Medical Trust Networks, Bruce Schneier, and I
Bruce Schneier being quoted in an article about security is expected. It would be strange if he were not quoted. He is the world’s leading expert on security and he’s published something daily for years.
I’ve posted a few things about medical care and about security but the article referenced was not about security or medical care, it was about flying cars, accidents, and predicting innovations. If you knew that Bruce Schneier and I were friends you might think the author who referenced both of us was also a friend, he is not. So, is this a weird coincidence or is our writing somehow related to us being friends and that commonality attracted the author who referenced us?
The article suggests using trust relationships to provide security for medical data. Whether the author knew it or not he proved his point when he referenced both Bruce and I.
New Form of Life, Discovery Published Creative Commons
The Economist reports a new form of life was discovered, very interesting. The actual scientific article is released with a Creative Commons license, awesome.
Economists summary
http://www.economist.com/node/18437900?story_id=18437900
Actual scientific article
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018011
Solution to AT&T Greed, and other corporations as well.
AT&T is going to force customers who already pay for voice and data to pay to connect devices to their iPhones which they were able to do using free software. AT&T is not providing any new service, they are just double charging already paying customers. They can do that because there really isn’t any competition. Verizon similarly abuses customers. The solution is to provide real competition to the government empowered oligopolies.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/03/att-tethering/
Several of the comments mention there is a social benefit to using technology and the greed of these corporations is holding back society. Recently I’ve been talking with Frithjof Bergmann, the founder of New Work, New Culture, about ways to provide low cost communication. And I’ve been working on a project to revitalize Detroit by establishing self-sufficient communities. If communication is a community value then it makes sense to have a community owned telecom.
Imagine a cellular co-op where all the users are also owners. The co-op model could potentially operate at much lower costs than the for-corporate model. Additionally, a co-op telecom could be crowd funded for the start-up. It also would not need to be one monolithic organization. It could equally well work as a coalition of regional co-op service providers. Electricity and insurance in rural USA were originally operated as co-operatives and some still are operated that way. This is obviously a big project but it is clearly possible.
For some ideas about how a co-op corporation could operate
Mondragon
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
RoundSquareTriangle.com