Musings

General-purpose musings

There are 780 posts filed in Musings (this is page 36 of 78).

Whisper-quiet morning

I awoke to a strangely silent day this morning. The combination of overcast skies, cool temperatures, and the Labor Day weekend combined to provide the illusion of being in a house miles from nowhere, rather than one just two miles from downtown Raleigh. There were no air conditioners straining against the heat, and anyone who could left town did leave town as is the usual case around here (Raleigh is anything but the vacation destination).

It’s not like our neighborhood is especially noisy most mornings – actually it is surprisingly calm – but today was exceptionally quiet. I savor the silence on the rare occasions that it visits.

Van Jones

You know, I’m sure there’s more to this story than is being told about White House “green jobs” official Van Jones “resigning” supposedly due to a petition he signed and because he called Republicans a bad name.

So Jones doubts the official story of what happened during the attacks of September 11th. Big deal! There are so many holes in the official 9/11 story that it’s not even funny. Jones is not alone in his doubt and that’s certainly no reason to can him.

As for the Republican remark, wasn’t it Dick Cheney who, while on that bastion of civility and decorum – the Senate Floor, told Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Lehey to go f*ck himself? I didn’t see ol’ Darth Cheney turning in his walking papers after that.

Either there’s more to Jones’s forced resignation than we’re being told or Obama threw him under the bus as a gift to the rabid right-wing talk show hosts. Neither scenario sits well with me.

Facebook is the new AOL

Remember in the early, dot-com days of the Internet there were two classes of Internet users, dialup users and AOL users? The dialup users had access to the full Internet (well, full for the time, anyway) and AOL users got a sanitized, prepackaged version of the Internet at best. We dialup users looked down on the AOL users and their “walled-garden” system.

It dawned on me today that Facebook is the new AOL. Facebook has this whole environment where things are controlled and it’s set apart from the rest of the Internet. There are some people whose online experience consists almost completely of Facebook. It’s a walled-garden just like AOL.

I’ve been on the Internet since 1992, the same year that AOL for Windows debuted. Seventeen years later we are back where we started.

(You clever MT.Net readers are different, though. The fact that you’re reading this shows you’re not part of the unwashed masses. Pat yourselves on the back.)

Free the tubes

Andy Kessler wrote an insightful piece on the stifling state of communications in America, called Why AT&T Killed Google Voice.

Apple has an exclusive deal with AT&T in the U.S., stirring up rumors that AT&T was the one behind Apple rejecting Google Voice. How could AT&T not object? AT&T clings to the old business of charging for voice calls in minutes. It takes not much more than 10 kilobits per second of data to handle voice. In a world of megabit per-second connections, that’s nothing—hence Google’s proposal to offer voice calls for no cost and heap on features galore.

What this episode really uncovers is that AT&T is dying. AT&T is dragging down the rest of us by overcharging us for voice calls and stifling innovation in a mobile data market critical to the U.S. economy.

Kessler mentions that people will one day buy their TV by the show and not the network, which is the same thing I’ve been saying. Packets are packets, and we don’t need monopoly-owned pipes anymore, whether they be real like AT&T or virtual like Apple’s iTunes. It’s time to crank the data networks wide open!

Chevrolet Hills now ready for paving

We drove up to our friends the Naylor’s Lake Gaston lakehouse this morning. It had been a while since I drove up that part of Capital Boulevard and I was dismayed to see the old Cheviot Hills Golf Course now completely cleared, with few, if any, remaining trees. I’ve known it was coming, as it was bought by car dealers and car dealers do what car dealers do: they build car lots. But do they have to plow over every damn tree to build their lots?

I don’t know why it bothers me so, as I never set foot on that golf course, and the jackass who ran it pissed me off with his late night, drunken hunting. I suppose it’s trading a unique community resource for yet another faceless car dealership.
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Healthcare hits home

Stethoscope-2
I once worked at a great small business. One day, one of my coworkers abruptly announced she was leaving the company. This woman was one of the original employees and knew the company as well (or better) than the founders. How could she possibly be leaving? I had to find out her reason, so I stepped outside with her.

“What’s the scoop?” I asked.
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Kim Jong-il: an Internet expert

180px-Kim_Jong_il_2009_2

Remember how I was laughing at the thought of North Korea launching a cyber-attack? That was before I found out reclusive leader Kim Jong-il is an Internet expert. Maybe the North Korean equivalent to Vint Cerf or something, for all I know.

Anyway, could today’s brief denial of service attack on Twitter be the work of Dear Leader? Makes me wonder. A denial of service attack doesn’t need much initial bandwidth to get started, provided there’s a large farm of zombie hosts from which to attack.

Downtown amphitheatre

I was glad to see the city move forward with plans for the downtown amphitheatre. I actually brought this up with the mayor last week, inquiring where we were in the process and expressing my dismay that Live Nation was involved (y’all know how I feel about them). I’m glad to see that the city’s moving forward without Live Nation’s support, financially or otherwise.

I still believe an amphitheatre would be a great addition to the downtown mix. Moore Square is just not designed to be a concert venue, nor should it be. Having a dedicated facility would be a great improvement. The idea is that the amphitheatre would be a placeholder until the convention center gets expanded. Perhaps when that happens the amphitheatre can move up to the Devereaux Meadow location: the former site of a city ballpark that now houses the city’s sanitation trucks. The success of the Seaboard Music concerts proves that folks in the area would support outdoor music. And when the show’s over, it’s just a short walk or bus ride over to Glenwood South. Wouldn’t that be great!