FUD about blogging

Working in a University environment is a different business, as I’m realizing. Someone said to me that mentioning that I read Lessig’s blog is bad, since he’s the competition. OK so let’s compete with him.

Doesn’t every successful player scrutinize their opponents? Do football players watch game films? Didn’t Toyota learn how to build the Lexus models by taking apart Mercedes-Benzes? Does MSFT not watch what it’s competitors are doing?

An odd feeling, to be sure. I won’t waste a lot of time pushing that idea.

Of course, it helps to remember that I’ve also heard academia called “the last bastion of socialism.”

help may be on the way

Amazon.com: Crossing Platforms : A Macintosh/Windows Phrasebook: Explore similar items

Frank recommended this book and it may be worth buying. I’ve used the helpful suggestions I’ve gotten but alas, there’s a lack of consistency to be dealt with. I have tamed the folder view problem, mostly: I now seem to get the Details view when I open a folder, but I still have to adjust the column widths so I can see the %&^%&^ file name.

And from what I can tell, your local preferences are ignored when you open folders on a networked drive. You get what you get and that’s never what you want.

Another annoyance: if you have a folder/window open, and realize it’s misnamed or could be more appropriately named, you can’t change the name in the title bar where the text is plainly editable. No, that’s a search engine dialog box. How could think it was anything else?
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The economic logic of customer owned networks

Shirky: Customer-owned Networks and ZapMail

According to Metcalfe’s Law, the value of an internet connection rises with the number of users on the network. However, the phone companies do not get to raise their prices in return for that increase in value. This is a matter of considerable frustration to them.

The economic logic of the market suggests that capital should be invested by whoever captures the value of the investment. The telephone companies are using that argument to suggest that they should either be given monopoly pricing power over the last mile, or that they should be allowed to vertically integrate content with conduit. Either strategy would allow them to raise prices by locking out the competition, thus restoring their coercive power over the customer and helping them extract new revenues from their internet subscribers.

However, a second possibility has appeared. If the economics of internet connectivity lets the user rather than the network operator capture the residual value of the network, the economics likewise suggest that the user should be the builder and owner of the network infrastructure.

The creation of the fax network was the first time this happened, but it won’t be the last. WiFi hubs and VoIP adapters allow the users to build out the edges of the network without needing to ask the phone companies for either help or permission. Thanks to the move from analog to digital networks, the telephone companies’ most significant competition is now their customers, because if the customer can buy a simple device that makes wireless connectivity or IP phone calls possible, then anything the phone companies offer by way of competition is nothing more than the latest version of ZapMail.

meme alert

Senators Introduce Wireless Broadband Bill

The goal of the Jumpstart Broadband Act is to create an environment that embraces innovation and encourages the adoption of next-generation wireless broadband Internet devices,” Allen said in introducing the bill to the Senate. “Most importantly, our legislation will build confidence among consumers, investors and innovators in the telecommunications and technology industries to eventually make the broadband dream a reality.”

Allen said the “if you build it, they will come” business model has not materialized for the telecommunications industry and is one of the reasons for the current telecom recession, adding that “fanciful expectations like these have left this country with Internet bandwidth capacities that no levels of demand can sustain.”

Another citation of “if you build it . . . . ”

I found this this link at AirShare.org which was passed my way by Wade.

This is an interesting collection of how-tos and activism that I think I buy into. I’m still less impressed with 100 Mbits to my house than 10 Mbits to my laptop. Some good information here on 802.11a and 802.11g (hereafter known as 11a and 11g).
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“advance planning department for the human race.”

Science fiction as a lens into the internet economy

Shockwave Rider, Brunner, John, Ballantine Books

Long before William Gibson launched the genre of “cyber-punk”, Brunner was writing about the impact of information technology and accelerating change on society. This is Brunner’s effort to understand what Toffler’s Future Shock might feel like in human terms. To me, it’s one of the more effective examples of why someone once described science-fiction writers as the “advance planning department for the human race.” And it’s a hell of a good story, besides.

I remember reading this is high school and thinking it was unlike most of the SF pulp I had read up to that time: I liked it. Coincidentally, I have read almost no SF since those days. I may need to see if the library has this . . . .

Killer app: what will make fiber to the home happen?

I was part of a conversation today on the notion of open access municipal broadband, and what it would take to make it work?

It’s the usual deal: suppliers, ie tech types, see it as easy and the “Right Thing to Do” but utility providers want to see a compelling reason to build it. “If you build it, they will come” is not good enough.

Even as an early adopter, I can’t see a compelling reason to have 100 MBit networking to my house: I’m not missing anything at 384 Kbits, so far. The talk is all about video, interactive or otherwise, but we’ve had the internet’s interactive capabilities in wide use for 7-8 years now, and I think content programmers have learned that people don’t want to interact. They may play games — there’s lots of that — but that’s a different thing altogether.

And we know the content companies are resistant to video on demand: they don’t even like TiVo, so I have a hard time imagining a world of movies or other programming on my schedule. It’s still appointment television, “must see TV” and looks to stay that way for a while.
Continue reading “Killer app: what will make fiber to the home happen?”

FreeBSD 5.0 released

FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE Announcement

Date: Sunday, 19 Jan 2003 09:00:00 -0800 From: scottl@FreeBSD.org (Scott Long) To: freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.org Subject: FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE Now Available It is my privilege and pleasure to announce the availability of FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE. The culmination of nearly three years of work, this release starts FreeBSD on the path of advanced multiprocessor and application thread support and introduces support for the sparc64 and ia64 platforms. Among the long list of new and improved features:
* UFS2, the second generation UFS filesystem, shatters the current 1TB filesystem barrier.
* Background filesystem checking (bgfsck) and filesystem snapshots eliminate the need for downtime to do filesystem repair and backup tasks.
* Experimental support for Mandatory Access Controls (MAC) provide an extensible and flexible means for administrators to define system security policies.
* Fine-grained locking in the kernel paves the road for much higher efficiency of multi-processor systems.
* Support for Bluetooth, ACPI, CardBus, IEEE 1394, and experimental hardware crypto acceleration keeps FreeBSD at the forefront of new technology.
* The GCC 3.2.1 compiler provides the latest installment of the ever-improving GNU Compiler Collection.
* GEOM, the extensible and flexible storage framework, and DEVFS, the device virtual filesystem, simplify storage and device management while opening the door for new enterprise storage technologies.
* Support for the sparc64 and ia64 platforms expands FreeBSD’s support of advanced 64-bit computing platforms.

The list of features is even longer than I expected. I’ll follow the mailing lists for teething issues but I’ll be installing it somewhere before too long. A release of this scope — a major number — is much more of a big deal than a kernel release in Linux since with FreeBSD, you get the kernel and all the userland programs as well as up to date ports — more than 7000 of them. It’s been my experience that there’s a much higher certainty that things will work with a minimum of hassle than with any other open source OS, to say nothing of the proprietary ones. It’s been my habit to email my thanks to the release engineering team once I get the new version in place. I’ll be doing the same this time, I’m sure.