Mark Nelson

If you enjoyed surfing the internet before 1997, then you remember what online life was like before tweets, blogs, and PayPal. The landscape was relatively barren to be sure. This was the era of the primitive and easily-ignored flashy text banner…

Drama unfolded in Washington this summer, when inaction by Congress allowed the Stafford Loan rate to double from 3.4% to 6.8%. For the past couple years, an extension to keep the rate at 3.4% had been scheduled to expire on July 1, conveniently…

Free Internet Chess Server was taken down shortly after a hacker gained access to an administrator account and unleashed havoc on July 18. For eight days players had to wait, or reluctantly join FICS' chief rival, the pay-to-play Internet Chess…

On April 10th, gambling teetotalers in Tallahassee erupted in a burst of high-fives and back slaps, over their success in banning all internet cafes in Florida. This was the culmination of a dust-up early in 2013, when 57 internet-cafe operators…

Machines that can fabricate physical models on your desktop have come a long way in 25 years, and the implications of having Star-Trek-like replicators in the hands of individuals and small businesses within the next 25 years is starting to…

Americans have a very long love-hate relationship with advertisers — mostly hate. Suspicions have been confirmed that, throughout history, mad men have used mysterious new information technologies to control the public, enticing us to buy or use…

Google is pinning some big hopes on Glass to outgun Apple on the consumer electronics front of the war these two giants wage for the future. In response to Google's energetic hype and Apple's incremental plans over the next year or two, a herd of…

This past Valentine's Day, a Florida legislative committee courted civil libertarians everywhere on an issue of increasing interest to freedom lovers across the country. By a 10-8 vote, they introduced a bill which would ban cities and counties from…

Apple users are mostly happy and satisfied (well, those with stable, functional iDevices). Owners of Apple stock? Not so much. If each current share doesn't return to and exceed its recent high value of $702, what's the point of keeping it or buying…