BBC: Fear the treadmill.

NYTimes: French lawmakers move to vastly expand surveillance. A sad and bad move.

Service-Dominant Logic may apply well to VRM.

"Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." A few words there from the Declaration of Independence. They come to mind when I hear somebody say we've made a "deal" to give away data about ourselves in exchange for free services on which we have come to depend.

Updated: The Future of Radio Starts with Sucking on Phones.

Speaking of radio's future, WMAL-AM's 72 acres of land in Bethesda just got sold out from under the towers that radiate it. So I updated the post I wrote in February about it. Key point: while station management says WMAL will move to leased space on some other station's land, I can guarantee that the signal will be worse, because there is no acreage as good for the station as what they're selling off.

NYTImes: The new SAT will suck the same old way. You wouldn't believe how bad my SATs were, way back when. Worst moment: skipping a question on the test, but not on the answer sheet, and arriving at the finish line only to find I was one answer off, going back many questions. Then the person up front says "Stop. Put your pencils down..."

Where science is taking us in cybersecurity. Sources Zuboff's Laws, which could not matter more, because they are behind the pickle we are in.

Most cool: I now have a Liveblog home page: http://doc.liveblog.co/ . Thanks, Dave! Bonus linkage from the big guy: Reproducible and Professional users.

Just discovered that my high school principal, Peter Zadeik, died in January. Also my German teacher, Konrad Doepke, died last year. And Christian J. Fahrenkrug, better known as "Coach," died in '04. Coach taught Chemistry, Earth Science and driving. He had an old fashioned Archie Bunker-ish New Yawk accent. Among other things, he pronounced "oi" as "er" and vice versa (or "vice voisa"). So he got a laugh in class once by calling "the virgin soils of Italy" "da voigin searls of Italy." He also once said, "If dere's one ting I gotta tell you guys, it's dese tree tings." When he said "one" he held up three fingers, and when he said "tree" (meaning three) he held up two. I loved him because he was really a helluva good teacher, and one of only two in the school who believed in me. It's also amazing that he lived to 94, since (at least when I knew him) he smoked more than a pack a day of unfiltered Chesterfields.

Common Bond Design. Great firm. Friends of ours. Use them.