Circumcision does not dull sensitivity: study [Reuters Health eLine]

Thank Goodness. I would have loved to have seen the grant application for this work!  8:34:59 AM    

Hydra collaborative editor catching on. Writing on his ETech weblog on the O'Reilly Networks site, Robert Kaye digs into how Hydra, the collaborative text editor, works in a conference environment: The Hydra collaborative editor at work. [Mac Net Journal]

Kaye describes not only Hydra, but what it was like to be a new Mac user at ETCon. WHat a marvelous time it must have been. I've been using Macs since 1984 (I still have my 128K upstairs. I start it up and play Airborne - written by Jonathan Gay for Silicon Beach Software whenb he was still in High School - every so often). I was excited with Hydra. What it must have been like to become a part of the Mac community at ETCon and seeing the explosion of enthusiasm for Hydra. I hope it was not too overwhelming.  8:31:40 AM    

Scale Free Networks.

The May 2003 issue of Scientfic American has an article on Scale Free Networks.  The free information online doesn't do it justice.

This article explores such questions as what happens as new actors come on board with respect to the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game?  Naïvely, one would assume that eventually a seventh degree would be required.  What happens in practice is that  power law effects kick in.  Most new actors end up being supporting actors in a movie with a popular actor, and in the process the popular actor gets more popular.

What are the implications?  Pretty profound. 

For decades the presumption has been that radio spectrum is scarse and that organizations like the FCC are required to regulate them.  Recently this has been questioned.  Perhaps adding stations increases capacity.  Counter-intuitive, perhaps, but not impossible.

Now lets turn to the realm of people.  Clay Shirkey has ruminated on the relationship between Communities, Audiences, and Scale.  What he says seems reasonable, but the question remains:

What if Clay Shirkey is wrong?

[Sam Ruby]

This is a discussion that will only be answered by living through it. It may well be that Clay's argument is absolutely right - humans cannot deal with a densely connected network due to natural constraints (we evolved to deal with no more than 150 connections). But can we develop tools to overcome this or will we develop communities that act like a pseudo-connected network? (fewer connections but enough to balance our limitations with the potential for information flow that comes from networks). By being 3-4 links from everyone rather than 1-2? Humans are nothing if not adaptable. Perhaps we will find some way to get around the 150 barrier or make the densely connected network appear to be no more than 150 people to our feeble brains?  8:11:25 AM    

Where did SARS come from? The odds say zoonosis. I frequently get comments on SARS Watch Org and via email, suspicious that the SARS virus was created by somebody, because how could it appear from thin air? The probable answer is explained in this interesting article from the Boston Globe, Crossing the species barrier, which gives has some good background for the lay person on zoonosis, or the common spread of diseases from animal to human. The article gives examples of the many diseases that have crossed over from animals. A sample: When... [SARS Watch Org]

The Boston Globe article has some good info. One of the lessons from Jared Diamond's classic book, Guns, Germs and Steel, was its convincing proposition that many of our most common illnesses came from the domestication of animals (i.e. smallpox). Zoonosis is an easy route for viruses to hop to a new niche. Until our immune systems adapt, they can cause huge problems. Pandemics always look like they appear from nowhere. That is the power of exponential growth.  7:58:59 AM    

Hydra and iStorm. Hydra caused quite a stir at ETCon last week. I thought it very helpful in getting a group to capture thoughts together. iStorm is a similarly positioned product. I looked into it and here's what I thought. [Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]

Some more thoughts on Hydra. I was excited to see that the group behind Hydra is looking to integrate it with iChat (if seamless, this could add some really useful aspects to both). Being able to maintain colors of the participants is probably the biggest request.  7:44:55 AM    

InfoSpace's ousted CEO contests company's `non-compete' clause. BELLEVUE -- If InfoSpace's former chief executive officer is right, the non-compete agreements that many high-tech workers sign may be worthless. [Business]

Ohh. I just love a business cat fight.  7:38:18 AM    

Here come the Wi-Phones. Can you say killer app? I already have. But the equipment rollout from companies like Cisco, Telesym, NEC, and Vocera is happening even faster than I expected. [Werblog]

After hearing about using Wi-Fi to get Iraq's phone service up again, the use of WI-Fi phones is intriguing. I wonder what sorts of telephone deals will be coming out. Should make T-Mobiles move into Wi-Fi at Starbucks a very prescient move.  7:28:23 AM