Dave Kearns

Surprised by how you react to something. I’ve never been a big Larry Lessig fan (e.g., see Death of the Internet ). We rarely agree about things, particularly in the area of intellectual property. So when all the buzz on the web, the blogosphere, the tweetzone and even the Facebook hustings were filled with encomiums to Professor Lessig’s address to the Italian parliament, I was pre-disposed to: 1) not listen to the recording, and 2) construct arguments to what I supposed would be his theme.

At a certain point, though, it became necessary to listen simply so that I could (I thought) refute whatever sound-byte arguments would be coming my way. So, this morning, I listened.

All I can say is – listen to this recording. While I don’t agree with everything Larry says – I’m not sure anyone could – this is am important address. It sets a marker along the road to the internet age. It points the path and shows what needs to be done and – perhaps more importantly – what shouldn’t be done.

Listen, learn and understand.

Just back from a week in Berlin (for TEC 2009) – our first visit to Germany’s newest, and oldest, capital. What can you say about a place whose culinary claim to fame is “Currywurst” (there’s even a museum!) and Berliner potato soup (BERLINER KARTOFFELSUPPE) made with potatoes and pickles! It’s said to have been Kaiser Wilhelm’s favorite food!

The city itself has been rebuilt remarkably with few remnants of the World War II bombings. In fact, rebuilding seems to be the major business of the city. Unfortunately, the architecture is some of the worst “sharp angle” designs I’ve seen. Still, it’s clean, friendly, relatively safe and with some historic interest. Worth a couple of days on a stopover, not worth the day trip from cruise ships docking in Wernemunde, though (see this account of the whirlwind tour).

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose:

“A statesman in these days has a difficult task. He has to pursue the policy he deems advantageous to his country, but he has at the same time to recognize the force of popular feeling. Popular feeling is very often sentimental, muddleheaded, and eminently unsound, but it cannot be disregarded for all that.” Hercule Poirot in “The Incredible Theft” by Agatha Christie (1931).

There is no “wisdom” in the crowd, there never was. The mob sinks to its lowest common denominator and drags us all down with it.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the official start of the space age – the day in October, 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik, the breadbox-sized (18″ in diameter) first artificial satellite in space.

This was the height of the cold war (we were still having air-raid drills in school) and this major win for the Russians could be foretelling their ultimate victory over the western capitalist societies. At least, that’s what our parents were talking about. To me and my contemporaries (I was in the 7th grade at the time) it was simply “neat-o” stuff. Our talk was about how we would all finally go into space someday. We would all be Buck Rogers, or Flash Gordon, or Commando Cody.

Four months later, the US launched Explorer I and the race to land on the moon was on in earnest.

We’ve come a very long way in 50 years. We’ve explored almost all of the planets in our own “backyard” and launched deep space probes which may only be relevant to our descendants. Watching Neil Armstrong land on the moon in 1969 was my biggest thrill (so far) of the space age, but the launch of Sputnik has to be #2 on the list.