Category: technology
-
To the cloud and beyond
Connectivity providers are aging behemoth’s kept alive by the life support of monopoly. These monopolies, whether local franchise operations in the case of cable TV, or spectrum licenses in the case of wireless providers, assure premium prices for a commodity product, namely the connection from person to Internet. Yet even artificial scarcity isn’t enough to…
-
The grid, the box, and the meter
Information utility is all about ubiquitous access to data, which is all about the network, which is all about the balance of what is in the network versus what is on the network, and more explicitly, how that balance is managed – or operationalized, in the lingo of those who deal with such things. Network…
-
The consequences of infrastructure on creators
Creators need infrastructure and I don’t mean just running water and electricity, I mean resources to create (synthesize) with. For me that means network devices, the output of the IEEE and IETF and W3C, the entire ecosystem of network users, and the economic market of e-commerce among other things. I’m not going to be very…
-
Some thoughts
some thoughts on “burning pain” opportunities in arenas I know about: consumer networking gear – we’re getting more networked and Best Buy isn’t sufficient in expertise or selection to solve our problems getting connected, staying connected, and managing all our digital junk. This is more than just zeroconf because I want to be able to…
-
Computers are not making my life better in ways that I care about
There is this notion in my head that a computer should be part of that “Jetson Future” where we get to seriously contemplate what economics looks like when there isn’t any actual labor to perform, beyond the creation of machines which create machines to do work for us. I know that prospect scares people, and…
-
A Cloudy Future
I am woken at the peak of my sleep cycle nearest to the hour I need to get up, my alarm using a fuzzy logic algorithm flashed to the internal circuits, which blends my typical snooze-cycle (stored on-line in the home NAS) and the bio-metric sensor placed under my mattress with today’s calendar appointments and…
-
Google’s War on Hierarchy, and the Death of Hierarchical Folders
This article – Google’s War on Hierarchy, and the Death of Hierarchical Folders – talks about the issue of organizing filesystems for human interfaces, specifically it talks about the difference between Microsoft’s desktop and Google’s search paradigms. It seems to me that the search paradigm, especially when used in this context to replace hierarchy, is…
-
a glimpse of the future?
Since the Supreme Court ruled ambiguously on Monday in the MGM v Grokster case the motives of software designers and programmers are now probative in pursuing civil and criminal actions involving copyright law. This story – Wired News: BitTorrent Whiz Extolled Piracy? [ archive.org ] – is about a manifesto once published on the web…
-
Nationalism in Cyberspace
In a story titled “Bush administration annexes internet,” The Register talks about how the U. S. Department of Commerce intends to “retain control over the Internet’s root servers indefinitely.” This is a reversal of previous U. S. and may in some way be a response to U. N. attempts to control the internet. What is…
-
A New Film Release Paradigm
Film Movement is a DVD-of-the-month club that releases independent films on DVD to members the same date they are released in the art house circuit. It costs $20 a month or $160 for a year, the DVDs are yours to keep, and shipping is free. This is, to me, as clever as CD Baby, and…