An irony is that while the phone companies are screaming to regulators that VoIP is killing their rate base and the like, hardly anyone bothers to mention that to use VoIP you gotta have a broadband Internet connection, and for most people that's DSL.
And where do most folks get their DSL from? Ta dah! The phone company!
Much of the competition talk really relates only to all of the gadgets and services, not to the fact that they're mostly being provided by a relatively small (and shrinking) group of very large telecom conglomerates, who are trying to set all of the rules of the game across the board.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Modern slavery
"The coming convulsion we face in the 21st century is not so much moral but no less stark: the collapse of a faltering industrial polity in the face of depleting energy supplies. Like the earlier dilemma of slavery, our national leaders refuse to face it."
Depleting energy supplies are but the surface of the real problem.
Which is still a problem of slavery, even if we could talk of a different kind of slavery.
The "abundance society" is built on the abundance of food and technical devices that should make our lives heaven, but whose production reduces man to a bigger slaveery than before.
Bigger because it is hidden and inevitable.
We are the slave of a system whose survival is in the more and more production which is based in a bigger and bigger consuming to allow a bigger production.
We have to work more to produce more and we have to consume more in order to have the need to produce more, so that the economical machine can run.
We have to work more and more to be able to afford more and more useless things, so that we will be able to make a useless world running on a useless production.
The only constant and useless depletion is still the energy supply.
We should consume less and produce less, so that we consume less energy.
But then, how would the actual machine run?
Depleting energy supplies are but the surface of the real problem.
Which is still a problem of slavery, even if we could talk of a different kind of slavery.
The "abundance society" is built on the abundance of food and technical devices that should make our lives heaven, but whose production reduces man to a bigger slaveery than before.
Bigger because it is hidden and inevitable.
We are the slave of a system whose survival is in the more and more production which is based in a bigger and bigger consuming to allow a bigger production.
We have to work more to produce more and we have to consume more in order to have the need to produce more, so that the economical machine can run.
We have to work more and more to be able to afford more and more useless things, so that we will be able to make a useless world running on a useless production.
The only constant and useless depletion is still the energy supply.
We should consume less and produce less, so that we consume less energy.
But then, how would the actual machine run?
Friday, February 16, 2007
Perceptions
Perceptions are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the Universe.
"We have used our wealth, our literacy, our technology, and our progress to create the ticket to unreality which stands between us and the facts of life...experiences of our own contriving begin to hide reality from us...transforming us from travellers into turists."
"We have used our wealth, our literacy, our technology, and our progress to create the ticket to unreality which stands between us and the facts of life...experiences of our own contriving begin to hide reality from us...transforming us from travellers into turists."
Intelligence
Intelligence is a matter of conceptualizing rather than calculating.
In a chess game while a human can evaluate three moves a second, a computer can evaluate millions.
But the advantage is reversed when it comes to improvisation.
A computer would find it difficult to understand a strategy based on calculated irritation.
In a chess game while a human can evaluate three moves a second, a computer can evaluate millions.
But the advantage is reversed when it comes to improvisation.
A computer would find it difficult to understand a strategy based on calculated irritation.
Reinventing Computing
Interesting perspective from Peter Clare of Oracle fame
"The problem w/ this approach philosophically (I think) is that most layered abstractions in real life undergo paradigm shifts as you move from one domain to another. Sure, you can describe cooking via atomic reactions, or even chemistry, but who cares – I guarantee you that a chemical model of cooking won’t likely taste as good as a traditional mixing ingredients w/ a pinch here or there approach.
The same is true for computer paradigms. Every (computer) modeling language is designed to solve a particular set of problems, and will likely be miserably inadequate for problems outside the domain for which this language was intended. Sure, pgmrs can do amazing things w/ languages using techniques that the language designers themselves didn’t forsee – but this is just stretching the limits, not making any fundamental paradigm shift.
I have always tho’t that computer weenies want to play at being God, and that our systems reflect this basic arrogance and prejudice.
Somehow, we feel that this modeling Deus ex Machina is going to solve some implausable problem by inserting the genius of Our-New-Computer- Language-in-God’s-Image into the mix. I am skeptical.
The real world seems rather complex to me and we seem to have varying degrees of comfort and discomfort using many different (internal) systems and models to navigate our way through The Maze. Such is the World.
If we look at the evolution of computer-as-language today, we use a wide variety of linguistic mechanisms ranging from Imperative to Dialogue to point-and-click Exploration to You-Name-It. At the end of the day, most of these linguistic mechanisms are basically proxies for communicating our intent to other people, usually communally through space and time, much as literature communicates intent through space and time.
If we look at the chaos that is the current landscape of ways to communicate our intent via these linguistic automatons, it is pretty easy to see that computer language mechanisms are evolving much the way natural languages evolve – via our ad hoc social systems that determine in a willy nilly way what works and what doesn’t over long periods of time."
May be the approach is wrong.
May be we still do not know the right way.
It happened with the written language.
I have a theory about it.
The first written language was made with idioms (as the Chinese and Japanese still are)which reproduced the concept instead of the sound.
The letters were the biggest improvement in the way of written language.
Because with 26 (Italians, 22)letters we can express all what we think and say.
Simplifying the way of writing allowed many more to access culture and the other bigger step was printing.
Now a days in many countries the basic culture is a matter of wanting more than affording.
The real reinvention of computing will come when the languages instead of using basic data format (string)will use simpler letters with which it will be universally possible to build a common language understood by all computers.
Simplifying computing will make informatics more a matter of wanting than affording.
I regret one thing: that I was born too soon...
"The problem w/ this approach philosophically (I think) is that most layered abstractions in real life undergo paradigm shifts as you move from one domain to another. Sure, you can describe cooking via atomic reactions, or even chemistry, but who cares – I guarantee you that a chemical model of cooking won’t likely taste as good as a traditional mixing ingredients w/ a pinch here or there approach.
The same is true for computer paradigms. Every (computer) modeling language is designed to solve a particular set of problems, and will likely be miserably inadequate for problems outside the domain for which this language was intended. Sure, pgmrs can do amazing things w/ languages using techniques that the language designers themselves didn’t forsee – but this is just stretching the limits, not making any fundamental paradigm shift.
I have always tho’t that computer weenies want to play at being God, and that our systems reflect this basic arrogance and prejudice.
Somehow, we feel that this modeling Deus ex Machina is going to solve some implausable problem by inserting the genius of Our-New-Computer- Language-in-God’s-Image into the mix. I am skeptical.
The real world seems rather complex to me and we seem to have varying degrees of comfort and discomfort using many different (internal) systems and models to navigate our way through The Maze. Such is the World.
If we look at the evolution of computer-as-language today, we use a wide variety of linguistic mechanisms ranging from Imperative to Dialogue to point-and-click Exploration to You-Name-It. At the end of the day, most of these linguistic mechanisms are basically proxies for communicating our intent to other people, usually communally through space and time, much as literature communicates intent through space and time.
If we look at the chaos that is the current landscape of ways to communicate our intent via these linguistic automatons, it is pretty easy to see that computer language mechanisms are evolving much the way natural languages evolve – via our ad hoc social systems that determine in a willy nilly way what works and what doesn’t over long periods of time."
May be the approach is wrong.
May be we still do not know the right way.
It happened with the written language.
I have a theory about it.
The first written language was made with idioms (as the Chinese and Japanese still are)which reproduced the concept instead of the sound.
The letters were the biggest improvement in the way of written language.
Because with 26 (Italians, 22)letters we can express all what we think and say.
Simplifying the way of writing allowed many more to access culture and the other bigger step was printing.
Now a days in many countries the basic culture is a matter of wanting more than affording.
The real reinvention of computing will come when the languages instead of using basic data format (string)will use simpler letters with which it will be universally possible to build a common language understood by all computers.
Simplifying computing will make informatics more a matter of wanting than affording.
I regret one thing: that I was born too soon...
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Artificial intelligence.
Originally the designing of artificial intelligence programs was based on logical deduction and rational response.
In consequence it was easier to mimic the thought process of a chess master concerned with determined patterns, than a child which imagines randomly and makes improbable analogies.
To be comparable to the real thing, artificial intelligence has to accommodate subjective as well as objective processes.
And that's about the unpredictable and irrational-in other words, behaving like humans.
We are overlay impressed by the ability to calculate and rationalize, and inadequately impressed by the ability to see possibilities and make connections.
And connections, as Adam and Eve discovered, are what life is about.
In consequence it was easier to mimic the thought process of a chess master concerned with determined patterns, than a child which imagines randomly and makes improbable analogies.
To be comparable to the real thing, artificial intelligence has to accommodate subjective as well as objective processes.
And that's about the unpredictable and irrational-in other words, behaving like humans.
We are overlay impressed by the ability to calculate and rationalize, and inadequately impressed by the ability to see possibilities and make connections.
And connections, as Adam and Eve discovered, are what life is about.
Bloggers and journalist
I fail to see why journalists are in an uproar about bloggers being
marked as distinct from journalists. Clearly bloggers are not held to
the same standards and to include them in your ranks dilutes the
*ahem* reputation that journalists have. In many cases, companies and
politicians share information off the record with journalists - and
that relationship is maintained because journalists know they'll lose
access if they break confidence. Bloggers just don't give a shit and
will "print" anything they want, rarely holding back sensitive information.
I like having bloggers - it makes life interesting. Journalists,
however, seem to have their priorities mixed up by willingly
associating themselves with bloggers and ultimately hurting their own profession.
What makes bloggers interesting is that they'll print what journalists
won't - because they don't have editors telling them they're crossing
a line!
Dan Gilmor has built up 25 years of trust with his sources and
probably has a reasonable understanding of what is publishable and
what is not - but he's no longer a journalist in the traditional
definition - maybe just a trusted blogger. Apple would seek discovery
of his sources if he were to publish the same information as Jason
Ogrady (powerpage) but he would never publish this information! He
wouldn't get into the same fix! How can he be in such an uproar when
what they did clearly supported the violation of trade secrets?
I'm 25 and have been following some of these sites since their
inception and I am capable of recognizing the difference between
journalism and whatever it is that bloggers post.
disclosure: I did once work for Apple, but am no apologist for them.
Bradley Roberts
marked as distinct from journalists. Clearly bloggers are not held to
the same standards and to include them in your ranks dilutes the
*ahem* reputation that journalists have. In many cases, companies and
politicians share information off the record with journalists - and
that relationship is maintained because journalists know they'll lose
access if they break confidence. Bloggers just don't give a shit and
will "print" anything they want, rarely holding back sensitive information.
I like having bloggers - it makes life interesting. Journalists,
however, seem to have their priorities mixed up by willingly
associating themselves with bloggers and ultimately hurting their own profession.
What makes bloggers interesting is that they'll print what journalists
won't - because they don't have editors telling them they're crossing
a line!
Dan Gilmor has built up 25 years of trust with his sources and
probably has a reasonable understanding of what is publishable and
what is not - but he's no longer a journalist in the traditional
definition - maybe just a trusted blogger. Apple would seek discovery
of his sources if he were to publish the same information as Jason
Ogrady (powerpage) but he would never publish this information! He
wouldn't get into the same fix! How can he be in such an uproar when
what they did clearly supported the violation of trade secrets?
I'm 25 and have been following some of these sites since their
inception and I am capable of recognizing the difference between
journalism and whatever it is that bloggers post.
disclosure: I did once work for Apple, but am no apologist for them.
Bradley Roberts
"The economy of means is founded on the richness of technology"
The quality of VoIP highly depends on the economy of bandwidth needed to transport the packets.
That is to say "Less is More".
The first move in any creative process is to introduce constraints.
This brings potentials into focus which may be overlooked in more generous conditions.
A "smart director of the Internet Revolution" could say:
"All I need to make a movie is a computer, a room, a man and a (pretty) girl."
Of course you also need some brain.
The goal for every Net content is "Shrinking".
The smallest the packages, the biggest the audience.
And in the case of VoIP:
"VoIP is limitation, the essence of every call is compression."
That is to say "Less is More".
The first move in any creative process is to introduce constraints.
This brings potentials into focus which may be overlooked in more generous conditions.
A "smart director of the Internet Revolution" could say:
"All I need to make a movie is a computer, a room, a man and a (pretty) girl."
Of course you also need some brain.
The goal for every Net content is "Shrinking".
The smallest the packages, the biggest the audience.
And in the case of VoIP:
"VoIP is limitation, the essence of every call is compression."
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
On HDTV
What is happening with HDTV will also ultimately happen to radio as well.
XM and Sirius satellite radio are the vanguards of digital radio today much as DirecTV and Dish Network were to digital television in the mid to late 90's. Ultimately our existing AM and FM radio stations will also convert over to digital formats allowing us many more channels and much greater access to our media.
It may even be that WiFi (802.11.x) internet access may become common place across the world with little routers on every lamp post so that we can both stream Air Radio off the internet in our cars even as we are driving and talk via VOIP thereby offering new competition to today's cell phone systems.
Ultimately digital will help take radio and TV out of the hands of the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reillys of the world and offer a much more balanced and more diverse radio and TV world.
XM and Sirius satellite radio are the vanguards of digital radio today much as DirecTV and Dish Network were to digital television in the mid to late 90's. Ultimately our existing AM and FM radio stations will also convert over to digital formats allowing us many more channels and much greater access to our media.
It may even be that WiFi (802.11.x) internet access may become common place across the world with little routers on every lamp post so that we can both stream Air Radio off the internet in our cars even as we are driving and talk via VOIP thereby offering new competition to today's cell phone systems.
Ultimately digital will help take radio and TV out of the hands of the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reillys of the world and offer a much more balanced and more diverse radio and TV world.
Roll Your Own Television Network Using Bittorrent
"Mark Pesce, lecturer at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) writes here and here about using p2p networks, specifically bittorrent, to create a grassroots television network.
He cites as an example the BBC's "Flexible TV" internet broadcasting model using that as the core of a "new sort of television network, one which could harness the power of P2P distribution to create a global television network."
Producers of video entertainment and news would provide a single copy of a program into the network of P2P clients, and the p2p network peers distribute the content themselves.
Thus, a virtual 'newswiki' where the content is distributed bittorrent using some sort of 'trusted peer' or moderator mechanisms as a filtering/evaluation mechanism. So what is stopping anyone from doing this now? Awareness of the concept, perhaps? Lack of broadband connections? Lack of business models for content producers?"
He cites as an example the BBC's "Flexible TV" internet broadcasting model using that as the core of a "new sort of television network, one which could harness the power of P2P distribution to create a global television network."
Producers of video entertainment and news would provide a single copy of a program into the network of P2P clients, and the p2p network peers distribute the content themselves.
Thus, a virtual 'newswiki' where the content is distributed bittorrent using some sort of 'trusted peer' or moderator mechanisms as a filtering/evaluation mechanism. So what is stopping anyone from doing this now? Awareness of the concept, perhaps? Lack of broadband connections? Lack of business models for content producers?"
Multicasting
The vast majority of Internet streaming today uses unicast, the original Internet transport protocol, where a separate copy of the stream is sent to every listener or viewer in the audience. Since the sender pays for the bandwidth used, this means that there is an additional cost for each additional user and, as a result, large scale streaming can be expensive.
Things were not supposed to be this way.
The inefficiencies of unicast for media distribution were recognized in the 1980s by Internet scientists and engineers, and multicast was created. In multicast, only one copy of a stream is ever sent out through any link, and the routing protocols replicate the streaming media packets as needed inside the network. Multicast routing is generally seen as the means of making the Internet suitable for streaming broadcast services, and of lowering the costs of distribution.
Work in multicast started in earnest in 1989, and by the early 1990's, the foundations of the current streaming industry were being laid - for multicast. The first audio and video broadcast trials were multicasts of technical meetings in 1992, and by 1995 multicast routing seemed well on its way to widespread adoption. Indeed, in 1995, it would have been more common to find a multicast stream of a live event on the MBone than a unicast one on the "public" Internet.
Today many streaming industry advocates (and pundits) wonder why eleven years after the first test multicasts of streaming, this technology is still not ubiquitous. Will multicast streaming efficiencies ever happen?
What is Multicasting?
Multicasting is a technique developed to send packets from one location in an IP network to many other locations (destinations) without unnecessary packet duplication. In multicasting, one packet is sent from a source and is replicated as needed in the network to reach as many end-users as necessary. Multicasting is not the same as "broadcasting" in networking jargon: broadcast data are sent to every possible receiver while multicasts are sent only to receivers that want them.
The concept of a group is crucial to multicasting. A "group" is defined by a special Internet address, a so-called Class D address (these are reserved for multicast). The multicast service model is intended to make things as easy as possible for streaming applications - sources just send to the group address, and receivers merely indicate their interest in the group (i.e. "join the group") to receive. All of the complexity required to make this happen is hidden away and performed by the network itself.
Multicasting is the most economical technique for sending a packet stream (which could be audio, video, or data) from one location to many other locations on the Internet simultaneously.
Things were not supposed to be this way.
The inefficiencies of unicast for media distribution were recognized in the 1980s by Internet scientists and engineers, and multicast was created. In multicast, only one copy of a stream is ever sent out through any link, and the routing protocols replicate the streaming media packets as needed inside the network. Multicast routing is generally seen as the means of making the Internet suitable for streaming broadcast services, and of lowering the costs of distribution.
Work in multicast started in earnest in 1989, and by the early 1990's, the foundations of the current streaming industry were being laid - for multicast. The first audio and video broadcast trials were multicasts of technical meetings in 1992, and by 1995 multicast routing seemed well on its way to widespread adoption. Indeed, in 1995, it would have been more common to find a multicast stream of a live event on the MBone than a unicast one on the "public" Internet.
Today many streaming industry advocates (and pundits) wonder why eleven years after the first test multicasts of streaming, this technology is still not ubiquitous. Will multicast streaming efficiencies ever happen?
What is Multicasting?
Multicasting is a technique developed to send packets from one location in an IP network to many other locations (destinations) without unnecessary packet duplication. In multicasting, one packet is sent from a source and is replicated as needed in the network to reach as many end-users as necessary. Multicasting is not the same as "broadcasting" in networking jargon: broadcast data are sent to every possible receiver while multicasts are sent only to receivers that want them.
The concept of a group is crucial to multicasting. A "group" is defined by a special Internet address, a so-called Class D address (these are reserved for multicast). The multicast service model is intended to make things as easy as possible for streaming applications - sources just send to the group address, and receivers merely indicate their interest in the group (i.e. "join the group") to receive. All of the complexity required to make this happen is hidden away and performed by the network itself.
Multicasting is the most economical technique for sending a packet stream (which could be audio, video, or data) from one location to many other locations on the Internet simultaneously.
The Importance of Demographics
The Importance of Demographics
[via Sadagopan] Malcolm Gladwell writes:
The relation between the number of people who aren't of working age and the number of people who are is captured in the dependency ratio. In Ireland during the sixties, when contraception was illegal, there were ten people who were too old or too young to work for every fourteen people in a position to earn a paycheck. That meant that the country was spending a large percentage of its resources on caring for the young and the old. Last year, Ireland's dependency ratio hit an all-time low: for every ten dependents, it had twenty-two people of working age. That change coincides precisely with the country's extraordinary economic surge.
Demographers estimate that declines in dependency ratios are responsible for about a third of the East Asian economic miracle of the postwar era; this is a part of the world that, in the course of twenty-five years, saw its dependency ratio decline thirty-five per cent. Dependency ratios may also help answer the much-debated question of whether India or China has a brighter economic future. Right now, China is in the midst of what Joseph Chamie, the former director of the United Nations' population division, calls the "sweet spot." In the nineteen-sixties, China brought down its birth rate dramatically; those children are now grown up and in the workforce, and there is no similarly sized class of dependents behind them. India, on the other hand, reduced its birth rate much more slowly and has yet to hit the sweet spot. Its best years are ahead.
[via Sadagopan] Malcolm Gladwell writes:
The relation between the number of people who aren't of working age and the number of people who are is captured in the dependency ratio. In Ireland during the sixties, when contraception was illegal, there were ten people who were too old or too young to work for every fourteen people in a position to earn a paycheck. That meant that the country was spending a large percentage of its resources on caring for the young and the old. Last year, Ireland's dependency ratio hit an all-time low: for every ten dependents, it had twenty-two people of working age. That change coincides precisely with the country's extraordinary economic surge.
Demographers estimate that declines in dependency ratios are responsible for about a third of the East Asian economic miracle of the postwar era; this is a part of the world that, in the course of twenty-five years, saw its dependency ratio decline thirty-five per cent. Dependency ratios may also help answer the much-debated question of whether India or China has a brighter economic future. Right now, China is in the midst of what Joseph Chamie, the former director of the United Nations' population division, calls the "sweet spot." In the nineteen-sixties, China brought down its birth rate dramatically; those children are now grown up and in the workforce, and there is no similarly sized class of dependents behind them. India, on the other hand, reduced its birth rate much more slowly and has yet to hit the sweet spot. Its best years are ahead.
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