Various
interviews and articles, organized by topic. The older pieces are included so the reader (and myself) can keep score over time, but the most recent essays are probably of greatest interest.
|
| public policy |
| Inflation is an unsolved economic mystery. The FED tries to discourage demand by shocking the economy into a near death experience just short of flatlining into a permanent depression. There must be alternatives.... |
| The only way to break our divisive partisan habit is through Random Acts of Democracy, inspired by Athenian Sortition. |
| The Supreme Court has been broken since the Founding. But we can moderate partisanship by increasing the size of the court. Along with randomly (yes, randomly) term limiting to an average of 14 years. |
| Campaign finance reform is long overdue- loud, well funded speakers drown out voices of participatory democracy. Here are a few of my suggested approaches to writing a constitutional amendment as part of the Massachusetts Commission on Citizen's United. |
| STEM values have been under attack in Washington for decades. The time to respond is long overdue, starting with a STEM Legislative Scorecard. 01/19 |
| The US Constitution is an amazingly robust and successful democratic blueprint. But its flaws, (absent a crisis) are difficult to repair, especially with a highly polarized congress more interested in party politics than public good. Why not use the amendment process to regularly update and maintain this most important document- join the effort at WeAmend.us today. 01/19 |
| Why are the number of House seats set at 435? Madison had a different idea, and it involved math. No wonder it was never adopted, and is still widely misunderstood. |
| A proposal for World Wide Notary platform. Lower overhead than coin-style blockchains and ledgers, and perhaps just as trustworthy. A possible solution to deep fakes. Certainly simpler to understand and explain... 05/18 |
| The insidious role played by gerrymandering suppressing proportional representation. The root cause is single member districts- read why even independent redistricting commissions are unfair, not matter how well-meaning. 07/17 |
| Vouching for Quality Health Care- proposing the distribution of yearly insurance vouchers to pay for universal health care, yet allow for private sector innovation, efficiency and effectiveness. From Business Week of 7/16/2009. |
| How do we protect our digital devices from being pried open by criminals and state adversaries, while permitting sane, legal access on rare, justified occasions? Key Escrow is one possibility, but the devil is in the details. |
| You Should be Able to Patent Ideas - a comment on why business method patents are fundamentally no different than mechanical inventions. From the Wall Street Journal 6/25/2009. |
| By spending too much time worrying about hijacking and even atomic bombs, we risk a greater disaster from bioterror. From Business
Week 05/20/07. |
| On the crisis in science education, and how to encourage a scientifically literate nation. From Business
Week 09/2006. |
| Why patents are less valuable than
most people think, and how to invent a solution to our patent
malaise. From Business
Week 12/2005. |
| On leveraging "platform technology" principles
to help survive disasters and lower the risk of underestimating
unpredictable risks. From Business
Week 9/2005. |
| How phantom productivity incentives stand
in the way of creating real, enduring wealth. From Business
Week 5/2005. |
| Assuring America's technological strength by reinvesting in our human capital. From Business
Week 3/2005. |
| A quote regarding patent lifetimes in a NYTimes Magazine article by James Gleick Patently
Absurd 3/12/2000. |
| Promoting the use of a spectrum commodity exchange to ignite a new wave of wireless investment and innovation. From Business
Week 1/2005. |
| Telecommunications
Magazine 3/2004 for more on spectrum allocation. |
| Blunting terrorism by making its targets less valuable
to attack, and less expensive to defend. From Technology
Review 4/2002. |
| On the decline of long term research in the
United States, emphasizing ways to improve the patent system
and other incentives. Why everyone should not be a VC. From Business
Week 7/2/2002. |
| Time to start investing in replacements
for the silicon transistor, before a crisis in power dissipation
hits next decade. From "Always
On" 2/15/04. |
| SDI
- When Defenses Turn Offensive, Physics Today, 1988, V41, N1,
p126-127. Discussing how defensive weapons always have an offensive nature, and thus the foolishness of ignoring unlimited defensive build-ups while worrying solely about offensive capabilities. |
| business and economics |
| Seven Essential Board Slides an entrepreneur should include in every board meeting presentation. Get these fundamentals right, and you are free to focus on growing your business. Ignore them at your peril. |
| Turning Stock Speculators into Investors, by issuing a combination of restricted and freely tradeable shares. From Bloomberg-Business Week March 2011 |
| Why Rebalance?, explaining why this hallmark of conventional wisdom leads to lower returns and only nominal protection against stock market risk. Feb 2011 |
| Know when to fold'em, advice and a simple tool to identify which stocks are best suited for a buy-and-hold strategy. Dec 2010 |
| The Problem With Pensions- how GDP growth limits pension returns, and why we should all reserve 20% of income to pay for retirement. An impending crisis of expectations vs reality. From November 2010. |
| Back to the Future, a technique to compare stocks and fund returns without the misleading sensitivity and dependency on starting date. Sept 2010. |
| A three point plan to reinvigorate Microsoft. Of course, MS is not going out of business any time soon, but the hardest thing for a leader to do, is rethink their business before circumstances force them to play catchup. From Business
Week 9/2008 |
| Explains how consumers balance their rate of spending against their rate of earning- careful, you may not be able to spend more than $2/hr and still keep your head above water. From Business
Week 12/2007. |
| A speech from the Sept 2007 Argyl Executive forum, outlining key rules for venture capital success. |
| Giving music away in bulk to earn product
loyalty, instead of stealing MP3s. From CNET
News.com 4/3/03. |
| Improving telecommunications competition
despite monopoly ownership. Response to an FCC ruling. From Telecom
Flash 3/31/03. |
| Reconfiguring the telecom industry
for success. From America's
Network 11/01/02 |
| Interview on the potential FCC ruling to no longer require local
phone companies to lease their network to competitors. From IDG
2/19/03. |
| Can the internet cannot be advertiser supported? One of many internet myths from 1998. |
| science, technology and design |
| Two phone mods- a locking belt holster, and a nitinol superelastic Air Pod ear hook. |
| Can you walk through walls? This mechanism points the way. |
| Your microbiome punches far above its weight- and might help reduce inflamation. |
| To everything there is a time and a season. Including caulking. |
| The almost magical "Halite Fountain", cousin of Heron's Fountain. |
| Fixing a wobbly table with MATH. Sorta. |
| A backpack messenger combination to simplify your life. |
| How the CEO of Swatch discovered the Omega Moon watch had a plastic "crystal" |
| How carpentry, mechanical design, and trisecting the angle are linked, all in one brief day. May 2015 |
| The limits to knowing. Jan 2014 |
| The same technology undermining privacy is the key to its control. How GORT could be your best friend. 9/2014 |
| The Archimedes Stealth "Death" Ray- how to aim the mirrors with virtual images and a sundial gnomon. |
| Battling misconceptions on how science really works. From a comment on Treehugger 6/1/10. |
| Why we should refer to Darwin's LAW of Evolution when speaking to the general public. June 2002. |
| Intelligent Design. And what passes for political debate. There are not always two sides to every issue. 8/1995 |
| PC magazine interview on future of consumer technology. From 5/16/1995 |
| Radio interview on the Dick Tracy wrist telephone. From the Pulse
of the Planet 9/1996. |
| Unleashing user innovation by eliminating "no user serviceable parts inside". From the NYTimes 9/8/1998 |
| energy |
| Highlighting the enormous inefficiencies of converting one form of energy to another, and how better design and planning could chart a path to energy freedom. From Business
Week 07/2007. |
| While solar panels generate no CO2, they are deep black and may warm the earth despite their "green" footprint, at least initially. From Business
Week 06/2007. |
| On the importance of energy efficiency- and
how we could save 30% of our energy consumption with little
economic pain. From Business
Week 03/2006. |
| predictions and rants |
| All that Glitters- predicting the future of gold prices, based on aligning gold to world GDP growth. From December 2010 |
| Too Much of a Good Thing- on why large systems fail catastrophically. An unintended consequence of trying to copy and promulgate the best ideas... From 1995. |
| Predicting the next richest man in the world will commercialize nanoscience to cure diseases and sculpt our genetic
code. From Business
Week 11/2005. |
| Various predictions for the evolution of technology in the "Future
of the Future". From Barrons 11/13/2000. |
| The Customer Expectations Research effort
at Bell Labs. The CER developed new methodologies to
help predict the future of consumer behavior, as well as more intuitive
user interfaces. From Fast
Company 2/1997. |
| On the future of optical networks. From America's
Network 4/15/2002. |
| On the impending revenue crisis for cable systems, due
to the trojan horse impact of broadband modems and 802.11 From Barrons
11/11/02. |
| The role of scenario planning at AT&T during
its most turbulent years. From Strategos
4/2002 |
| Computers evolve much faster than human genes, leading to parity by 2088, and then... From Wired 3.03 of March 1995. |
| HGTV
is the poster child for "good design" on cable TV. But
it's bad for designers, and misleading for clients... RANT from ID Magazine. Sept 2005. |
| Why the Fourth American Civil War will be a fight over secularism. July 2004. |
| Some people are born gay- perhaps its a result of sperm competition at conception... June
2005. |
| satire |
| America
is a tolerant county, especially in politics. We even tolerate
views so far to the right the rest of us are left behind. July 2004. |
| A submission to the Bulwer-Lytton
competition. Bad tech puns. 4/1998 |
| The next great internet bubble, a perspective from 1996. |
| Will our body images change if fat is healthy? From WIRED
5.10 10/1997 |
