As the rich world knows all too well, credit cards are as dangerous as they are convenient. With millions of consumers from China to Mexico filling their wallets with plastic, the risks are mounting as fast as people can say, “Charge it!”

Prime Numbers: The Plastic Revolution

I had an occasion calling for bacon themed food and my mind immediately turned towards the famed bacon mat. I needed something a little more single-serving though, so I decided to attempt bacon cups.

If those cherry tomatoes turn out to be too sweet, just add a little bacon salt.

bacon cups | not martha

So far, the only thing standing between me and my own Gulfstream is any kind of offer from Exxon Mobil. Or even Microsoft.

My problem could be networking. Or more specifically, a lack of it. I work in a basement where my only business contacts are my dogs, which appear unimpressed by my résumé. And on rare occasions when I venture aboveground to attend an event with the sort of people who should be only too willing to offer stock options in return for my grandmother’s chocolate cake recipe, I get tongue-tied. I blush.

On the Internet, however, no one can tell you’re self-conscious.

Building a Web of Influence

Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to address you on network management by high-speed Internet Access Providers. A brief summary of my main points is in order here.

First, providing Internet Access implies adherence to a set of standard technical protocols and technical practices that are essential for the world-wide Internet to work for all its users.

Second, variances from those standard protocols and practices damages the Internet as a whole, and all of its users.

Third, there are standard, industry-accepted processes for resolving problems that come up as the Internet evolves, including disclosure of measurement data, discussion and joint definition of new protocols, etc.

Because of these points, Comcast's secretive attempt to apply non-standard management practices creates serious problems. Survival of the Internet requires that Internet Access Providers continue to take a proper, transparent role as participants in the Internet.

While I would like to see that happen without regulation, Comcast's deception of its own customers in this matter suggests to me a need for stronger intervention that will discourage such Internet Access Providers with exclusive franchises from the temptation to degrade the Internet by selectively damaging their customers' ability to use the full capabilities of the Internet.

Internet Access Providers do not create the Internet for their customers, instead they provide access to a larger collective system, of which they are a small part.

David Reed FCC statement

Draft SP 800-63 Revision 1: E-Authentication Guideline is available for public comment. It supplements OMB guidance, by providing technical guidelines for the design of electronic systems for the remote authentication of citizens by government agencies. The revision represents an expansion and reorganization of the original document, broadening the discussion of technologies available to agencies, and giving a more detailed discussion of assertion technologies. Changes intended to clarify the pre-existing requirements are also included in the revision. Comments will be accepted until April 10, 2008. Comments should be forwarded via email to eauth-comments@nist.gov.

DRAFT: Electronic Authentication Guidelines

The judgments that I will offer the Committee in these documents and in my responses to your questions are based on the efforts of thousands of patriotic, highly skilled professionals, many of whom serve in harm’s way. I am pleased to report that the Intelligence Community is even better than it was last year as a result of the continuing implementation of reforms required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. This Statement is, in part, a product of our moving forward with the transformation of US intelligence, including more innovative and rigorous analysis and wider and more far-reaching collaboration.

You will see from the testimony that many of the key topics I touch on are not traditional “national security” topics.

Globalization has broadened the number of threats and challenges facing the United States. For example, as government, private sector, and personal activities continue to move to networked operations and our digital systems add ever more capabilities, our vulnerability to penetration and other hostile cyber actions grows. The nation, as we indicated last year, requires more from our Intelligence Community than ever before and consequently we need to do our business better, both internally, through greater collaboration across disciplines and externally, by engaging more of the expertise available outside the Intelligence Community.

Many of the analytic judgments I present here have benefited from the increasing integration of collection and analysis. Our systematic effort to synchronize requirements across the national intelligence, defense, Homeland security and federal law enforcement communities ensures collection assets will be better utilized and the collection community will be able to mount efforts to fill the gaps and needs of analysts. This more integrated Community approach to analysis and collection requirements is part of the DNI’s plan to transition the IC from a federation of independent intelligence organization to a more integrated enterprise; the beginning results of this new approach are reflected in the more nuanced and deeper analysis of the challenges and threats facing the US.

See also: Transcript - Annual Threat Assessment Hearing

Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community for the Senate Armed Services Committee

A performance-right for recording artists would correct a needless exception in U.S. copyright law, states Tom Sydnor in, “A Performance Right for Recording Artists: Sound Policy at Home and Abroad,” a Progress on Point released today by The Progress & Freedom Foundation. In addition, Sydnor concludes, the Passage of the Performance Rights Act would harmonize U.S. copyright law with those of other countries, benefiting both U.S. recording artists and the U.S. economy.

In the paper, Tom Sydnor, Director of the Center for the Study of Digital Property at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, explains that lack performance rights for over-the-air broadcasts is an exception in U.S. copyright law. He counters two often cited arguments for the discrepancy: promotional value for the recording artist and the public interest obligations put on broadcast platforms. Sydnor explains that if one party invests in and creates a resource with value to the public, “governments should not let others appropriate that resource for their own commercial gain just by showing that the creator might therefore derive some incidental benefit.” While airplay may indeed have some promotional benefit to the recording artist, the recording artist also confers benefits to the radio broadcasters by producing songs that people want to hear. Therefore, one party should not possess property rights while the other does not. Moreover, the artist now has multiple channels to exploit for promotional purposes, bringing to question the actual promotional value of the broadcast medium. Sydnor also addresses the argument that over-the-air broadcasters should be exempt from performance rights because they are saddled with public interest obligations that other platforms are not. The author explains that the burden of public interest obligations should cause policymakers to re-think broadcast regulation, not punish performers.

Performance Right Would Harmonize Copyright Policy

This paper theoretically and empirically analyzes the interaction of emigration of highly skilled labor, an economy’s income gap to potential host economies of expatriates, and optimal public infrastructure investment. In a model with endogenous education and R&D investment decisions we show that international integration of the market for skilled labor aggravates between-country income inequality by harming those which are source economies to begin with while benefiting host economies. When brain drain increases in source economies, public infrastructure investment is optimally adjusted downward, whereas host economies increase it. Evidence from 77 countries well supports our theoretical hypotheses.

International Mobility of the Highly Skilled, Endogenous R&D, and Public Infrastructure Investment

Join a global audience and watch online as the 2008 TED Prize winners, Dave Eggers, Neil Turok and Karen Armstrong, share their inspiring visions, followed by the moving and infectious music of Vusi Mahlasela.

It will be an evening of big ideas, bold plans and audacious wishes -- and you'll hear ways to help grant their wishes right away!

Click here for the live feed, Thursday, February 28, starting at 5:15pm US/Pacific time.

Watch the TED Prize wishes live on Thursday

Over the past eight years, in the name of reviving Russia after the tumult of the 1990s, Mr. Putin has waged an unforgiving campaign to clamp down on democracy and extend control over the government and large swaths of the economy. He has suppressed the independent news media, nationalized important industries, smothered the political opposition and readily deployed the security services to carry out the Kremlin’s wishes.

While those tactics have been widely recognized, they have been especially heavy-handed at the local level, in far-flung places like Nizhny Novgorod, 250 miles east of Moscow. On the eve of a presidential election in Russia that was all but fixed in December, when Mr. Putin selected his close aide, Dmitri A. Medvedev, as his successor, Nizhny Novgorod stands as a stark example of how Mr. Putin and his followers have established what is essentially a one-party state.

Putin’s Iron Grip on Russia Suffocates Opponents