Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
re 'regulation and consequences.' Howard mentions spectrum regulations.
I think that the debates and *formal* FCC rule making going on right
with regard to Spectrum Management is going to have vast consequences
even beyond what the 'open spectrum' advocates hope for. But it
could go either way.

First of all, the Chairman, Powell, whom everybody and especially the
press think they have pinned down (hard line conservative, Republican,
'let the marketplace only decide' big business buddy)  has had an
technological epiphany over the last year. Now he is the strongest
advocate in Washington, with immense power to make it happen (he only
needs two other votes on the 5 person commission) of 'more spectrum'
for grass roots digitial (802.whatever) wireless, cutting across
and sharing spectrum hitherto virtually 'owned' by corporate America
(television, radio), and letting *technological advances* (faster,
smarter, chips, very advanced software, new concepts of 'regulating'
like regulating the use of TIME! and not just power or frequency,
the historical things regulated, and to concentrate on the design
and regulation of 'recievers' more than 'transmitters' as a way
to deal with interference - making thousands of legacy radio systems
obsolete in the blink of an eye.

The point is that Powell is usering in a wireless age, in which his
only powerful tool - regulation - coupled with radio designers who
NOW are going to be able to incorporate things impossible a few
years ago.

Consequences? Immense? We are at the verge of the collapse of the
entire telephone-company-centric, centrally controlled, management
and economics of communications 'services' (pay for the service,
the devices being incidental to that end of the economics of service)
to be replaced by a hugely competitive small to large business
communications 'device' world. In which the 'best' radio, not tje
biggest company, wins. Because ALL the radio transcievers can
coexist, because they are design smart enough (chips and code)
to adapt to the electromagnetic world around them, and 'get the
message through'

Of course, as Howard knows, I have been an in-your-fcc-face advocate
of unlicensed digital radio for nearly 10 years now, but was fighting
mind-sets, telco lobbying, an indifferent FCC set of commissioners,
a chicken-or-egg situation (better, faster, less interfering, cheaper
radios for the masses couldn't be made and sold because the FCC Rules
limited them. And efforts to loosen the rules faced the manufacturers
problem of not having enough market to see the most bleeding edge
devices to).

But the POTENTIAL of unlicensed spread spectrum type radios began
to dawn on the press, then the public, as the 802.11b standard,
set by industry, not the FCC started to pay off - 'interoperability'
of digital radios. Just as it did when reporters discovered text
processors on personal computers in the 70s, modems in the 80's,
the Internet and HTML in the 90s, and wireless in the 00s.

So even Washington - both at the FCC and with a whole lot of
Congressperns, responding to lobbying by wireless-savy constituents,
getting in on the act.


A huge battle is shaping up, as absolutely terrified Television,
Telephone, Radio executives are seeing the threat to their
central-control-monopoly empires. And they wil fight it. For
it means virtually 'free communications,' 'free content' uncontrollable
'smart mobs' and, ala 'accelerating change' Future Shock, small
entrepeneurs being able to move, innovate, design, market, and
succeed so much faster than big companies (including the small
ones just as soon as they are hits, and successful, like AOL - from
innovator to has been in about 5 years).
  

    
By the way, the FCC JUST made it insuperably easier to file YOUR views
on any of its current issues. If you just go to www.fcc.gov, and
select the 'File Comments' logo on the left, you can immediately
sound off by selecting the action like 'Rural Wireless Service'
and opine away!

Of course it helps if you read the formal action - like the NOI, or
NPRM first, or even comments made before you. But if you are one
with plenty of opinions on how thing ought to be, you can dispense
with that nonsense, and get be in the face of the decision makers.
(under law, this is the same as formal hearings, and what you write
has to be read and considered)
  

    
Here is the link to the recent wireless speech given by the FCC
chairman;

http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Powell/2002/spmkp212.html

Pretty interesting. Seems like "he gets it".

Jeff
  

    
Yes that was the landmark speech. Some press reported on it, but none
of them really 'got it' how radical it was. And what it has foreshadowed.
  

    

I'm afraid that in today's modern world, if the military says they need to
hold digital "802.whatever" spectrum in reserve, they'll get it and sit on
it for years.
  

    
Not necessarily. Congress is in the act now, clamoring for more spectrum
*including* 'sharing' Defense spectrum. The Boxer-Allen Bill.
Defense, and the IRAC, NTIA, and Commerce - those who control all
government spectrum, are on the Defensive now. Its no longer a given
that Government agencies - including Defense - get their way always
with spectrum.

Partly because technology - such as ultr-wide band radios, and more
advanced spread spectrum of other types - demonstrates that sharing
works - and with minimal interference.

While Yochai Benkler, NYU observer of this fight, says that the Boxer
Bill did not 'force' DOD to accept interference, it DID let Dod
determine the 'minimum interference' standards to prevent problems.
Glass half full or half empty? The fact it the camels nose is under
the government spectrum tent.
  

    
Can we change the subject to Blogs?
  

    
Sure! Anything goes in this mob.
  

    
I was really asking Howard. Cause he had something, but not a lot to
say in his book, about blogs.
  

    
Okay. We'll see what he says.
  

    
My interest is a little more than academic. 20 years ago I gradually
backed away from operating my famous 'Rogers Bar' BBS that brought
grass roots 'electronic democracy' to Colorado Springs, with salutary
effects.

Now politics in Colorado Springs have gone to hell again, with recall
elections, strident debate, inflamatory press converage, and damned near
no useful debate on the issues. After I wrote a strong letter to
the editors, I have been dragged back into the public arena, even
been asked to run for County Commissioner (5 offices which have had
no Democrats elected for the past 30 years). So I am *considering*
and thats all, bringing back Rogers Frontier Bar where I was the
'Electronic Bartender' debating local issues online. But doing it
with more modern technology - the Internet, web browsers, multi-media,
and perhaps centered on a Blog.

Maybe. But its got to be worth the time sink and have a chance of
making a difference. So...
  

    
I'm trying to envision ruddy-faced smart mobs in Colorado!
  

    
I'm trying to figure out whether blogs, and all the press hubub about
them, reveals anything really new in 'asynchronous computer conferencing'
that we haven't been doing on systems like the Well, or Caucus, for
a very long time. And why journalists are hyping as if this will be
a 'new journalism.' Or is the media 'discovery' of blogs just like
the past 'discovery' of personal computers, online services, the
web, email - in which the last to get it, seemed to be the press - which
then hyped it as if they had invented it.

So what makes a blog different?
  

    
Well, for one thing, and for better or worse, no editors.
  

    
Sure. No editors. But remember several years ago when Cokie Roberts,
journalist decried the Internet, because just 'anyone' could report
things like a journalist, but without editorial controls. And could
simply mislead thousands with bad, or untrue, reporting?

So what has changed in the 'need' for an editor?

Now I happen to believe that no really useful 'computer conferencing'
venue works without at least an even handed 'moderator' - just
like I have never attended any face to face conferences where 'nobody'
was wielding a gavel and kept the subject moving, and on track.

But a moderator is not an editor.
  

    
Blogs are not discussions (though they can have discussions attached), 
that's one difference. But I agree that they're not exactly new, where 
content is concerned: just a simple system for content management that 
makes regular publishing (of news items, journals, etc.) easier. And 
proving to be a killer app of sorts. 
  

    
I would argue that the successful bloggers *are* editors as well as
writers. In addition, devoted readers begin to function like
reporters, sending in items or leads.

There's also a pretty intense reputation economy in the world of
blogs, which works against Cokie Roberts' nightmare vision.
  

    <scribbled by brian Wed 20 Mar 13 18:15>
  

    
Right. We're the bankers in the economy of attention.
  

    
I think another thing that makes blogs more attractive to some authors
is that each blogger is the king of his own castle (however humble),
with responses being decidedly subordinate.  It's unlike a conferencing
system where anyone who comes along gets to participate on an equal
basis.  If Dave Winer were writing on the Well, he'd get embroiled in
an argument every other time he posted, like often happens to axon or
Dave Hughes here.
  

    
There are places in the WELL where blog-like activity takes place, just for
WELLfolks.  The <statements.> and <life.> conferences are places where
people start a topic of their own to opine or tell life stories.  People
mainly encourage them, ask questions or tell similar anecdotes, but seldom
debate there.  Unlike turf like <current.> where there's nearly always
someone who wants to argue, and no topic "belongs" to any one poster.   
But that is not using blog software, which some love.

Does anyone think blogs mainly divide into diary and link commentary
types?  I know it's simplistic, but they still look that way to me. 
  

    
I would say the phrase "link commentary" sells short a lot of the
better blogs.  There is usually a link there as a hook, but the
editorial comment can be more valuable and interesting.  For example,
if Larry Lessig links to the text of the recent Supreme Court
decision in the Eldred case, I'm probably not going to read the
decision, but I'm definitely going to read what Lessig has to say
about it.
  

    
Oh, I don't intend to minimize that editorial value, it's the ultimate
intelligent agent if you get a good independent reasercher/networker on the
case, with genuine expertise to add.

And sometimes it does overlap into journalism/columnist opinion.  An 
obvious example:

http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/
  

    
> There are places in the WELL where blog-like activity takes place,

The Mirrorshades conference was specifically set up to be a weblog.
  

    
A good one, too.