Spectrum wants to be Free!

In the winter of 2000, I came down to Fairfax to do an "externship" at AMS during what MIT calls its Independent Activities Period (or IAP for short).  While I was there, I ran into a guy who wrote a paper in his undergraduate time at MIT about sharing spectrum - ultimately arguing that nothing should be licensed and we'd be much better off with freeing spectrum.  Then, yesterday, I ran across this article in the NY Times that is essentially talking about doing something similar, but in a much orderly fashion, involving registration, but sharing a lot of government spectrum.  If this all pans out - it would free up an amazing amount of spectrum and free up a lot of data bandwidth.

Simplest technology the best?

I went on a 20 mile bike ride today, but didn't bring any water with me.  Great ride, but I was pretty thirsty when it was over.  No worries, there was a McDonalds on my way home.  I went in, bought a large soda and got a cup for water.  That is when the problems started.

First, the water dispenser wasn't working.  Then, the Diet Coke that came out of was so thick with syrup that it was kinda gross.  And I had so been looking forward to the drink.  Why, I immediately wondered, couldn't I mix the amount of syrup that I wanted?

If you've been to Elevation Burger or BGR recently, you've seen some fancy touch screen soda dispensers.  They are fancy and have endless selection.  Diet Coke with some orage splashed in, no problem!  Anything.  But getting the mix of soda water to syrup down requires you to navigate several menu screens to get to just soda water.  It does the trick.

But not really as well as the old school machines that on the Sprite have a simple lever (akin to the water lever that typically sits next to the lemonade dispenser) that says Soda and as the name suggests, just dispenses soda.  What a simple and wonderful solution to the problem.  Infinite choice in a very simple package.