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Sunday, August 11, 2002 |
The Internet is Broken: You can tell that the Internet is broken because before you use it you have to do a lot of work to "fix" it. You have to tweak configuration settings on your computer, your pager, your cell phone, your PDA, and anything else you want to use with the Net. Before you can buy something online you have to type registration information information. Before you can send a file from one computer to another you have to set up and configure software on each one. To set up your internet-enabled cell phone you have to key in all of your old speed dial numbers. Before you can read your email you need to find out your POP3 server address, SMTP server address, and perhaps figure out port settings, firewall configurations and maybe even proxy addresses and settings. You have to remember dozens of different usernames and their corresponding passwords. It's a mess. To help address the mess, business executives have expensive IT teams to set it all up and keep it all working. Ordinary users have big and expensive technical support call centers they can ask for help...for every product they buy and every service they subscribe to.
It's only going to get worse. If you thought it was hard to get your PC configured, think a few years ahead when the prices have continued to drop. You can buy a laptop for $50, and fancy PDAs will be available in bubblepacks at K-Mart for $5. Imagine having to configure your cell phone, PDA, car computer, personal video recorder, video game console, stereo components, your second, third, and fourth computers, and those of your spouse, your kids, and your Mom. Imagine all of the services that you would want to use on each of these...email, instant messaging, telephony, file sharing, scheduling, Web browsing, online games, and purchasing items online. It's already more than the average person can comprehend. Before long it will be more than the average systems integration professional can effectively manage too.
The reason for this mess is that there's a missing abstraction layer (or at least part of one) in the OSI protocol stack. While there are numerous standard ways of delivering services to devices (using standard protocols like HTTP, POP3, and SMS) there are no standard ways for services and devices to discover one another. At AuthentiKey we are working to fix this by providing a standard way for people, services, and devices to understand one another.
Over time I will post ongoing information about our system for stitching together people, devices, and services through automated systems rather than manual fiddling. You can always see more goodies (and demos and such) at our website: http://www.authentikey.net/
6:35:11 PM 
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Gnome Patrol: The intrepid French might not be so great at fighting Nazis or terrorism, but they have detected a mass migration of lawn gnomes and are taking swift steps to counter this scourge!
6:26:15 PM
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International Opinions of the USA: Last week's Star Tribune editorial America The Arrogant damning the US for being too arrogant has spurred several responses such as the Hugh Parmer's, but so far I have not seen anyone get the real lesson to be learned here. No amount of charity work, free food, or pulling a continent out of the rubble of a world war is going to make the European intellectuals approve of the United States. The reason is that what actually makes them upset has nothing to do with our arrogance or lack of it. It has to do with our success (which they are endlessly envious of) and their own lack of impotence (which of course is mostly their own fault, though being socialists at hear they will never admit that).
The way to get some respect is not to apologize for our successes or to ask the experts in foreign affairs from Paris and Berlin for advice before we tie our shoes in the morning. It is to speak up about why and how we have become so successful and point out that it is the European intellectuals who should be apologizing for dragging the world into war twice in the past 100 years and demolishing the economic and social fiber of their countries through socialistic policies. High taxes, bureaucracies, and social paternalism might be explained by centuries of monarchy, but it's time for them to grow up and join the 21st century.
When the communists took control of countries during the cold war they would flood them with books by Marx, Lenin, and try to convince the locals that what they were up to was a good idea. When the United States invaded Afghanistan did it bring along thousands of copies of books by Paine, Madison, Locke, Bastiat, and Rand? Of course not. They tried to win hearts and minds by giving away food and apologizing for being there. That will work a little bit for the common folks who would have otherwise gone hungry, but that's not who determines the political course of any society, it's the educated heads of schools, governments, business, and the press. These are the people we invite to come to our universities...to study Marx and Lenin.
Anyone who is so arrogant as to assume the right to control the lives of others and steal their property should not be lecturing the United States about arrogance, they should be apologizing themselves and getting out of the way as we save their bacon...again.
5:03:36 PM
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Now THAT'S SECURITY: LAX "Security" officials foil a hijacking attempt by a 55 year old female British tourist by confiscating a TWO INCH LONG GUN carried by a GI Joe doll she was carrying as a gift for her grandson.
4:27:06 PM
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Blogging Away! -- After a great deal of procrastination I have finally started my own Web log. What am I planning to put here? I have a couple of things in mind:
- Geek Stuff: Progress on my AuthentiKey project (which seeks to provide a uniform way for Internet devices and services to smoothly configure themselves by looking up information about the relationships between people, devices, and services. You are read more about it at http://www.authentikey.net.
- Animation: Progress on my animated TV show project with the working title Wild Space. You can see more about that at http://www.wildspacetv.com/ including a somewhat old couple of trailers.
- Good Art: I love art and am active in a couple of arts organization, most notably the Art Renwal Center (http://www.artrenewal.org) which I'm on the board of trustees of. I'm always finding cool artistic stuff (much of it long lost to common knowledge) and this seems a less formal place to publish it than my art site or ARC's.
- Biking: I like riding my bike up in the mountains (yes, it's a mountain bike) and I like to take photos of the city from way up there and the other interesting things I see (for example you can see some of that at http://www.goodart.org/bike.htm) and I can pop the goodies up here for anyone who cares to see the stuff online.
- Gripes: I see interesting things all the time and like to write about them, especially when it's something really broken or really dumb (I'm a big fan of Donald Norman who has the same predilection.) Perhaps having a good forum for spouting off will lower my bloodpressure and perhaps make my hair grow (can't I hope?).
- Surfage: I love to find cool stuff as I surf the Net and rather than continuing to mail things to everyone I might as well do it the easy way and just post them here.
- Movie Reviews: I'm an avid movie goer and I like spouting off about those as much as other things.
I hope everyone enjoys this as much as I enjoy doing it!
3:47:43 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Brian Yoder.
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