flynn23 wrote:

It does if you want to use any IP tricks, such as IP multicast or RSVP. While some of these things have gone the way of the dodo, I have a sense that they might reappear. A glut of bandwidth caused them to fade into the background as a means of giving us quality service. But in a few years (a few short years, maybe 5), when every tivo and cell phone and xbox and refridgerator and car needs access to the network, particularly for things like streaming media, then you'll probably see a resurgence in using some of these techniques to lighten the load on the network.

I am still not sure that what you say is true. IP multicast can work, you just need smarter NAT routers. I was addressing more of the issue of point to point connections like VoIP, which needs to handle multiple connection points, disconnects, and inappropriate IP blocks. Full stop. To say "it wouldn't scale" or that that would be less efficient, or we need static routes for... is to miss the socio-economic demands for the technology. We are starting to understand how to make things like multicast work on fixed, stable routing networks. To imply that we need these limitations to make it work is to be forced into a compromise which would hold only until someone didn't like the tradeoff regarding accessibility, useability, administration, efficiency. Over the long term, technology enables not restricts; it does not dictate what we do or how we use it.

Besides, there is always IPv6 :)

RE: .tel sTLD RFP Application

Joe Kraus from JotSpot has a great piece on how the last ten years has reduced the price of doing a startup from three million to a hundred thousand dollars for him. That’s definitely an interesting development and Joe is highlighting the right trends. But since Joe is coming from a company launched on angels and running on VC ($5,2 million, no less), his side is only one side of the story.

Entrepreneurs, angels, and the cost of launch - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

Acidus wrote:

I'm more interested in allocation of address space to these devices instead of domain names. These devices *must* have globally unique addresses. CIDR, NAT and other technologies that have slowed the consumption of IPv4 address won't help you here.

Sure they could. It just becomes a directory lookup, with roving physical addresses. Rather than give you my IP address, I give you a means of contacting me -- a phone number, a skype alias, whatever. When I establish a net connection, I register that location with my directory service, and that registration may be NAT:someopenport.

They have to have globally unique addresses, but the address space does not need to intersect with the other globally unique address spaces.

RE: .tel sTLD RFP Application

Thinking he was sending an e-mail to an aide, Assemblyman Willis Stephens instead sent a note to nearly 300 constituents, making the following comment on their listserv: "Just watching the idiots pontificate."

In the message, meant for aide Beth Coursen, Stephens wrote that he subscribes to the Brewster-based online discussion group to monitor area happenings, but he doesn't post messages.

I believe the long standing conventional wisdom, at least on Wall Street: don't type it if you wouldn't want to see it on the cover of the NY Times. This snafu only made the Washington Post...

Assemblyman Calls Constituents 'Idiots'

As it currently stands, both Kleiner and Sequoia have already distributed the vast majority of their stakes to their LPs. Thanks to the wonder of the SEC's Form 4, it's possible to go back and calculate exactly how much money the firms have made for their LPs to date. It's also possible to see how much the individual VCs have received (John Doerr and Mike Moritz) and even to make a realtively precise guess at the specific carried interests that each VC has in their respective fund.

Boggling figures. 12.5$M into 4.8$B, 344X return. Nice article, too.

Burnham's Beat: Just How Much Did VCs Pocket On Google?

Decius wrote:

It makes netizens' lives easier in consolidating the number of identities they need to maintain.

I'm not convinced I agree with that conclusion, as things presently stand.

It is not about account generation. If that's all you care about, then of course we're at a wall. Except the advertising properties of running a OpenID authenticator.

If you talk to Bucy, what you'll hear is a lot of angst about having all of his activities and contents being on remote locations. That memestreams would be a whole lot better if the streams were, or could be, individually controlled. That the reputation system is the feature, not your fantastic web design. Having an ID with the authenticator of his choice is a step in a decentralized proceeding.

You lose lock-in. If that's the problem, it is worth noting. But one of the things that is more appealing about the memestreams community than the rough equivallents (for me) of blogline's clipping service, Yahoo's MyWeb 2.0, del.icio.us, etc etc is the hacker aesthetic of the system. The 'despite being such a small community that makes the recommendation system mostly moot' aspect is overshadowed by 'but it is the right way to do it' attitude.

Now, I could decide to allow anonymous posts if they offer this kind of authentication. The value of that would be that initially spammers will be unlikely to use this system. However, over time, spam will flow in this way...

It is not strictly anonymous, and not strictly non-anonymous. It gives you a framework for establishing posting rights without obligatory account creation. Limit your OpenID acceptance of sites that provide some minimal standard of user authentication. Whatever.

Soooo many sites require registration before using them; I don't even have a good ballpark on the number of web sites I have accounts on. And I'm fucking sick of it. I understand that one wants to establish a user-tracking identity when running a site. But I don't want to have to create a new log-in and password for every silly web forum and newspaper; either I end up using a single password (risk), or a password algorithm (hassle). The risk is that I start to actually care about one of the accounts, and the password is vulnerable by the inexperience of any of the servers I use. We could argue that point, but let's not. Yeah, not having to have a password on memestreams would be nice.

What I'm saying is, gee, wouldn't it be nice to log into sites and blogs by authenticating against MemeStreams (adding MemeStreams visibility). When I post to a big blog, the stuff I post on MemeStreams is a better representation of the content I would like to be categorized for than my personal livejournal. If I am posting in public, an interested reader does not want to drop to a personal discussion of my apartment situation. I would be as happy to be "dm... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

RE: news: OpenID support

This article discusses the issues that typically arise in the process of examining motion picture accountings rendered to net profit participants. The authors explore both the general legal principles involved and the particular accounting practices which are likely to give rise to disputes between profit participants, on one hand, and motion picture studio/distributors on the other.

HOLLYWOOD LAW CYBERCENTER - Studio Accounting Practices

Almost two years ago, one of our engineers was interested in buying a plasma TV and tried using web search to find a good site for reviews --- a quick search revealed that there were hundreds of sites offering to educate him on plasma TVs, yet short of visiting all the sites, it was difficult to figure out which site exactly was the 'best' site. So he did what millions of people do every day – asked a friend, who recommended two excellent sites for plasma TV reviews. He never ended up buying a TV (things just got too busy with search), but this was the moment of inspiration that lead us to build the product we are introducing today – a social search engine that enables people to search the expertise of their friends and community.

And if Industrial Memetics were better positioned, it would get swept up in the next generation of search technology (social search). It provides the thing (reputation matching) that Generation 1 of Social Search won't have. I don't trust my immediate friend circle for anything other than specific bits as much as a robust reputation network.

Yahoo! Search blog: Search, with a little help from your friends

This DVD Jon character enjoys pointing out that not only is DRM is inherently flawed, but most attempts to cover that up only make the removal process that much more embarrassing.

Google has released Google Video Viewer, a browser plugin based on VLC. Here’s one of the features they’ve added:
...
This “feature” prevents you from playing videos that are not hosted on Google’s servers. Download and run this patch I wrote to remove this restriction.

Google Video Viewer - So sue me

Step 1: Choose the most remote location on earth.
Step 2: Pray your construction barge doesn’t sink.
Step 3: Teach the locals how to use a toaster.
Step 4: Beware of the black magic.
Step 5: Rethink step one.

So, You Want to Open a Dive Resort? - ScubaDiving.com