> On Wed, Dec 30, 1998 at 02:12:19AM -0800, Javilk wrote:
> > Yes, they are manual. And yes, that solution stinks. But it is a
> > start because it approaches what is NEEDED by local businesses and their
> > local customers.
>
> 1. I don't believe that such a need has been clearly demonstrated. I think
> that the relationship between "local" businesses and "local" customers
> is increasingly less relevant as the 'net removes the distinction between
> "local" and "not local".
For computer hardware, maybe. For pizza and ice cream, hamburger joints
and grocery stores, Local is Local. For consumer goods like groceries,
drop shipping is not a good option, not so much because it is difficult to
set up a neighborhood co-op; but because of the need for PLANNING, which
most people don't want to do.
> 2. Even if such as need did exist, I do not think that two decades of
> progress should be reversed for the convenience of business. If business
> wants this, then let them invent a mechanism which provides the functionality.
> That mechanism is not DNS.
Guess why the net took off. Guess who is paying for it. People!
People to business and business to people relationships. Electro-life not
having begun to evolve itself, nor having taken over this world, things
are done for people, and people always go for more convenient solutions.
Technology is here to serve people, not the other way around.
> Perhaps, and perhaps not. Perhaps the problem is that local businesses,
> like 99% of all businesses, do not understand the Internet and do not
> know how to use it to conduct business. Instead of gaining
this > understanding and using it to make a buck, they try various
"strategies",
Do you understand your automobile? Does the average accountant
understand how his accounting package works at the computer instruction
level? (Never mind how the IRS works!) Is that level of knowledge
necessary to use tools effectively?
Must I know how to forge a screwdriver to use it? No. And I will
misuse it to open cans, never mind not using it to assemble my piano, as it
was invented to do by some Czech fellow. (Pianos had gotten too popular,
and the requirements to re-build doorways was becoming too burdensome and
too expensive every time a piano had to be moved. Voila, Screws, Screw
Drivers, and the phrase "Some User Assembly Required". Blame it on the
Czechs.)
> all of which are silly and pointless. Last year it was "push"; now
> it's "portal". This is called "strategic vision", but I think of it as
> cover for "we don't have a clue how the Internet works".
Do they know how to use it? No. Do we know how to use it? No, Even
we consultants are still inventing the web and internet as we speak. I
predicted _a_ web, even invented the first browser for it (as far as I
know,) back in 1982; but the web happened differently, far faster (yet
later,) and more robustly than I thought possible. And was left on the
side lines. (I didn't predict the search engines, though. Danged!) How
dull it would be if we knew "how to use it"! Thinking we know something
is The Greatest enemy of learning and of progress.
> > It is NOT efficient, in terms of user or system resources, to
>
> Depends on what you mean by "efficient". ...
> If you mean "browser-clicking users want to find local resources
> based on their current geographic position without having to
> navigate several sites" then (for example) I suggest that wendys.com
> should simply have a "find your nearest Wendys" page
...
> Then do it by zip code. Or telephone exchange. Or address. But someone
Meaning every franchise and chain company has to force every user to
fetch multiple pages every time he or she wants to order from a local
business... That is an absurd waste of user time and bandwidth. As Steve
Jobs said about boot-up time, by shaving off a couple of seconds, you can
save a couple of people-lifetimes.
> that question for them, and that device can not, and should not, depend
> on the DNS system, which is designed to *ignore* geography and topology.
> Attempting to forcibly retrofit those ideas into it is Very Bad.
Ah, but now we get to the key point. Topology. Topology is related
to, but not an exact mapping of, geography.
(relocated)
> Yes, you're getting through to me, but even if I grant the points
> that local businesses (a) want this and (b) need this -- neither of which
> I think has been established, but let's grant 'em for the sake of argument,
> you seem to be insisting that this be done via DNS. This is wrong:
> DNS is not the appropriate tool to solve this problem, and attempting
> to warp it sufficiently to make it so will break it.
Correct me if I am wrong... DNS is the method of translating names to
IP addresses, it "knows" the topology by the way it works, and reduces
names to routing information. Since we wish to translate names, or words,
to topographic routing information, DNS really IS the answer.
As I understand it, when you ask for www.wendys.com, a request goes
from your machine to your upline server's DNS cache. (Which, in the days
of out-sourced and roaming dialup services, is more local to you than your
ISP's host machine.) If that cache does not know, it asks another upline
machine, and that asks another, till the information translating a name to
an IP address, is found and returned.
Now, if one limits the distance or hierarchical height to which a
class of cached information may rise, one can localize specific
information within some nodal fan-out region... a n approximate
topological zone.
That means some local or national Wendy's is paying someone to keep a
local name to IP address translation handy. It would probably be a
wendys.loc, and the browser would probably add the .loc. Meanwhile, that
Wendy's and a few thousand others are PAYING for that DNS server. Bandwidth
is conserved, the customer gets one web page instead of two or three, the
hardware is paid for, and everyone is more or less happy. True, it is not
the precise mapping, but is a lot closer than shipping three pages across
the country and spending three to five minutes PER HUMAN each time a human
wants to reach an inherently LOCAL business. How many hundreds to
thousands of human lifetimes is that??? And with that, how many more
people will turn to the web because of the ease of use, vs inputting some
phone number or zip code, and probably violating their concept of privacy
as well.
> > What is the purpose of the internet? Is it not to serve people?
>
> Strawman. The Internet has a large number of purposes. I believe
All of which have a human as the final user, machines not having taken
over. Even machine to machine transactions are in service of a human or
organization of humans. And those humans are paying for those
transactions, and the added convenience they bring to life, indirectly or
directly. (Else this would be a dictatorship or a monarchy, and few of
the labor saving devices would have been invented. Remember that in
Medieval Japan, wheeled vehicles were banned for road ware concerns.)
> I have explained in detail why this is a really bad, bordering on
> hideous, idea, and I have proposed alternatives which solve the same
> problem without breaking DNS. I believe that the aggregate purpose
None of which provided end users with any level of convenience or
automation.
Why waste millions of people's time. Using your logic, you could
justify spam, which we both hate like the dickens. "Just hit the delete
key". Same for Just hit Alta-Vista, type in "wendy's 94825". Oh, 23,896
replies, uh, try "wendys Altoona Missisippie" Uh, 125,582 replies??? Oh!
+wendys +94825... Zero? What's the next town's zip code?... etc.
Instead, just type "wendys". Or "burger" if you are not picky.
> > Are local retailers served by being forced to deal with non-local
> > people on the internet?
>
> They are not "forced" to do anything, including be on the Internet in
> the first place. I am sorry that some businesses choose to employ
> a tool (the 'net) that they do not understand adequately...but This
> Is Not My Problem.
You are right. You are a sysadmin, not an ISP or or businessman who
would see this as a revenue source or means of advertising, nor an end
user who would see this as a convenience. You are sitting in your mental
box, just doing your "corporate chart box" job. (And probably do it better
than most, too.)
Step outside the box, look at the bigger picture, see what the users
need.
> No, I do not see that. I see that this is a really bad idea. I also
> see that local businesses which are well-organized and effectively run
> are doing just fine *without* the 'net.
Not for long...
> And I think you're missing a fundamental point: it is impossible
> to help people who do not know where they are. If they don't possess
??? Why do you think there are "Hospital" signs on the highway? How
much of the time do you really know where you are? I lived on a street
that had three different names on three different maps. My father and I
used different addresses for the same house. Did I know where I was?
Arguable.
> cannot be directed to resources in geographical proximity. Moreover,
> this information cannot be reliably inferred on the basis of their
> IP address, domain name, or anything else that's available via IP.
To paraphrase McLullan, "The network is the information." It is a
mapping... a topography.
> Once that has been addressed, I suggest a web site (similar to mapquest)
> which catalogs geography-specific URLs and can take as input any of:
>
> - GPS coordinates
> - lat./long.
> - street address
> - zip code
> - telephone exchange/telephone number
> - city/town name
> - ??
>
> combined with search terms such as "dry cleaners", "fast food", etc.,
> and produces as output a clickable map showing the location of these
> organizations.
So happens I have actually used Mapquest and the various yellow pages
type services a fair bit for several clients. That stuff takes a LONG
time to download!!! It is only marginally practical. For finding my
place, a map book is one heck of a lot faster! Yet few people are willing
to use even the map books.
To echo the sig file of one of our good members, Our job is to make
the web work for people, not the other way around. Help it become an
intelligent highway, not a collection of toll roads.
The organization which figures out how to modify DNS for topological
name service, will reap a rich reward. Guess it won't be you, even though
you are far more qualified to understand what needs to be done that than I
am.
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