Bob Frankston
(bio)
Welcome to my writings.
If you want the recent essays check out the sidebar on the left or, better,
go to
Further Readings for a
curated list of essays.
Other essays are listed in chronological order and then by category. The main
essays are in larger letters and minor documents (such as messages posted on discussion
sites) are indented and in smaller letters. The documents themselves are located
on this site (www.Frankston.com) and as
well as external sites.
Note that I'm currently writing shorter transient posts on Facebook as "Bob Frankston".
I'm gathering links here.
You can send me Email. Note this unique address
is only valid for the next few days.
The best way to link to a document is as
http://rmf.vc/keyword.
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By default only the most recent posts are shown, to see: |
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Recent By Date |
Posts from the last few months |
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Columns |
Columns written in 1998-1999 -- blogging before blogs. Look here
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All |
All posts -- hundreds |
Some of the recent entries are also listed on the sidebar. Secondary
items such as postings on other mailing lists are indented. Note that the year
shown is the year the essay was updated. An essay written in 1979 might be listed
under 2009 if it was updated recently.
Zero-Rating vs. The Internet 04-Nov-2015
PDFThe idea of setting the rate for a given class of content is a concept that comes from the traditional world of telecommunications. It doesn't map into the raw packets of the Internet that are carried apart from their context.
The Engineers "Dilemma" 27-Sep-2015
The telecommunications business model has problems. The FCC's well-meaning efforts to make that business work has the unintended consequences of protecting it from alternatives approaches that can work far better. This extends to protecting it from better engineering.
Chicago’s cloud tax 02-Jul-2015
The idea of an "Internet Tax" misses the point that the Internet is just the latest face of ecommerce going back to Sears selling from a catalog over the phone.
DL- GOOGLE Makes Us GODS (via Iona Miller) like Icarus 20-Mar-2015
The idea that we can gain by connecting our brains to the Internet. But our brains have never been isolated. They have always been connected to the rest of society and the intelligence outside the brain and inherent in its architecture have always been our source of smarts.
We need to be careful lest this hubris lead us think this time we have the one true answer.
Internet-Native Policies 17-Feb-2015 (Updated: 19-Feb-2015
PDFAmid all the recent discussion about "Network Neutrality" a concern is that we may be losing the soul of the Internet – the ability to create our own solutions. Our "flow" metaphors fail us when dealing with the tolerant and bursty nature of the Internet. The Internet is not a utility, nor is it a consumable we can meter like electricity or water.
Now that the Internet has begun to "grow up" we need to move beyond policies appropriate for a nascent Internet seeking passage through a telecommunications network and start to adopt Internet Native Policies to facilitate connectivity
Putting it all Together? 01-Jan-2015
PDFThe idea of an automated home is premised on the idea that we can just put together any number of programs and they would auto-magically compromise a coherent whole. After a half a century of programming I know we still have a lot to learn.