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The Crypto Wars Will Have No Winners
Albert Wenger – Feb 20, 2015
Keeping this short because I am on family vacation but there have been two stories this past week that we should all take note off. First, there was the revelation that the NSA had installed spying software deeply in the [...] Read more
Vacation Reading
Albert Wenger – Feb 12, 2015
We will be going on family ski vacation, so there will likely be no new posts until week after next. In the meantime though here are the books that I am bringing with me: One of the things I love [...] Read more
Birthday
Albert Wenger – Feb 11, 2015
It is my birthday today and thanks to Susan’s planning we had a fantastic day as a family starting with a yummy blueberry pancake and bacon breakfast. After a great Korean lunch we went and saw Cabaret. The kids were [...] Read more
Machine Intelligence Progress is Accelerating
Albert Wenger – Feb 10, 2015
I don’t (yet) worry about a Terminator or Matrix like scenario where machines take over the world and subjugate humans. But it is useful to remind oneself of the rate of progress that has been taking place. I started programming [...] Read more
NYC Should Tax High End Absentee Apartment Buyers
Albert Wenger – Feb 9, 2015
The New York Times has been running a great series about high end real estate ownership in the city titled “Towers of Secrecy”. The upshot is that much of it is owned by people who are rarely if ever here. [...] Read more
Good News on Net Neutrality
Albert Wenger – Feb 5, 2015
Yesterday FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced that he would be pursuing Title II classification for wired and wireless ISPs as a way to ensure net neutrality. This is potentially a big step forward on a topic that I have written [...] Read more
Ethics of Algorithms
Albert Wenger – Feb 4, 2015
Slightly belated we have another topic of the over at usv.com: The Ethics of Algorithms. I have written a bunch about this topic in the past, for instance when discussing the need for an opposing view reader or the danger [...] Read more
Pricing APIs: Ziggeo
Albert Wenger – Feb 2, 2015
API pricing requires striking a tricky balance between the needs of developers and the cost/profitability of the provider. I am on the boards of several companies that provide APIs as their primary business model, including Twilio, Dwolla and Sift Science [...] Read more
Secrets: Do We Really Need Them?
Albert Wenger – Jan 29, 2015
I have written on and off about my ambivalent feelings about a society where we value individual privacy over collective intelligence. Whenever I bring up this argument there is a counter to the effect of “but we need secrets” or [...] Read more