...more recent posts
Still trying to get my ideas together regarding the communications device I have been thinking about. The main thing is that it is portable, wireless, and can work in two different modes. One mode is the standard internet mode, where the device searches for a gateway within range and if one is found it can connect through it to the internet. (I'm ignoring the cost structures, although there would be some costs here for someone.) The other mode would be a peer to peer mode. Each device would be a client and a server. If you are in peer mode then your device searches for any other peers within range. You would see some sort of list of available servers from which you could choose. As you physically move around the list would change as different people would come in or go out of range. On your own device you can either have your server on or off. If it's on, then people within range can connect to you. This would be like having your own apache (or whatever) server on an intranet. Also, in peer mode, your device is a router whether you have your server on or not. So people can connect through you to others. But there would be some (small) limit on the number of hops to avoid gnutella like problems with scaling. The peer mode would be a very local thing.
Apparently the different flavors of 802.11 (like Apple's Airport, or Lucent's Wavelan) can be used for things like this, so there is really nothing new here. I guess it just boils down to realizing that connecting to the global internet is not always what you want. This is what I realized in the hours following the WTC collapse, when a lot of Manhattan's communication infrastructure was knocked out. I wanted to talk to people outside the city, but contacting people who were here seemed even more pressing. Obviously if the attack had been more nebulous (like a bio attack) communicating locally would have been even more important. Being able to switch to peer mode, thus bypassing any fixed infrastructure (because the portable devices themselves are the infrastructure) would have been very convenient.
The internet itself is decentralized, but only somewhat. From what I understand about routing, this is an efficient design. Complete decentralization seems to have problems scaling because each node gets flooded with too many routing requests. I can only imagine that the internet itself is going to become much more regulated and business like in the near future. But as this happens perhaps a new frontier will open up in the space usually referred to as "the last mile." This space could be filled with an ad hoc peer to peer local intranet. This would be a community space - probably interesting in NYC and other cities, while less interesting or even non existent in very rural locations. The peer network would be free (in both senses) while the internet itself does and will continue to cost money. I'm actually in favor of a charge per byte structure on the global internet. Maybe being a gateway between local peer nets and the internet could be a business. People would pay to use your gateway to jump onto the net if they happened to be inside your peer network. And conversely, people could drop into local peer nets from remote locations using these gateways in the opposite direction.
In times of crisis the peer networks would work even if local infrastructure was knocked out. And then the government could keep a stash of disposable wireless gateways (something like 802.11 basestations) and maybe just drop them (on tiny parachutes or something) over a disaster area. Like seeding a field from the air. This way the local net would work right away, and connections to the global net could be gotten up and working very easily.
Or something like that. It's boring to read about it this way. I'm actually working on a short near future sci-fi story to flesh out this idea. Not sure if that will work out, but I'll put it up as I go if I make any progress.
Whenever I get back to the BCCI affair I know it's time to stop reading and go outside for a walk. There is no reason for me to think I can put the big picture together, so when these large pieces insist on falling into place I get a little nervous. Maybe this is a good time to dive into some difficult (for me) coding. Something with a lot of strands I can put together and then actuallly test as to whether I am right or not. Something that will either work or break. Maybe that mail interface, or the downloadable weblog snapshot feature. It's not as important as 60 briefcases that may or may not be missing, but at least I can work on it and then at some point reach a conclusion. I don't wish to learn any more about the Caspian Basin right now.
I didn't mean to watch it, but we ended up in front of a TV last night having our emotions manipulated in that all too easy way. Still, it was worth it for the highlights. Of course Imagine is the song. I mean: The Song, given the moment, the context, and the particular city. When I heard the first few notes on the piano I just thought, skeptically, "who is playing this?" as if no mere man could be up to the task. Then the big cowboy hat tipped back revealing a rather serious looking Neil Young. "He's got clearance" I said out loud, stunned, and then Gandalf, er, I mean Neil cast the spell. Perfect.
"...You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one..."
Amen
And just to show I'm not always completely swallowed by such emotional orchestrations, I'll complain that if Simon can't get back with Garfunkle for one night, do we really stand a chance of all living together on this planet? I mean, come on - a solo Bridge Over Troubled Waters doesn't really cut it.
Here's a little something I wrote after using Mozilla 0.93 and 0.94 as my main browser for the last few weeks. Short version: It's usable, but you probably don't want to yet unless you have something against Microsoft.
If you use Microsoft Outlook Express for email, please read and follow these 4 simple steps. Very easy. This will help stop many of the worms that are plauging the internet. Please do this.
Not so unusual I guess, but I've been having bad dreams for the last several nights. Last night the government was doing a test explosion of a nuclear bomb in Manhattan. I guess so we could see what it would be like and be ready. Sounds dangerous (I thought so in the dream) but we were carefully covering all our windows with aluminum foil, and this was going to somehow keep us safe. Strange. The night before it was a slow motion mid air collision between two riding lawn mowers equipped with giant fans (like those hover boats in the Everglades.) Two fat white suburban type guys were driving these craft over the city at something like one half a mile an hour. One was bearing down on the other, bumped it from behind, causing it to suddenly fall very quickly to the ground. Everybody was running around in the street shouting "Call 911! Call 911!" And the night before that there was a helicopter hovering over the city, slowly lowering itself to the ground. It was pitched radically forward, so the front window was facing the ground (but still somehow hovering) and when it got very close to the ground someone reached up and handed the pilot a sandwhich. Then the helicopter began to ascend, and a little way off the ground the whole thing exploded in a massive fire ball.
One other thing about the flying lawn mower dream is that once again I realized I was dreaming. I had a 5 dollar bill in my hand at one point, but then the next time I looked it was a 1 dollar bill, and then I looked again and it was a 10. I thought "Hey, that's like what happens in a dream!" And then I thought "Oh, I'm dreaming right now." I guess I'm primed for that right now, because all week, while awake, I've been wondering if maybe I'm not. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and look out the window and the towers will be right there where I expect them. Many times I've had to seriously ask myself "am I dreaming right now?"
We walked down south of Canal Street for the first time yesterday. This turned out, in my opinion, to be not such a good thing to do. They are busy down there, and while we weren't exactly in the way, we also weren't really helping the situation. A friend got us through the Canal Street check point, but the security is not really very tight. Once below Canal we made it all the way down to Chruch and Chambers, and then walked west to the river. If you don't know Manhattan, this is very close. Here's "the pile" (which is what all the workers call it) from a few blocks north. We ate dinner at a friends restaurant, and on the way back we walked past this truck loaded with an enormous steel beam. The beam itself had the smell. The officer pictured said he thought it would take a year to finish the clean up. I think they'll start going faster once they decide nobody could still be alive, but in any case, the amount of wreckage is incredible. Much more shocking than I guessed it would be.
[Original pictures of post impact WTC are here.]
Bizzare article in the Village Voice about Laili Helms, niece by marriage of former CIA director Richard Helms, and suburban Mom living in New Jersey, who is the unofficial Taliban representative in the U.S. (via scripting news)
Microsoft worms are running rampant on the web today. I've been experiencing mail problems on one of my servers. Anyone else seeing this? These sorts of things happen rather frequently, but now it just seems more ominous. In any case, DO NOT open attachments.
I don't know if he wants me throwing his theories around the internet, so I'll just say that my friend B., who seems to understand more about this stuff than anyone else I know, was scaring me again last night with his near future mid-east scenarios. He thinks Bin Laden is probably already hiding in Pakistan under very tight security, and that his big play will be to show up in Mecca where he will start preaching against the infidel. We cannot bomb Mecca. It will be exceedingly difficult to go in there and get him. And of course, the infidel is not just the west, and not just the jews. It will also be the moderate Islamic leaders. And what might his rallying cry be? How about: seize the oil fields.
Probably he would need us to strike the holy land a few times first to get people really upset or else the Saudi royal familly will be able to stop him themselves. This rubs up against the well circulated ideas of Mir Tamim Ansary
who thinks the U.S. is being led into a trap. And I think Bush's use of words like 'crusade' show that he is taking the bait.
(Here's a map of Saudi Arabia showing Mecca on the west coast by the Red Sea.)