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Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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TIA - the New ESP Research
Interactivity and Access
Workflow Embeds eLearning Tools
Virtual Team Resources
RadioPoint Presentation Tool
10,000 Drones
Economic Sledgehammer
Reverse Engineering is Illegal via DMCA
DOA -- Freedom to Tinker
Protecting Your Identity
Replacing the Wired Infrastructure
Saturday, April 12, 2003
Easy News Topics 1.0 PURL
Easy News Topics (ENT) is an RSS 2.0 module for extending topical metadata management to RSS feeds. I'm really pleased to see Matt and Paolo expanding the metadata structure outward from blogs to RSS. I really can't grasp the more technical aspects of this specification, but I can certainly grasp the possible benefits. And I eagerly await some aggregator support so I can begin playing around with it.Thanks guys. Nice job.
The ENT URL.We have created a PURL, or permanent URL,
http://www.purl.org/NET/ENT/1.0/
to prevent any breakage when the spec moves to a better home. The PURL is the real URL for the spec. [Curiouser and curiouser!]
TIA - the New ESP Research
Bob Frankston on the value of statistics and more reasons to fear the DARPA TIA program.
TIA - the new ESP research?[...] And I am afraid that the country is unable to understand that the so-called scientists (including Adm. Poindexter) who are leading this are about as clueless as the ESP researchers were, as to their biases, etc. Clever computer science, even powerful and correct computer science, will serve the same role in this process that the powerful statistical methods served in the Dr. Rhine's ESP research enterprise. The math was not wrong... but it helped create a delusion.
The result in the TIA case will be very dangerous pseudo-scientific bullshit, I suspect. Unfortunately it will be turned on us. I hope the computer science participants working on the data mining and inferencing tools don't expect a pass because they were "just following orders". [SATN]
Interactivity and Access
Sebastian refers to a Tim Berners-Lee quote from Weaving the Web and asks why so many people see the Web as merely a distribution and retrieval system, with creators/distributors on one side and consumers on the other.
We should be able to create with others.
[...] How come that so many people see the Web mostly as a large distribution and retrieval system? They see designers, creators, domain experts, etc., on one side ... and loads of consumers on the other. Hm... if I think about it... that last sentence reminds me somewhat of schools... [Sebastian Fiedler] [Seblogging News]
It's because we seem to inherently think of ourselves as consumers, except in some narrow area we call a job where we get paid to produce. I don't know if it's cultural or biological in origin (it seems to cross cultural boundaries), but we seem clearly predisposed to act, think, and respond like "consumers" most of the time.
Hence we end up with a 1-way Internet, brain-dead technologies like ADSL, and user-hostile service agreements that preclude the actual use of connectivity for anything other than "consuming". We get media conglomerates who see masses of consumers at the other end of broadband.
We get politicians who think starting the economy requires giving control of the Internet to the conglomerates, so they'll put movies on-line and inspire us to run like lemmings to consume them.
Sebastian also notes that this 1-way dichotomy is prevalent in schools. He's right. Our schools do little to embed in us the belief and understanding that we are all creators -- not just for our jobs, but for ourselves.
We don't all need to write the Great American Novel. We can as easily contribute by serving pictures up to the family album, transcribing family histories, supporting the local homeowners association, or whatever.
We can all create. We can all produce. We can each add something of value to the global collection of consciousness, even if it is of value only to a small group. And we are entitled to access to make that happen. But we won't get access until enough of us understand the equation. And that understanding can come only from grasping, at a fundamental level, the power of interactivity over the network.
Workflow Embeds eLearning Tools
Sam Adkins has made an interesting observation over on Learning Circuits Blog regarding the convergence of e-learning and business process/workflow tools. The idea of managing business processes is increasingly important, but the task is increasingly complex as we are inundated with ever more information. I've never been comfortable with the jargon and IT-centric nature of business process/"workflow" solutions.For one, workflow is a broadly used, ill-defined, catch-all term that can mean almost anything. I often wonder when someone is going to try selling workflow by the slice -- like pizza; or in a box -- like laundry detergent. In the world of business process management (BPM) it has almost always meant some computer-to-computer interaction managed and controlled by some IT geek. Not the sort of thing that can get the support of a typical manager or knowledge worker.
But Sam points to a variety of new BPM offerings that are embedding learning tools into their structure, and are making it easier for normal people to see and understand a business process. This is, to me, the most important change that can happen. In order for any BPM solution to truly optimize a process it must address the human component. A process must be visible to those who perform it, changeable by those who rely on it, and logical and helpful to those affected by it. Until the IT component becomes invisible BPM will never move into the mid-market space, where it is desperately needed.
Workflow Displacing Courseware-based eLearning. I continue to be blown away by new learning technology hitting the market. These innovations are now displacing courseware-based eLearning... [Learning Circuits Blog]
Virtual Team Resources
eLearnspace Blog has posted a short list of links to good resources on the virtual team/group environment. A quick survey of the links shows some promising papers, books, and discussions. No time to delve deeply into them at the moment, but they are well worth noting.
Excellent groupware/virtual team links. I came across some excellent links for groupware/collaborative tools on the Evaluating Elearning group:Groupware Links - extensive listing of journals, types, features, etc. Great resource!
Virtual Teams - good list of resources, tools, wikis.
Virtual Team Articles - links to articles on virtual teams.
RadioPoint Presentation Tool
Back when I first started with Radio there was some interest in the RadioPoint presentation tool, but it sort of faded and I no longer see much activity around it. Many of the files and templates listed on the Docs page are now gone. So I'm looking for anyone actively using RadioPoint. Is Dave using it at Harvard? Is Paolo still using it for presentations? Have there been any further developments in using OPML to create presentations?Just wondering...
Friday, April 11, 2003
10,000 Drones
An amazing tidbit about Google from Bob Cringely. I had no idea it worked liked this.
04/10/03: Out of the Mouths of Dogs. This week, Bob shares random thoughts—beginning with those of his dog, Gilmore.[...] First there is Google, which runs four enormous data centers around the world containing in excess of 10,000 servers. It is the largest Linux cluster of all, and is constructed entirely of generic beige box PCs interconnected by 10/100 Ethernet. These are not racks and racks of state-of-the-art blade servers, just el cheapo PCs. So the magic must be in the software.
Now here is the part that sticks in my mind: the fault tolerant nature of the cluster is such that if a machine fails, the other machines simply take over its functions. As a result, whenever a server fails at Google, THEY DO NOTHING. They don't replace the broken machine. They don't remove the broken machine. They don't even turn it off. In an army of drones, it isn't worth the cost of labor to locate and replace the bad machines. Hundreds, maybe thousands of machines lie dead, uncounted among the 10,000 plus. [...] [I, Cringely @ PBS Online]
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Economic Sledgehammer
As an addendum to the previous post, direct reverse engineering has always been illegal, and the DMCA hasn't changed that. The engineers who developed the x86 clones went to great lengths to do so in clean environments and to avoid any contamination that could be construed as misappropriation of trade secrets or theft. They did this as a direct result of laws that were already on the books exacting severe penalties for such behavior. We did not need the DMCA to protect companies from theft by direct reverse engineering.DMCA extends these severe criminal penalties to the acts of merely discussing such things, investigating them via legitimate research, and engaging in almost any activity that the copyright holder deems to expose his "intellectual property" regardless of whether it causes actual harm or not. Thankfully, the courts have yet to uphold a conviction where no harm has been found and there are those in the legal community who claim this as evidence the DMCA is acceptable and functional law.
These "unbiased" advocates of the DMCA blithely overlook the effects of economic penalty imposed on defendants when a law is structured, as the DMCA, to make them guilty until proven innocent. It is the economic sledgehammer aspect of the DMCA that is most damaging to users and individuals, for it prevents innovation by stifling the willingness to speak, act, or promote any function that may draw a copyright holder's ire.
Reverse Engineering is Illegal via DMCA
According to this InfoWorld article U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns has thrown out a preemptive lawsuit that would have protected the reverse engineering research of Benjamin Edelman, a student fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Nothing new here, nothing unexpected. But I have to ask -- just where would we be if all those engineers who founded AMD, Cyrix, Cypress, and others had been imprisoned or driven to bankruptcy for reverse engineering the x86 architecture?Would the PC revolution have spread so far, so fast? The last time I looked Intel had a $100+ billion market capitalization, $26 billion in net revenues, and $3+ billion in net income. They certainly don't seem to have suffered from competitive reverse engineering. Certainly, they had to work harder to stay ahead, but that's what capitalism and competition is about. It is not about buying off lawmakers to put your competition in jail.
Had the DMCA been in effect 20 years ago there would be no PC revolution, and the losers would have been the users, buyers, and individuals -- the same groups being damaged today by the DMCA.
Judge dismisses DMCA challenge. Reverse-engineering not protected [InfoWorld: Top News]
DOA -- Freedom to Tinker
Not to be confused with Freedom to Tinker the weblog, our real freedom to tinker is being destroyed by the Copyright Cabal and their monetary hold on the political and judicial systems. I wrote about this XBox controversy, and the potential damage it could do, a couple of months ago. I have no doubt that this prediction in the Register article will come true:
[...] However, one thing is certain; the sentence will send an extremely powerful message to anyone else involved in the production or sale of Xbox mod chips in the USA (so far, the attempts of the US Department of Justice to extend the reach of the DMCA beyond its borders have - thankfully - been a failure). Expect a lot of mod chip projects and websites to quietly disappear in the next few days. [The Register]
Wherever one may stand on the issue of applying property rights to technology, it is difficult to argue in favor of laws that strip all property rights away from the legal purchasers of equipment. That's what the DMCA does. I have also noticed since my earlier post that aftermarket manufacturers in several large industries -- including printers and automotive -- are rightfully scared of a full-scale onslaught that will come from manufacturers now that there is a precedent for establishing a legal monopoly in virtually any industry by simply invoking the DMCA.
The DMCA is very bad law -- not a good law that can be misused, but a law that has almost no legitimate use that wasn't already provided by existing laws. Its sole purpose was to establish a draconian environment managed by copyright holders to the direct detriment of users, buyers, and individuals.
Electrical engineering is a crime. Not that we need more proof of the overreaching nature of the DMCA, but there it is. So David Rocci produces and sells "mod" chips for the XBox and gets five months in prison, five months of home detention and a $28,500 fine. Sure, that makes sense, particularly when compared to violent criminals who receive lesser sentences. [algorhythm]
Protecting Your Identity
Here are some good tips for protecting your privacy in both the virtual and physical worlds. I'm pretty cautious about these things but there are a couple of ideas here I hadn't considered, so I figured this list was worth mentioning. I've reposted it in its entirety from Phil's weblog.
Tips for Protecting Your Identity.Much is made of the potential for identity theft in online transactions, but the truth is that the vast majority occurs due to meat-space activities that are much simpler to pull off. I ran across a set of ideas on how to protect your identity and thought they'd be good to record. Some of them are obvious, at least to me, but they probably aren't to everyone. I don't know who the author was. Here they are, edited and augmented by me:
[Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]
- When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts, do not put the complete account number on the "For" line. Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes through all the check processing channels won't have access to it. This is more difficult to do if you use Quicken or some other electronic bill paying mechanism. I've often wished the credit card companies would give me a separate account number from my credit card number.
- Put your work or cell phone number on your checks instead of your home phone. If you have a PO Box use that instead of your home address. Never have your Social Security Number printed on your checks.
- Shred bills, credit offers, bank statements and other correspondence that may contain personally identifying information. This keeps people from rummaging through your trash to gather information that may come in handy for stealing your identity.
- Mail bills and anything else that contains a check or account numbers in a drop box rather than leaving it in your mailbox for the mailman to pick up. Even better, start paying your bills electronically. This prevents thieves from stealing your outgoing mail and using the checks or account numbers.
- Photocopy the important items from your wallet, remembering to get both sides of each license, credit card, etc. Keep the photocopies in a safe place. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel. make sure you have those phone numbers with this information.
- I also carry a photocopy of my passport when I travel either here or abroad. Its probably not a bad idea to keep a photocopy of your driver's license with you when you travel as well in case it gets lost. You might be able to get on a plane and get home with it.
- If your wallet is stolen, its important to cancel your credit cards immediately and notify your DMV and the Social Security administration (if you carry your Social Security card in your wallet---I do not for obvious reasons).
- If your wallet or purse is stolen, file a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where it was stolen, this proves to credit providers you were diligent, and is a first step toward an investigation. There likely won't be one, but you established a record nonetheless.
- Call the three national credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and Social Security number. The alert will notify any company that checks your credit that your information was stolen and they have to contact you by phone to authorize new credit. This will keep thieves from opening new numbers in your name, signing up for cell service, etc. It can stop them in their tracks. The numbers are:
- Equifax: 1-800-525-6285
- Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742
- Trans Union: 1-800-680-7289
- Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271
- Keep copies of all your correspondence with credit card companies. credit reporting agencies, and the government after your information is stolen.
Replacing the Wired Infrastructure
Very encouraging announcement from the WiMAX group. With recent FCC decisions supporting monopoly broadcaster and telco privileges at the expense of consumer rights and technology advancements it's difficult to stay upbeat about the future of the Internet and connectivity in general. But this ComputerWorld article provides some hope in the form of technology developments and technical direction from major producers of wide-area wireless equipment for the 802.16 standard.It looks like WiMAX could provide viable, affordable wide-area wireless backbone connectivity within a couple of years. Though the telco and cable monopolies will put everything they have into preventing, co-opting, or slowing the spread of this technology, it is our only real hope for getting to the affordable 2-way Internet connectivity we need.
The day I can dump my relationship with brain-damaged companies like BellSouth and Sprint and get all my connectivity through EarthLink will be a great day indeed. With luck the WiMAX stuff will get deployed before the FCC mandates let BellSouth toss EarthLink out of their copper network and I have to start paying triple prices for 1/3 the service.
Dropping MAN Pricing. Customer equipment for wireless broadband could drop to $30 in a few years with 802.16: Good insight on the WiMAX announcement by Intel, Nokia, Proxim, Alvarion, and others to form an interoperable standard around 802.16a. The interoperability reduces the cost of developing and proving proprietary extensions. Uses of 802.16a will include T-1 replacement and backhaul service to hot spots. [Wi-Fi Networking News]
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