I want to see unlicensed use of "white space". This spectrum is great for penetrating buildings and providing wide-area coverage. The innovation that's taken off in the 2.4Ghz ISM band is something that U.S. spectrum policy should be working to foster.

My issue: I don't have a lot of time to research this issue, but I really, really want to help. Who should I be giving money to? Who should I be writing to?

I'm happy to get the word out, and to contribute funds. What I don't have, and I suspect others don't either, is a lot of spare time to read up on who the players are and how to get involved.

To my mind, the "good guys" are the people out there fighting for free public use of this spectrum. Who *are* the good guys? How can I help them?

Sad news. Thanks, Mr. Clarke, for your stories and your vision.

@Whitman: I'm not sure the power grid (at least in the U.S.) has capacity for a flash "upgrade" to electric cars, nor am I sold on the idea of electric cars really being an "upgrade".

It looks like this particular engine design could be well-suited to diesel engines. Liquid hydrocarbons, like biodiesel, seem to be a pretty good "battery" in which to store solar energy, too. We have a lot of energy already tied up in infrastructure to deliver and sell liquid hydrocarbon-based fuels. It seems to me like we haven't really reached the end of what the traditional internal combustion engine can deliver, in terms of manufacturing or operating efficiency.

The "antiquated" parts of automobiles I have problems with are related more to the size and lack of aerodynamics of the hulking steel behemoth vehicles on the road, rather than their means of propulsion. The _most_ "antiquated" thing, for me, is the lack of desire on the part of Americans to purchase and drive smaller, more efficient vehicles. A 50 MPG+ 3 ton SUV is a hard problem, but I've been driving a 50 MPG+ gasoline-powered car that was built in 1991 for years, so I know it's possible.

If the average American wasn't worried about having a car that was equipped to cross swamps and tundra (and is bigger than the neighbor's equally inefficient and hulking monstrosity), collective fuel efficiency would be getting better instead of worse.

I've never used Flickr in any capacity other than browsing, but I'm shocked. You can't tag images as public domain? Phhh... There goes ever posting any of my photos on it.

A not-for-profit Flickr-like site would be interesting, but I can't think thru the economics of keeping it running. Surely just the staffing necessary to handle DMCA takedown notices would be enough to make it a very expensive proposition.

I'm chiming in w/ my support for the position of Moon, Tom, and spazzm on this one. Is it because I don't think there is a "God" that I'm not worried about us playing one?

Human cloning is going to happen, like it or not. Cloned people would be people, too. I'm not sure how they would turn modern notions of morals and acceptable social behavior on ear. A clone will be indistinguishable, at the macro level, from any other person. With present-day technology, clones will be born just like everybody else. (Just like identical twins, actually.) The clones will just be people. How is this going to change society so fundamentally?

Ooooo-- maybe they won't have "souls"! Yeah! No "souls"! Spoooky!

*sigh*

I do think that cloning as a means of reproduction is a bad idea, just because we don't have a clear understanding of what we'll be fucking up. Our method of sexual reproduction evolved because it works. I laugh at the kind of hubris that says "we can out-think billions of years of evolution" when we talk about engineering our own genomes.

Every time I hear "junk DNA", I just think "4kb demos, procedural texturing, and a black-box CISC virtual machine with megs and megs of micrcode that you'll never get to see" and giggle madly. One we have a working grand unified theory, then maybe we can totally understand the "VM" that biology executes in.

I think it's fair that I have control over my work. If I die my foundation should have control over my work in pertetuity.

Hmmmm... I think it's fair that the public gets "ownership" of your "work" after it's no longer marketable and / or you're dead. So there.

@Crash: Technology is trashing the business model you described in your message for novelists, musicians, filmmakers, and anyone else who relies on information distribution being tied to scarcity. (Actually, I'd argue that it's _really_ trashing the business model of publishers and distributors-- the middlemen who've always been a necessary-but-evil "tax" on the "content creators"...)

I'm comfortable with a future where technology causes some business models to disappear. It's too bad for the scribes and the elevator operators who couldn't find other work, but it's the way things work. Anybody staunchly holding on to their business model after it's become unprofitable is just refusing to accept reality.

I _am_ being needlessly extremist in my postings here (sort of a "slash and burn" position) for effect. Realistically, though, I don't see any need for the copyright regime that exists in most of the world now. Copyright beyond the useful marketable life of a work is needless and robs from the public good. The copyright social contract is hopelessly in need of renegotiation.

...I've decided to completely disregard copyright.

...this will be my third year using Creative Commons licenses instead of Copyright.

Not to pick nits or be contrary, but licensing your work with Creative Commons licenses doesn't mean you're "disregarding copyright". You're just granting the public a less restrictive license to works over which you hold copyright. Have a look at the Creative Commons FAQ, and the specific question "How does a Creative Commons license operate?" for more.

If you really are going to "disregard copyright", put your works into the public domain. If you're not doing that, you're still "using copyright".

To me, worrying about production companies not publishing public domain works is pandering to the system as it exists now instead of trying to change it. Then again, I don't "make a living" from "products of my imagination".

I'm a bit opinionated (and a bit vitriolic) about "intellectual property" issues. I profit from the work that I do each day with my eyes, hands, and brain, rather than a residual income stream based on work that I've already done. For me, no work on a given day means no income for that day. That, I think, is the root of my opinion. I'm perfectly alright with the system of legislated entitlement for "content creators" to be wiped away. Exciting new ways for "content creators" to make money are out there, but the future of "pay for play", royalties and residuals, and the draconian rent-seeking schemes of "publishers" seems dim.

Tee-hee! I "rate" visits to thrift-stores based on the number of copies of "Future Shock", "Iacocca", and Michael Crichton books I can count.

Overheard in the car: "I don't know if I wanna stop at the south Salivation Army store this week-- last week was a 5 Iacocca and I don't expect it's gotten any better."

At the risk of echoing #5 (Anthonys82), I'll also slap my forehead and ask why it's so hard for anyone to get this right.

Gimmie an e-ink screen, a USB mass storage profile and/or an SD memory card slot, power from commodity AA batteries, and decent support for HTML, ASCII text, PDF files, and perhaps MP3 playing, and I'd be on-board immediately.

I don't have the skills, but I'd happily throw in a couple of hundred dollars to pay somebody to work on a free-as-in-beer design for an eBook reader that doesn't suck. I suspect other people would be willing to throw some cash that way, if a qualified party stepped up to do the design work.

The whole "touch typing" establishment frustrates me. I don't think "proper technique" matters anymore, and a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't take into account the fact that we're all using differently proportioned keyboards and, to some extent, hands.

I learned to type using the Apple II machines in my public library in 1985 by-- well-- wanting to type. By the time I got to the draconian "keyboarding" classes in junior high (still taught on manual typewriters), I was already typing about as fast as I do now.

While I'm sure it's a _whole_ lot more important to use "proper technique" on actual mechanical typewriters, I really don't see them used much anymore, except maybe in stodgy old law offices to type on pre-printed "legal blanks"... *sigh*

I get by fine at 100-130 gross wpm on computer keyboards with my own "high speed hunt and peck", and I've never had a problem with any kind of keyboarding injury, RSI or otherwise. I get a real kick out of Customers and friends making comments about my typing speed. (I had a ball putting in a "keyboarding lab" for a school a couple years ago using unmarked black keyboards. The teachers had problems typing on them, but I didn't! *smile*) I've actually had girlfriends call my typing "sexy", if you believe that.

I'm convinced that keyboard layout has little to do with typing speed and accuracy. Developing a typing technique that is comfortable and being motivated to type quickly seemed to be the driving factors in my experience. I was motivated by my desire to write code and bad fiction, as a kid, so I developed a technique that lets me type fast. My 17 y/o sister types as fast as I do and "learned" the same way I did. Today's kids are motivated by chat, email, and updating their goddamned Facebook pages as quickly as possible. Whatever the motivation is, I think it's key to typing fast-- not some magic keyboard layout or one-size-fits-all technique.

My podcatcher just grabbed an FLV enclosure from the new feed! Zow. Ask and you shall receive. Rocking.

Nice work! I do think you need an RSS feed with enclosures, 'cuz I know I'm not going to be able to keep up with sussing out and downloading the FLV each day. I suspect I'm not the only person who would like my "podcatcher" to pull this down and have it waiting for my portable media player.