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.
Life (yet to be) Scripted 01-Jan-2014 (Updated: 21-Oct-2017
PDFThe goal of "home automation" seems to write rules to control our homes (and our lives) as if we were setting rules for a very smart butler. But the real world is more complicated and computers aren't omniscient butlers who can read our minds and anticipate every eventuality.
An Alien “Drove” my car 01-Apr-2017 (Updated: 24-Mar-2017
PDFAI and applications like self-driving cars are exciting but we need to wary about treating them as if they think like we do. It is normal to see new technologies just replacing existing technologies or, in this case, human drivers. While there is some overlap in roles we get the most benefit by recognizing how they are different from us and not just replacements.
What is special about an Internet of Things 14-Mar-2017
PDFI've been reading reading papers about an "Internet of Things" but they tend to be old engineering approaches relabeled. What makes the Internet special is our ability to build on the big idea of "just works" or ambient connectivity and the ability to mix and match end points using this common facility.
5G (and Telecom) vs. The Internet 26-Feb-2017
PDF5G sounds like the successor to 4G cellular telephony and indeed that is the intent. While the progression from 2G to 3G, to 4G and now 5G seems simple, the story is more nuanced and gives us a chance to better understand the what and, more important, the why of the Internet.
TEDx 2016 Talk -- The Abundance of the Internet 25-Jan-2017
📹 (video) My talk from TEDx November 2016.
Having grown up from when the technology was simple I see can see beyond the Internet and how it is so much more than just a network and just the web. It gives us the raw materials to create our own abundance.
Time to Retire the Leap Second 03-Jan-2017
The leap second creates many problems in return for essentially no benefit.
It is a leftover from the days when computers used the same notation people did for writing dates. Now that computers separate the representation from the presentation it's time to move on.
Site Insites 01-Jan-2017
PDFThis past summer I decided my website need to be refreshed. Rewriting the site from scratch in JavaScript (actually TypeScript) gave me a chance look beyond the façade of the web and better understand how the Web works and the simple mechanisms it is built on.