With very little fanfare, one of the beginning pieces of the online world we know today has gone away. As of June 30, the Compuserve Classic service ceased operations as an ISP. Compuserve was one of the pioneers, along with Delphi, of on-line services for the general public.

It is our patriotic duty to honor our Founding Heroes, America's greatest hemp growers. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison -- virtually all Revolutionary Americans who had access to land -- embraced hemp's critical role in our early economy. ccordingly, they raised it in mass quantities.

It is a national shame that mining companies are allowed to blast America's oldest mountains to smithereens -- all for the sake of dirty coal. Indeed, it is unfathomable that here in America, where the Adirondacks are adored and the Rockies are revered, that the Appalachian Mountains -- older than the Himalayas and so integral to our nation's heritage -- are steadily being reduced to lifeless moonscapes.

Eric Steuer has interviewed Caterina Fake, one of the founders of Flickr, on sharing. More specifically, Fake talks about changing expectations around sharing media and why websites need to adapt to those changes.

There was once a baker in the town I lived in. He and wife and two daughters each evening mixed the dough, let it ferment, and in the wee hours of the morning lit his oven with firewood to bake fresh and fluffy breads. He then delivered the labor of his love to his customers in the town on a bicycle, with a rubber horn heralding his arrival at the crack of dawn.

Earlier this week, the Kansas City Star had an article about a test project being done at the University of Iowa to examine the practicality of having a vehicle tax based on the number of miles actually driven: The year is 2020 and the gasoline tax is history. In its place you get a monthly tax bill based on each mile you drove " tracked by a Global Positioning System device in your car and uploaded to a billing center.

The BBC's News Magazine has an entertaining article on the results of a comparative test of old and new technology. The Sony Walkman was introduced 30 years ago, while Apple's iPod is, of course, relatively recent. The magazine persuaded 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a week, to try out a Walkman.

When Chris Anderson's "Free!" article appeared in Wired at the beginning of last year, the financial crisis was still shallow enough for his thesis to look bold but almost plausible: "anything that touches digital networks quickly feels the effect of falling costs. There's nothing new about technology's deflationary force, but what is new is the speed at which industries of all sorts are becoming digital businesses and thus able to exploit those economics."

It seems a little odd to get caught up in the celebrity hype of the moment, but I do think Michael Jackson's passing requires a pause for thought. Much about the man can be said to be somehow special, different, or down right weird. But to be honest, much of it was downright tragic, and put the guy in a lose/lose situation.

The headlines in today's job report were gloomy: Nonfarm payrolls fell by 467,000 in June, more than expected and more than in May. The unemployment rate increased to 9.5%. That gloominess is confirmed if you look deeper into the numbers.

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