] Nonetheless, an economic analysis of domain name policy
] has an important, indeed a crucial role to play. The
] Internet has been mythologized, and the image of the
] Internet as a separate realm, somehow exempt from legal
] regulation and the operation of market forces is still a
] powerful and compelling ideal in the minds of many.
] Although this romantic picture may have an element of
] truth, there is much to be learned by stepping back and
] looking at root service as an ordinary service, provided
] by an ordinary organization, subject to the familiar laws
] of supply and demand. How can the provision of that
] service be organized so as to provide the greatest
] benefit of the public? How can the root be put to its
] highest and best use?
]
] Our answers to these questions begin with a basic truth
] about the DNS: The Root Is a Scarce Resource

I'm going to have to think about this more -- I don't think
I agree with their conclusions -- but it is interesting to see
someone trying to analyze these namespace issues economically.

An Economic Analysis of Domain Name Policy - Part I

] Vigorous behind-the-scenes lobbying by the sugar industry
] threatens to derail a landmark anti-obesity strategy due
] to be adopted this week by the World Health Organisation,
] despite expressions of support for the strategy from US
] and European food groups.

20 years from now, the plaintiffs in the food-industry obesity
lawsuits will point to this. It is really shocking to hear the
industry literally saying: "we want people to stay fat because if
they lose weight, we lose business!"

Sugar industry threatens WHO's anti-obesity strategy

]
] Both Berners-Lee and and Vixie have contributed mightily
] to the internet; they have deservedly accumulated
] enormous techno-karma.
]
] But no matter how many karma points they may have, they
] are repeating the behavior that turned the innovative
] telephone companies of the early 20th century into the
] stodgy telcos that fought competition and innovation at
] every turn from the early 1900's up through the 1970's.

Techies Wanna Do Policy

One thing that would immediately lower gas prices in this country
is if the EPA would impose a single, nationwide fuel blend. As
it stands, there are at least a hundred different such blends
required by different state and local pollution control laws.

This creates the obvious "partitioned-supply" problem that you
inevitably end up with too much of the one you don't need and
not enough of some other.

I expect that even if the most stringent (California?) standard were put in place that it would end up being cheaper for almost everyone and the people for whom its more expensive (Iowa?) would pay a very small premium. I think the Saudis have even told us as much!

RE: How high will gasoline prices go? Maybe $3 How high will gasoline prices go? Maybe $3

] DomainKeys is a technology proposal that can bring black
] and white back to this decision process by giving email
] providers a mechanism for verifying both the domain of
] each email sender and the integrity of the messages sent
] (i.e,. that they were not altered during transit). And,
] once the domain can be verified, it can be compared to
] the domain used by the sender in the From: field of the
] message to detect forgeries. If it's a forgery, then it's
] spam or fraud, and it can be dropped without impact to
] the user. If it's not a forgery, then the domain is
] known, and a persistent reputation profile can be
] established for that sending domain that can be tied into
] anti-spam policy systems, shared between service
] providers, and even exposed to the user.

Yahoo! Anti-Spam Resource Center - DomainKeys

A friend of mine has totally drunk the kool-aid on this one and basically asserts that we should just give up and start
dismantling industrial civilization. I think this is utterly wrong
for several reasons:

1. Noone really knows how much oil there is. As Decius points out,
everyone who ventures to make a prediction has an agenda. The
supply will contract as existing fields dry up but that will
just raise the ante to develop e.g. Siberia and better
technology to explore and tap other resources.
1b. We won't run out of oil overnight.
1c. There's also the matter of coal which I think is generally
agreed to be much more plentiful than petroleum.

2. *right now*, fuel cells/solar/wind/nuke/... is more expensive
than oil but its only a matter of time that tech improvements
vs oil supply contraction cause the curves to cross. Gas
is going to have to cost a lot more than $2/gallon for people
to quit driving huge SUVs.

And then there's fusion power... everyone seems to have forgotton about that one. I have a great deal of confidence that sooner or later, it will be made practical. It may be the case that you have to have a plant the size of Rhode Island for it to be economical and then ship the energy around as Hydrogen or something.

I think the key is that none of these changes are going to
happen overnight. People will change their behavior as energy
prices rise. I think this will be a gradual process.

If the oil's there in the ground, why not use it? We're going
to have to cope with running out of it sooner or later so why
not sooner?

At the end of the day, the assertion that the end of petroleum
will predicate the fall of industrial civilization is just another
crackpot doomsday theory. Humanity will show unbeilevable
ingenuity in the face of the prospect of reversion to
a pre-industrial state.

RE: Observations and the State of Affairs - Peak Oil

] A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday filed by
] VeriSign (Quote, Chart) against the government's ruling
] body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
] Numbers - or ICANN.

Judge Dismisses V$'s Antitrust Claim against ICANN

] Linus Torvalds, the undisputed - except by the Alexis de
] Tocqueville Institute - inventor of Linux, has let
] LinuxWorld have his immediate comment on the AdTI
] president's claims that the parentage of Linux is somehow
] in doubt. Read his startling admission exclusively here:
] Linux is in reality the handiwork of the Tooth Fairy and
] Santa Claus.

Linus Discloses *Real* Fathers of Linux

] A team of rocketeers led by a Bloomington, Minn., man has
] claimed success in their goal of launching the first
] amateur rocket into space, sending a 21-foot rocket an
] estimated 70 miles above the Nevada desert

Team Claims Success With Rocket Launch

] In the world's most extreme plastic surgery operation,
] British woman, Valerie Rogers is going to have 35 lbs of
] fat and loose skin cut from her body. As an erasure of
] the past in which she lost a whopping 308 lbs, she will
] transform into a new person.

The word of the day is "circumferential body lift."

Trash Can of Skin