August 2006 archive

Ben Franklin on Patents; in which he provides a Selfless model for Sharing and Cooperation; Inspires us with his Generosity; and Lends Moral Authority to the Principles of Free Culture…

I’m still reading Franklin’s autobiography and wasn’t surprised to learn of his position on patents. I right away wanted to post the blurb here for the world to see, although a Google search quickly revealed that this is an often-quoted passage:

In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who,

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What if the emperor has no secrets?

Maybe the administration’s problem is that they don’t really have any good secrets but want us to think they do. They were just a little over-zealous faking it in this case:

On Monday, the Washington Post ran a fascinating story based on a report from the National Security Archive, a research library at George Washington University. According to the report, the Bush administration has been blacking out of previously public documents information on the nation’s strategic military capabilities. It is doing this, it says, in the name of national security. Got a question on the Minuteman missile? Tough. Curious about the Titan II? Too bad.

Now maybe you wonder what the problem is. This is sensitive information we’re talking about, right? Can’t have that falling into just anybody’s hands, right?

The thing is, it’s already in “anybody’s” hands: it dates back

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Google Analytics Reports

You’re in for an exciting treat: Results from Google Analytics! Wow! These are results for visits from August 5 (when I first started using GA) to August 24 (when I meant to post this).

(*See note about Google Analytics and privacy.)

Visitors From Around The World

These first three maps show where everyone is coming from. This has been the best part for me — I’m thrilled to see people stopping by from all over the world. I hope you find something that makes you want to visit again or even regularly.

Some of the dots represent scum-of-the-earth spammers. I’ve had 9 spam comments so far that have all been caught by Akismet. So I …

Standing on the Corner with Pamphlets in Hand

Welcome to my street corner. I recently listened to a speech by Eben Moglen called “Freedom and the Future of the Net: Why We Win.” It’s good stuff. Very interesting. I unfortunately haven’t been able to find a transcript of it, but as a value-added service to the MTF community, I transcribed this, where he is discussing how the “artificially large person” (e.g. Christina Aguilera) is manufactured for the purpose of selling things, and:

But all of this depends upon denial. Exclusion. You can’t have it unless you pay. And it’s not actually the

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just de-lovely, and del.icio.us

What is del.icio.us, and what’s so cool about it? The del.icio.us “about” page has a succinct explanation that makes sense to me now that I’ve read more about social bookmarking web sites, but as a starting place it did nothing to help me “get it” or understand why I would want to use it.

If you look around my site today, you’ll see that evidently I did decide to use it for promotional purposes. I have del.icio.us paraphernalia scattered all around the place: in the main page list of posts, the archives, search results, sidebar, and at the bottom of permalink pages. The question remains, though: why am I doing …

Run, Freedom, Run!

Several years ago I saw the unfortunately titled musical Urinetown at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis.

I loved it. I thought it was funny and had some good songs. One of my favorites is Run, Freedom, Run! Other good ones include Mr. Cladwell and Don’t be the Bunny, but it’s Freedom that inspires me to write about one of the things that I’m trying to do in my life and chronicle on this web site: make the move from the Microsoft Windows operating system to GNU/Linux, and in general to move from proprietary software to …