Mike G. wrote:
mg>
http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/towards-the-internet-as-a-global-public-good/
It's hard to find good analogies or metaphors for the internet. But
here's one:
Compare Main Street -- a public place with private patches located
along it -- with the mall. Because Main Street has a millennium or so
of tradition as a public place, it's an ongoing struggle to impose one
person's or entity's notions or rules. The mall is intrinsically
private, striving egregiously for a bogus illusion of "public space".
But the internet is intrinsically private because somebody with deep
pockets has to provide all that cable, fiber, routers, servers,
gateways and essential technical services. Originally, the internet
was a congeries of private entities. The connections were ad-hocced
from POTS and other phone lines. The "hosts" file was passed around
informally before DNS. Gateways (such as that between Bitnet and the
Unix/IP net) were volunteer efforts.
But we're way beyond all that. Now that giant corporate entities are
providing the pipes and valves and pressure regulators, (and thus
control privately the connections -- mall-ify the streets) they mean
to control and monetize anything that represents a significant revenue
flow, suppress or externalize anything that costs.
Someone once said, in response to some glowing proposal about
colonizing near space with orbital biomes, "It would be like living
forever in a Greyhound bus." I'm afraid that the western (or
capitalist or "free markets and free elections") faction means to have
the net be a virulently exfoliating version of Farcebook. The huge
acceptance of that particular digital mall environment, (as well as of
phone, tablet and e-reader tech that locks the user out of any
meaningful control) suggests that they'll get away with it.
Ed W. wrote:
Ed> Interesting chart from today's Daily Reckoning.
[Decline of US$'s value, so today's $ buys what 3 cents did in
1913.]
Does that mean much unless you put median wage or family income or
something similar along side?
Ed> Isn't also the end of the world, according to the Mayan calendar?
Ed> Somehow, I don't feel very cheerful.
Hey, the worst thing about death, assuming it's not a protracted and
unbearably painful one, is that you don't get to see how things turned
out.
If today is the end of the world, that will not be a problem.
Cheer up.
Tomorrow, the days (if any) will be getting longer.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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