Open source, procurement, and gov tech.
“When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a …
Continue reading “The commencement address to the graduating class of Hobart College.”
Just for kicks, I put up a DeCSS decoy page. I’m curious if I’ll hear from the MPAA‘s legal department for even having a page that contains the word "DeCSS." We’ll see.
Brian Ristuccia has analysed the output of the CueCat (advertising barcode scanner, packed with recent issues of Forbes and free at Radio Shack), and it’s got some bad mojo. As he explained on Slashdot, everytime that you scan a barcode, it broadcasts the serial number of the CueCat that you own. When you get your …
So, Value America has finally gone under. It’s about damned time. I’ve been a vocal opponent of Value America since shortly after they started, I don’t mind saying. They came into our town waving an “IPO” banner and I watched sucker after sucker line up and empty out their wallets. I had quite a few …
Continue reading “Value America finally crawled into a hole and died. Thank God.”
My friend Sean and his company, ChainMail, are in Wired today. They’ve launched their secure e-mail app, Mithril, and re-branded it as Antivore. (Get it? The antidote to the FBI’s Carnivore?) These guys been working for ages on Antivore, and I gather it’s pretty damned incredible. They’ve released it as an open-source program, which is …
Continue reading “Get Antivore and be secure from FBI snooping.”
So I’m beta testing Digimarc‘s new MediaBridge software. They sent me a little 3Com camera and everything. The good news? Free camera. The bad news? MediaBridge is totally lame. The idea is that you hook this camera up to your USB port and put it on your monitor. Then, when you see an ad in …
Continue reading “On Digimarc’s MediaBridge: Skip it. It sucks.”
I spent yesterday in Richmond (motto: “Armpit of Virginia”) at the morning’s sessions for the COPA Commission. The hearings are actually still going on today, for a total of a day and a half of testimony and eight panels. Because I have to work, I could only go for the first two panels, "Client Side …
Continue reading “Went to the COPA Commission hearing. Here’s what I saw.”
Just for kicks, I took an extremist position and replied to “Pitch Your Tent and Log On" (yeah, half of you know where this is going, don’t you?) explaining that individuals that bring their own technology (GPS, laptop, whatever) into the great outdoors aren’t missing out on anything. They’re just people that treat technologically- advanced …
I don’t speak Estonian, but it’s clear that I’m somebody’s hero. The acceptance standards don’t look too tough, and I know that I’ve certainly done nothing heroic, but it’s still nice. I don’t think that I’ve ever been considered a hero by anybody.
There’s an essay up at Freshmeat by David Burley from Marblehorse that’s a result of a comment that I made in response to a previous essay, Jacob Moorman’s "The Importance of Non-Developer Supporters in Free Software." Burley’s essay, "Inroads to Free Software Development," is about the challenges of non-developers getting involved with free software. Although …