I was born and raised in downstate New York, oldest of three siblings. In college and while getting a master's of public policy (Dartmouth and Univ. of Michigan, respectively) I studied and was quite active in environmental and energy policy. For example, I was arrested at the big demonstration at the Seabrook nuclear power plant, and I worked in Washington for a year at the National Audubon Society (water policy), and a for summer in the policy office of the Dept. of Energy.
I've been a computer junkie since the late 1960s, had my first email romance in 1976, and was an Internet junkie by the mid-80s, nearly 10 years before the Web began. It took some time to realize I could join this enthusiasm with my research. Most of my early economics research concerned taxes and corporate decisions (investment, financing, choice of organizational form). I had done some telecommunications research in the 1980s, but only in the early 1990s did I drop other topics to pursue exclusively economic and technical issues raised by digital information systems and content.
I used to spend more time in the woods and mountains than at a terminal. Now I find peace and freedom of emotional expression at the piano. I started music studies when I was young, but music became my consuming passion only in the mid-1990s. I play "classical" (though I occasionally fool around with songbook standards or pop by Tori Amos and a few others). I've been learning about one Beethoven sonata a year, and a variety of standard repertoire including Bach's preludes and fugues, Schubert's impromptus, Brahms's intermezzi, and Chopin's etudes. I performed (in informal settings!) the first movement of Beethoven's first piano concerto (with a 5-piece chamber group accompanying) and the first movement of Mendelssohn's g minor concerto (with second piano accompanying).
I'm also very committed to actively parenting two boys, and to nurturing my marriage to Janet Netz. My Myers-Briggs type is INFP (strong I, N; weak F, P).