Sunday, April 21, 2002

Over on the O'Reilly Network, Cory Doctorow (of BoingBoing fame) has words of wisdom for us all: The problem with innovation is that you can't predict it. That's what innovation means -- the stuff we haven't thought of yet. Great innovations are ridiculous at the time of invention, startling on implementation, and obvious in hindsight.... The street finds its own use for the law of unintended consequences. Technology will change the way the copyright industry makes its ungodly sums of money, but it won't eliminate it. No one can predict what the innovative ways of selling entertainment will be -- that's innovation for you -- but it will come. It will come, if we're allowed to invent it. It will come, if the world is able to play and invent and innovate. But the controls enacted by the DMCA and the CBDTPA won't afford us that freedom. Under their regimen, new technologies will only be brought to market after a "consensus" on their features is negotiated at lawyerpoint between the technology industry and the Political Officers of the entertainment industry. Once this "consensus" has evolved, it will be illegal to make, sell, or distribute any technology that doesn't conform to it. [O'Reilly Network Articles] 10:31:35 PM

We've tweaked Jon Udell's script for showing currently-subscribed-to channels, so we'll be including that listing on the front page again, we think. 9:41:04 PM

Scottish Lass writes: With the dawning of the age of the Google Outline Browser all three predictions are now given earthly form and the wise shall heed the goodness unleashed on all mankind by the guardians of the 'G'. Those whose arms sit at right angles to a body that neither sleeps nor eats shall be the bringers of a new age of knowledge sharing and enlightenment. Here at the inquisition, we absolutely love the Google Outline Browser (in the Radio form provided by Dave Winer).  One thing we noticed immediately (as has Dave, of course) is that every node that we expand will appear among its descendants (because "what's related" is a pretty much reciprocal relation).  We wish that there were a way to distinguish visually a node that has already appeared elsewhere in the tree. 5:19:35 PM

It's nice to hear from Al Gore again.  In a New York Times Op-Ed piece today, he writes: Under the presidency of George W. Bush, the environmental and energy policies of our government are completely dominated by a group of current and former oil and chemical company executives who are trying to dismantle America's ability to force them to reduce the extremely dangerous levels of pollution in the earth's atmosphere. This doesn't come as real news to most of us, of course, but it's moderately heartening to hear someone who might still be a contender raising his voice about it. Much the same thing has been the stock-in-trade of one of our favorite opinion-expressers, Molly Ivins, ever since it looked like Shrub might become (P)resident.  In a recent effort, Molly pointed out that: [last] month, the Senate voted 62-38 to postpone, yet again, increasing the fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. According to the Sierra Club, the average fuel economy of cars sold in 2000 was 24 miles per gallon, the lowest since 1979. The failed fuel efficiency proposal could have saved the country up to 1 million barrels of oil a day by 2016 - as much as the United States currently imports from Iraq and Kuwait. You will doubtlessly be less than amazed to learn that the auto industry spent heavily to defeat any improvement in fuel efficiency. According to Public Campaign - a campaign finance reform group - on average, the 62 senators who voted with the industry received $18,000 from auto companies. The 38 senators who wanted stronger standards got a measly $5,900 each. Since 1989, the auto companies have given $9.9 million to federal candidates and parties. I know, it's not new, but it does matter. We say that it's time to pull the rug out from under the auto industry's arguments that tightened fuel standards will force them to make cars that people won't buy.  Instead, let's place the economic decision fully in the hands of consumers -- but in a way that forces them (us) to account for the costs to the nation and to the world of excessive fuel consumption. Here's the scheme:  We impose a new-vehicle tax on passenger vehicles, to be paid at the time of purchase, which is proportional to the difference between the new vehicle's fuel efficiency rating and the average rating for passenger vehicles sold in the previous year.  Make the tax cut both ways: if you buy a relatively inefficient car, the cost of the car is effectively increased.  If, however, you buy a relatively more efficient car, the "tax" is negative, and the cost of your new car is reduced. There are, of course, a couple of "gotchas" (aside from the natural knee-jerk reaction on the part of Big Biz to any attempt to get them, and us, to Do the Right Thing): The biggest auto-industry loophole in the current regulatory scheme -- the classification of SUVs as "trucks" rather than as passenger cars -- would have to be eliminated.  We'dhave to find a way to distinguish trucks that are genuinely used for "heavy lifting" (farm work, work equipment transportation) from those in passenger and recreational use.  In any case, Mercedes SUVs do not qualify as "farm vehicles". If the policy has the desired effect, the average fuel efficiency of this year's vehicle purchases will always exceed last year's, so the the "tax" is, in fact, a net money-loser for the gov't.  Since adding a net dollar cost to the policy would make it even more difficult to pass the thing through Congress, some other way around would have to be found. Biggest challenge: how to set the rate at which vehicle efficiency differences are taxed?  This is where we ask an economist to instruct us further in the mysteries of elasticity, hmm?  Or maybe someone wants to step up to the plate and estimate the real cost to society of excess fuel consumption (in dollars per excess gallon). It occurs to us, too, that maybe the mean fuel efficiency rating from the previous year isn't the right benchmark: perhaps it should be the median? We can work the details out later.  They key here is to change our current approach from "we won't let you buy a car that's too inefficient" to "we'll let you buy anything you damned well please, but you're going to pay through the nose if you insist on getting a gas-guzzler that imposes enormous direct and indirect costs on the people around you." 3:28:17 AM