Writings and Musings

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.

By default only the most recent posts are shown, to see:
Recent By Date Posts from the last few months
Columns Columns written in 1998-1999 -- blogging before blogs. Look here for my more recent columns.
All All posts -- hundreds

Writings and Updates by Date

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.

Distributed Cooperation 17-Oct-2022 PDFI use my home as a living laboratory for connected systems. One of the goals is to avoid single points of failure by having direct relationship between endpoints.
VSIG Lecture on the Public Packet Infrastructure 03-Oct-2022 My VSIG talk on the Public Packet Infrastructure. It's part of the VSIG Series of lectures on Internet Governance.. It's based on the ideas in article on the Public Packet Infrastructure
The Public Packet Infrastructure 25-Aug-2022 (Updated: 18-Sep-2022 PDFThe Internet isn't just a way to access the web, it is fundamental infrastructure -- the Public Packet Infrastructure. The infrastructure has seemingly unlimited capacity because we can innovate and take advantage of opportunities instead of negotiating for passage. We need to bring public policy and public perception into alignment with this new realty. This is also available on CircleID
The Impact of Open Connectivity 12-Jul-2022 The Internet hints at the much larger possibilities of open connectivity in enabling discoveries such as the web but for the physical world. The ideas themselves go to a deeper level of thinking about how we build systems and how we can enable the future.
The Internet as a Public Good 27-Jun-2022 Why do we work so hard to promulgate the idea that being held incommunicado is the norm and we have to pay to communicate? The ability to communicate and connect is a right not a privilege.
Realizing the Long-Term Value of Connectivity 14-Mar-2022 Open community infrastructure can provide enormous societal value by enabling services that we haven't dreamed of. Tesla has shown how a car you by can get features undreamed of at the time of purchase thanks to software updates. Open infrastructures enables innovation and discovery.
Voice over IP–An inflection Point 10-Feb-2022 Voice over IP (VoIP) represents a sharp break from the traditional telephony. Unlike traditional telephony (digital or otherwise), VoIP doesn't depend on a provider's reserved path. Understanding how VoIP works is key to liberating ourselves from depending on providers'. Without that dependency we are free to innovate and take advantage of a Public Packet Infrastructure own by the local community.
Empowering People … and Their Things 20-Oct-2021 (Updated: 01-Jan-2022 PDFThere is no separate "Internet of Things". There is the big idea of best-efforts connectivity which allows us to create the opportunity for innovation in how we build systems of things and services.
Bob Frankston
Copyright 1997-2023