Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I'm reading this on the commute train on Wednesdays, and I
sometimes get distracted, but I'm about a quarter of the way into
it now.  I was struck with the effect that affiliation with a
virtual group often results in isolation from co-present others.
We've seen various manifestations of this already.  An early
example was been the person on a landline phone at home for hours
while ignoring family members.  The next generation began
answering calls on cell phones and engaging in disruptive
conversations while in meetings or while dining with friends or
co-workers.  Now folks are playing with their Blackberries or
other texting devices while participating in simultaneous
interactions in another space.

What strikes me is that each of the individual communication
techniques involved are becoming less demanding of our immediate
attention.  We no longer need the degree of concentration
necessary to conduct a two-way voice conversation with someone.  
We can multi-task, and text while talking.

Are there indications of the limits of such multiple concurrent
communication processes?  My hunch is that fifteen-year-olds, as
mentioned in the book, can interweave several simultaneous
real-time conversations in different media.  As a less youthful
person, I guess I wonder about my continued ability to fully
participate in the evolution of omnipresent communication
environments.  I also begin to question the importance of each of
the individual interactions, and whether quantity will be the new
"quality".

I sound like an old fart.
  

    
Women should be able to deal with this multitasking better, "studies have
shown", for example:

Women have a bridge that connects the right and left frontal lobes that
is missing in the brain of men.

THE RESULT: Women multitask better than men.

Men focus better than women.

Evolution gave us this difference because in the old days, women had to
stir the pot, listen for predators and watch the children all at once
while men went out to hunt, which required patience and focus. However, in
our complex world, we need to be able to compensate for this difference as
well as exploit it.

http://www.outsmartyourbrain.com/brain_tools/tapes_tools/email_list/archive/me
n_and_women_diff.html

is the source of the above quote and has a lot of other tips on how to 
multitask in the way that Howard is talking about.
  

    
Just for the sake of clarity and a little more precision, both men and
women have a network of neurons in their brains called the Corpus
Colosum (?) that connects the left and right lobes. Women TEND to have
more robust connecting networks of neurons than men. Women TEND to
"multitask" more ably than men. Individual men MAY be better able to
focus on a single task. We're talking about a spectrum of tendencies
when you get into the relationship of biology, neurology and the sexes
(all ten or twelve of them ;-)

Ooops... another topic!
  

    
I have heard that on average, men are taller than women.
  

    
And many men and women are non-average in various ways, of course.
Examples are hardly necessary.  (Though this may cause part of the 
Venus/Mars differentiation or crock of stereotypes, depending on how 
one fits into it.) 
  

    
(Excuse me please for bad use of "this" above:  ssol's "more robust
connecting networks" may cause part of the Venus/Mars dichotomy.)
  

    
I do think there is an emerging and increasing fragmentation (or 
segmentation if you want to use a less value-laden term) of attitudes 
toward technology and practices like always-on communications or 
"continuous partial attention" due to multitasking, along age lines. How 
you feel about these practices can probably be most easily predicted by 
asking how old you are.

Anybody notice today's announcement that a new joint venture, backed by 
ATT, IBM, and Intel, plans to roll out tens of thousands of WiFi hotspots, 
and that the CEO is -- Larry Brilliant?

<http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/000423.html>

And does everyone recall that the man in charge of the Total Information 
Awareness campaign is one of the most notorious cyberblunderers in 
history?

<http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/000422.html>

The pace of events in the smart mobs field is quickening.

Does anybody see any strange irony in the fear that people now can choose 
their sources of information, rather than having it spooned out for them? 
Horrors! This will lead to people paying less attention to what 
Time-Warner-AOL or Newscorp have to sell us today!
  

    
A ways back upstream was a mention of the way critical thinking about 
where new communication technologies take us (an activity I definitely 
approve) sometimes gets lost in this dreamy nostalgia for a community we 
once had, but lost. A tangential conversation in another virtual community 
elicited a quote from a friend of mine, Christopher London, who gave me 
permission to quote him here:

There's been a nostalgia industry about bucolic rural america practically 
since it conception, what with Jefforson's extolling the virtues of the 
yeoman farmer, de Toqueville extolling the virtues of small town 
democracy.  But it's particularly been an "industry" since Frederick 
Jackson Turner's famous 'end of the frontier' thesis became all the rage 
at the end of the 19th Century and america was said to have been 
domesticated.  The recognition that the future of the US was not in the 
country but in the city with its industry, led to much hand wringing about 
the rural at the same time as it was ideologically constructed as the 
bastion a of pure and unvarnished american "soul."  Of course, there's a 
lot of mythmaking going on in such circumstances.  The people at the head 
of the Country Life Movement, while still extolling the virtues of 
rurality, also saw it being in need of modernization because, in short, 
the rural model had become decrepit and, especially for women, psychotic 
(see Danbom's great book The Resisted Revolution for read on this last 
bit).  This mythmaking continues.  Politicians love to go on about "the 
heartland" and "middle america", weighting these geographic indicators 
with the burden of moral correctness.  Well, some of the highest rates of 
drug addiction and the biggest meth labs are to be found in "the 
heartland" and "middle america."  

So, yea, nostalgia is at the heart of the matter when it comes to talking 
about community. 
  

    
Nice observation, that.

How much of longing expressed for no-longer-with-us virtual communities is
that sort of nostalgia, do you think?
  

    
Slightly different community-nostalgia: some community loss seems to
have happened when it became more common for neighborhoods to contain
only houses of similar age and size, so that the people in them tended
to be more and more similar in age and wealth. Mobile-device zoning is
likely to be an accident of cost.... isn't it? Could it be covenanted
or legislated? 

This seems more important after reading several posts that regard
*speech* as technology. (Ars, surely, not techne.) If we're accustomed
to thinking of our bodies as technology, and some people always get the
good stuff, then those people are the good stuff.
  

    
So -- Dave, Tim, anyone else active in the WiFi world -- what do you think 
the impact of the ATT-IBM-Intel joint venture will have on the community 
wireless networking movement? It seems to me that it will kill it, which 
is not necessarily a bad thing if our cities are blanketed by inexpensive 
WiFi access very quickly.
  

    
(I just want to thank Howard and Bruce, and everyone else who's dropped by,
for the great discussion. We ask for a two week minimum, but continue as
long as you like!)
  

    
I was underwhelmed by the ATT-IBM-Intel announcement (maybe in part because
I had a bad reaction when I saw that is was Larry Brilliant who was going
to head it).

But frankly I don't think it will have any impact at all. For starters
it is all built around the fad idea of 'hot spots.' As IF the whole country
is going to seek out hot spots to get connected.

Wi-Fi permits individuals to connect up anywhere there is a 'community
802.11b cloud.' And they will go to where they want to go at the
instant - check out CNN, read their e-mail, maybe - if that is thir
taste (it sure isn't mine) - join a chat group briefly. In that regard
the wi-fi radios, connected to laptops (or more likely PDAs) will/can
be used just like cell phones. Whether or not the nearest hotel is
a 'hot spot' will be irrelevant.

Now the interesting issue is, to what extent will the 'community
wireless networking' movement foster the creation of 'free access'
clouds all over? Where the wi-fi connected person essentially gets
free access to the Internet.

Now I mull these things over because, as you may know, I am a small
company (Old Colorado City Communications) in the Westside of
Colorado Springs, where my offices of now 18 years (leased office
space) are in the center of the Old Colorado City commercial district
(about a three linear block area with 98 small commercial buildings)
surrounded by about 6,000 households in the residential area.

My business does several things (administering NSF grants in the
wilderness is one of them) in including being both a neighborhood
Wireless ISP (extending 128-256kbs wireless to businesses) and
providing the only high speed access to offices INSIDE the building
I am in. And am usually (though not at the moment) connected 3
miles downtown to my upstream provider Cable and Wireless by
5.8ghz wireless - essentially free for me from my premises to
the radio in the office building downtown. (if I were Qwest T-1
it would cost me $1,200 a month)

I also am connected up from my home and office-in home, 1/2 mile
away by T-1 wireless. Free. With always-on radios already 5 years
old, but still truckin.

And I extended, as part of a project, T-1 radios from my office
and network point to the Old Colorado City History Center and
its Web site which has been up 5 years now. Giving the little
society, and center, high speed connectivity, about 1/2 mile.
The amount of bandwidth used by the public coming into the
web site is so small I just give them free bandwidth to/through
me. (again it would be $1,200 a month for them through Qwest.

Now I *could* (and want to but I am pretty busy) provide a free
802.11b cloud over most of the 98 buildings in Old Colorado City
commercial district. With a seperate SSID from my commercial
customers, no encryption for the public (while my commercial
customers have higher wep, and I will install radius authentication
if hackers start screwing around).

I can also put up an 802.11b omni on my roof, link the radio into
my point to point (non Wi-Fi) T-1 wireless link to my office, and
I could put another one on the History Center roof - cost maybe
$200 total - and let one of my sons who lives further away do
the same.

And let anyone with a computer with wi-fi card in it access the
world free. Knowing my systems better than anyone in the world,
I know that the amount of bandwidth they would use would be so
minor, that I can carry it along side my serious business traffic
that it would not be worth measuring.

Now I wouldn't care if Brilliant came to town and put a charge-card
hot spot in the Antlers hotel downtown (2.5 miles away) or one
in our largest resaurant in OCC. It wouldn't affect me in the
least.

Now as soon as (maybe I'll be inventing one under my next NSF
grant) I get my hands on a bunch of end-user 'mesh' IP radios,
that cost maybe $100 each, I might SELL them to the neighbors
(and they would hop hop hop traffic), but give the bandwidth
away free! And the whole side of town could progressively
get connected!  Free. Where I will be the only one out of
pocket, and only for the 'added' bandwidth. Which is getting
cheaper and cheaper.

Hot Spots from AT&T? All that is is a reinvention of the telephone
or cell phone company.

While I am doing something entirely different - casting a free
wi-fi cloud over an area in which I also run a hard headed business
where my wireless customers get what they pay for - reliable
bandwidth, secure traffic, 24/7 support. For a monthly charge
(currently $65 a month). While everyone else gets a connection,
with no guarantees. Free.
  

    
Qwest has no problem with you sharing bandwidth? Might they change 
their mind about that if too many people do it?

Wireless communities are a great idea and I support it, but they remind me 
a bit of freenets, right before independent ISPs and AOL put them out of 
business. Will there be the motivation to create clouds if no hotspot is 
more than five minutes away?
  

    
I'm not sure what you are referring to that I do that uses Qwest?
If I leased at T-1 to DS3 from Qwest for any reason, I would ne
paying for that bandwidth - use it as I see fit. But I don;t even
do that. I *bypass* Qwest wirelesslyy between my premises and my
upstream provider. I cut out the local Qwest loop.

Now why will someone in Old Colorado City, eating at LaBaguette,
the French bakery, or Meadow Muffins, or sitting in the park - when
there is a 'free' 802.11b cloud to connect through, drive 5 minutes
(it will be actually 10 - 3 city-steet miles - to go in and
connect up for a fee? I'm missing something here.

Unless you are assuming that with the free connectivity 'cloud' goes
free email box and account and filespace. I won't provide that.
You will already have your own home account somewhere - like the
Well, with its mail, filespace. And the minute your mobile
machine is connected, and assigned you via DHCP an IP number, DNS
IP, and gateway (automatically) you can read your home email
with Eudora, Outlook, or telnet in and use Pine.

But if you go to the nearest hot spot, you will be paying for TWO
accounts - the temporary hot spot link, and your home email.

Are we still on the same page?
  

    
As you know, some cable providers have threatened to prosecute people for 
theft of services in violation of their use agreements for connecting 
their cable modems to 802.11 base stations. The question then becomes 
whether other providers will react in a similar manner, or whether you 
believe there will always be upstream Internet connectivity providers who 
will lease bandwidth without restricting the right to resell it.
  

    
OK, I know the DSL and Cable racket.

But I think it equally possible, in many places, if not all, that
communities THEMSELVES provide the long line links.

Things are so bad in the fiber sales business now, if I were on the
West Coast I could personally buy a 'strand' all the way to the
east coast for under $2000 a month. Capable of gigabit traffic.

Its also called 'asset based' telecom - where the network is *owned*
locally, or by local government, not large telc-like companies.

Already done in Quebec province, Grants county Washington, and
Allegeny County Maryland.

Transit has become so cheap, there almost isn't a business model
for it. Wi-Fi just adds to it, being free from you to a point of
presence.

I am pleased as punch that Wales, following my 'community wireless'
prescription, just was funded by the Welsh National Assembly so
that over the next two years 181 'communities' will have an
Internet pipe '8mbps up/down' satellite service, 100% paid for
by the Welsh government, coming into the center (or high point)
of each 'community' - and, via a community owned server, reach out
wirelessly (802.11b) to homes and offices in the village. People
will buy their radios (40 pounds, maybe) and pay maybe 19 pounds a
month for complete Internet, email, local server, service.

While floundering British Telecom is saying theu have to have 450-700
guaranteed commercial customers (ADSL) inside those same villages,
paying 45 pounds a month, before they can even extend their serices
there! They are going to die!

And when World Comm declared bankruptcy, there was panic in the UK and
Wales, because WC provided fat pipes for Education, especially
Universities. I sent a study to the Minister of Economic Development,
Andrew Davies (who is 100% behind Wi-Fi for all Wales) and told
him to forget contracting for another telco-like service. To lay their
own gigabit fiber all over Wales. Like roads. Owned by government!
And let the villages be connected to that! Wirelessly.

(possible in that small country - distances are so short)

He was startled, but it shook him out of the 'we always have to
buy network fat pipes from bit companies' mindset.

He's looking.

My point is, with free wi-fi (and follow on more powerful radios which
FCC Commissioner Michael Powell is going to permit) 'open spectrum'
solutions are going to thrive.
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 17:57>
  

    
I can see it now.   You are attracted to the stranger sitting next to you on
the subway, and your green blinker starts going off.  Soon enough, you get
slapped without saying a word....
  

    
Then again, at a business function (a convention, seminar, etc) I can
see tech for broadcasting interests, experience, and affinities related
to work as saving me from a lot of wasted conversations with well
intentioned folks networking like crazy.
  

    
So a group of folks in San Francisco could buy a fiber strand at 
$2000/month and redistribute a gigabit via 802.ll? Now that would be 
interesting. Thanks for the tip, Dave. 

In regard to proximity and affinity, Rick Borovoy has been doing 
interesting stuff with that. And there's this:

<http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/000412.html#000412>

A quite lukewarm review of Smart Mobs in today's Chronicle:
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/12/08/RV28
7.DTL>

A more positive mention in today's San Jose Mercury:
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4693890.htm>
  

    
Oh I don't know that the Chronicle's review is lukewarm. Its neutral,
*except* where Mary intrudes her own fears of government surveillance
by cybercops.
  

    
The book is not devoid of close examination of the surveillance 
capabilities of these technologies and the political implications. 

Nor does it lack for advocacy of explicit policies that citizens ought to 
support: oppose the Hollings bill and other legislative and regulatory 
attempts to turn active users into passive consumers; support open 
spectrum and other regulatory proposals that open more of the spectrum for 
use as a commons; oppose the use of copyright law to diminish the public 
domain; insist on privacy controls in the design of technologies that 
reveal private information.
  

    
One of the greater threats, than cybersurveillance, is the already
afoot movements to try and basterdize unlicensed wireless. Trying to
cram it back into the 'property model. Or pretend they can coexist.


http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=
6513282647


I don't trust Dave Farber. Never did.
  

    
As for 'supporting open spectrum' movements, be sure you FILE when the
FCC comes out with their new NOI on Wednesday.