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Comments from Frankston, Reed, and Friends
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Saturday, January 12, 2002 DanB at 3:19 PM [url]: Weblog setup complete Now that David and Bob are both set up with Blogger, Bob has posted a piece, and I've put something in from David as the first essay, the setting up of this weblog is complete. Next I have to let people know about it. For people not used to reading emails from Bob Frankston, some notes: When Bob speaks, he often speaks quickly. When he emails, he usually writes a lot and quickly. Typos are extremely common. You can let him know about them, but they'll appear a lot nonetheless. The typos are usually spelled correctly, but are words that sound like what he meant, or missing a "not" or something. It makes reading more fun and more like listening on a cell phone. If you think he meant something different than what he wrote, ask. David's stuff is usually more like the stuff you'd expect from an ex-MIT professor. He often uses math as part of his logic, or other interesting theories. After all, he did co-author the End-to-End Argument paper, and is the author of Reed's Law. I hope you find this weblog interesting. After years of getting emails from these guys almost daily, it's nice to have a place where others can share in hearing what two very smart visionaries have to say. -DanB Friday, January 11, 2002 BobF at 11:46 PM [url]: Broadband vs. Connectivity at PC Forum This is based on a letter I sent about PC Forum to Esther Dyson. I received response from her saying that she agrees. To learn more about the conference you can go to the PC Forum web site. I�ve found myself getting increasingly involved in the connectivity issues (see "BeyondTelecom"). I'm happy to see that �Broadband� is one of the topics on the agenda for the conference but I feel that the term �Broadband� is dangerous and essentially gives the game away to those who want to take the soul of the net hostage and treat the Internet as just another lousy TV channel used to delivery �content� for us to consume. While I�ve viewed my advocacy of connectivity as somewhat Quixotic, I�ve found resonance in many quarters and an increasing recognition that competition defined in terms of telephony and television are a disservice to the industry and the economy. It also spills over into the �security� agenda since we are in a dangerous situation of shying away from the flexibility of the Internet in favor of brittle solutions that seem to offer safety but have the opposite effect. At the heart of this is coming to terms with growing up and recognizing that there isn�t really a common industry anymore; just disparate players coming upon each other as we try to discover what to do now that industries like telecom have been reduced to defending their turf as it simply disappears. Television used to be defined by the limitations of the �pipe� with few providers delivering content to the masses. What does it when we can all contribute? I didn�t intend to write a long note but I�m feeling increasingly like it�s 1979 and I am playing with the Apple ][ while everyone else is fixated on word processors. I was at CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) this week and I�m amazed at PC people who wonder why I would want to be able to extend or redefine all those wonderful products that are being offered. It�s as if I am committing a crime by taking away their toys (TiVo users feel very threatened). It�s as if I advocated breaking up ATT�how would anyone be able to make a long distance call. At a cost of $1/minute (OK, so I�m overstating it), we can�t afford to make any changes in how we dial a call and we can�t be so arrogant as to use an answering machine (remember those days?). Connectivity is really what the Internet is about. The Web is just an application. It�s as if we talked about television as the HSN (Home Shopping Network) instead of video streams. It is vital that the attendees understand that the Internet is not HSN or the Web. It is also important to recognize that an Internet that is a maze of twisty windy passages with VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) negotiating with the Maginot Lines (firewalls) and PC�s that are second class participants due to the lack of IP addresses is a major impediment to the growth of the industry. At least to the industry I want and, I argue, we need. But it is a boon to those who are deathly afraid of change. It�s also important to understand that some geeky issues like encrypted IPV6 have a major affect on whether our universe is going to grow or collapse in on itself. With encrypted V6, for example, 802.11 access points become resources rather than leaks. I look forward to the opportunity to address these issues at PC Forum this year. Wednesday, January 09, 2002 DanB at 8:18 PM [url]: ASCII vs. Binary David comments on a ZDNet article that complained that ASCII protocols like those with XML take up too much bandwidth compared to binary ones. Read: ASCII vs. Binary. DanB at 2:44 PM [url]: First post to this weblog Welcome to our new weblog! This is a weblog for comments and links from Bob Frankston, David P. Reed, and others they choose to invite. For more information, read the About page. |
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