Braindump

[azekeil]

I have been really busy recently and simply haven't had time to interact online in the way I normally do. I consider this both a blessing and a curse.

One part of the curse is that I've got lots of things to say and not a lot of time to say them, so they will be condensed and presented here:

• I watched a fascinating series of programs on Joost called Being Human. This brought up a number of interesting issues but the most interesting one to me was one that links in to my previous thoughts on 'the simple life' and made me re-look at some of my current views. The brief synopsis is that one robot inventor forsees a world where the collection of information that is going on today (just look at the UK government for example) will lead to a tomorrow where we have HUDs on our (sun)glasses displaying information on every person we meet giving us information like their name and if we choose even what their ex-spouse thought of them for example. His point was that this would bring us back to our village-like mentality where humans did know all the ins and outs of everyone they met and this was the modern day equivalent. It made me think about how we've been brought up in relative privacy due to the anonymous life we've been brought up to think of as normal, and how privacy may only be a matter of perception. Food for thought, certainly.


• Which brings me neatly on to my next point - I'm beginning to believe that the current level of bandwidth consumption of the internet by consumers is not sustainable, from reading articles like this one and other articles that are linked to at the end of it. IPTV such as Joost/iplayer/YouTube etc is a nice idea but it's not going to work in the long term. Smart caching or protocol-level cleverness that does the same thing at ISP level may be able to recover a large amount of this while boosting customer satisfaction, but I doubt they want all the legal hassles that will no doubt accompany it. Further, I believe we are heading for a second .com bubble where businesses finally realise that the sorts of people who go in for their social networking tools are also the ones who are really, really unlikely to click on advertisements or buy products or do any of the other things their business models rely on. Instead, be prepared for a much duller internet that we have to have metered access for. Makes me want to start my own ISP actually, that does things right.


• Had a lovely afternoon on Saturday meeting new people, two of whom live just down the road from us. We played poker and I came third (out of nine), more than doubling my starting stake. I lost my nerve halfway through as I was not used to betting with reasonable amounts of money, but persevered and won through.


• I was strangely ill on Sunday, going back to bed for a couple of hours but seem to be fine now, although I'm really quite tired as I haven't been getting enough sleep as per usual.


• Werk is busy as I have agreed some deadlines for the end of this month which see me really rather busy but it's good, I can see the progress and almost touch it tangibly. Better yet, my boss can use what I've done as an example for a wider audience :)


• Ratchet the kitten has had his appointment to be neutered and seems far less distressed than I worried he would be, which is good :)


• Archery is wicked, looking forward to the longbow making course after yesterday's lesson which included demonstration of the three main types: longbow, recurve and compound.


• I've been invited round to the new people's house to watch Tenacious D on Thursday evening which will be a nice excuse to be social :)


• I failed to get a wireless PCI network card working in an old desktop machine. Shoddy non-backwards-compatible PCI standards (or poor implementation, I'm not interested enough to work out which it is) :/


• I always have more to say when I'm busy, damnit. It's almost as if being busy inspires me or something ;)

Comments

[blaadyblah.livejournal.com]

*waves* Was thinking of you earlier, big hugs!

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

*waves back* Have been thinking of you too, seeing your moving posts - just nothing really relevant to say really! *big hugs back*

[gerald_duck]

I'm not terribly worried about tales of bandwidth overload; there was a scare like that in the mid-nineties, causing various techies to start wearing "the Internet is full; go away" t-shirts and all the rest. Sorting the problem out took a hefty wodge of investment, but things were fine once people had thrown money at the problem.

We're reaching the point where everyone's recouped the cost of their investment in ADSL infrastructure and can start thinking about investing in something with more bandwidth.


As for always having more to say when busy, I know the feeling! My stack of LJ postings to make is quite large at the moment — so large I keep thinking of setting myself up a private Wiki to scribble things in lest I forget. (-8

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

As for always having more to say when busy, I know the feeling! My stack of LJ postings to make is quite large at the moment — so large I keep thinking of setting myself up a private Wiki to scribble things in lest I forget. (-8

BT;DT ;)

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

I believe the bandwidth issue is different this time, because it's not just quantity but the business model we're breaking this time. Additionally I think the backers are finally going to get tired of supporting what is more and more clearly a broken business model.

[chocojon.livejournal.com]

I thought that you mean Being human which shows promise as a series but only the pilot is available AFAIK.
It is based quite a bit in Bristol too. :)

This would be quite cool for a HUD: http://www.designnews.com/article/CA6524042.html