Ever notice how the "tekkie things" which mushroom all around us -
how these newer, better toys which we are becoming so enamored
with - and are supposed to enrich and simplify our life - things
like increasingly advanced computers, multifunction cell phones,
Replay TV, iPods, PDAs, etc...
...well, yes... dammit - they end up making life much more complex
than it used to be. Huh? That's not the "promise" of advanced
technology is it?
... we must think that it's worth it, in the end, but how far can
you carry this trend of cascading-high-learning-curves ? - I mean
you could offer a course in "mastering Replay-TV" - how crazy is
that.
Well, BillB's message:
Note: that server is pretty slow. I'll see if I can host
mirror copies of the really huge mpegs.
...makes me realize that another layer of complexity is just-now
on the horizon to "meet this need" of huge files needing to be
transferred between small numbers of individuals with shared
interests. The information in video form is getting massive - but
the owners of the information may be experimenters who do no have
their own servers, or may have access to only barely-affordable
servers that cannot transfer large (100 Mb and up) files to
hundreds of individuals. BUT they do have valuable data of intense
interest for a limited audience of a few hundred. (how many are on
vortex these days?) And it is easy to record it - some cell phones
will do this.
Anyway the answer is here. It is free, it is effective, but it
does have another irritating learning curve. Some might not call
it a high learning curve, but it takes 10-20 hours to get familiar
with it.... like everything else worth having, it seems.
....just one more damn annoyance... in being an ageing techie, I
guess... but this not-so-simple-stuff gets old after a while. I
mean when you start with Cobol, and thought that would be the only
language you would ever need to learn but it was passé before you
got out of grad school, and then you go through forty years of
more-of-the-same (almost-planned) obsolescence...only to find that
there is this not-huge but annoying learning curve just involved
in being a moderately well-informed retiree... when does "enough
become enough"?
Not anytime soon... so... get ready... It is called P2P and it is
pretty cool.
I finally have gotten it down, mainly as a result of tracking down
old music, and admittedly there are some legality issues with the
more enjoyable aspects (music) but this is just the tip of a huge
iceberg (and, hey, I did buy all of those albums in vinyl at one
time or another - in greatly deflated currency ;-)
... but one can easily see how this little added-layer of
communication efficiency is going to revolutionize the flow of
information, and take it to another level. Imagine observing an
experiment - or attending a conference 10-thousand miles away, and
getting this info the next day, no airplane ticket required - no
hotel, etc. This is happening now, and will only increase with
P2P.
Jones
