Possibly not a good thing that I'm this tired. Of course, being me, I will continue to work to deadlines and will do my absolute best by my colleagues and students. And it's completely beyond me how I manage to keep working, and remain logical when I'm so tired that I can't even remember how I began a sentence. Somehow I manage it. Just as well.
After some fairly heated debate on both my Images in emails post last week and in light of the P2P legislation being considered in US Congress, I want to make a dedicated post about the value of bandwidth as a resource.
You wouldn't leave the tap on in your bathroom 24 hours a day on the offchance of going in to wash your hands every now and then. It's a waste of water. Similarly, you shouldn't waste bandwidth unnecessarily. Where streaming media can replace a media file download, it should be made available, and where file compression is possible it should be sought at all costs. The notion of centralising media file downloads by preventing P2P file sharing is an outrageous and Draconian policy, that effectually funnels information dissemination online from Government-sanctioned institutions.
See, the trouble with education about bandwidth is that people scoff when I compare it with water as a resource. They say it's not reasonable to compare water with bandwidth availability. One is a natural resource, essential for life. The other is merely a communications medium. We have limited water and superfluous bandwidth.
But I am here to argue against those perspectives.
If you're dying of thirst, water may seem the more preferable option. But frankly, using bandwith to get a message to someone to tell them where you are, and get them to bring water is far more likely to save you than an empty cantine of water at your hip in the desert. Water - in this drought-ridden country - is a more plentiful resource than bandwidth. Water may be entirely natural, but bandwidth isn't entirely constructed, either. Bandwidth is part-natural and part-constructed. But in the end bandwidth, unlike water, is finite.
You see, bandwidth is made up of infrastructure and radiotransmission frequencies of the Electromagnetic Spectrum.
Infrastructure can be composed of twisted pair telephone cabling, coaxial cable networks or fibre-optic cabling, or any combination of these. Additional software technologies like ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode; a demand-based balancing of incoming versus outgoing signals) and data compression techniques produce efficiencies of signal carriage on that hardware.
Such software may also play a part in frequency-oriented data transfer such as wireless and satellite communication. But the vast majority of spectrum space is already committed to specific tasks. Here in Australia, the Australian Communications Authority is invested with the huge task of managing Australia's spectrum frequency. Take a look at this map. It's hideously complex, and as you can see from the available channels, most of the spectrum is already committed. Spectrum can't grow. It's finite. You can use spectrum more efficiently by converting to digital and compressed signal techniques, but ultimately there's only so much spectrum we can use.
While the speed of information transfer is the focus of much marketing on internet access, and while the infrastructure here in Australia may be plentiful for some time, there is a tendency to assume that there will always be bandwidth, even as file sizes and the population of internet users continue to rise. That's just not the case. As more and more users come online and file sizes and information data transfer rates continue to grow, as an information society we are going to have to become more responsible users of bandwidth. This is triple bottom line stuff. Sustainability of bandwidth use is, and should be, a priority.
This is, of course, the true reason why spam is a menace. While most regard the inconvenience and sheer bulk of incoming spam to be frustrating and counter-productive, it is not this annoyance factor that is the true reason why we need to combat spam. Spam is estimated to soon be 90% of all traffic on the internet. That's thousands of gigabytes of bandwidth being used to transfer predominantly unsolicited and unwanted communications. It's the most heinous waste of bandwidth in existence. And as an international community we're going to have to cooperate to battle this menace.
But as a community, we're also going to have to change our perception of bandwidth as a resource. Because our capacity to communicate via bandwidth is something worth protecting.
In one of the stupidest moves in the history of technology regulation, the US Congress is arguing for tighter and tighter regulations for peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, and Xeni Jardin is reporting in WIRED on the likelihood of P2P being completely criminalised in the near future. While US Congress is well known for its digital illiteracy and sheer idiocy when it comes to technology regulation, this move must rank as perhaps the most egregious error since their "Intelligence" agencies mistook some concrete plumbing pipelines for weapons of mass destruction. In an era where the value of bandwidth is growing exponentially, the very notion of limiting P2P is not just illogical, but spectacularly obtuse. While the legislation being considered is supposed to target copyright infringement, the impact of the legislation on all P2P file sharing is clear: in order to avoid the possibility of litigation, businesses will be disinclined to install P2P technologies, even when they make sense for knowledge management. And that's a stupid, avoidable disaster-waiting-to-happen.
I know it is futile to ever believe the US Government will act either logically or democratically, but I have a hard time comprehending how anyone could be this irrational, incompetent and cretinous.
Superb. Monty Python are re-releasing The Life of Brian now that Mel Gibson's splatterfest The Passion of the Christ has made it big on the big screen. Brian is by far the better film. Anyone who can conceive of people singing "Always look on the bright side of life" as three men are crucified, truly deserves my time more. Plus I'm rather annoyed at my colleagues who have ventured a formal complaint against the use of the nomenclature "God Access" to denote administrators who can oversee others' work on the university network. While I sympathise with those who are religious, I'm not sure that the term is offensive. I'm dealing, but I regard the critique as somewhat pedantic.
Steve Stroh has some interesting things to say about the battle between Wi-Fi versus broadband wireless internet. In an era where returns on telecommunications service provision are declining, the battle for wireless telephony (Voice over Internet Protocol, or just plain wireless telecommunications) is hotting up to be the key issue of 2004-2005.
Oh dear. Just caught up with Pirates of the Caribbean on DVD. Why is it that every role that Johnny Depp plays (with the possible exceptions of Private Lerner, Gilbert Grape and Tom Hanson) makes the man look more asinine than any previous role? All he has yet to play would be the President of the United States to cap off his career as a stereotypical git. It's a shame, because the man can actually act. He can't speak, but that never stopped John Travolta or Sylvester Stallone. He can't look like a leading man, but that never stopped Tom Cruise or Leonardo di Caprio. The trouble with Johnny Depp is that he just can't pick a decent role. Sadly, he has been announced as playing Willy Wonka in the remake of WW and the Chocolate Factory. I say "sadly" because Gene Wilder played a starry-eyed, childlike figure, with just enough masculinity and genuine love of humanity to exude grace, and take on the position as father figure for Charlie. I suspect Johnny Depp will, like so many Herr Drosselmeyers in recent productions of Nutcracker, appear more like a deranged and invidious paedophile, racked by greed.
I'm with my mother on Pirates of the Caribbean anyway. It has all the taste of sourdough, with none of the freshness. Perhaps best described in two laudanum-induced lines from Coleridge:
Water, water everywhere, and how the boards did shrink.
Water, water everywhere.... nor any drop to drink.
This is basically an open letter to my correspondents, but is also a semi-rant about appropriate use of networked technologies.
Please never send me images in email unless you know how to edit images correctly. Never ever. Not for any reason. Ever. Am I being clear about this? NEVER. Okay?
Right. Now: how to send images. If you do know how to edit an image, please open up whatever images/photos, etc that you have in your favourite editing program. I use Adobe Photoshop, but you can use anything from embedded photo editing software that came with your digital camera, or even basic photo editing tools in the operating system. Or download an image editing program. Then once you've opened the image in your program, change the resolution of your images to 100 pixels per inch MAXIMUM. Change the width of images to around 15cm wide and/or 10cm high. This is a standard photo size and quite large on a screen, and it's the most any monitor can display in terms of resolution. Once you have changed the size and the resolution of the image, have a look at the size of the file. Do this by locating the (edited) image and right click the file, selecting "Properties". Is the file size less than 150kb? If so, you can send this image by email. If not, PLACE THE IMAGE ON A WEBSITE AND SEND ME THE ADDRESS OF THE SITE INSTEAD.
Telling me you have no website simply isn't an excuse. There are dozens of free webhosting sites that may be full of advertisements, but if all you want me to do is look at some pictures, then I for one, am happy to deal with the advertisements if it means I can download your pics via a website. These free webhosting facilities are easy to use and have a web-based interface for you to upload files to the 'net without any mucking around with HTML coding. I recommend Yahoo Geocities, but there are many more out there.
The only exception to this rule is when you're sending me photos or images that have been sent through another agent - such as a real estate agent, etc, because they have already made images small enough to send via email. They know what they're doing. If you have images you have captured on your webcam or digital camera, or someone else has on their digital camera, then for goodness sake, learn how to edit these images before you go sending them on to anyone. If you are sending them unedited, all you are doing is clogging up in-boxes, and causing people grief.
For our mutual benefit, please learn about the tools you are using before exposing your message recipients to your ignorance.
Just heard that my lovely friend, Lou, will be visiting me in Brisbane in May! *SO* looking forward to having you hon! Just can't wait! :-) Thanks so much babe :-)
This is probably the most tacky manner in which to conduct a marriage proposal. And I regard myself as a romantic. But anyone who expresses anything so personal via electronic messaging rather than saying same to the face of the person they wish to address is, in my opinion, both morally and emotionally bankrupt.
Social software may be a mobiliser of interpersonal communication, but it ought not be considered for such momentous communications.
Don't ask me how, but I just found myself on the Internet Movie Database with the listing for the 1990s TV sitcom series, The Nanny. If that's not bad enough, the comment at the base of the listing said "If you enjoyed this series we recommend The X-Files".
I'm still laughing.
Why am I not blogging much? Work. Pure and simple. There's a lot of it and I'm only just keeping up. I am still reading, writing and researching, I just don't have time to record it all. That's counter-productive in the long run because this island of links is rather useful, and I've come across several pieces of research I haven't blogged lately and now can't find. It's most frustrating. However, I shall endeavour to surface every now and then from the ocean of administration, preparation, marking and prostration that is presently buffeting me.
In the meantime, I note the results of the research conducted by Media Lab researcher, Fernando Viégas, on expectations of privacy and accountability in the blogosphere. Not much new, but good to have the research to support claims (even though the sample size was rather small). So 36% of respondents have gotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogs, huh? I'm surprised the number is so low. I know of several bloggers who have been mind-numbingly careless in the construction of posts. But perhaps the definition of "trouble" is a little vague. Legal and financial troubles certainly don't represent the totality of problems that can arise from blog posts.
And in related news, I will have a complete paper on the amateurisation of communication via social software systems imminently on my Blog Research space. Stay tuned....
Finally, thanks to Camilla for the opportunity to discuss research possibilities over dinner on Friday (was fab - thanks hon!), to Troffie for content distribution systems (!), and to Cat for the invitation to be part of a very interesting new venture!
I just need one link to fulfill the desires of the most geeky of geeks. It can be described in three short, but beautiful words: Giant Metal Robot.
Thanks to Kevin for the link to the 50 year story about the creation of the autonomous, bipedal robot conversion for the Mini Cooper R50. Creator, Dr Colin Mayhew, has probably been called all manner of things, from visionary to fanatic, to certified nut, but his dedication to his robot is sublime. And the robot is, as Kevin describes it, scary, but true.
Geeks: enjoy. Everyone else: think of it as a Robocop for Mini Cooper cars. It's just quirky enough to be entertainment for everyone! :-)
China is now blocking blogs. The only thing that surprises me about this is that it took this long to happen. Of course it's poorly reported and blown out of proportion. Chinese officials will allow blogs that are prepared to go along with the terms and conditions of accessibility, it's just that very few bloggers will be so disposed.
Yes, I'm still alive and still working very, very, very long hours. I will get back to things. Eventually. In the meantime, have a laugh.
I suspect being this tired is bad for my health. Nevertheless, I will be working again tomorrow and plan to blog all the tech news and items of interest during my breaks. In the meantime, I am hoping to rest without developing complex and entirely memorable teaching and research strategies in my dreams.
Tonight was an evening of sentimentality. And by that, I mean I watched an '80s geek flick, WarGames. Those who have any clue what I am talking about may choose to read the extended entry.
Per courtesy my Geeklink (thanks Kevin!), have just caught up with the DVD of 1983 film, WarGames, starring a skinny, stupid Matthew Broderick (who apparently knew how to program the new Imsai 8080 but didn't know what a "back door" was for a computer program), and some bimbo (a.k.a. Ally Sheedy) whose best line was "is this something to do with you changing my grades?", and who otherwise is supposed to look sexy but just manages to look big-hipped, flat-chested and appallingly stupid. Entertaining though the film was (thanks primarily to some cool historical computer geekiness), the real stretches in the film are when Tic-Tac-Toe is presented as a game of futility (apparently the computer didn't actually try any corner square as an opening move) and when Supergeek, David Lightman (played by Broderick), didn't either ditch or shag the bimbo. Apologies for the abruptness there, but any geek who doesn't wash for days and still manages to get a chick who jogs to roll up to his house and lock her legs around him, but STILL doesn't manage to actually get any action is either Bill Gates or basically brain dead.
Let me say right now to the geeks who are hoping to live out the Matthew Broderick dream - IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. HAVE A SHOWER. GO OUT. MOVE ON.
At least, have a shower. Please.
But all geek healthcare aside, Wargames is truly a wonderful experience. Besides the fact that Melbourne gets nuked first in the computer simulation of World War III, WarGames was truly the birthplace of hacker culture and the place where a million aspirations were born. At the time we didn't recognise it - it was just another cool movie. But looking back, it was the beginning of the sort of world we now live in. How cool to remember both the time, the technology and the movie itself, 20 years on!
Small piece of trivia for the die-hards out there: in the movie, the password for the WOPR was "Joshua". The password in the book was marginally more difficult. What was that password? (Kevin, be quiet!) The winner shall have all the glory of being right, and my enduring respect!
It's 3:25am and I can't sleep. I really shouldn't go to bed at 9:30pm. No matter what I do I can't sleep longer than 5 hours per night, and when I wake up with lesson plans in my head and reminders to myself to upload files to the net to work on them in the office, I know my mind is racing much too fast for sleep.
Oh well. There's always blog-surfing.
There are times when I wonder whether Bill Gates is not quite as smart as everyone believes him to be. In the CNN article on stamps for email - as an anti-spam initiative - Gates' usual business analysis of the spam situation has failed again to realise that people don't want to pay for messaging systems accessed via the internet. Voice over IP is being promoted internationally as a way of reducing call costs as the technology is internet driven. Similarly SMS via the internet is cutting the costs of instant messaging to phones. The idea of actually raising the cost of an internet mediated messaging system from zero to several cents per message is not just patently outrageous, it's fundamentally flawed. There are a series of other cost-motivated solutions to spam that could be addressed. Why does Gates repeatedly return to the pay-per-use business model, when e-commerce revenue streams are more likely to be dominated by reverse auction and price cutting measures. Is he really so blind as to believe that in time, the internet will return to typical business models in the offline world? While that may work for Microsoft products, I just don't see it working on the internet. Sometimes I just can't quite get over how little Gates seems to understand information economics.
In other news, Wired is finally recognising that blogs can be infectious. This is in spite of the article produced by CNN about the diminuitive influence of blogs in the most recent Pew Internet Research study (the CNN article was problematic in a series of ways, misconstruing the findings in the original research). And it's good to see Engadget as the permanent (and paid) service derived from Gizmodo.
There's also a very good article on the future of traditional print media and their web sites as competitors of online news sources. I might take this up further in a future post on Blog Research.
And finally, on a much lighter note, I highly recommend The Exorcist Reenacted With Bunnies.
After an exhausting week concluded with some bad news from family about job situations, I left the office at 8:15pm on Friday night at the conclusion of an Instructors' Meeting. I got home and crashed, skipping dinner as I had at least had some finger food at the pre-meeting gathering. I was woken at midnight and remained awake till nearly 2am with the squall of the storm that hit south-east Queensland overnight. I finally got some sleep between about 2am and 5am, then got up and came in to work where I am teaching a Saturday morning class from 9-12pm, only to find my room was double booked. After running around the building changing signs and ensuring I had access to the new room I need I am now able to get my teaching materials together and organise assessment for this subject. When I finish today's class I have some administration to do before I go home. I expect to get home at around 3pm.
I'm supposed to be going out tonight but I doubt if I'll make it. Given I have worked very long hours all week (except Thursday, when I knocked off at 4pm), and essentially have had a full day here today (7am - 3pm), I'm not sure I'm going to have the energy to do anything but sleep.
:-(
The blog of one of the funniest columnists in the world, Dave Barry, is now active, and it's officially a productivity virus in and of itself. Highly entertaining. Read it. It's fun. Plus it's helping me recover from the extraordinarily massive workload I've signed myself up for, this teaching period.
I'm trying to find a piece of research I read maybe a month ago which produced in tabular format, the breakdown of costs of messaging services, showing that we pay a ridiculously large amount per kilobyte for SMS messages. I am setting this as a challenge for all my readers to help me find this research. Please help. You will have my undying gratitude (and I'll buy you a drink)!