David Douglas: Infrastructure

Quote of Note: Mike Stagg

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 00:01:31 GMT

Quote of Note: Mike Stagg: ""Whoever builds a fiber to the home network is going to have a monopoly - whoever builds it. As a practical matter, I am opposed to monopolies. But I would much rather have a monopoly that I can touch and see and feel and affect, which is [Lafayette, Louisiana municipal utility operator] LUS." Mike Stagg, co-perpetrator of the Lafayette Pro-fiber blog, quoted here."

(Via isen.blog.)

Network Intelligence

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 00:01:23 GMT

Jonathan Schwartz's Network Intelligence does a nice job of capturing a the current state of the world for distributed data gathering and aggregation via the 'Net, blogs, cellphones, etc. Better yet, it gives a sense of the speed of change.

The key here is obviously the network. It's one thing to create or capture some data or an idea, its another for it to be shared so easily. This is why blogs and wikis are so new and different.

Kerry and the IP extremists

Sat, 18 Sep 2004 02:40:58 GMT

Lawrence Lessig says that Kerry has selected an "IP Czar" that is not (if Kerry is elected) make the our current IP environment get any better.

Report from Crypto 2004

Thu, 19 Aug 2004 03:11:57 GMT

Ed Felten gives good summary of the excitement at Crypto 2004. Some important algorithms have been shown to have some weaknesses, and it seems like it's a bit a surprise to people. This post tells why the seemingly small breaches are significant.

Competition in the Software Industry

Wed, 18 Aug 2004 03:19:20 GMT

Good post by Jonathan Schwartz on the dynamics of the software industry, and users ability to switch among vendors.

I'm sure he takes heat from the Linux community on his comments, but the emergence of Red Hat as a company charging high prices for server software are an important indicator that the utopian vision isn't yet a reality...

A "NearWalden" experience for the Internet BookMobile

Sun, 11 Jul 2004 01:19:44 GMT

The Internet Bookmobile came to Walden Pond and learned first hand about the conflicting goals for that property. What would Thoreau think?

Yesterday (July 8, 2004) I took the Internet Bookmobile to Walden Pond in Concord, Mass. It was the 150th anniversary of H. D. Thoreau's boo k "Walden." The Thoreau Society had a dawn to dusk reading.

After an hour of having readers print and take away free copies of "Walden,"
I was asked by the Walden Pond Reservation police to pack up and leave
and threatened with arrest. I left.

The park supervisor (Denise Morrissey, 978-369-3254) told me I could
not pass out free literature without a permit. And she would not give me
a permit because, as she explained, the state park gets money from a
concession by the Thoreau Society, which operates a store that sells
"Walden"--and I was competing with them by giving away free copies.

There is no place to park at Walden Pond except in the state parking
lot, for which I paid $5.

[via Boing Boing Blog]

Weblog Growth

Thu, 08 Jul 2004 02:38:36 GMT

David Sifry tracks the growth of weblogs. Amazing growth curves...

Telcordia Study: ILEC FTTP feasible, driven by opex savings

Tue, 06 Jul 2004 01:21:17 GMT

David Isenberg cites another interesting FTTH feasibility study. From everything I've seen in what various towns have done this idea continues to gain strength.

Offshoring Is Bad For America

Sun, 09 May 2004 23:41:14 GMT

Think about the offshoring issue for too long, with too open a mind, and I promise you’ll go nuts.

David Coursey takes an interesting pass through the outsourcing conundrum. It's not a simple issue, and there's plenty of quality positions to go around. While I don't think some of his ideas are tenable, some of the basic conclusions are on the money and I'm glad someone is taking a creative look at this, since the two extreme positions are not viable in my mind. I also think there's something in what he says about taxing the incoming code as an import. Of course it doesn't work in real life, but there the germ of an idea there.

Bubblets

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 02:33:19 GMT

Latest Udell hack, and Simon Phipps critiques.

Nova's MetaWeb chart

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 02:32:07 GMT

Nova's latest version of his evolution of the web chart. I like it, but it ignores the M2M world...

Good discussion of identity

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 02:28:51 GMT

Jon Udell has a good discussion of basic identity issues.

Clay's Power Law article

Mon, 12 Apr 2004 02:25:40 GMT

Just referencing Clay Shirky's Power Law article again - I keep coming back to it again and again. Link

Every copy of Reason customized with sat photos of subscribers' homes

Sat, 03 Apr 2004 03:18:09 GMT

This is a very cool idea - on the order of Brewster's Internet Book Mobile. It's always more impactful when someone can make this stuff feel tangible to folks.

The next ish of Reason magazine will be mailed out to 40,000 subscribers, with 40,000 custom covers, each bearing a satellite photo of the individual subscriber's neighborhood, with the subscriber's house circled. The point? "Everybody, including our magazine, has been harping on the erosion of privacy and the fears of a database nation. It is a totally legit fear. But they make our lives unbelievably easier as well, in terms of commercial transactions, credit, you name it."

Link

(via Kottke and Boing Boing Blog)

Kevin Werbach article in IEEE

Fri, 05 Mar 2004 02:52:22 GMT

Article by Kevin and Gregory Staple on "The End of Spectrum Scarcity"

New tool

Tue, 02 Mar 2004 03:11:10 GMT

Switching over to NetNewsWire for aggregation (at least trying it out). Need to work on multi-site sync, but other than that I'm very happy with it. Posting from it right now!

TheFeature :: ZigBee Spins The Carousel of Progress Forward

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 01:38:51 GMT

Good article about the state and promise of Zigbee.

Oil Posts

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 00:04:07 GMT

Some good posts at isen.blog about the Hubbert curve and the decline of oil usage:

Lots of great analysis on this topic in Vaclav Smil's book Energy at a Crossroads.

WS-WoldPeace

Thu, 26 Feb 2004 00:31:09 GMT

Good analysis of the mess of WS-* services by Udell, with marginally OK points by MS webservices architect.

How Limited is Limited?

Wed, 25 Feb 2004 11:19:22 GMT

This is a very interesting take on 95 years as a limited copyright period. There's another interpretation: if almost everyone who is alive when the 95 years starts will be dead when it's done, then it might as well be infinity for them as well.

New Radio UserLand User Guide

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 02:36:44 GMT

Link

Jabber's XMPP

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 02:30:46 GMT

Link

FCM

Tue, 10 Feb 2004 02:31:14 GMT

Good article on Werblog about what the "Free Culture Movement" means and doesn't. Link

Presence

Sun, 08 Feb 2004 23:05:06 GMT

Updates on presence specs stemming from Jabber.

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 01:43:19 GMT

Shirky: Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality. Link