Surveillance society – A very bad week for privacy.

(Cross-post from my other blog, Outrun Change.)

Joke of the week – if my computer or website crashes, can I get a backup copy from NSA?

Lots of publicity this week on extensive federal monitoring of citizens and non citizens. No time to write a full post, so just a quick note to put some dots on the page. Hopefully will have time to connect them later

Four massive stories this week:

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Free market capitalism or crony capitalism – where you stand depends on where you sit

Small startup organizations favor free and open competition.

A change in attitude can hit when the startup becomes the industry standard. Maybe at that point, it would be better to put roadblocks in the path of your new competitors. Might even be worth calling on the government to do some blocking for you.

We are used to seeing the really big companies asking governments to look at some practice of their big competitors. Won’t provide any examples, but you can think of many headlines over the last few years of one tech company or another tattling on someone else, hoping the regulators will slow down their competitors.

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It’s okay to kill California condors. As long as you are running a wind farm. Or building luxury homes. In the middle of condor habitat.

And as long as you didn’t really mean to off them.

(Cross-post from my other blog, Outrun Change.)

The Los Angeles Times reports Companies won’t face charges in condor deaths.

The federal Fish and Wildlife Service told the operators of Terra-Gen Power’s wind farm in the heart of condor habitat they

…will not be prosecuted if their turbines accidentally kill a condor during the expected 30-year life span of the project.

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Why the difference between the excitement and opportunities in technology news and the horrible, terrible, depressing everything-falling-apart news in the political realm?

I challenge you to this experiment: Spend a few days reading nothing but technology news. Then spend a few days reading nothing but political news. For the first few days [you will] see an exciting world of innovation and creativity where everything is getting better all the time. In the Read more…