One of the cool things about having a blog is having readers who know more than you do. (Or, conversely, maybe the frustrating thing about reading TLF is that we often don’t know what we’re talking about) Anyway, reader Jim Lippard notes some problems with my recent spaceposts:
NASA hasn’t been doing a whole lot of commercial space business for the last few years–there were no shuttle flights from the destruction of Columbia on February 1, 2003 until the launch of Discovery on July 26, 2005 (STS-114). It had some of the same issues as Columbia, so there wasn’t another flight until July 4, 2006 (STS-121). STS-115 launched on September 9, 2006, STS-116 launched on December 9, 2006. STS-117 is scheduled for mid-March 2007.
Of recent years’ shuttle launches, only STS-116 launched satellites, and it was the first to do so since STS-113 (launched November 24, 2002).
If you need a satellite launched in a hurry, NASA is not the place to go… you’re better off going with Sea Launch, a consortium managed by Boeing, that is the company that puts satellites into orbit for XM, EchoStar, and DirecTV.
So far as I can see, NASA is the U.S. Postal Service of satellite launches, while Sea Launch is the FedEx. It doesn’t look to me like NASA is inhibiting private space companies at all.
I stand corrected. I would be very interested in knowing more about how Sea Launch and NASA’s launch costs compare.
Cool! Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has announced the first test flight of a series that he hopes will culminate in a vehicle capable of taking astronauts into space:
Despite the inflationary effects of NASA subsidies, it seems that the cost of private space travel are beginning to drop to the level where it’s in the reach of private individuals.
My former colleague Dan Griswold has a typically lucid article over at The American on iPods and the trade deficit:
As I was admiring the cool design and user-friendly functions on my boys’ new Nanos, I noticed an inscription on the back: “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.” That’s a more clever label–and a more accurate depiction of economic trends–than the “Made in China” we see stamped on so many imported shirts, shoes, toys, and consumer electronics.
To those obsessed with the trade balance as a zero-sum scorecard, another imported, $200 Nano merely adds to our growing bilateral trade deficit with China and knocks a few more Americans out of jobs. Wouldn’t we be better off, they ask, if the whole thing were made and assembled at home by American workers?
The answer is a definite no.
As with other high-tech devices, iPods are assembled in China, but the real guts of the device–the brand name, the design, the engineering, the most sophisticated components–come from the United States and other countries outside of China. Like trade in general, importing iPods from China creates a win-win scenario for people in both countries. Assembling the devices is relatively high-paying work in China, so the Chinese workers and their economy do benefit to some extent. But Americans benefit even more from the deal–even, in the long run, the tattooed and pierced erstwhile clerks from Tower.
Quite so. “The trade deficit” is little more than an accounting abstraction. It could be symptomatic of problems with the American economy, such as a large budget deficit or anemic growth in our export industries. But the fact that American consumers are getting a lot of affordable goods overseas isn’t inherently troubling–especially when a substantial amount of the value in those “imports” was actually produced by American workers.
Matt Yglesias has a sensible post about space exploration. He quotes President Kennedy, who said:
But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
There are all sorts of year-end / best-of / Top 10 lists being put together right now, but I haven’t seen anyone offer up a “Most Important Tech Policy Developments of 2006” list. Geez, isn’t everyone else on the planet as interested in this nerdy stuff as we are?!
Anyway, I’d don’t have a top ten list, but I do have a nomination for the story that I think belongs on the top of such a list. I think the biggest tech policy story of 2006 was the heated political battle over Net Neutrality regulation and the fact that Congress did NOT pass legislation mandating it. It was a hell of a battle, pitting titans of industry against each other. And in intellectual circles it had policy wonks foaming at the mouth. (You can find all our rumblings on the topic here).
I don’t think this debate is over, but I’m not sure it will ever be as heated of an affair as it was this year. I also doubt that Net Neutrality mandates have nearly as good of a chance of passing through Congress this coming session since it is less likely there will be a major communications reform bill to attach it to. And there’s no way Net Neutrality regulation will pass as a stand-alone measure. There’s just too much opposition to it. It would have to be passed as part of some grand communications law reform compromise measure.
Anyway, I’d be interested in hearing what others think was the biggest tech policy story of 2006, or at least belongs on the Top 10 list.
I’ve linked to several Paul Graham essays in the past. His new article on inequality isn’t especially technology related, but it’s extremely good, so I’m going to quote it anyway:
Because of the circumstances in which they encounter it, children tend to misunderstand wealth. They confuse it with money. They think that there is a fixed amount of it. And they think of it as something that’s distributed by authorities (and so should be distributed equally), rather than something that has to be created (and might be created unequally).
In fact, wealth is not money. Money is just a convenient way of trading one form of wealth for another. Wealth is the underlying stuff–the goods and services we buy. When you travel to a rich or poor country, you don’t have to look at people’s bank accounts to tell which kind you’re in. You can see wealth–in buildings and streets, in the clothes and the health of the people.
Where does wealth come from? People make it. This was easier to grasp when most people lived on farms, and made many of the things they wanted with their own hands. Then you could see in the house, the herds, and the granary the wealth that each family created. It was obvious then too that the wealth of the world was not a fixed quantity that had to be shared out, like slices of a pie. If you wanted more wealth, you could make it.
I think this intuition that wealth comes from a fixed pool is at the root of most concerns with inequality. When people see a rich guy and a poor guy, they assume that somehow, the rich guy must have somehow (perhaps indirectly) taken the money from the poor guy. But if wealth is really created by individual initiative, it becomes hard to see why inequality, per se, should be a source of concern.
In a few of my previousessays, I’ve been wondering about the future of virtual reality worlds and specifically how property rights might get defined within those worlds. Alan Sipress of the Washington Post penned an excellent story yesterday on this subject which I thought I’d bring to your attention. In his lengthy front-page story, “Where Real Money Meets Virtual Reality, The Jury Is Still Out,” Sipress notes that:
“As virtual worlds proliferate across the Web, software designers and lawyers are straining to define property rights in this emerging digital realm. The debate over these rights extends far beyond the early computer games that pioneered virtual reality into the new frontiers of commerce. … U.S. courts have heard several cases involving virtual-world property rights but have yet to set a clear precedent clarifying whether people own the electronic goods they make, buy or accumulate in Second Life and other online landscapes. …
The debate is assuming greater urgency as commerce gains pace in virtual reality. In Second Life, where nearly 2 million people have signed up to create their own characters and socialize with other digital beings, the virtual economy is booming, with total transactions in November reaching the equivalent of $20 million. Second Life’s creator, Linden Lab, allows members to exchange the electronic currency they accumulate online with real U.S. dollars. Last month, people converted about $3 million at the Lindex currency market.”
Neat! Dennis Kennedy has named TLF a runner-up for the title of “Best Overall Law-Related Blog.” We’re in good company, with Rob Hyndman’s excellent blog as co-runner-up. We lost out to The Trademark Blog, a blog I haven’t read before, but it looks excellent.
This new poll from the folks over at 463 Communications and Zogby reveals that an overwhelming majority of Americans (83 percent, to be exact) “believe that a typical 12-year-old knows more about the Internet than their member of Congress.” And there is no difference by party affliation. Republicans (85 percent) and Democrats (86 percent) agreed completely on this point.
How sad, and some days in this town, I’m inclined to agree.
Any modern society worthy of the title must have progress. But sometimes the government gets in the way. Or rather, sometimes it doesn’t. CNET bemoans a recent example:
The Food and Drug Administration set a deadline of December 1, 2006, for U.S. pharmaceutical companies to comply with regulations regarding paper trails, known as “pedigrees,” for their drugs…. [But] Judge Joanna Seybert agreed [with critics] and on December 11 granted an injunction against the implementation of the requirements. While the decision does not directly weigh on technology standards, the injunction, along with other state cases that challenge it, could subdue the rush for companies to comply and stall their adoption of RFID technology, Liard said.
That’s right; without regulation and a government mandate, RFID adoption will be stymied. Horrors.
This mentality is far from abnormal among scientists and technologists (consider the debates over stem cells and NASA funding). The march of progress is onwards and upwards, by hook or by crook. And if it’s the government’s hook, so be it–full speed ahead!
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology. Learn more about TLF →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.