My bus arrives in Bridgeport around 11:30 tonight. Saturday morning I’ll be at the 120th Harvard/Yale Football Game, but I’ll be back in Fairfield by late afternoon. On Sunday I’ve got to come back here, but Tuesday evening I’ll be home again.

So break out the bubbly, or a bottle of Nemiroff, and don’t expect to get much sleep.

American politics are going through a period where labels change, terms are redefined, and the lines of debate and conflict shift. Milton Friedman opined in Capitalism and Freedom that political views which were once termed “liberal” — small government, free trade, and the civil freedom of individual — are now being called “conservative.” He writes:

The nineteenth-century liberal regarded an extension of freedom as the most effective way to promote welfare and equality; the twentieth-century liberal regards welfare and equality as either prerequisites of or alternatives to freedom. (5)

It’s a shame. “Conservative” is almost a dirty word on today’s college campuses, because people simply don’t understand what it means. The initial reaction is always, “Oh, you’re a conservative? So you’re Republican?” No, I’m not. I don’t agree with the Republicans on a lot of issues, especially those involving social conservatism — I support abortion rights, stem cell research, and legalization of marijuana. I would love a reason not to vote for George Bush in 2004, but the Dems haven’t come up with any good reasons yet.

Conservatism isn’t a party affiliation — it’s a philosophy. It’s a way of looking at the world, and it has room for conflict and disagreement. I’ve tried explaining this to many students at Tufts before, and at best it produces a blank stare (”Wait, you’re still Republican, right?”). At worst, they tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about — more than once, I’ve been told that I don’t understand my own opinions (but anti-war protesters do).

So I was going through old issues of The Primary Source and I stumbled across this jewel by Jonathan Halpert: “The New Conservative”. I recommend everyone read it; it is a clear and poignant explanation of what exactly defines modern (21st century) conservatism, and what distinguishes it from both modern liberalism and modern Republicanism.

A little while ago, The Guardian ran a piece titled Smash the Windows. The thrust of the article is that the majority of computer users are totally illiterate, and that our society is filled with “millions of peasants in the technological middle ages”. This is not meant in a derogatory way, but rather to draw a parallel: just as centuries earlier, reading and writing was a skill for the elite, today, only a small number of people can read and write code that their computers understand.

It’s true. The average computer user struggles to accomplish tasks which are well within the computer’s capabilities; the user is lost in a confusing sea of buttons, menus, popups, windows, toggles, switches, and all sorts of user interface metaphors, many of which confound the user simply by virtue of their ambiguity. Microsoft Office comes to mind — is it really necessary to make users drag their mice across pictures to figure out which ones they can click?

As a result, people are perplexed by these vastly capable, enormously stubborn machines with which they are forced to interact every day. Those who manage to understand the computer’s interfaces and remain productive are still stumped the moment they need to do something for which a button hasn’t been created.

Part of the reason so few computer users actually learn to program is that technology moves quickly. My parents knew how to program, but they used punch cards and wrote in APL. These days, I’m usually the one who fixes my sister’s computer. Sometimes I hear people say, “I learned some BASIC when I was younger, but it’s not really applicable anymore.” And that’s true.

But a bigger problem is that most people simply don’t care. They think the computer should be able to do whatever they tell it to, and get flustered when the computer’s approach to a problem does not mimic their own. This is not a good strategy. Most computer programmers don’t have time to study Human-Computer Interaction; after a certain point, the user must be willing to understand the tool.

This is true of real life, but in the physical world it seems almost too obvious to mention. If I give you a box of nails and a hammer, you know what you’re going to do with them, which end of the hammer to hit with, and how to swing it so that you don’t break your thumb. The computer, like a hammer, is a tool — you must understand how it works and what it is capable of in order to use it well. The solution is for average computer users to start learning basic programming skills.

When I was in 4th grade, everyone in my school learned to program in Logo. It’s a simple language; it teaches children the basics of computer programming without boring them to tears. We learned how to make an on-screen turtle draw shapes — not once realizing that we were writing computer programs — and it taught me how to explain a problem in terms a machine can understand. I’ve noticed in Fairfield, CT, that no such program exists. (Even though you can download MSWLogo for free, nobody’s really heard of it.)

Logo is great for kids, but adults need to learn Python. It’s easy and clean enough for a beginner to grasp, but also excels as an industrial-strength programming language. If you’re reading this and you don’t know how to program, give it a try. Download the latest version of Python, find an online tutorial, and start playing around. How to Think Like a Computer Scientist is a very good introduction for non-techies.

I’m not saying every person who needs to type a paper must first be able to program a word processor. But just as car drivers need a basic understanding of what an engine does, today’s computer users need to develop a better understanding of how these complex machines work. Those who do not are destined to feel confused and frustrated every time they can’t find the right button to click.

On Friday a US-led initiative at the United Nations to ban any form of stem cell research failed by a razor-thin vote. Congress is still unable to resolve the debate over human cloning. Our President, who has been very vocal with his own opinions, is now trying to sideline internal American debate by moving the discussion into the United Nations. This is deplorable behavior, and I’m amazed that the press hasn’t jumped on it the way they should have.

Stem cell research could be the next huge breakthrough in medical research. It could lead to cures for cancer, degenerative diseases, and a better understanding of how our bodies repair themselves. But even if you oppose curing cancer — and I will concede that there are valid moral concerns which need to be addressed before we start cloning millions of embryos — you must admit that what our president is doing right now, going behind our backs, is despicable.

I’m still undecided which way I’ll vote — Pat and I have had lengthy “discussions” (arguments) over this. But if I do vote for a Democrat, it won’t be because of the war in Iraq or Bush’s handling of the economy.

If I vote for a Democrat, it will be because our President opposed Congress on spending more money to fight AIDS. It will be because at the UN General Assembly on Children, our country opposed any mention of “abortion” or any abortion-related services while addressing the problems concerning children around the world. It will be because George W. Bush, in his zeal to enact conservative social programs, tried to ban stem cell research at the United Nations while it was still a topic of heated debate at home.

If the Democrats want my vote, they have to show me that they aren’t going to sacrifice Bush’s good policies on the altar of party politics.

I’m not going to vote for a candidate who will tell religious non-profits that they can’t do public charity work. I will vote for a candidate who promises funding for stem cell research and a repeal of the ban on partial birth abortion.

I’m not going to vote for a candidate who will kick our economy in the teeth by supporting the Kyoto Protocol. I will vote for a candidate who will develop an international pollution plan that actually makes economic and environmental sense. (Bush promised an energy plan, but never delivered — instead, he raised the amount of coal mining waste that companies are allowed to dump into our rivers.)

I’m not going to vote for a candidate who will sacrifice our national sovereignty to the political whims of the International Criminal Court. I will vote for a candidate who is going to rebuild the bridges that George Bush needlessly burned down with his “with us or against us” attitude.

I’m not going to vote for a candidate who will repeal the tax cuts that have helped our economy regain some of its strength. I will vote for a candidate who will raise fuel economy standards, who supports the use of modern power sources (including nuclear reactors), and who is willing to tell Americans to stop wasting so much damn energy.

Of course, this is probably a pipe dream. I think it’s entirely likely that, as in 2000, we will wind up stuck between a rock and a hard place, with a Democratic candidate who will do anything to win support and a Republican cowboy who promises another four years of bad compromises. “Take your pick: you want the clown on the left, or the clown on the right?” If that’s the case, I may just vote Libertarian.

BBC News reports that sales of music downloads are exceeding sales of CD singles. So my question is, Who didn’t see this coming?

For a long time, the record industry has decried online downloading as a harbinger of doom. “We can’t compete with free,” they cry, “and so we need to chase these evil music pirates with all we’ve got.” It’s obvious none of these record execs has ever really used Kazaa, because otherwise they’d know the truth: piracy sucks.

Downloading music online is an exercise in patience: the files are never named properly, can contain defects or missing sections, and are a pain in the ass to manage. Having seen countless MP3 collections on friends’ computers at college, I can attest that they are a jumbled mess of misnamed files and bad-quality rips.

The RIAA sometimes reminds me of the companies that made fortunes selling multigraph machines, enormous contraptions used for printing, only to be steamrolled by Xerox — and all because these firms dismissed and ignored digital copiers. They couldn’t see the next evolution in their own business.

The average consumer used to only have two choices when it came to purchasing music:

1. Spend gas money, parking fare, and lots of money on an overpriced (but perfect quality) CD.
2. Take your chances (and waste your time) downloading music illegally.

Now iTunes, Napster, and a plethora of other services are offering consumers a third option:

3. Pay a reduced rate to download good-quality music legally.

Fast. Cheap. Immediate. What’s not to like? Even MTV is getting into the game. For a while the record labels believed they could all run their own services, exclude other firms from using their music, while at the same time strictly limiting how consumers could use their downloads. The result was dismal failure.

Welcome to reality, chums. Consumers are more than willing to pay for content, but they really want two things: selection and flexibility. The reason iTunes was, and continues to be, such a success is that it addressed both issues. The selection of music is non-exclusive, meaning they did not turn themselves into just another outlet for Bertelsmann or Sony. The flexibility is unprecedented; you can transfer songs to multiple computers, burn them to as many CDs as you like, and it’s all bundled as part of what is hands-down the best music player available.

It’s time for record companies to stop scaring themselves over online piracy and realize that consumers want to download music. The more music is available online, the less consumers will flock to piracy. It’s time to stop serving subpoenas and start serving entire music libraries — from Britney to Radiohead to those thousands of bands you’ve never heard of.

I hate piracy. It’s slow, dirty, unreliable, and illegal. I, the consumer, am more than willing to pay a reasonable price to download music, but you have to play by my rules. Most importantly, you have to stop threatening to sue my little sister every time she downloads something off Kazaa that she can’t buy on iTunes. Stop treating your customers like potential criminals, give us what we want, and we’ll keep supporting your business.

So is the recording industry ready adapt to a shifting marketplace, or will they let themselves be swept aside by those who understand the new rules of the game? It’s time to find out. Play ball.

A while ago, Daniel Lyons of Forbes wrote a piece titled “Linux’s Hit Men”, and it was a good reminder of how not everyone in business perceives Linux the way most techs do. However, this does not mean he was correct.

The article focused on legal action being taken by the Free Software Foundation against Cisco Systems and Broadcom. At the heart of the legal dispute is a wireless network router, sold by Cisco with parts manufactured by Broadcom, which uses a modified version of Linux as an operating system.

A brief background for non-techies: many hardware devices do not use Windows, as it requires too many resources. There is a wide range of operating systems available for so-called embedded devices; most operating systems require users to pay heavy licensing fees. Companies that wish to use QNX in a hardware device must first pay a fee for the privilege. Linux, however, is free to use and distribute; the only caveat is that if you make any improvements on the Linux code, you must share those improvements under the same terms.

How does this apply to Cisco? Their Linksys WRT54G router contains a modified version of Linux which has not been made publicly available. If the router contained other software that ran on top of Linux, they would have a legal basis for not disclosing it. But since changes were made to Linux itself, the terms of the license require disclosure. Thus, the FSF is suing to enforce the terms of the General Public License.

The immediate reaction of many is dismay — if Linux is free, why should all users’ products be free too? This is a misinterpretation of the facts. Lyons takes this stand, depicting the FSF as a rag-tag group of mercenaries who prey on innocent business:

Usually copyright holders seek money… But the Free Software Foundation doesn’t want royalties–it wants you to burn down your house, or at the very least share it with cloners.

This attitude is, at best, misguided; at worst, it is disingenuous and unfair. Lyons asserts that Cisco should not have to give up its intellectual property for others to steal; he makes no reference to the fact that their work is based on someone else’s intellectual property. Nobody is demanding all of Linksys’s software be released — simply the changes they made to Linux, which wasn’t their property to begin with.

Linksys has nothing to lose and much to gain from releasing its code — and this is why Open Source works. Had Linksys chosen to use a commercial OS for its routers instead of Linux, it would be paying heavy licensing fees for every copy it shipped. Using Linux cuts away these significant expenditures.

It should also be noted that access to Linksys’s modifications to Linux does not allow anyone to build a WRT54G router in their basement. When you buy a router, you’re not paying for the software inside it — you’re paying for the hardware, the manufacturing, and the user support that comes with the purchase. Rival hardware manufacturers could use the modified Linux code as well, but they won’t win more customers for it — the average consumer doesn’t care what operating system his router uses.

Most importantly, if Linksys publishes its modifications to Linux, there is a very good chance that the Open Source community will find, and fix, nascent software bugs and security vulnerabilities — free of charge.

While some may argue that Linksys should be allowed to keep its modifications secret, even if it’s not in their best interests, the fact remains that Linux is still a licensed technology. People who use it are given a compromise: you don’t have to pay any royalties, but you also can’t hijack the Linux code base. If you make any improvements, great — chances are, someone else could use them too. In the end, many developers accept this compromise because the savings vastly outweigh the costs.

Eric Raymond’s essay titled “The Magic Cauldron” explains a lot of the economics behind Open Source software development. One of his best ideas is the “Manufacturing Delusion”: the false notion that software is a manufacturing industry, when it’s really a services industry; people pay not for the code itself, but for help, guidance, and a guarantee that the code will function.

There will always be people who simply don’t understand Open Source. But when those people write for Forbes, I think it’s in the community’s interest to show them just how far off the mark they are.