2007/09/25
2007/08/20
Skypeout(age)
You said it's the age of skypeout
Well you know
It's more like the out-age of skype
OK I won't talk about Chairman Mao, anyhow...
Don't you know it's gonna be
Alright!
By now about the mega skypeout-age is old news. What's interesting is the explanations... Here's an explanation filtered by a sceptic:
"Has Skype gotten so big that when part of its circulatory system comes under stress its entire body starts shutting down? Did Skype have a stroke?"
Some guy with an opinion, I'm too lazy to revisit the link and get his name
He's not totally convincing but I see his point... A congestion collapse could happen in theory if the p2p clients don't back off but instead try to reconnect more aggressively to other peers when they get a "busy" from some peers. But I think a simple recent bug that went undetected is as likely an explanation.
Oh yeah and it is pretty lame to blame Microsoft. What next? Are they going to blame their bugs on Sept 11th? Please don't use real tragic disasters to excuse your own recent failings!
Well you know
It's more like the out-age of skype
OK I won't talk about Chairman Mao, anyhow...
Don't you know it's gonna be
Alright!
By now about the mega skypeout-age is old news. What's interesting is the explanations... Here's an explanation filtered by a sceptic:
"Has Skype gotten so big that when part of its circulatory system comes under stress its entire body starts shutting down? Did Skype have a stroke?"
Some guy with an opinion, I'm too lazy to revisit the link and get his name
He's not totally convincing but I see his point... A congestion collapse could happen in theory if the p2p clients don't back off but instead try to reconnect more aggressively to other peers when they get a "busy" from some peers. But I think a simple recent bug that went undetected is as likely an explanation.
Oh yeah and it is pretty lame to blame Microsoft. What next? Are they going to blame their bugs on Sept 11th? Please don't use real tragic disasters to excuse your own recent failings!
2007/07/21
Geni.com
Geni.com is a genealogy social-network... Brilliant! My tree is already at 67 people less than 24 hours after being created!
2007/07/05
Lifeboat planning
"Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks" -- Warren Buffet.
2007/06/19
Etymology of Nemo
Another trip down ego lane.. A long time I ago, I threw up a page called the Etymology of Nemo... I am glad to report the first update since October 29, 1998, thanks to a very erudite Mr. Arthur Klein, who contacted me by email:
While we're on the topic, I should also note my Chinese name
(self-selected with a little help from the web)
柠檬
Pronounced ne-mo. It has a meaning I like a lot, but which shall be left as an exercise for the reader (and I've already done it -- haha).
If I remember correctly, the Greek word used by Homer was 'medeis' where the first e is an eta and the word is pronounced may-dace. It is declined like the famous heis, mia, hen, meaning one (masculine), one (feminine), one (neuter). But it has been fifty years since I studied Greek and tried to read Homer. But you should be able to find it in a decent classical Greek dictionary under: mu, eta, delta, epsilon, iota, sigma. My little modern Greek traveler's dictionary has only 'meden' - mu, eta, delta, epsilon, nu - meaning nothing.
Arthur (Exalted one in Celtic)
Klein (Little in German)
How about that for an oxymoronic name.
Arthur (Exalted one in Celtic)
Klein (Little in German)
How about that for an oxymoronic name.
While we're on the topic, I should also note my Chinese name
(self-selected with a little help from the web)
柠檬
Pronounced ne-mo. It has a meaning I like a lot, but which shall be left as an exercise for the reader (and I've already done it -- haha).
2007/06/13
Hanson & Drexler
I'd like to make a note on Robin Hanson who is really great. So is K. Eric Drexler. Or at least they have some really interesting ideas and ways of thinking.. I should look into what they've been up to since I last read their stuff way back in 90s.
2007/05/07
As of May 7, 2007,
for the record, I am no longer writing about certain topics and a certain company in particular. Regular readers (hey me) have noted it already!
2007/05/02
Podzinger
Podzinger is a text-search engine for audio content. Pretty cool. Another one of those things that took ten years longer than the hype...
Search for bandwidth
Search for bandwidth
2007/04/12
Google, Youtube, Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban makes a great point: that "Gootube" (as he calls Youtube now that it is owned by Google) is forced to be a free bandwidth video hosting/delivery service, rather than a media company, because due to DMCA they can't monetize the content by putting ads around it. How come nobody else is talking about that fact? That's much more fundamental than whatever content deals or lawsuits they are involved in this week.
Still, I think Cuban is too pessimistic about Gootube. It's not like there's no hope for them, quite the contrary. Consider this: instead of monetizing the content, they can enable the monetization, with two features for the content uploader
1) pay-per-view powered by Google Checkout payment services,
2) ads powered by Google Adsense or whatever video ad solution they have, and again the content owner gets the revenue directly
In both cases, the content owner gets the revenue directly and Gootube makes money on fees, like Ebay. These fees can be just as high as the profits from licensing content and monetizing it themselves like a media company (higher if you believe the "long tail" content has more value than big media properties).
Plus they can truly claim to be just the service provider and therefore not liable for copyright violations.
Now throw in a third feature
3) "Gootube Pro" service with no 10-minute limit, where they charge the content owner for bandwidth, a for-pay mass market video content hosting/delivery service, and they can have all the "big" content too.
Why would they try to beat the media companies at their own game when they they have the infrastructure and technology to play a unique and extremely lucrative role as an enabling platform for mass Internet video, for both user-generated content and mainstream media properties?
When everyone thought search technology was just a commodity piece of a portal, Google succeeded by technological strengths in search. Now with everyone thinking about social media and big media monetization of content, maybe they will go with their strengths as a distributed platform for hosting and delivery of content, payment and advertising services.
Still, I think Cuban is too pessimistic about Gootube. It's not like there's no hope for them, quite the contrary. Consider this: instead of monetizing the content, they can enable the monetization, with two features for the content uploader
1) pay-per-view powered by Google Checkout payment services,
2) ads powered by Google Adsense or whatever video ad solution they have, and again the content owner gets the revenue directly
In both cases, the content owner gets the revenue directly and Gootube makes money on fees, like Ebay. These fees can be just as high as the profits from licensing content and monetizing it themselves like a media company (higher if you believe the "long tail" content has more value than big media properties).
Plus they can truly claim to be just the service provider and therefore not liable for copyright violations.
Now throw in a third feature
3) "Gootube Pro" service with no 10-minute limit, where they charge the content owner for bandwidth, a for-pay mass market video content hosting/delivery service, and they can have all the "big" content too.
Why would they try to beat the media companies at their own game when they they have the infrastructure and technology to play a unique and extremely lucrative role as an enabling platform for mass Internet video, for both user-generated content and mainstream media properties?
When everyone thought search technology was just a commodity piece of a portal, Google succeeded by technological strengths in search. Now with everyone thinking about social media and big media monetization of content, maybe they will go with their strengths as a distributed platform for hosting and delivery of content, payment and advertising services.
2007/03/02
Blackberry modem!
Sometimes you just have to say: cool! This is one of those times. I am posting this from my laptop using my blackberry as the modem... Yup, it just works, as described here. In fact, mine a 8700 with T-Mobile is not even listed among the ones that work but it still does! Currently, I'm getting 49.9Kbps. How come they don't advertise this?
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