Almost thirty hours after the symposium’s kickoff I’m just getting comfortable with the vocabulary and metaphors necessary to navigate the complicated arguments concerning the Internet as a public good. The most difficult challenge arose almost immediately after personal introductions–namely, defining what we mean by The Internet. In the end, we couldn’t define it but rather could only explain it as a stack of generative events stemming from information sharing that is made possible by technical protocols riding on top of the physical network infrastructure. Admittedly, a very kludgy stab at defining the net.

Towards the end of the day it was suggested that we use the definition from World of Ends but I was only able to find a list of Internet attributes there and not so much a definition. In any case, I’m pretty happy with looking at the internet as a stack of interdependent events and properties. The problem comes when you try to define that stack as a public good.
Continue reading ‘Internet As A Public Good’

This one from the economist:

The result is a testament to economic irrationality. The measures below the horizontal line have a negative abatement cost—in other words, by carrying them out, people and companies could both cut emissions and save money. At a macroeconomic level they would boost, rather than reduce, economic growth.

More here.

I’ve been pretty happy with AT&T’s service on the iPhone. The voice is as good as verizon and the Edge network is certainly bearable. However, this isn’t what you want to see when you go to your provider’s website: