i’m not sure it looks like bowtie, but peacockmaps still has some fine visualizations of the interconnectedness of the internet.
i guess it’s going to be a self-referential kind of day. cnet has a ‘special report’ [sillily subtitled ‘the napster wilfire’] on the nascent grassroots piracy movement that napster has encouraged:
“So far, the file-sharing software program and others like it have been used primarily to download digital music. However, as the Net overcomes today’s size and speed barriers, these technologies could be used to trade everything from full-length movies to computer operating systems–basically, anything that can take a digital form.”
“Already transcending music, Napster’s wildfire popularity is forcing whole industries to reconsider their business models. Companies are realizing that the last shelter for the digital economy may be imaginative strategies that make use of widespread file-sharing rather than fight it, just as most content companies abandoned online subscriptions for free Web sites years ago.”
the increasing drive towards fully-distributed, anonymized, peer-to-peer computing ( hinted at with gnutella and freenet ) and the effects that these technologies will have on business models interests me. of course, if the protocols aren’t designed with security in mind there could be bumps in the adoption curve:
“Gnutella is gaining popularity quickly and has already been featured in several mass media outlets. As it stands now it provides an almost ideal environment for the spread of self-replicating malicious agents
with the additional bonus of providing anonymous control. With full source available, parties previously unable to craft a worm of their own now have a robust framework to build on.”
the new york times and npr’s morning edition are running pieces on the ‘lovebug’ virus and the phillipine ‘hacking’ [sic] subculture. from the times article:
“For the Philippines, on the other hand, the “Love Bug” and the hacker subculture that it exposed are an embarrassing advertisement of the country’s programming talent and infant dot-com scene. They also raised the issue of the cost of Internet access for developing countries struggling to close a daunting
technology gap with richer countries.While maintaining that he meant no harm, de Guzman said that Internet access should be free and that charging for its use was immoral. In his thesis, which his college rejected, he introduced his program by saying it would help many people “spend more time on the Internet without paying.”
this reminds me of the thread i posted to conflux yesterday that provides several perspectives on how the internet is transforming life around the globe.
the following story is a cautionary tale illustrative of the tautological platitiude which states that it’s a good thing ™ that the home despot has not taken over the do-it-yourself home repair universe.
the background: after plunging the depths of our do-it-yourself souls my wife and i came to the conclusion that despite the facts that we had never owned a house nor had we owned any power tools ( according to people in the know, a dremel is not, in fact, in the class of power tools) and had never engaged in any substantial fixing-up activities in the past – despite all this, we were still somehow, in some small way, qualified to fix-up a house. we told ourselves it would be fun. it would build character. it would bring us closer. and besides, they just don’t make houses like they used to. so, in what can only be described as a fit of madness, we recently decided to by a seventy year-old house that appeared to sit at the appropriate spot on the ‘fixer-upper’ continuum. in other words, we wouldn’t need to call in the hired guns, but we could count on spending a weekend here and a weekend there engaged in low-impact projects – a little painting, plaster, a few light fixtures, and maybe the occasional plumbing job. this weekend, my mission, which i chose to accept was to fix the leaky faucet. i mean, c’mon, how hard can it be?
the stem: after ignoring the leaky shower faucet for the mandatory six months, i decided it was time to take action. we go to home despot and the friendly guy who owns the plumbing aisle tells us that we likely have a leaky ‘stem’ [the part the faucet handle is connected to] and a little packing tape [thread coated with silicon] would surely do the trick. after returning home, i pull out the trusty home repair guide and quickly confirm that he was correct – we had a leaky compression stem and that packing tape was a good temporary fix.
[many mundane detailes omitted to keep this long story short – including trip after trip to the despot to get that wacked-out specialty plumbing tool that only plumbers use – and the bit about me weezing asthmatically because i have to munge around a damp, moldy area ‘behind’ the shower via an access panel that had not been removed since the precambrian explosion. ]
as it turns out the packing tape didn’t fix the problem. removing the stem only made the problem worse. the friendly guy who owns the plumbing aisle eventually referred me to a plumbing store. the guy behind the counter took one look at the stem and stated quite confidently that he couldn’t help me, but as he handed me a business card he said solemnly, “these guys have what you need.”
just faucets: briefly, i debated as to whether or not i wanted to make this journey to the depths of plumbing specialization. the business, appropriately name ‘just faucets’, was over an hour away. was it worth my time? were they going to have what i needed? was it time to hire an actual plumber? fueled with coffee, i decided i would not – could not – back down.
‘just faucets’ turns out to be the kind of place that is packed wall-to-wall with [yes, you guessed correctly] faucets. the kind of place where the only spot on the wall that is free of faucets is occupied with a yellowing copy of a newspaper article with a photo of the proprietor grinning ear-to-ear and the title: “local man beats the system: spends $1000 to beat a $67 dollar ticket”. the kind of place where the proprietor yells at customers [not me – he is yelling at someone who appears to be a professional plumber] to, “bring in a picture! sir, i don’t think you know what the hell you you are talking about! sir! sir! just bring me a damn picture of the fixture!” ‘just faucets’ is the kind of place where the proprietor makes fun of the customers after they leave – “holy shit! what a moron! how fucking hard can it be to take a picture? jesus christ, i don’t think his elevator went all the way to the top.”
‘just faucets’ is also the kind of place where the workers will look in amazement and wonder at a compression stem that they have never seen before. the stem is a piece of museum art and they are clearly impressed. it’s not even in their six-inch thick book devoted solely to compression stems. it’s at least 50 years old they say. maybe 60. shit, it may even be 70.
‘just faucets’ is the kind of place that will machine some new threads and grind a little here and grind a little there, hand you back the compression stem and say confidently, “it won’t leak anymore. i guess just give me 5 bucks.”
i think – deep down – we all know the title of this article hits the proverbial nail square on the head.
hey! that’s not fair. it appears that network solutions now owns your domain name and can take it back when they damn well please. looks like i’ll be shopping around for a new registrar [via slashdot]
i guess while i’m blathering on about tinkering with things that i don’t actually have time to tinker with – jabber finally reached v1.0:
“Jabber is an instant messaging System, similar to ICQ or AIM, yet far different. It is open source, absolutely free, simple, fast, extensible, modularized, cross platform, and created with the future in mind. Jabber has been designed from the ground up to serve the needs of the end user, satisfy business demands, and maintain compatibility with other messaging systems.”