...more recent posts
World of Ends: What the Internet Is and
How to Stop Mistaking It
for Something Else.
Doc Searls and David Weinberger hone their Cluetrain message, presenting
10 points anyone concerned with the internet should understand, and a bunch of links to all the important papers.
Blah, blah, blah, raging cow, blah, blah...
You know about this, right? (If not then you don't get around much, do you?) It's the latest in marketainment. Ragingcow.com is a Dr. Pepper advertising project disguised as a blog. They use Movable Type and everything. And they really really like Raging Cow, the super nifty new "milk like" fun drink!
Right. So anyway, the site I linked to - ragingcow.blogspot.com - is a parody put up by Kevin Marks' in the hopes of taking the number one spot on google away from Dr. Pepper. I'm not actually recommending you should visit that site (and if you do, get ready for some annoying background music) but I just wanted to link it a few times and throw my minor google strength against Dr. P.
(If you really must know, it was the fan signs that tipped me over the edge. These people must be stopped.)
Ha ha ha ha har har ha ha ha....
Stop it, you're killing me:
The Recodable Locking Device, which uses microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology so small that it takes a microscope to see it, is a series of tiny notched gears that move to the unlocked position only when the right code is entered. It's the first known mechanical hardware designed to keep unwanted guests from breaking codes and illegally entering computer and other secure systems.Still, and this is why I mention it, you should check out the incredibly cool picture here. That wheel is 300 microns in diameter, or "about the size of the period at the end of a sentence."
But the press release is just too much. I can't wait to read what Schneier writes about this in the next Cryptogram. One for the doghouse? Get this:
"Computer firewalls have always been dependent on software, which means they are 'soft' and subject to manipulations," says Larry Dalton, manager of Sandia's High Integrity Software Systems Engineering Department. "Our device is hardware and is extremely difficult to break into. You have one and only one chance in a million of picking exactly the right code compared to a one in 10,000 chance, with many additional chances, in most software firewalls. After one failed try, this new device mechanically shuts down and can't be reset and reopened except by the owner."Wow! Sounds, like, double super top secret secure! I get it now: software = soft, hardware = hard. LOL! Who writes this stuff?
How to monopolize the new network is a paper by David S. Isenberg on the future of telecommunications. Interesting if you're into this sort of thing. Giant fibre to the home monopoly vs. David P. Reed style wireless mesh network.
Toshiba shows off a fuel cell prototype they say will be commercialized next year.
Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like, and as I understand it this is really going to happen. We're talking very small volumes of fuel - like you could carry around a refill in something the size of a pen. Sure would be nice to break the recharging cycle.
Lots of noise in the press today speculating on a possible Apple on line music service. Here's a San Jose Mercury News article. Here's a potentially interesting anonymous comment from a December 2002 thread on slashdot.
I'm not exactly doubting it, but let's just wait and see what happens.
Go read Paul Ford's latest: lucky ducky.
Boing boing has extensive coverage of Larry Lessig's Spectrum Conference. Wow, there's so much enthusiasm (and real projects) it almost makes me forget about the difficulties I mentioned at the end of the last post.
Lots to wade through, but it's important stuff.
Interestingly, David Reed gave the keynote, and boing boing has a nice summary of his ideas amid the other coverage.
As Gibson said: the future is here, it's just not evenly distrubuted. In this case that's because it's all at this conference.
Yet another wireless mesh networking paper. Here's the executive summary. Here's the 3 point and above comments from slashdot.
Seems like even the geeks are still arguing the main point. Can bandwidth really increase as the number of nodes in a given area increases? This is (I think, with my limited math skills) what David P. Reed is claiming (maybe start looking here.) But it seems counterintuitive to most people, so I guess we're really going to need a large scale demonstration to prove the skeptics wrong.
But then there is a second level of problems. Even if it turns out this is possible, mathematically, it won't be as profitable for the entrenched players as the proprietary wires and spectrum model they are now operating under. So it may not be possible to change to a technically better system for purely economic reasons.
One scenario where I could imagine wireless mesh networks really taking off is after some sort of major disruption. Like if the telecoms all went bankrupt. Or some governmental entity shut the internet down. Or any of a couple even worse scenarios. But without the present imperfectly working system going away, I can't see people caring (or even understanding) enough to force this change.
But I can still hope. And maybe it can start, locally, not as a replacement to the internet but as a seperate layer that augments the current global net.
Holy cow! This asking for what I want thing is really working out. I mean, hypothetically, of course, because it's still just a rumor that Safari 0.62 even exists. So, hypothetically, thanks C.M.!
Now that I'm two for two I'm a little nervous. I better think before I ask for anything else. I mean, since it seems like I might get what I ask for.
Hmmm. Everything I touch turn to gold? No wait....