Category Archives: Uncategorized

White Space Use Changes Everything — Thanks, FCC

On Novemember 4, 2008, while most folks in America were celebrating the conclusion of an historical election, some of us (name call how you like) were busy celebrating the FCC’s unanimous "yes" vote to open White Spaces to unlicensed or lightly licensed personal devices.  While this is not exactly the same band of frequencies as those included in the 19.6 billion-dollar auction of the 700MHZ band that took place earlier this year, it does stem from the same place — the February 2009 mandated digital conversion of broadcast TV, resulting in the release of the non-contiguous spectrum from 54mhz to 806MHZ. This recent FCC vote and news has to do with the sub-700MHZ portion that has not been auctioned.

White Space is what?

It’s fast, long-range, wireless broadband within an existing and established infrastructure.  Without getting into too many technical specifics, the White Space in question is the unused portion of the spectrum between the channels from 54MHZ to 698MHZ (everything below what was auctioned).  Each white space being about 1MHZ wide, capable of transmitting voice and data at speeds between 10mbs to 20mb per channel.  (Probably faster.)  Has a range measured in miles, and goes through most physical objects with little signal loss or degradation.

Interesting Interested Conglomerates

The major proponent, of course, being Google, who provided its White Space proposal to the FCC shortly after the 700MHZ auction closed in March. Thinking they’d already secured one open access avenue for their then upcoming mobile G1 cellphone, they smartly figured it would be a good idea to secure a second open access avenue with equal capabilities.  Google partnered with a variety of companies to move their plan forward, including tech giants Dell, Motorola, and Microsoft.  Mr. Gates himself made a lobbying appearance late in October to fight for their cause.

Not surprisingly, the major opponents of the FCC’s decision are content creators like ABC, CBS, and NBC, and those groups who provide distribution conduits for existing content, like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.  None of these groups want more competition getting into your living room or with providing wireless, mobile service.  They have control and, reasonably so, they want to keep it.  So they’re going to fight this FCC decision as best they can at whatever cost.

Problems For a Crowded Spectrum

Because this is the space between licensed spaces already in use, opponents argue that an unlimited, or uncountable, amount of unlicensed devices will generate too much interference with their already licensed devices, resulting in disruption to their existing services. (For example, Radio or TV microphones and cameras at live sporting events could be disrupted by too many personal portable devices at the event causing havoc on the spectrum.)

Except this is a weak argument because the FCC outlined in their standards that personal devices are required to sense nearby licensed streams and then shutdown if they are too close.  So, in theory, portable device could turn off while you’re at the game.  Although, it would seem this is unlikely to happen, as devices could easily switch to an alternate channel in the lower band, or potentially switch to a channel in the open upper band, much like devices can do now between Edge or 3G.  Not to mention the FCC also dictates that devices will not be released that have any risk of interfering with other signals.

End User Impacts

Big players with Big stacks of cash are fighting to maintain, or gain, control of how we all speed into the next era of information exchange and interactivity.  It will move across the Internet to your hand held devices where ever you are, or across the Internet into each room of your house.  You’ll no longer be dependent on Comcast, Verizon, or AT&T to get you voice and data connections.  You’ll no longer be dependent on ABC, CBS, and NBC to provide you content.  You’ll no longer be limited to crippled devices with limited function because of bad multi-year contracts.

Why This Must Happen

High-speed.  Long-range.  Existing infrastructure.  Accessibility.  Cost.  Open standards.  Wireless!  The white space currently goes unused, which is a waste of a valuable resource.  With an open, high-speed, wireless network, any user with a piece of hardware running compliant software can access the network and use the Internet.  The user’s cost to access the world wide web will diminish as hardware costs decrease, software is freely given away, and advertisers adapt.  Much like network television, the costs are covered by funds earmarked for marketing.  Everyone will have equal access to the same information at an amazing rate.

The best content (TV, movies, music, multi-media), the best services (video chat, phone chat, instant messaging, email, to do lists, content management, word processing, etc.), the best of everything else I can’t think of, will be on the Internet available to everyone at exactly the same time in exactly the same way, and so it will be for everyone to decide what’s good and what works.

The power is shifting, and I need more space!

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In Missing Action, Like Who-Wha!

Don’t get me wrong folks, I enjoy this social blog media two point oh stuff, but sometimes the anti-typist world gets the better of my time and requires me to spend free moments sleeping rather than ranting about Valleywag bull nonsense.  Ya dig what I’m sayin’?  For real.

No excuses.

The Edible Crawl for the Cure was a smashing success!  While the gang and I ran through multiple eateries and drinking holes, we simultaneously contributed in part to raise nearly $20K for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.  Nicely done! And a special thanks to Ms. Darby Flynn and all the midtown/downtown restaurants that made the event possible.

Too much food and good times left me legless for the Making Strides for Breast Cancer walk the following morning.  (My bad, Bennie Hannah .)  Still, we raised a good bit of cash for this event as well.  Collectively, the event raised more than they’ve been able to count so far, but as a team…well, let’s be honest, I don’t have it in me to tally the sum, and Ben isn’t available to do the math.  I think we made half our goal, though, if I had to guess off the top of my head.

But October is charity event month, or something, so it didn’t stop there.  In past years I _played_ in my company’s golf tournament, but this year I opted for a _volunteer_ role and worked the sinners’ stop along the cart path.  Tequila, Cigars, Beers, and Beer Girls, Oh-My!

2008 Golf Tournament

I leave Sunday for a housing conference in Monterey, then return for a pre-bachelor party the following weekend.  We’re not quite out of the busy woods yet, but we’ll be back, I’m sure of it. Although, I do have to admit my brother will soon be in town, and you’ll see nothing of me then.  So let me keep my fingers crossed and hope I make some time to repair the errors that are WordPress and my Theme combined, as well as set aside a few moments for writing about all that is politically silly and Measure O in Sacra-tamato.

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Web 2.0 Ridiculousness And A Dopey Spat

I’m sure, on some level, that’s in deemed inappropriate for me to be seen laughing at the situation.  I don’t know whether to throw my hands up or hang my head.  Sure, they’re the same thing, but one requires more energy, and I’m in too much pain to do either.  So let’s to a quick low down on what’s been going down.

Calacanis sends out one of his emails saying it’s over for start ups everywhere.  Leaves me jumping for joy.  Ever since that Yammer debacle from TC50(2), the start up world has been a disappointment.  Not having money to throw at every new idea that pops into someone’s head, is probably an okay thing.  Which leads (by correlation, not causation) the VCs to start crying “the sky is falling, don’t throw money at every lamebrain idea.”  Can it be, our wishes are granted.  No more online banking sites for people under the age of double-digits.

So there’s no start up VC money for the new guys, but a bunch of the old guys (late twenties, tops) still have a bunch of money and they decide to take a lavish vacation to Cyprus where they stay at Wall Street power broker Bob Lessin’s get away home to do a very low quality lip dub set poolside to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” which is later released online (surprise) and stirs up a flurry of emotion from the have-nots.  Sorry new start-up kids, you’ll have to wait for the next bubble and, maybe, create a _useful_ service.

Rounding out the senselessness from people who have nothing to complain about is TechCrunch’s very own Michael Arrington throwing a tantrum over rival blogger Dare Obasanjo’s post calling Arrington a horrible name.  Not sure what the name was, but it must have been really bad because Arrington was pissing all over the Twitter stream late Sunday night, shouting at Scoble and Barnes.

I’m left to think this is all a joke of a farce, or something similar, that doesn’t mean much to anyone who isn’t living the Web 2.0 Internet.  But be not afraid, regular people, there is some good to come from all of this, and that’s the Mr. Feldman’s video spoofs to make us laugh.  Head on over to his site and check out some of the humor that’s being passed around via his videos.  Or completley ignore all of this.  The Silicon bubble is of very little consequence to most of us.

Tina Fey Wins The Election For Republicans

Honestly, if voting for McCain and Palin means we get to see Tina Fey doing Palin impersonations for four years, then I’m all for it.  Fey makes Palin likable beyond reason, and when I sit to watch and re-watch all the SNL clips with Fey playing Palin, I sometimes forget which is who and what any of it has to do with the government, which excites me a great deal.  So much so that I’m wanting to get out the vote and make rock.  Or get out the rock and make voters.  Something with a rock and a vote and comedy.

I have no idea how elections are won and what one thing has to do with another when it comes to campaigning and mind washing, or why celebrities think they make a difference with their online viral videos.  No idea at all.  But I do idea that the candidate who is better parodied is the candidate who America chooses.  Maybe it hasn’t always been like this, but it’s been this way for two decades, and I imagine it will continue to be this way.  People like to laugh at jokes they understand.

Tina Fey plays the role of Sarah Palin.  Tina Fey is Funny.  Thus, Sarah Palin is funny so we should all vote for her.  (Maybe it doesn’t work exactly that way.)

All I can say is that I’m planning to know what I’m voting for when the time comes.  Hopefully it’s a bear in a tree safely removed from a harmful situation.  (Ambiguity.)  One of those endangered species types that suffers from strangely-hot weather.

It makes me smile.

Update:10/9/08

Just received (via snail mail) the latest edition of a weekly I subscribe to, and one of its comics is a total rip off of my Fey/Republican joke.  How dare they!  Okay, okay.  Clearly they didn’t steal the idea from me, but the joke was obvious.  I’m slipping.

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Real Human Moments?

I can’t say for sure how human were these real moments, but I can say that Thompology , KORe, and I made our way to Improv Everywhere’s latest MP3 experiment in San Francisco this past weekend held in the beautiful Mission Dolores Park.  The event, or experiment, involves quite a bit of human interaction, but most of it is very brief, and all of it is mostly scripted.  How real can your human moments be when they’re pre-written for you?

Don’t get me wrong, the event was a smashing good time, filled with moments of shaking, smiling, shading, rounded out with a gloriously epic balloon battle.  For forty-five minutes we, thanks to the Improv Everywhere folks, owned the park.  The innocent bystanders, in all their less-than-candid confusion, moved to the edges of the park to witness first hand the fun being had by several hundred MP3 Experiment participants.  Amazing, to say the least.  And for that same forty-five minutes, Thompology, KORe, and I owned the event.

It’s a pleasure to take part in something that one and a few others have spent so much time to orchestrate.  Improv Everywhere took their show on the road and invited anyone and everyone to take part.  All we needed was a colored shirt, a balloon, an umbrella, and a willingness to momentarily  relinquish our free will and restraint.  Sure, no problem.  Any opportunity to interrupt the food-eating of an unsuspecting couple is a registered good time in my book.  High-fives all around and, oh, can I hug your bike before I chase your tiny dog around the park.  Excuse me, I’m living an adventure here, please don’t interrupt.  But do enjoy the show.

I accept that the intent of the gathering is not to meet new people but to perform on a larger stage — I get it, I like it.  Except, I want to do it on my own terms and not in an effort to be anti-whatever.  (They slipped that in there at the end, but we’ll see how they play it on the final cut.)  I would much rather talk to strange people on the sidewalk than play thumb wars in a park with a person being told to engage.  There is nothing frightening or scary about doing what you’re told to do in a public setting that’s more than publicly acceptable.  There’s nothing to lose.  There’s nothing to gain.  I’m left sitting bored.

This isn’t meant as a cut on the Improv folks.  They’ve done a good thing, and they did it very well.  I’d encourage anyone interested or curious to give these guys a chance, interact in one of their shows, and definitely visit their web site to watch some of their past performances.  What I am trying to say, though, is that I expect a whole lot more from myself.  I eat these types of social activities for breakfast.  Meeting new people is not difficult.  Entertaining and confusing unsuspecting folks is not a challenge.  I require more.

Competitive Weight Loss Program

As an aside to my regular happenings, I joined my co-workers in a big fat loser competition.  We started last week and I weighed in at 187.4lbs.  Which is close to my actual naked weight of 180.6lbs.  The competition will last eight weeks (final weigh-in just before Thanksgiving break) and is percentage based.  I’m aiming for a ten pound loss, which is about five and a half percent either way.  (Right?  Someone help me with my math.  Thanks.)  We’ll have to *weight* and see how it goes.  Not sure if 5.5% is enough to be competitive against the rest of the office, but since there are no official rules and anything goes, I plan to bring donuts and cookies.  For them, not for me.

And that should be "big fat-loser", not "big fat loser."  It makes me laugh however you say it.  Which probably means we’re saying it wrong.  But you get the idea.

Wish me luck.  The winner gets $227.50 and second place gets $97.50.

Update: 10/3/08

Thompology has joined the competition .  Although his entry is an unofficial one, this will definitely add some entertainment to the compteition, and probably keep me more motiviated.  (Trash talking in real life is way different than trash talking in the office.)  Game on!  And, good luck.

“Impression Of A Normal Guy”

Jake and Amir from JakeandAmir dot com nailed it in their most recent video "Impersonation" where, after first bickering about whether or not it would be better to have an infinity amount of chicken nuggets or an infinity amount of money, Amir goes on to give what he calls an "impression of a normal guy".  I don’t want to ruin it for you, so you should probably give it a view before reading on.  You’ll want to form your own opinion about it before I prattle on.

Fair enough.

I don’t know what it is about normal that I find so uninteresting, or what it is that makes it so easy to poke fun around.  (Unless we’re talking about the normal vector, which is a line perpendicular to a plane.  That’s not easy to poke fun around nor is it uninteresting.  However, it is completely off topic, so save your advanced math questions for another time.)  And in finding it so uninteresting, it thereby becomes very interesting.  Strange how that works, right?

It’s true, though, as Amir displays it — normal people give boring monologues and aren’t terribly great for dialogues either.  Reminds me of a conversation I was having with a woman just the other day, where I was going on and on about this and that only to realize I was talking nonsensical circles about life in a far away future, so when I finally paused long enough for her to respond all she could ask was, "what are you doing in the woman’s restroom?"  Seems I was too busy talking to notice I’d lost track of the person I was following.

Not the point.  Watch the video.  Throw these guys in your feed reader.  Enjoy the show!

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Link Juice And Other Stuff

Last week, before I disappeared into the real world to deal with things that have nothing to do with my online persona, I changed the site’s commenting policy.  Previously, all comments here were labeled "nofollow", but now after you meet the minimum number of on-topic comments you’ll get the link love you deserve.  Which is also to say, if your comments are completely off topic I will have to remove them.  And while I understand the reasons for leaving the "nofollow" tag, I can’t stand when bloggers don’t share the love for thoughtful and worthwhile comments.  Total bummer.  (Don’t worry, the minimum number here is very low, and the criteria is not terribly strict.)  The policy is retroactive, so some of you may already have the new status.

In other news, while migrating my employer’s web site to a new hosting company as well as switching registrars, I accidentally, and somewhat embarrassingly, created a DNS redirect loop that ultimately resulted in this blog appearing on the presentation screen in our board room while trying to demonstrate the company’s new site layout to a group of colleagues.  Which is to say, my very large face was up on the wall when it shouldn’t have been in front of people who have no idea I keep a blag.  I was shocked, to say the least, but quickly put this site into maintenance mode until I could correct the DNS issue for their company site.  Thankfully propagation times are much faster than they used to be.  Still, hearing a co-worker unexpectedly shout, "Hey, Justin, it’s you!" during the middle of a presentation, is kind of a strange way to start the day.    I chuckled.

Continuing on, I noticed that my writing here is directly related to the amount of journal writing I do with pen and paper in the real world.  (I’m a fan of ink on paper.)  Which isn’t to imply that I outline my ideas before I bring them here, just that if I’m not actively keeping my writing mind working, then all my outlets suffer.  Just ask any of the people I email on a regular routine — last week was quiet across the written board.  But we’re back.  I spent a good portion of the morning putting pen to pad and, not surprisingly, here we are.

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Mobile Mania, Which New Cell Phone To Buy?

There’s a lot going on in the mobile world these days.  Big names want our attention, and they’re hard pressed to keep it for more than the two seconds it takes for the next best mobile thing to arrive.  Well, not quite that quick, but you get the idea.  The latest addition to the group is the much talked about, supposedly highly anticipated,  Android from Google.  Which technically isn’t a cell phone but the software used by the cell phone.  A minor detail.

Research In Motion continues to dominate the enterprise world with its Blackberrys; Apple’s hanging with the cool kids on the corner sporting iPhones; and I think there are a couple others, but their names elude me.  Which is to say, who cares about Nokia and Microsoft?  Although, Nokia does offer a worthy alternative with its N95.  Still, no one is talking about Nokia.

There’s more to it than just a bunch of big hitters stepping up to the plate with new gadgets, we also have to consider what’s tied to these phones when it comes time to get one.  The iPhone is stuck to AT&T at the moment, but has an awesome Apps Store.  Google is stuck to T-Mobile and HTC (for now, at least), but is offering an open platform for cell phones which includes Chrome.  RIM isn’t stuck to any of the carriers, but they’re losing hype and recently decided to partner with Microsoft.  (Microsoft’s way of staying relevant in the mobile world, by offering its services via RIM’s Blackberry.)  All these groups see web use moving to your hand held device and they want in on the action. You definitely see it in the geek world with more and more web services offering mobile apps or SMS connectivity, but so far only the geeks are really using mobile services like Twitter or BrightKite.

Whether or not there’s a real demand for this much competition in the smart phone world remains to be seen, but for those of us fascinated with new tech toys, we’re enjoying the show and anxious to see where all this is going.  What will be the ultimate deciding factor, and is there one?  Applications?  Network speed?  Device performance?  Or really slick design?  If I had to guess, for most people, it’s being able to make a call.

Leave your number after the hash.

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Feedly Says What?

I don’t understand the service Feedly is providing.  As best I can figure, it’s taken my feedreader links and rearranged them into some kind of magazine-like layout on a web page, but I’m not sure why I need that.  The other thing it did was mess with the categories in my Google Reader which, admittedly, I approved, but still — it bothers me.  I don’t like it, and now I either have to leave it as it is or take the time to go back and put things back the way there were.  (I should have planned ahead and backed up my settings.)

Feedly is a slower, less efficient way for me to get my daily feeds.  Not a good thing when I’m trying to consume as much as possible over breakfast before I have to make way to the office an hour away.  If I wanted slow, inefficent delivey of my news and whatnots, I’d pick up a newspaper.

I’ll give Feedly a few more days, but if I can’t find some value in it then I’ll be forced to remove its addon from my Firefox.  We’ll see.