi" says, "Here are some weird, tacky songs about Chinese New Year. For example, one of the songs is called "May All Your Businesses Prosper And Improve". All the songs are in English too, even though it's about Chinese New Year." Link Update: A number of Boing Boing readers wrote in to remind us that "Chinese" New Year is considered by many a culturally insensitive term -- after all, millions of people in Korea and other Asian countries celebrate the tradition. The more accurate term "Lunar New Year" is preferred. Apologies to all. [Boing Boing] 10:41:34 AM    comment []

Iranian Missile Boats.  January 13, 2006: The recent comments by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have made Iran a potential hot spot. The Iranian Navy is the one branch of their armed forces that is always in contact with U.S. forces, and would be the first to engage if things got out of hand. The backbone of this navy is a force of missile-armed patrol craft, the modern equivalent of the PT boats that were so famous during World War II. Missile-armed patrol boats made their mark when two Komar-class boats sank an Israeli destroyer in 1967. Twenty missile boats are currently in service with Iran. Ten are serving with the Iranian navy. These are older Combattante III missile boats. These vessels were purchased in the 1970s, and as a result, they once carried the American-built Harpoon missile. They displace 249 tons, have a 76mm gun, and a 40mm gun. Recently, they were equipped with four C802 missiles. The C802 has a range of 120 kilometers, flies as low as five meters above the surface of the sea in its terminal phase, and has a speed of 1,013 kilometers per hour. Iran also acquired ten Houdong-class patrol boats from China for the Pasdaran Revolutionary Guard Corps. These ships displace 118 tons, carry four C802 missiles, a twin 30mm gun, and a twin 23mm gun. This is a parallel force to the Iranian Navy (much as the Republican Guard operated in a parallel structure with the Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein’s regime). This force carries a total of eighty C-802 missiles. This is not a very serious threat against a Navy carrier battle group, which will have as many as three Aegis escorts. The Iranian boats are not very durable, as was the case with the PT boats. Against lesser forces in the Middle East (like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, this force can inflict serious damage. Against the United States Navy, they are probably sitting ducks. – Harold C. Hutchison [PJM - Top Stories] 10:41:25 AM    comment []