Why Smart Agents Are A Dumb Idea Clay Shirky lays down the law on why smart agents are dumb. Precient, since it was written in 1999 and Microsoft is just about to unleash the paperclip on our inboxes in 2001.

Wireless standards continue to clash In the US, all the cellular carriers use networks that are mutually incompatible. This is one reason why cell phones here suck. Looks like they have decided to continue doing this, and their next generation networks will also be incompatible. Just as well they can't afford them and no one really wants to use them anyway.

Microsoft continues to build in standards that hurt consumers For connectivity of all sorts, Microsoft has decided to use a standard called 1394 (FireWire) which they are going to hook up to various other doodads, which will make it impossible for people to copy commercially produced material, or anything that any industry does not want them to copy.

Just for kicks Here's a very pretty picture of the Internet