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Lawrence Lessig just lobbed a bombshell on his blog in this entry. To summarize, Dr Lessig has decided to shift his activism and focus from technology, the Internet, & IP to, quite simply, corruption. Dr. Lessig is and has been a towering figure who has contributed an incredible legacy of thought and activism, his lack of full-time involvement will be sorely missed. If you have missed any of his books make it a point to read them. They are just as relevant today as they were when first written. And if you have never had an opportunity to see Dr Lessig give a talk, run over to youtube, you will be absolutely delighted at his ability to captivate an audience.

I am excited to see where Lessig goes next. He is a unique and deep thinker, one that will bring a fresh perspective to the fight against corruption. In his latest blog entry Lessig cites Obama’s book and Gore’s presentations as inspirations for his change of focus. He alludes to a “Republican of Prominence” as providing the final push that resulted in his decision to move away from his “traditional” issues.

I sincerely hope Dr. Lessig well on his new focus, he will need it.

Recently I had an opportunity to see Michael Moore’s latest titled Sicko. Sicko is a devastating indictment of the US healthcare system. In a work that evokes the great muckrakers of the past Moore tackles a deep and complex subject in a coarse, and at times, vulgar way. That shouldn’t be taken as an indictment of the film or the message. Moore is quite effective at driving his point home, devastatingly so at times.

I am not a big fan of Moore’s work but Sicko is a profound moving movie with an effectively delivered and important message. American healthcare needs to be reformed and it needs to be reformed sooner rather than later. Hopefully our politicians will wake up and do something and if they don’t Sicko may wake up enough people to prompt some action. I highly recommend Sicko and I hope Moore stays out of politics.

Not to be missed collection of photos from WWI. Amazing thing is the photos are digitally colorized. Quite impressive!

Last week was a full week of Johnny Cash. Check out Hurt

To the Man in Black. Haunting & RIP….

Just returned from a week and a half in India (Kolkata) obsessing on my current project and visiting old friends & business associates. Kolkata’s (Calcutta) growth is amazing, anywhere you look you see massive new office towers going up and help wanted ads. The streets are filled with worker bees heading off to their jobs, the buzz is palpable. India is an emerging economy definitely on the move and one to watch closely. A rich democratic tradition coupled with a highly educated and motivated workforce make it an ideal setting for business in the 21st century.

Thanks to my friends I had a chance to get out and try many of the local delicacies. Bengalis definitely know their spices and their food. I had the largest prawns I have ever seen followed by some of the best Indian-Chinese fare I’ve had.

We got amazing amounts of work done in an incredibly short time. Thanks to everyone who stayed late and worked weekends!

This must be a complete setup. I couldn’t stop laughing…

Absolutely utterly hilarious & quite sad…

It appears that the patent office has granted Microsoft a patent on sudo. For those that don’t know sudo is a piece of software that allows a user to execute a command with the rights and privileges of another user. It has been around for at least as long as I have been using computers and Microsoft was just granted a patent on it. WTF?

Check it out over at Ubuntu Linux Tips & Tricks.

What the hell is going on at the patent office?

UPDATE: Behold the patent

Disneyland in China? No, not Walt Disney, instead a complete knockoff including Mickey, Minnie, & the rest of the gang. Apparently not owned by Disney. Talk about real intellectual property theft.

Pictures and fun over at japanprobe.

WooHoo! The crazy kids at Spinback just launched (well a few days ago). They are a great bunch of fun folks co-located with us for the moment.

Given the official launch I just had to become a Spinner, so for my first spin I present a wonderful black iPod:

iPod, 30GB, Black

So sleek, so roomy, so ready to accept your music. Go forth and spin I say…

To the Spinback team, awesome site and congrats on the launch. I look forward to independent wealth thanks to my ability to spin…

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“Buying the War” was finally broadcast last night and it may well be called Moyers’ finest work ever. In “Buying the War” Moyers presents a sobering inside look at how nearly the entire journalist profession shirked its most basic tenets and became complicit in pushing the US into a war based almost entirely on lies.

These are strong words coming from me, if you peruse some of my posts from that time you will find that in general I was quite hawkish. (As an aside, how do I feel now? I was lied to, I was manipulated, I was used, so was my country, and our soldiers. The war should have never occurred and the administration did everything in its power to fool its own citizens. I am deeply pissed off and ashamed I didn’t question the party line more. I showed my wrath last election and will show it the next one as well.)

In any case, Bill Moyers “Buying the War” is a stunning first show for the new Bill Moyers Journal series on PBS. Its programs like this that make me glad I have a tv. You can watch is online as well over at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html.

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