Hey kids - get off of my lawn

A very interesting conversation on the merits of top-down vs bottom-up standardization “on the web”. Somehow IETF is considered big and slow and in the way. And a Microsoft employee argues the IETF route wanting to ban “standards” produced by “Google emplyees in their spare time”.

Steve’s post only hints at what and why and how is at stake, please listen to his Gillmor gang conversation for the lowdown on how OAuth, OpenSocial and other useful standards make it or don’t make it into widespred and accepted use by large and small web entities. What’s your take on this Paf?

/peter

Tekniken på internet

Toksnyggt. Innehålls- och presentationsmässigt. Dagsaktuellt.Står alla våra beslutsfattare stadigt på dessa grunder?

I use a Macbook as my main machine. Also have a Mac in the basement to to heavy lifting of photo editing. And the kitchen-computer is a Mac. But there is also a Vista box down there in the basement that still holds many years of windows formatted data. And an Ubuntu laptop. And my son’s got a Linux box with Tuxpaint, too.

Most of these computers don’t move around much but the Macbook occasionally (daily!) travells to work. And sometimes I need to share files in smaller contexts, such as when working with Teldok20 or with my choir. Or when visiting my folks to patch their computer.

Nothing large, no enterprise requirements. Simple file sharing. In some of these scenarios, some of the time, it would be swell to have seamless cloud storage. It seems, according to Ars, that dropbox delivers. I am going to try. Macbook and Linux laptop are up, and an invitation is sent out to one trusted sceptical friend. Would he rather that we use  ‘da drupal’? Ars has an answer to why Dropbox might be a better alternative. I don' know yet.

The TWiT Netcast Network with Leo Laporte

Wow. So many take-aways from the interview with this gentleman who is in charge of open source and open standards at Sun.

“How did it happen that we got proprietary software in the first place? It was an unintended consequence. IBM had to start witholding source code in order to comply with the court’s consent decree.” (Anti-trust suit brought in 1969, verdict in 1983.)

“When you create a system, you inevitably create the game that plays it.”

“How do you monetize in the open source world? You charge at the point where the user finds value, rather than at the promise of value, which is the old proprietary model.” (For this particular quote, 28 minutes into the 70 minutes long interview.)

But mostly Simon, Leo and Randall talk on the issues of transparency, privacy, secrecy and the inevitalble coming of communities around Open Source.

I will edit this post, or follow up with more posts on this tremendously important topic, as soon as I’ve found time to dig deeper into Sinom’s writings and doings.

/peter

The Future of Microblogging | A Stubborn Mules Perspective

Ok, many before me pointed to this post. It’s exiting to observe in real time as important architectural decisions are made. Shall Microbloggin (Twitter, Jaiku and the others) be island communities much like the IM systems (Google Talk, MSN Messanger etc) or will we see standard based interoperability such as it emerged in the email world?

Free the Airwaves: Whitespace campaign Lessig Blog

Regulating the airwaves - Older Lessig blog post

I veckan ska jag börja läsa “Effektivare signaler”, ett betänkande av frekvensutredningen. Allt för att bygga en bas inför ett eventuellt kommande seminarium på “Någonting i luften”-tema i Teldok2.0-regi. Vad tror, tycker ni? Är frekvenspolitik uppabstraherat ett eller ett par nivåer en tillräckligt brinnande aktuell och stormande viktig fråga för samhällsutveckingen för att vi ska köra ett seminarium därom, tentativt i v. 46? Kommentera gärna, samt tipsa oss om bakgrundsmaterial vi bör studera in för att kunna begränsa opch specificera frågeställningen korrent. Kommentera här, eller delicious.com-tagga med etp2 (för Ekonomi, teknik, politik, seminarie 2).

Larry Lessig argumenterar från amerikansk horisont för att fler och större bitar spektruk ska lämnas helt fria. Vi såg alla hur WLAN-utvecklingen sköt fart i slutet av 90-talet trots allt som företrädare för “ordning och reda bland vågorna” varnade för. Såja, jag ska inte skriva förrän jag läst på. Återkommer.

Cory Doctorow: Big Brother is not watching | Technology | guardian.co.uk Too much data ruins the investigation, every time.

Yep. Så är det. Medan hela världen “jag har inget att dölja” rusar vidare på väg ned i det svarta hålet. 

Vitt? Svart? Grått! Balans. Lagom. Kontroll. Transparens. Ge polisen och den militära underrättelsetjänsten bättre resurser att göra riktigt grävande arbete där det är motiverat istället för att fylla alla databaser from here to hell med mer och mer brus.

Official Google Blog: Introduction to Google Search Quality

I’ve been a little involved with the Search Engine Optimiztion (SEO) industry lately. Many have heard of and ‘know about’ PageRank and think ‘it is is’ in terms of being displayed high in the Google search results pages. It is not, and the post above begins to unwrap the way Google (and other search engine companies) work to ensure we get the results we want… At least that’s what they claim is their goal, and the only goal. Hm. I actually believe they’re sincere in this. Only I (and every other searcher out there) need to understand what are ‘results’ and what is paid advertising on the results pages. Different actors vary in thel lavel of clarity here. Plus, and that’s the raison d’etre for this post, we need to understand and manage settings for language, domain and more as illustrated by the quote below:

The most famous part of our ranking algorithm is PageRank, an algorithm developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who founded Google. PageRank is still in use today, but it is now a part of a much larger system. Other parts include language models (the ability to handle phrases, synonyms, diacritics, spelling mistakes, and so on), query models (it's not just the language, it's how people use it today), time models (some queries are best answered with a 30-minutes old page, and some are better answered with a page that stood the test of time), and personalized models (not all people want the same thing).

PageRank is important, but it is only a small part of why a certain site is important and valued by google at different points in time, for diffenent search contexts.

TidBITS Opinion: No, David Pogue, Ebook Piracy is Not a Given

This is a follow-up to my muddled explanatory powers of the earlier post about “Rip it, Burn it or Buy it!". Adam explains better than I’ve seen before the likely mechanisms of digital delivery of electronic goods, and how it helps many businesses. He gives us many of the techniques he uses to sell (to date) more than 400.000 copies of DRM free mac books with almost no illicit sharing.

…“Why are his books being shared illicitly whereas ours are not? Certainly, some of it has to do with us providing an easy, inexpensive way for interested readers to purchase the electronic versions they want, and all the little things we do to discourage rampant copying undoubtedly help as well”

Thanks Adam - a great read!

High-speed academic networks and the future of the Internet

Understanding Infrastructure | Linux Journal

I have been working with Network Neutrality over the last months. We delivered a seminar Monday afternoon. Many liked the discussion. In this process, the definition of Infrastructure is important. Doc covers it. I will comment further below as soon as I’ve re-read.

Clay Shirky’s Internet Writings

It’s clear now, what Clay was doing since 2003 or so when the stream of excellent writing  from his pen ebbed. He was writing a book.  “Here comes Everybody” is reviewed in many places. Clay spoke at the Berkman center on the day of publishing three weeks ago. Good overview until I get the book.

IT Conversations: danah

I think Anyone will be captured by the energy this woman outputs. First podcast in years that I listened to twice, and will listen to again as I drive up north into mountain country with my family. Helps that I was always a ‘social informatics’ buff. The stuff she covers is dynamite. I need to stop being the wizard around my family and friends. It’s not them who are mugglars, it’s me.

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Antisocial | PBS

Bob notes. As does Jon Udell in his interview with Valdis Krebs. That social networks are a fad. I am a member of Linkedin, but adamantly refuse Facebook and all the others. How do You do it?

The Kitchen Computer

Kevin Kelly’s description of the use his kitchen computer gets very much reflects the scenario in my own family. In fact, the kitchen computer (a macmini with eyetv and softsqueeze software for teve and radio) was the first computer my dear Mimi “enjoyed”. Wife Acceptance Factor is hard to come by, but we treasure our MacMini, and our three year old not only watches Bolibompa but speaks to grandpa in Phoenix Arizona regularly as well as… The screen get’s the occasional finger print but… that’s a worldy matter.

Picture of really old 1969 computer for kitchen is also mentioned in ChrisAnderson’s excellent short on Free: “… a stylish kitchen appliance offered by Honeywell in 1969, came with integrated counter space.”

Conceptual Trends and Current Topics

Kevin Kellys LifeStream är min favoritläsning. Idag (! när jag läser) skriver han om hur det är att ‘jobba’ i olika yrken. Jag har genom Jon Udells långvariga intresse letat liknande sajter länge. Fascinerande!

AppleInsider | Apple TV Take 2: an in-depth review (part 1): what’s new

Länken ovan ser på rubriken ut att vara en recension av Apples andra release av AppleTV. Stämmer. Men såå mycket mer döljer sig i den tudelade artikeln som jag rekommenderar alla med det minsta intresse för hemmabio eller "ICT policy" att läsa.

Marknaderna ser olika ut på olika kontinenter, i olika länder. Olika typ av konkurrens och behov av olika (mycket) reglering. Jag studerar för tillfället "Network Neutrality" (inför ett ännu outlyst super-seminarium den 16 april - ni läste det först här!) och inser hur olika detta ämne  ser ut i olika länder. Och EFTERSOM vi alla blir allt mer internationellt sammanknutna kommer (av nationella aktörer föreslagen) nationell reglering ha mindre och mindre chans att få fotfäste, att vara relevant. Så hur ska vi göra i lilla Sverige?: När kommer iTunes store att få tillåtelse att börja hyra ut film, i Sverige? När får amerikanarna tillgång till konkurrenskraftiga priser på "consumer broadband"? När förstår svensson-konsumenten att de inte får bättre bild av att köpa platt-teve? Och så vidare. När vi börjar förstå, kan vi börja resonera, på ett högre plan...

Social Graph API: One small step for Google, one giant step for the Internet Operating System

 But a real platform service makes it possible for developers to do things entirely outside the realm of the originating provider's application. Unlike OpenSocial, which I found disappointing, the Google Social Graph API is a game-changing play in the social networking space. It's a huge step towards open standards and a level playing field in smart social apps, and exposes Google's data and infrastructure in a subtle and powerful way. I can't wait to see what comes next!

I am involved with a search/linking/directory service at work. Because of that I found the recent radar a very interesting read. One quote (of many):

 Mahalo is placing a bet on human intervention in search results; Wikia Search on the power of making its ranking algorithms open and transparent (a la open source software). But both are trying to re-draw the boundary between human and machine. 

Ok, how does one balance being connected and being un-connected/un-reachable? Should I use Google gears to traverse rss feeeds on my train-ride home, or should I read connected using my 3G fixed rate modem? Do I really need the ScribeFire offline blog posting client? Yes, I think so. I think I am slightly stresseed by composing “online”, even though I see wordpress make frequent automatic draft-saves.

Hm. How do you balance?

Powered by ScribeFire.

Amazon backend skalar precis när man behöver. Men kostar premium, och vågar man lita på dess existens in perpetuum? Flera skolor i USA ger studenterna möjlighet att lära sig och designa för Amazons virtuella maskiner, datalager, köer, databas mm.

En datahall med el,kyl,personal,rackspace-försörjning skalar INTE omedelbart. Den som köper kapacitet där har ALLTID för mycket eller för lite kapacitet, och det är på denna mismatch som housing-företagen lever…

Harwards CIO är på andra sidan nätet i denna tennismatch. Han, liksom andra med hans yrke, får skit när man har för lite kapacitet, och får skit när man betalar för överkapacitet. Han skapade ett verktyg för att “… To help understand the relationship of real estate, power, cooling, storage, network bandwidth and costs…”

geekdoctor.blogspot.com/2008/01/d…

Applicerbar på svenska förhållanden? Till nytta för någon?

/peter

Backstory: Under ett par år (minst…) har Jon Udell jagat yrkesverksamma bloggare i andra branscher (än IT). De är svåra att finna, än så länge är det nästan uteslutande kontors-nördar och tekniker som använder Internet som vi gör på denna lista - till att hjälpa varandra.

För ett par månader sedan gjorde Udell mig uppmärksam på geekdoktor, CIO på Harward Medical School, och igår pekade han på något som jag tror flera av er/oss kan ha nytta av, direkt, eller som modell för en försvenskad version.