Tuesday, June 22, 2004

This isn't new. Telecom research is greatly diminished these days and what is still around is largely defocused. Normally I wouldn't comment, but the author ridicules Preston Marshall of DARPA. Preston is a very bright guy and one of the few people who "gets it" that IP is the wrong metaphor for efficient wireless communication. [tingilinde] Over the last couple of weeks, I've been in the DC area twice for meetings at two major Government research funding agencies (not DARPA). One thing that struck me was their evident timidity regarding information technology. They are totally prepared to contemplate highly speculative science goals, but when it comes to computing and communication they feel that more of the same is the way to go. The best example of this is their obsession with grid computing. The grid is basically a huge software-mediated bureaucracy for allocating computation and storage resources. Maybe worthwhile for some purposes, as are other bureaucracies like the FAA or the FCC, but by construction risk-averse. In the meanwhile, the growth rate of collected data in all areas of science exceeds Moore's law, let alone the growth rate of communication speeds. It would appear that exploration of radically new architectures for computing and communication would deserve some attention. But if it does, I didn't hear a peep about it at those agencies. 7:25:36 PM

Jason Kottke: Get the hell out of my way, I'm coming through. [Scripting News] I learned how to move in crowded city streets and subways growing up in Lisbon. Even though I've lived in less crowded and less hectic places in the last 25 years, I still can't accept slow- or erratically-moving pedestrians, and I feel totally at home walking in Manhattan. I love the heightened awareness and subtle control process of moving fast and smoothly in a crowd, using peripheral vision to make last-second course adjustments while focusing way ahead to anticipate what's coming. Sort of like skiing in the trees... 7:07:54 PM