Motorcycles of the 20th Century

The Road to Oceania:

I had a valuable secret in 1984, though, one I owed in large part to Orwell, who would have turned 100 today: I knew that the novel I had written wasn't really about the future, just as '1984' hadn't been about the future, but about 1948.

So says William Gibson in a fine editorial about Orwell, technology, and an over intrusive government. For all that, there's a sense of optimism to it -- we have the power to make decisions and control our future.

EFF: Breaking News:

...the dinosaurs of the recording industry have completely lost touch with reality

The music industry needs to change. It needs to change quickly.

Master of Design: The CEO of IDEO describes the interplay between technology and design

Lawrence Lessig:

Count this as great news, and spread the word: there are two great souls on Capitol Hill. I’ll see if I can find some more.

Godspeed to Professor Lessig in his attempts to fix the public domain.

Pure Content:

After months of secret negotiations, several hundred secret ballots, and a weekend retreat with Vice President Dick Cheney in his secret mountain bunker, a Class Day speaker was chosen, and it was me. You obviously have made a grave error. But it's too late now. So let's just go with it.

Will Ferrell doesn't sugarcoat it at the 352nd Harvard Commencement...

Web privacy policies confuse Net surfers | CNET News.com:

The dense, legalistic documents that many commercial Web sites post to explain their data-collection habits are more likely to provide false reassurance than clarity to Web surfers

A really good first step is to rewrite the darn things in language that a sixth grader could understand.