p2pnet - rss feed: Cellheads and Netheads
p2p news / p2pnet:- There’s a good argument that the two relevant mindsets in today’s internet world are "cellhead" and "nethead." Cellheads are happy with walled garden mobile networks, in which all services are approved, all devices are authorized, and spam isn’t a problem.
Netheads, by contrast, are looking for open, public networks of user-generated (or at least -commented upon) content and metainformation, in which applications don’t have to be approved and to which any device can attach if it knows the protocol.
IMS/NGN represents the standardization of the cellhead mindset and the suggestion that it will enter into the nethead world. We need empirical evidence that cellhead approaches lead to less dynamic growth — the mobile world is certainly growing quickly, but arguably won’t provide as rich and interesting a future as the nethead network. Back to layers again: emergence and metainformational growth depend on the existence of independent layers that allow experimentation and mistakes.
On the other hand, as Martin Geddes says, asking for all networks to be "neutral" networks (in which layer independence and nondiscrimination are mandated) can be extraordinarily pernicious. We should only do it in markets for internet access that are clearly broken because they are dominated by one or two players — where a choice of plain vanilla access just isn’t available. That appears to be the situation in the US generally (albeit not, perhaps, in San Francisco).
So let some network providers go into the IMS/NGN world (which will foster more ads like this one, asking you to tell your broadband provider to let you have a particular service). As long as there are choices, we’ll be fine. If there aren’t choices, we’ll need to mandate nondiscrimination. But it won’t be easy.
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Planes are the new libraries. On my way back to NY yesterday, a woman in front of me opened up her laptop and started watching a 1930s American musical with subtitles. It was loud. The people around me stirred uncomfortably. They were all reading — books, Bibles, magazines. The man next to the laptop-lady removed the headphones from his ears and offered them to her, showing her where they could attach to her computer. He then took out from his bag an extra pair for himself. Planes are the places to read these days, and we all settled down again for a few more hours of quiet.
Susan Crawford - Susan Crawford Blog
[Crawford is a cyberlaw and communications law professor in New York City. She’s working on OneWebDay, a global celebration of the internet, scheduled for September 22, 2006.]
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October 18th, 2005 at 11:24 am
It’s the shorter story in this article that merits comment. I started to ask, when did we Americans become so insensitive to other people. Then I had to admit that we have never been considerate of others. Apartment dwellers will forever be subjected to the loud music and party-making noises of other residents who feel they have a God-given right to party all night long, preferably at over 80 decibels; theater-goers will forever suffer at the hands of noisy patrons who prefer to talk their way through the movie; and on and on.
Years ago, I attended a performance of “Rigoletto” by a regional semi-professional opera company, only to be subjected to the person in the seat behind me whistling along with the score. It was loud enough and obnoxious enough that most of the audience was clearly annoyed and tried desperately and in vain to shush this asshole and his compelling need to let the world know that he was intimately acquainted with the melodic line of the orchestral score.
Being so close, I turned to him between the first and second scene of Act One and told him that he was disturbing everyone – could he not hear them expressing their displeasure? His reply was simply: “Hey, I paid to get in here just like everyone else.”
How difficult is it to comprehend that personal freedoms come with personal obligations?
The rest of us paid our money to witness and experience the production being offered by the semi-professional opera company. This one, single, inconsiderate asshole bought a ticket in order to whistle along with the orchestra!
I will never understand why the management did not evict him before Act II. The fact that they did not is the reason I never attended another performance by that group.
And the lady aboard that plane? Someone had to offer her a set of earphones! Incredible!
October 18th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
ewww…
why didn’t that idiot give her the clean earphones? how selfish he is. how inconsiderate and dirty he is.
how disgusting is it to wear earphones which had just emerged from a total stranger’s ears?
very disgusting indeed. it’s like offering someone your used toilet paper or tissues.