The mission is the 135th of the $209.1 billion shuttle program and heralds the end of an era when the U.S. fleet of reusable craft dominated human spaceflight.

Of all the things I regret, never seeing a space shuttle launch is quite high on the list.

But the core group of techies that launched big initiatives has left the White House over the past six months, raising questions about what will become of the administration’s technology-focused goals.

[…] Still, policy experts working on specific areas — such as cybersecurity, privacy and wireless spectrum — would run into a “buzz saw of long-standing bureaucracy,” he said.

Unfortunate, but one hopes the Obama administration— and whoever wins in 2012— will continue the fight to update and enhance the government’s use of technology, despite the setbacks.

This is an excellent case study on how big Tech firms like Facebook fail at Public Relations. An excerpt:

There’s currently something going on in the outskirts of the tech world that’s a bit sensitive, so no one really likes to talk about it: we (journalists, bloggers, etc) are at war with the PR industry.

That sentence alone will throw the PR flacks into a tizzy. “Hyperbole!” “Sexy statement, no substance!” “Don’t believe everything you read!” And all the other bullshit they typically spew to blunt interesting concepts into dull, gray PR-friendly dribble. We are at war.

Among technology partners and competitors, Google is viewed with a mixture of awe, fear and anger.

It’s fascinating to see how the upcoming Google probe will affect Silicon Valley ‘politics’. The natural reluctance of tech companies to deal with the runaround that is Capitol Hill and government regulation is one factor, while on the other hand the difficulty of competing with Google and the recent heightening of Facebook-Google tensions.