We ran out of them 20 years ago when we started using NATs and devices no longer get issued their own addresses. The reason why we don't recognize that we did is that the IP address is just a means and doesn't define the relationships in a post-mainframe world. Unfortunately we don't have standard alternatives soinstead of have lots of ad-hoc communities that use the Internet as a transport but don't play well with each other. More about this in http://rmf.vc/CILight.
In http://rmf.vc/FCCPerspective?z=sdt I observe that the Internet is a larger concept then telecommunications. Both "sides' seem be accepting the idea that the Internet is just another telecommunications service and that is simply wrong.
Neutrality is a good principle but it doesn't address the inherent conflict of interest that comes from having service providers owning the physical infrastructure. I use the term "Broadband Internet" to distinguish the sliver of telecommunications capacity used for exchanging bits from the larger concept of a "Generative Internet".
The first step is to break free of the 19th century business model of selling services to pay for providers' private infrastructure. We need to own our local physical infrastructure and fund it as a commons. That is a sustainable model that generates the hypergrowth we elsewhere in computing and connectivity. For more see the essay and others such as http://rmf.vc/Demystify?z=sdt which go into the detail.
It's a protocol for sensor networks. It's being used for some home automation products but it's a not a very good match since the ZigBee design point assumes a relatively static configuration
Communications is speech so the FSC is doing what it claims it is supposed to do. The question is how did we get to this point. Historically the assumption was that the transport had meaning and hence was the same as communications in the social sense. Today thanks to Shannon and others we know that the transport and the content are unrelated. We also know that the copper phone wire can many thousands of phone calls rather than just one. Spectrum management is also a source the artificial scarcity that is then used to justify granting the FSC the ability to impose social policies that would otherwise be considered outrageous.
What is puzzling is why the FSC has not been forced to justify its violation of the (US) first amendment.
There is time as used by humans vs other measures. Its purpose was to define the time that the trains ran on and is very convenient and has only passing relationshipt to the position of the sun -- those at the edges of timezones can be off by an hour or two or more.
Leap seconds are a fine correction for gear that, unlike humans, cares about nanosecond accuracy.
The serious problem with leapseconds is that they make minutes context sensitive and essentially all computer software presumes seconds are not context sensitive.
The simple fix is to keep leap seconds as a correction factor but not confuse it with the time that humans and their computers use for normal use.
The leap second is the kind of bug that appears when you have experts who know too much and are totally clueless about any usage other than what the care about.
It was simply a stupid mistake to foist it on humans and there. They should apologize and simply keep their mitts of social mechanisms like the clock.
Slashdot Mirror
We ran out of them 20 years ago when we started using NATs and devices no longer get issued their own addresses. The reason why we don't recognize that we did is that the IP address is just a means and doesn't define the relationships in a post-mainframe world. Unfortunately we don't have standard alternatives soinstead of have lots of ad-hoc communities that use the Internet as a transport but don't play well with each other. More about this in http://rmf.vc/CILight.
In http://rmf.vc/CITransition I explain why we need fresh start rather than trying to bring the past forward.
OK -- replied to the wrong post and can't fix it. So much for trying to figure out this UI.
Oops - didn't mean to be anonymous. (Is there a way to edit my original comment to remove the anonymity)?
In http://rmf.vc/FCCPerspective?z=sdt I observe that the Internet is a larger concept then telecommunications. Both "sides' seem be accepting the idea that the Internet is just another telecommunications service and that is simply wrong.
Neutrality is a good principle but it doesn't address the inherent conflict of interest that comes from having service providers owning the physical infrastructure. I use the term "Broadband Internet" to distinguish the sliver of telecommunications capacity used for exchanging bits from the larger concept of a "Generative Internet".
The first step is to break free of the 19th century business model of selling services to pay for providers' private infrastructure. We need to own our local physical infrastructure and fund it as a commons. That is a sustainable model that generates the hypergrowth we elsewhere in computing and connectivity. For more see the essay and others such as http://rmf.vc/Demystify?z=sdt which go into the detail.
It's a protocol for sensor networks. It's being used for some home automation products but it's a not a very good match since the ZigBee design point assumes a relatively static configuration
Communications is speech so the FSC is doing what it claims it is supposed to do. The question is how did we get to this point. Historically the assumption was that the transport had meaning and hence was the same as communications in the social sense. Today thanks to Shannon and others we know that the transport and the content are unrelated. We also know that the copper phone wire can many thousands of phone calls rather than just one. Spectrum management is also a source the artificial scarcity that is then used to justify granting the FSC the ability to impose social policies that would otherwise be considered outrageous.
What is puzzling is why the FSC has not been forced to justify its violation of the (US) first amendment.
There is time as used by humans vs other measures. Its purpose was to define the time that the trains ran on and is very convenient and has only passing relationshipt to the position of the sun -- those at the edges of timezones can be off by an hour or two or more.
Leap seconds are a fine correction for gear that, unlike humans, cares about nanosecond accuracy.
The serious problem with leapseconds is that they make minutes context sensitive and essentially all computer software presumes seconds are not context sensitive.
The simple fix is to keep leap seconds as a correction factor but not confuse it with the time that humans and their computers use for normal use.
The leap second is the kind of bug that appears when you have experts who know too much and are totally clueless about any usage other than what the care about.
It was simply a stupid mistake to foist it on humans and there. They should apologize and simply keep their mitts of social mechanisms like the clock.