While the private sector is making strides toward a paperless office environment, the government appears to be stumbling backward. Last week, the Department of Commerce canceled plans to use handheld devices for door-to-door canvassing during the 2010 census. The devices failed on a surprising number of counts. They could not properly transmit large data files; they did not meet over 400 technical requirements; and they proved too complex for temporary workers to figure out.

That was anticlimactic. A little more than a week after announcing that he was considering running for a recently vacated seat in California's 12th congressional district, tech thinker and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig announced yesterday on his blog that he wasn't running after all. The reason is simple enough. A pollster showed Lessig that there was "no possible way" for him to win. And it wouldn't be pleasant.

Sean Captain’s extensive guide last week to next year's nationwide digital TV conversion featured some interesting comments from the vice president of Centris, a company that recently published a study suggesting the upcoming switchover to digital-only television broadcasts may leave millions of people across the country without a TV signal. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is offering people who have an analog TV a $40 coupon to put toward a converter box. Unfortunately, Centris VP Barry E. Goodstadt says, in certain pockets of the country, using a converter box still won’t give you a signal if you don’t have a powerful-enough antenna.

Creative Commons founder, free information advocate and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig announced today the formation of an exploratory committee looking in to a potential bid for a U.S. Congress seat. He announced his maybe-decision (with a more finalized announcement coming March 1) today on a new Web site, lessig08.org.