Zero Configuration Networking with Rendezvous

Discussion of how IP beat everyone. DIscussion of how got to Rendezvous. Need address, naming and browsing. What to do if no IP. Use DCHP to pick IP address in permitted range and check to make sure it is not used.

Can use DNA for naming but need fallback if DNA is not available. Pick desired name in .local subdomain. If being used, pick another. Quick Demo.

Use a web cam that has a linux webserver and an ethernet connection. Since it runs Rendezvous can find it. But you need to know the name. Use a browser to find it. Lots of protocols were developed but none worked because they failed to keep it simple. injecting complexity and thus incompatibilities.

So, if already habe multicast DNS can use same code for browsing it? Discussed how do to DNA service discovery. Components of Service Name. Service types identified by what protocol it uses. Also avoid chattiness.

Nice demo of how to hook a printer up to Rendezvous. Just plug in and works.   6:01:17 PM    

Gonzo Collaborative Mapping on the Semantic Web

RDF is just a graph with nodes and connections. can tag data with geodata. Allow 'walking' around London. These ideas go back a long way. Hofstadter in GEB discussed how different webs, even though they describe the same things, may not be isomorphous. How well does an RDF version of London really map to the the 'real' London.

'Everyone can see a little bit of the picture.' when mudlondon is told about new types of spaces, it uses an 'ontobot' to understand it. Using Scalable vector Graphics from GIS to add detail. Could create historical version. Use Pepy's Diary.

Since everyone sees a little bit of the picture, by interconnecting them, we can build a better map. Tough in the UK. All mapping and location data is copyright by the Crown. Free online mapping services may violate copyright. Even the outline shape of Britain is copyrighted!! [Talk about hiding public domain information]

Discussion about difference in copyright between the UK and US.   5:03:54 PM    

Under the Hood of the Internet Archive's Digital Bookmobile

Brewster: How long to print a book? About 20 minutes to print 300 pages. One person can make 30 books an hour. One printer can make about 8 books an hour. For libraries, they could give the book away. Usually $2 to lend a book out and return it.

Put everything together in a couple of weeks. Happened in October. What now? 30 bokmobiles in India. First 2 deployed in next week. Went to India in Jan. Government approved in TWO days. Will make 1 for each state. 3rd world access tot he Public Domain.

Another at the Library of Alexandria. Spin off bookmobile from Internet Archive. Called Anywhere Books. Looking for funding. Buy a book for a donation. Getting grants. Will drive to places in the Bay Area.

Want Universal Access to all Human knowledge. try to prevent what happened to Alexandria's library. 800,000 scrolls. only 3 fragments left today. Many historical libraries get destroyed. build central library but not good at distributing. So digitize and replicate. [Backup]

So put a copy of the Internet Archive in Alexandria. Working on other locations. 16 million books in public domain. 20,000 are digitized. 8 million pre-1923. 8 million between 1923-1963 (need to get copyright clearance done for some of these. this is a tough but ongoing task.)

Digitized public domain is still the public domain. Some people are trying to say 'If you digitize, you reset copyright clock.' This would probably permanently remove these works from the public domain. Darkening of the public domain.

Copyright restriction. In 1790, it was 28 years. Now over 100 or more. Also now everything is copyrigght by default. Before you had to register. So lots of material that really never needed a copyright are still copyrighted. 98% of the books are not longer commercially viable simply because it costs too much to track down copyrights.

Access. Public domain in libraries not accessible to public. Digitizers trying to restrict access. License. Corbis owns a lot of pictures that they went to National Archives to get that they now license. They took public domain items with limited access and now own license to them. So if original item is destroyed, Bill Gates will own only permissble copy that they hold under license. License is forever. This is a problem because many of these materials have only limited access. So they let in Corbis but will not let in anyone else. The Corbis sells it for a license fee.

For many people, particularly the young, 'If it is not on the Internet, it does not exist.' Q & A: Is the bookmobile self supporting? No. Internet Archive is funded same way libraries are. What are other libraries (i.e. Getty or Huntington) doing? Do not know but no one is trying to do 'EVERYTHING'. They do specific projects.  4:29:05 PM    

Peer-to-Peer Semantic Search Engines: Building a Memex

Semantic indexing. look at content. patterns of word use reflect higher-level concepts. dumb math. Used Steven Johnson (Emergence) as a experimental subject. searching for keywords also brings in things that are related without specifically related to the keyword.

Works because of shared words used when discussing a topic. So given two words what is distance between them (based on a specific set of documents). Gave an example of searching with 'Tit-for-tat' and coming up with linnks to vampire bats. In this case, there is an obvious reason [look up the social behavior of vampire bats] but some relationships are not as obvious.  2:34:29 PM    

Rael Dornfest is the 'slide boy'. Matt Petersen will talk about wireless. Bunny Huang again. Andy Phelps on games.

Slide boy having a fun time getting up the 'correct slides'. Quoted Gibson: 'Future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet.' O'Reilly wants to more evenly distribute it.

Find interesting people/technologies and help amplify their effectiveness. Must recognize alpha geeks (recognizers of new tech). Aask people who they are and follow the trail until you get to the top.

Filters: Conversations are an important way to make things happen. Look for disruptive tech. On a long term trend. Bottom up approach. Inspires passion. Has social implications.

Rob Frederic on Amazon.com and web services. Amazon as a platform, not a retailer. Using web services to provide tools for endusers to use in surprising ways. Discussion of AWS 2.1 and AWS 3.0. Some nice points (i.e. XSLT turns xml into any ml). XML more popular than SOAP.

Some people using AWS. Calin makes a storefront look like an Amazon site but has many different pieces. Pulls in not only Amazon sellers but also other 3rd party ones. Can do compare.[ Very cool.]

YES.net uses web services to provide what songs are playing on any station in the nation. This also makes it very interesting becuase you could then tie recognition capabilities to purchasing the music. Only need to add a small amount of code to html. Can also add sound recognition. Use phone to 'hear' the music from the radio station (you have to tell it which station) and tell you what it is (and you can buy it).

Matt Petersen and wireless. Bay Area Wireless Network. ast mile costs. Public Safety is a driving force. government communcation. Shock and Awe demonstrated by hooking up police at internet at Hunter's point which had no other way to connect [good laugh]. Easy to provide access where broadband is not available. [I need this. The area we moved into has no broadband and is not likely to anytime soon.].

Keeps competition ON the other internet providers. Put in parks. Helps benefits businesses surrounding the parks. Community news reporting. Trying to get spot on Sutro Tower on Twin Peaks. technology allos easy swap with new tech and new antennas.

Running way behind but Bunny is up. No slides but will win it. Hardware is hardware not a tool for enforcement. Example was to develop heart monitor using a gameboy. This is cheaper for 3rd world uses but needed to get approval to reverse engineer [if you can not ever get permission, you would never be able to have created such a device. DCMA and DRM will hamper innovation.]

Quickly with Andy Phelps. No slides and really short [laugh]. player community around MMUGS. at Phank. Users hacking into in order create their own social organizations. Funds its needs by novel approaches.  2:12:19 PM    

Biocomputing - Ants as a model

Create artificial insects. Flexible. Robust. Decentalized. Self-organized. Bottom up approach. How do we shape emergence? [Can we?] How do we define individual behavior to produce desired emergent behavior? Again, look at Nature [the environment. Not the magazine].

Actually, look at Double-Bridge experiment.[Sorry. I do not know if this is free. I just used google to search fordouble bridge experiment ant, and this was a top link. try one of the other links.] But this figure uses exactly what Eric describes [t should since it is from his Nature paper]. Evaporation adds robustness to the trails but preventing a convergence to a local minimum if there is a better path somewhere else.

Now discussing traveling salesman problem. Hard to compute. This is from his Nature paper also. Using virtual ants, you can get a solution. In fact it also finds more than one solution. Also can alter if some of the nodes (cities) disappears or changes. So it allows almost real-time analysis. This permits dynamic factory scheduling.

Goggle found another article discussing some of Eric's work at Science News. He is discussing bucket-brigade approaches. Ants again helped identify how to do this optimally. It is being used by many companies.

[Font problems. It is all in Greek right now.]Discussing Aggressor-Protector game.

Problems with simple rules. Army ants and circular mills [here is a picture from last years meeting. This is from May Woo's site who is supposed to be at this meeting.] Vicious cycle. No one ant is in control. Same idea with nest building in wasps. hard to find the rules for building complex structures. Took him some time to define rules.

Here is a powerpoint presentation to Eric's talk from last year.  11:55:37 AM    

Some discussion about legacy software and databases. Could trying to read a 10 year old document from Word 4 in another non-MS program violate the DMCA? Could a database manufacturer use encryption to prevent users from ever moving to another progtam? Then software owns the customers data.

Break time.  10:32:28 AM    

What happens when the next version of Office, which has DRM aspects, comes out? This would probably only prevent any other software from reading Word files (i.e. Open Office). [So, Keynote would not be able to read Powerpoint files. This means that the user can only read content if they have the proper software. Tying content to a specific vendor willbe very limiting.]

DRM in Office will cause problems both when it fails (i.e. boss can't read the document) and when it succeeds (i.e. no one can comment on a paper.)  10:21:42 AM    

Joe, founder of DigitalConsumer.org, described how he got going. How the DRM debate seems to exclude the enduser. 50,000 members. Is in Washington most of the time. Members of committees believe Hollywood story. no balance for consumers. have framed argument to 'are you for or against theft?' which is not the real question for DRM.

Belief that fact based arguments will affect political argumentsis a naive view for most technologists. Politicians do not really listen to fact-based, logical argument. We would not have copy machines, cassettes, MP3 players if DRM and DMCA were around. But people can make a difference.

Washington know that ANY decision they make will upset someone. they need to know what constituency will support their decisions.

Wendy Selzer (EFF) up next. DRM as Digital Restriction Management. How does copyright fit and what are the rights (limited) of the copyholder. [There is a balance between copyright holders and users]. There is an important balance that is being upset by technologies. Now copyright holders can control access to their copyright, not just the work itself. So they could say that you could only read their works on a specific player. If you tried to read it on another player, you could go to prison.

Copyright today for digital works permit you to only access the work. You never own it. So by controlling access, you control the work. [It is as if they could prevent you from reading a book you bought unless you paid them EVERY time you opened up the cover. They still owned the book, You only have the right to open the cover AFTER you pay them].

Now oto real world levels, to Bunny Huang. Personal account of DRM effects. Used to be at MIT. He hacked XBox and is dealing with DMCA. Wanted to make the machine do what he wanted.[this is what fosters innovation. The "I want to take the watch apart to see how it works". Many engineers would never exist if they were prevented from taking a box apart.] Found ways around and through MS security so it could run Linux, etc.

Xbox is really a computer. Can you only run the OS that MS decides to run on its hardware or are hardware/software separate? Can MS now work with chip vendors to leverage its monopoly and control both hardware and software? [Logically, could car makers prevent independent garages from working on their autos by using DZRM and DMCA? You bet and it has already been dicussed.]

The ability to get a second opinion is a necessary need for users. By tying everything from software and hardware into a single entity, what effects on our rights to use a tool for whatever WE want. All being done to foster business interests Secure PC may not be helpful for us.

Cory up now. Bad news and good news. Mostly bad news heard so far. But we have some good news. In 18 months Napster built a huge network WITHOUT a top down approach. After this library was burned to the ground by copyright, it was raised again. Compare with burning of Library at Alexandria.

But bad news and blame does not reside entirely with Media, or Silicon Valley, etc. We are the problem. 57 million users of Napsters. 50 million voted for Bush. More people used this than voted for the president. Where did they go?

Copyright helps build libraries and compensates artists. Napster did not provide that. We should be having debate about how to compensate artists, not how to stop the technology. We have had this same debate over the last 100 years. We always figured out how to change how artists get compensated.

None of these dealt with DRM. DRM asks 'How do we burn down the library for GOOD?' [applause]Wrong question. If this had been brought up in the 30s, or the 70s we would be in a very different and poorer world.

Comments on how Larry Lessig says we should give EFF as much money as we give the Media Cartel. We should start giving the right answers. Let's find a way to compenstae artists, not how to burn the library.

Time for questions.  10:12:39 AM    

A Day At EtCon (Etech)

Job-Creation Arithmetic. Paul Krugman writes, The average American worker earns only about $40,000 per year; why does the administration, even on its... [EconLog: Library of Economics and Liberty]

Statistics are why economics is called the dismal science. You can find some sort of number to justify totally opposite actions. ALthough the inaccuracy detailed here is pretty obvious, the difficulty for most of us is that the numbers usually are not so. Discussing averages when medians should be used. Saying things like "The top 1% will receive 90% of the money", etc. just serve to obfuscate the issue. I feel like I am listening to a phone ad where they make everything so confusing that you just give up and do not try to change anything. If there was ever a place for Emergent Democracy, dealing with the spin of economics is it.  7:42:45 AM    

Will Code For Food. To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that people are still putting on job fairs in Silicon Valley, because there can't be that many firms that really find such things useful. The latest job fair from BrassRing only had 30 companies looking for workers, though there was no shortage of unemployed techies waiting in long lines at their booths for the potential to talk to them. Of course, most of the companies are defense or government contractors - the same companies who couldn't get techies to even glance in their direction three years ago. Meanwhile, there were almost as many organizations at the job fair presenting "services" for unemployed people - such as helping them rollover their 401(k) plans or reviewing their resumes. The article points out that, once again, the best way to find a job is through personal networking, rather than any sort of "free for all" approach. [Techdirt]

It is the same in biotech. Job fairs aregood for getting business cards of the right people in HR but for actually getting a job they seem to be below answering ads. I have used them as networking opportunities rather than actually trying to get a job.  7:33:45 AM    

"Hollywood revives McCarthyist climate " [Daypop Top 40]

The article is, of course, correct. Hollywood is made up of millions of people and it is ludicrous to act like it speaks with one voice. Only one of its voices is being answered by hate mail and death threats. That is the liberal one. As Mike Farrrel said it is the access to the media that causes actors to be reviled. The intimidation of them serves to intimidate quite a lot of others who might share similar views. If Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon can be so publically attacked, what about Joe Blow working as a middle manager. Just as the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities the abuse of used well known people to intimidate the average person, so to are the attacks today being used. I do not think it will work.  7:27:58 AM