About Me

I’m a networking geek. I co-invented Ethernet over Twisted Pair, the Wi-Fi MAC protocol, and miscellaneous network enhancements such as the MPDU (packet) Aggregation system for 802.11n/ac/af, the Distributed Reservation Protocol for UWB, and various tweaks and hacks to the Internet and OSI protocols.

I did most of this work with colleagues in the standards community, of course, but I’m not a professional standards guy. I made contributions to these committees (and sometimes led them) and then implemented products to the standards. I worked for 3Com for ten years producing Ethernet products, for Airgo, Trapeze, and Sharp Labs doing Wi-Fi products, and for companies like Cisco and HP in the Internet space. My last regular engineering gig involved the home routers used by Verizon and Qwest. I’ve never worked for a phone company, just computer companies and general-purpose networking companies, most of them in the Internet space.

These days I do public policy work around networks, network regulation, and innovation. This involves testifying before Congress and the FCC, writing white papers and reports, and consulting with governments, manufacturers of network equipment, carriers, and content producers.

I’m a former visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Research Fellow at ITIF in Washington, DC and currently the founder and manager of High Tech Forum, a policy initiative that educates policy makers on the technical underpinnings of tech policy issues. I’m also a consultant to law firms who litigate Internet, Process Control, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi patents.

As a network policy wonk, I’ve published in the major newspapers, including the New York Times, appeared on television and radio, and spoken at major policy gatherings. I do a bang-up keynote on the present and future of networking, the impact of technology on culture, and the relationship of free open source software with Greek tragedy. I have a liberal arts education, deep knowledge of technology and innovation, four issued patents, and four volumes of poetry to my credit.

In addition to my think tank connections, I served two terms on the Economics and Regulatory Panel at Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority. My contact e-mail is “richard” at this domain if you have a project to discuss, and my full CV is here.

This web site has been online since 1995, and among other things it houses some curry recipes, holdovers from my first efforts with HTML that refuse to die. These are now assembled in World-Wide Curries and are apparently among the most definitive to be found, since they’re linked by sites serving the South Asian community in India and the United States. I haven’t tried them all, but the ones I have were pretty good.

The Chili of Excellence Page is much less authoritative, but it’s not a bad starter for those on the road to perfecting their “bowl of red.” Recent chili experiments confirm that Texas Longhorn beef produces a superior flavor lower in fat than chicken or fish, and that kidney suet in moderation sweetens the mix. Curry meets chili in the beef curries of Malaysia and Singapore, the most satisfying cuisine in the world and probably the Next Big Food now that Thai is so 20th Century.

In the mid ’90s I did a fair bit of political activism, working with California Senator Chuck Calderon (chair of the Judiciary Committee), Assemblyman Rod Wright (Utilities and Commerce committee chair), and Senate president pro-tem John Burton to pass and/or amend a number of measures improving the state of family law. The most notable of these bills are SB 509 on Spousal Support, and SB 542, creating the statewide Department of Child Support Services to improve the process for both payers and recipients of child support.

In that connection, I served on a number of oversight boards and commissions related to the court system, gave numerous interviews to the press, and appeared on television and radio programs such as California Capitol Review with Jack Kavanaugh. I’ve retired from lobbying and wouldn’t have time for it even if I were still interested.

I’m a big fan of the Oakland A’s baseball team, jumping on the bandwagon after moving to the Bay Area in 1985 and with more passion after reading Moneyball. Everybody’s jumping on the sports blog bandwagon these days (even political blog entrepreneur Markos Moulitsas) but I’ve generally preferred my baseball free of politics, and my politics free of baseball, but the antitrust dispute between the A’s and the Giants over a new stadium for the A’s in San Jose has changed the circumstances.

The Giants are using Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption to victimize the A’s and their fans, and that’s dirty pool. While I used to like both the Giants and the A’s, the Giants owners have forced Bay Area sports fans to choose, so I’m all A’s now. That was inconvenient when the Giants won three World Series in five years, but convenient when their luck ran out in the odd-numbered years. The A’s won three in a row between 1972-4, so take that, Frisco.

Enjoy your visit, and drop a note to me if anything you see here intrigues or enrages you. And yes, I know that nothing on this site sets new standards for animation, multimedia, or Java; that’s just my cross to bear.