From an article in the August 2003 issue of Harvard Business Review:

In the technology industry, breakthrough products and services rarely come about as a result of asking customers what they want. Customers are notoriously unable to envision what doesn't exist. Instead, successful companies divine the needs of their customers by probing at the underlying problems and transferring that understanding to the innovation process.

Harvard Business Review - August 2003

This site is a preliminary report on a simple visual technique, history flow, that provides a clear view of complex records of contributions and collaboration.

IBM | History Flow

] So, between spam, anti-spam blacklists, rogue packets,
] never-forgetting search engines, viruses, old machines,
] bad regulatory bodies, and bad implementations, I fear
] that the open Internet is going to die sooner than I
] would have expected. In its place I expect to see a more
] fragmented network - one in which only "approved"
] end-to-end communications will be permitted.

I happen to think this is true. Who is doing the approval is the question. The fact is that if anyone can decide how things are approved, then everything is fine. I cut my whack account over to a challenge response system. Bang, its useable again. I get no spam there at all, and all the people I talk to are getting through just fine. I'm happy. I think it will work just fine... In fact, if the internet had more close knit communities I think it would be better off.

Moving to the country side to escape the noise is not the same as censorship.

The end of the open internet...

] The Webcaster Alliance alleges that this and an earlier
] agreement with Yahoo! "had the intent and effect of
] restraining competition in the market for domestically
] recorded sound recordings and in the market for the
] Internet distribution for such sound recordings."

This much is true, as the Library of Congress has found, and as Yahoo testified in Congress. There is probably enough meat here for a case. This is not "a publicity stunt." This is THE fundamental arguement that years of RIAA drama centers around. Will the future of music be determined by large, centralized interests, by a distributed network of independent entities, or by a combination of both. The RIAA would prefer that the second and third options be illegal.

The Register: 198 small webcasters sue the RIAA for illegal practices in the CARP negotiation

Wanna make it easier to boycott RIAA? Install this bookmarklet... instant check against the RIAA member companies. Try it out with, say, Limp Bizkit and then Yo La Tengo...

RIAA Radar: Bookmarklet

] America is a nation of innovators and risk-takers. We are
] a people intrigued by new ideas and constantly in search
] of new opportunities, with an unshakeable confidence that
] the future can be better than the past. Fittingly, some
] of the most important scientific and technological
] achievements of the 20th Century were "made in America"
] such as a car affordable to the workers who made it, the
] transistor, and the Internet. Yet impressive as these
] accomplishments are, they will undoubtedly pale in
] comparison to future breakthroughs at the nexus of
] nanotechnology, information technology, and
] biotechnology.

Inignoct mentioned a few days ago that he didn't like Lieberman. I'm not really a fan either. However, this went through the site a few months ago, and I think this is the most solid, specific plan for revitalizing the tech industry that I've seen out of any candidate. Its worth looking at.

Repost: Lieberman: Growing the Innovation Economy

] Its not an RSS feed, its a javascript thing you embed in a
] page. Its Bush after all, so it sucks, and is somehow more
] controlling then necessary.

One the one hand, you are right. They want to control the way their message gets presented, and they want to collect statistics. They need to know what geographic areas they are winning and loosing in so they can target their marketing effectively.

On the other hand, I'll bet that if enough bloggers contacted them they would agree to release the content in RSS. They would be stupid to turn down an opportunity to get their message out.

Furthermore, does Howard Dean have RSS?

What I'm most interested in is how this stuff can be used in a non-partisan way. Obviously they are thinking of republicans putting a big ass Bush ticker on the side of their page. Maybe we could build a page with all the major tickers. If it was RSS we could reaggregate election press releases chronologically so you could follow the discourse blow by blow...

I guess there ought to be an elections topic on MemeStreams.

Having said all that, I reamed Howard Dean two days ago. I ought to ream Bush too. On his web page there is a "quiz question" that asks how many American working families are benefitting from Bush's Jobs and Growth Act. Users are asked to choose one of four options from 12 Million to 34 Million.

Seriously, waving around all the good work you've done for the economy is abysmally stupid. You sound like the Iraqi Information Minister. "There is no recession. There are no unemployed people in the city..." Everyone knows someone who is having trouble finding a job. No one is fooled. Saying I already fixed the problem is another way of saying "I don't need to do anything else about it."

I'm not voting for that, either.

RE: George Bush News Feeds, Privacy, and Allegory

] "You drink tap water? Are you crazy?" asks a 21-year-old
] radio producer from the Chicago area. "I only drink
] bottled water." In a trendy nightclub in New York City,
] the bartender tells guests they can only be served
] bottled water, which costs $5 for each tiny pint
] container. One outraged clubber is stopped by the
] restroom attendant as she tries to refill the bottle from
] the tap. "You can't do that," says the attendant. "New
] York's tap water isn't safe."

Hartford Advocate: What's in your Bottled Water?

] GERLACH, NV - The Burning Man festival, a prominent
] artistic and countercultural event that draws tens of
] thousands of people to the Nevada desert annually, is in
] danger of cancellation this week because "no one had
] their shit together enough to even make it," organizers
] said Tuesday.

The Onion | No One Makes It To Burning Man Festival

Here it is....

Burningman Bingo