Friday, February 27, 2009

Princeton Premier - Spam De Jure

In today's email...

Dear Mike,

It is my pleasure to inform you that you are being considered for inclusion into the 2009-2010 Princeton Premier Business Leaders and Professionals Honors Edition section of the registry.

The 2009-2010 edition of the registry will include biographies of the world's most accomplished individuals. Recognition of this kind is an honor shared by thousands of executives and professionals throughout the world each year. Inclusion is considered by many as the single highest mark of achievement.

You may access our application form using the following link:

xxxxx (link removed)

Upon final confirmation, you will be listed among other accomplished individuals in the Princeton Premier Registry.

For accuracy and publication deadlines, please complete your application form and return it to us within five business days.

There is no cost to be included in the registry.

If you've already received this email from us, there is no need to respond again.

This email serves as our final invitation to potential members who have not yet responded.

On behalf of the Executive Publisher, we wish you continued success.

Sincerely,
Jason Harris

Managing Director
Princeton Premier

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Ballet with Strangers

The Dan Ryan expressway is where you get to dance with strangers wearing 2000 pound ballet slippers.

It always amazes me that things flow as smoothly as they do.

Friday, February 06, 2009

What they put in the water

So, some workers in Bellaire, Ohio accidentally put less toxic than normal chemical in the water supply, but they had to purge it. They put in 40 pounds of Hydrochloric acid (found in your stomach) instead of an unknown normal quantity of Flouride.

What harm could a lower pH really do?  Clean out some pipes, or are they worried about dissolved lead? All of the calcium buildup would buffer it out quickly anyway.

People just don't understand Chemistry these days, do they?

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Tired of the monopoly game.

Doc Searls is tired of a specific part of the monopoly game, sucky AT&T coverage.

I like to think bigger, I'm tired of the whole monopoly game.

I think we should take a few big chunks of spectrum and dedicate them to a new mesh transport network. There would be standards for equipment, with the good old FCC doing type approvals. We could then all buy our own off the shelf part of the internet. Everyone could own it, or improve it. I expect that groups would quickly form to meet common needs, and the commercial interest would leverage their existing sites to move into this new opprotunity.

Instead of government enforced monopoly use of the spectrum, everyone would have to fairly peer with everyone. For the commercial end of things, there would be minimum requirements that would allow you make money, but keep the incentive there for others to contribute to the spectral commons. The main billing event would be transit off the wireless grid and back into the phone company or internet. Those would be the toll booths. This means that if you maintained enough equipment to have good wireless connectivity, you wouldn't have to pay any tolls.

The other option would be to bill it out like railroads if necessary so that everyone gets fairly paid for how much traffic they help move. It's my understanding that owner of a section of rail gets paid by whoever moves cars over it. The owners of the cars get paid rent to use them. It's complicated, but it works.


Either way, let's give strong incentives for people to put up mesh network nodes, and keep them powered and maintained. This can help route around the huge cost of laying fiber, and get us acceptable speeds at acceptable costs, right now, in spite of the economy, etc. Pay back the unused portion of the rents we've charged the cellular networks if they agree to the plan, and are willing to provide access in a neutral manner.