Archive for 3/19/2006

Filtering technology vs. the DOJ

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1988 days
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As you might be aware, the government passed a law in 1998 banning porn on the net on the theory that porn filters don’t work. Despite being overturned by the Supreme Court in 2004, the DOJ is trying to resurrect that law (see recent attempt to spy on Google searches). Of course, the state of the art in filter tech has evolved rapidly along with the rest of the computer industry since 1998.

A new filter called iShield is able to recognize porn images based on the content of the image (other filters look at URLs and text) and according to PC Magazine, is very effective at doing so. The next generation will probably be even better — which highlights the retarding effect regulation has on technological progress – if we relied solely on government to ban “inappropriate” content from the web, we’d never know what solutions the market might come up with. The same principle applies to environmental regulations, which block more efficient and less-polluting technologies by mandating a particular technology.

Update: Slashdot accepted my story!

NASA’s dragging their wheel

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1988 days
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NASA’s top story is that the Mars Rover Spirit has lost a wheel.  The Mars Rover mission has been a phenomental success –lasting 2 years beyond the original 90 day mission goal.

I’m happy for the success of the rovers, but I think it is pathetic that NASA’s resources are so badly managed that a two-year old mission is still their showcase effort. We should be hearing about many new projects, not breakdowns on old ones. If political maneuvering didn’t keep wasting billions on the space shuttle and the ISS (which were created because they were politically appealing) we might have dozens of missions going right now. Better yet, if they let entrepreneurs keep their money instead of taxing us to death, we might all be buying tickets to space.

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