Internet radio provides access to a broad
array of music and information, providing much needed diversity. Internet
radio providers (both streams of broadcast stations and internet-only stations)
pay royalties to broadcast copyrighted material. Unfortunately, on March
2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees these royalties,
increased Internet radio's royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent and
thereby jeopardized the industry’s future. To learn more, or to help in the
fight to preserve internet radio, please click on the banner on the left.
If you aren't concerned about the integrity of electronic voting, you should be. For a detailed, in depth, technical look, see How to steal an election by hacking the vote. For another paper, and a video demonstrating how easy it is, see Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine from Princeton University. As Robert A. Heinlein wrote in the novel Friday, "electronic records aren't records." The poster on the left is from Diebold Variations, ©2004-2006 Rand Carreaga/salamander.eps.
To learn more about efforts to promote the public availability of strong
encryption and deregulating cryptography to protect privacy, check out
the Internet Privacy Coalition.
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| Greetings from Vienna, Virginia. Gena and I have been
living here for about 17 years now, and I've been in the Washington area for
over 20 (hard to believe!). I work for Noblis, a non-profit science, technology, and strategy organization.
After managing our
Intelligent
Transportation Systems (ITS) work for about 17 years, I've moved over to be
a "senior fellow," continuing to oversee the technical aspects of our
ground transportation work
and support the
Vehicle Infrastructure Integration program.
When I'm not at work, I enjoy coaching and playing soccer. I'm also the webmaster for the alumni of Penn State's Individual in a Complex Society interest house.
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| Gena is an attorney at the
Department of Energy. Our son Glenn is 14 and is a bundle of energy himself. Here you'll find some photos we've taken over the years, various VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) models I've built, a "Meeting Clock" you can download or use from here to track the cost of meetings, and some quotes I'm fond of. You can check out a new slide show from our New England vacation from 2003, and you can see some photos from our 2005 vacation posted on Flickr. I also continue to maintain the ICS Alumni Homepage, the website for Penn State ICS Interest House alumni. |
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"The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."
"Information wants to be free."
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from."
"The notion that standards engender successful industries seems as likely to me as the aboriginal Cargo Cult of New Guinea (build an airport of straw & twigs, & the great silver birds will swoop down out of the sky, bringing Manna from heaven.) I think it's rather the case that successful industries engender standards after the fact, based on their experiences thus far, in order to further their success."
"The idea that the rise of standards would reduce innovation was a mistake. In fact, innovation accelerates with the rise of standards."
"We can no longer depend on privacy through obscurity."
"Open systems exercise the entrepreneurial part of our economy and call into question proprietary systems and broadly mandated monopolies. In an open system we compete with our imagination, not with a lock and key. The result is not only a large number of successful companies, but a wide variety of choice for the consumer and an ever more nimble commercial sector, one that can change and grow."
"Electronic records aren't records."
"The last time I used a hammer, my hand slipped and I hit my thumb. And for a split second, I unconsciously reached for the Undo key..."
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
"Trust the computer industry to shorten 'Year 2000' to 'Y2K.' It was this kind of thinking that caused the problem in the first place."
"Architecture is politics."
Clarke's Laws:
Networking Laws:
Metcalfe's Law - "The value of a system grows as approximately the square of the number of users of the system." Robert Metcalfe
Reed's Law - "The utility of large networks, particularly social networks, scales exponentially with the size of the network." David P. Reed
"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at
home."
"We must not confuse
dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul
of America dies with it."
"...we are not against censorship because we realize there is always the danger of something being said."
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security."
"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."
"There's no such thing as a Democratic bridge or a Republican highway."
"Sound bites and sound policy shouldn't be confused."
"Both gas and government will expand to fill the available space."
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything."
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old order of things, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."
"...reality has a well-known liberal bias."
"If aliens are smart enough to travel through space, why do they keep abducting the dumbest people on earth?"
"Stability is a function of momentum."
"The world is run by those who show up."
"It is impossible to cross a chasm in a thousand small steps."
"When there is chaos, there is opportunity."
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
"Forwards who pass the ball in the box are not forwards."
email me at mike.mcgurrin@psualum.com
