Category Archives: Diversity

Black Swans, the Internet, and Renewable Energy

A recent post about Bob Metcalfe’s FOCACA proposal led to some comment discussion. What does it take to produce innovation, in renewable energy, or the Internet (or more likely in both interacting)?

Let’s ask John Robb, the military stategist:

Here’s how. Warfare in our current complex environment (as opposed to the last century and earlier) is very similar to the areas of science/finance where stochastic processes dominate. Since stochastic dominance implies a high level of randomness in outcomes, tinkering networks (ie. open source insurgencies) tend to generate substantially higher returns on effort than highly planned activities (ie. nation-building).

Stochastic tinkerers and warfare, John Robb, Global Guerillas, Monday, 01 January 2007

Hm, that’s almost like the bazaar instead of the cathedral.

Continue reading →

Mono-EU

Microsoft wants a clear green light from the European Commission before releasing Vista, but the EC is saying it isn’t going to do that; rather, it’s up to Microsoft to behave ongoing, according to EC spokesman Jonathan Todd:
The main rule for Microsoft is to ensure that the market allows competition between security providers on the merits of their products, Todd said. “If business and home users are deprived of choice, a security ‘monoculture’ based on Microsoft products may lead to less innovation and could harm all computer users. Security risks could increase, and not decrease,” he said.

Vista’s European battleground As the slippery due date draws near for the Windows release, Microsoft and the EU are now at odds over security features. By Joris Evers, Staff Writer, CNET News.com, Published: September 18, 2006, 4:00 AM PDT

I wonder how much effect Dan Geer’s report of 3 years ago had on the EC’s awareness of this issue?

-jsq

Local IPTV

Cringely harps on something I’ve been saying for a while, too:
The Internet television story, even as written here in columns going back as far as the late 1990s, pushed the idea of enabling the aggregation of widely-dispersed viewing audiences, allowing programming to thrive that might not be successful on any local station, much less on the national network. A good example is NerdTV, which wouldn’t attract enough viewers on most PBS stations to even generate a rating, yet when offered as an Internet download, drawing from a global population, makes some pretty good numbers. But there is no concept called “local” in this aggregation model, so stations tend to feel threatened by it; if the network can reach local viewers directly, what need is there for a local station?

But it doesn’t have to be that way, because the supposed strengths of centralization aren’t really strengths at all when viewed in terms of the much more imposing issue of bandwidth costs, where all the advantages are local. Local Heroes: Could the Key to Successful Internet Television Be…PBS? By Robert X. Cringely, PBS, June 8, 2006

What about the opposite of NerdTV? Local football! Continue reading →