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For as much junk as he takes for his stance on environmental issues (perhaps sometimes rightfully so), President Bush should be positively recognized for his work in Hawaii today.

"Groups pushing for the region’s protection, including the Pew Charitable Trust's environment program, had expected that Bush would declare the islands a marine sanctuary, and were told only Wednesday night that the area would instead receive monument status. By invoking the 1906 Antiquities Act, Bush will avoid congressional debate, allowing protection of the area to begin immediately. "

Read more here

I had my first experience with RFID Tags today.

If you don't know what an RFID tag is, see the Wikipedia article.

Now I've been pretty intimidated by the privacy implications of this new technology. The thought that someone could drive by my house with an RFID scanner and instantly have a very good idea of who I am and what I do is kind of a scary-now-but-not-scary-when-used-in-real-life kind of thing, like how Mapquest was initially a scary thing because it would actually GIVE you driving directions to ANYONE's house. (Now it's just a course of daily activity.) So RFID has scared me a bit. But today, I got my first taste of the ease of actually using RFID in real life.

I'll turn 30 this year.

All things being equal, I haven't been on the planet that long.

But I've seen a lot of changes in a very short amount of time.

One big fascination for me has been to watch "old" media's response to "new" media.

Examples of it abound, but a couple of prominent examples include

• The Recording Industry Association vs. Napster (and music on the Internet in general)
• The decline of major newspapers around the world (particularly in the US)

The "old" guard wants to sue to make things right, and get back what's "rightfully theirs".

HELLO?

It was never really yours.

You built an amazing centralized system which allowed all of us to find out about music and movies and news, and etc. etc. etc.

Here's a great post that explains a lot about why old media is having such a hard time with things.
http://www.remarkable-communication.com/transparency-and-the-meatball-sundae/

Newspapers are a great example of "old" media which is dying out/changing form because of disruptive technology.

Reading the above led me to this post, asking the question "Should news be free?"

Should news be free?

I think it's beside the point.

Maybe it's because I went through the first part of my life with no Internet, and have had the opportunity to watch and participate in it's growth through my teens and twenties.

But the question itself kind of baffles me.

News, by it's very nature, is free. It always has been.

People have paid for the distribution and the quality of the writing, but news is free.