There is a connection between the idea of place and the reality of cellular telephones. It is not encouraging.

Disconnected Urbanism

This essay addresses the fundamental questions of Internet governance: whether and how the architecture of the Internet should affect the shape and content of legal regulation of the global network of networks.

The Layers Principle: Internet Architecture and the Law

The essential problem may be as simple -- and as complicated -- as the economic structure of the movie business itself.

I'll try the straightforward approach: forget "Elf" and go see "21 Grams."

How to Spread the Word When the Word Is 'Grim'

He brought some of that new generation to Washington, and instilled in millions of people the idea that public service was service at its noblest -- rewarding, necessary and even, on rare occasions, fun.

Remembering John F. Kennedy

"How is a single book among the millions to find its readers?"

So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance

The requirement, announced Friday by California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, applies to all electronic voting systems already in use as well as those currently being purchased. The machines must be retrofitted with printers to produce a receipt by 2006.

E-Votes Must Leave a Paper Trail

An interview with Bill Joy appears in the December issue of Wired. A lot of people are going to complain about some of the things he says. I have my disagreements with Joy, but I also find him saying a lot of things that make a lot of sense. In an effort to strike a positive tone, I wanted to highlight a few of them here.

Mac OS X is a rock-solid system that's beautifully designed. I much prefer it to Linux.

I try to work on things that won't happen unless I do them. My goal is to do great things. If I do something great, maybe it'll beat Microsoft. But that's not my goal.

Great, world-changing things always start small. The ideal project is one where people don't have meetings, they have lunch.

We still don't get it about epidemics. Even SARS was just a TV story about a bunch of people wearing masks.

Clean water would do more to alleviate disease than high tech medicine.

'Hope Is a Lousy Defense' | Bill Joy in Wired

From the 19 November 2003 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

In China, "you have 20 million people a year moving from the countryside to the city, which requires building a city the size of Philadelphia every month," says Mark Tinker, global head of debt and equity strategy at stockbrokers Execution Ltd in London.

From the 19 November 2003 edition of the Wall Street Journal, in an article by Matthew Kaminski:

... In this Byzantine world, the military must be as innovative as its enemies. The Fourth ID fakes faids to throw off adversaries. "We don't get sidetracked by tribal feuds any more," said LtCol Ted Martin.

The division's analysts headquartered at Saddam's Tikrit palace use "link analysis" to figure who's tied to whom in the Sunni triangle, borrowing a technique honed by the FBI to fight organized crime in the US. The 'insurgents' resemble Mafia organizations, in structure and methods, more than they do a military or guerilla force.

The test this week will mark the second time Eglin has detonated the massive guided bomb this year. It is the largest non-nuclear weapon the Air Force is developing.

MOAB Test is Set for Thursday