October 30th, 2004
Finally, 1.e164.arpa has been formed, according to the press release last night ;-)
For Immediate Release: Media Contact: Jackie Henson McKenna Long and Aldridge LLP 202-496-7549 jhenson@mckennalong.com
TOP TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INTERNET COMPANIES FORM COUNTRY CODE 1 ENUM LLC TO FOSTER NEW INTERNET TELECOM TECHNOLOGY New Organization to Promote Development of Technology to Combine Internet with Traditional Telephony to Offer Streamlined Communication
Washington DC – (October 28, 2004) – Today, several leading telecommunications and Internet companies have announced the formation of a new organization, the Country Code 1 ENUM Limited Liability Company (CC1 ENUM LLC), to build the public infrastructure that will promote the development of ENUM technology in a single, carrier-class manner within the countries of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). The countries of the NANP include the United States, Canada and the Caribbean nations.
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October 25th, 2004
I want this!!! (via Slashdot)
This is so much better then the Zaurus C760 I have now! It has the best resolution for a PDA (try beating 640×480) and now with build-in Wifi and 4Gb diskspace is everything I wish there is on my C760. Okay not everything but almost … (I also hope to have build-in Bluetooth & GSM/3G :-)
My Zaurus is the best little gadget I have and I bring it with me almost everywhere, especially when I have to travel a long distance. With a 512Mb SD card, I can watch nearly 5 hours of Xvid movie (and with enough battery to do some perl hacking).
Why am I so excited? It is almost functional computer at handheld size, running Linux and hackable to boot, and probably the first of its kind. Sure it is not as powerful as a full-fledge notebook, but if you study enough disruptive technology history (I did), then the same could be said of first generation portable-computer. Wanna bet where this will be in 5 years time?
ps: I always wonder what the hype is about Creative Zen. What’s so cool about a crippled device compared to a hackable Zaurus?
October 25th, 2004
ITU has a good summary of the WTSA including the several Internet issues discussed in my previous entry. (via ITU SPU)
The two main topic of the whole assembly could be summaries as (1) NGN (aka the move to packet-switch network) and (2) Internet issues (aka Spam, ENUM, IDN and ccTLD).
October 24th, 2004
Finally finish watching 雍正王朝. It is a long series (44CDs) on the story of Emperor Yong Zheng, the third Emperor in Qing Dynasty.
Instead of typical fares where history is twist into some martial art cum romance story, the series follows closely with the history (with a bit of glorification to Yong Zheng). The story is interesting in the subtle politic games that goes on in the court: dealing with rich merchants, dealing with corrupted officers, power struggle over the successor and implementing unpopular policies. And it truely demostrate what it means to be “先天下之忧而忧，后天下之乐而乐”1 a philosophy I subscribe to.
The sad conclusion is that it is so much easier to be a corrupted officer (Mandarin) then a good one. And that’s why good one are so honored in Chinese history because they are really rare.
1 loosely translated to be “be concern about the country and the people before anything else”.
October 22nd, 2004
Tom Peters’ posted a review of Bob Stone lastest book called “Polite Revolutionary: Lessons from an Uncivil Servant” which is particularly interesting to me because who I work for :-)
He full well knew that he could not force change on the Federal bureaucracy; even the President rarely succeeds by frontal assault. And as a Pentagon refugee, he knew the silliness of producing ever-to-be-unread, always-to-be-ignored encyclopedic “White Papers” and fat manuals…He knew there were astonishingly effective, renegade Civil Servants (Uncivil Servants?) dotting the landscape. The trick was to ferret them out, certify (via Mr. Gore) their heretofore shunned approaches, applaud them in public, cast their results in Monuments of Documentary Film … and shame scores of others into following the lead of their obstreperous peers.
And I love this quote: “Some people look for things that went wrong and try to fix them. I look for things that went right and try to build on them.“—Bob Stone, Mr. ReGo
Time to look for this book…
October 19th, 2004
I woke up this this morning only to discover I lost almost all my voice :-( Luckily, I can still blog.
October 19th, 2004
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…said Clayton Christensen, of the Innovator Dilemna fame, in an article in ZDNet. (via Slashdot)
Christensen said that Microsoft should move progressively into Linux applications over the next six or seven years, because that sector will offer better opportunities for growth than operating systems or databases.
Woosh! That sound very much like a conversation I have with Microsoft folks last month. But hey, I am no management guru, and when Christensen speaks, people listen. Or at least, I hope Gate do ;-)
October 18th, 2004
The news that Linux potentially infringes 283 patents initiate a strong reaction from the OSS community. Actually, just look at some examples of software patents and you will see the most common algorithms like Quicksort (#5,175,857) and Random Number Generator (#5,251,165). So pardon me while I marvel : “Only 283 patents?”
Some folks, like Richard Stallman, may argue that this indicates a failure in the software patents and hence we should fight against it. Such arguments equates software patents as “Anti-Commons” (coined by Michael Heller).
On the other side, the traditional view on patents is that it provides incentives to inventors, and hence create more innovation. Without protection of patents law, a small but innovative company has no chance against a big company with marketing power.
Both are right; The trick is in achieving the fine balance between “protecting inventors” and “patents abuse” so as to create an innovative environment for everyone equally. And sometimes, we swing a bit too much to the left and sometimes too much to the right but neither extreme is good for all. This is well articulated in Tim Bray’s essay on Patent Theory.
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October 17th, 2004
I stay up last night to fiddle with something really cool : iTunes Server on Linux. Now, I can have all my MP3s on my Linux server streamed to my Mac & Windows (running iTunes).
And rendezvous (or mDNS) is incredible. Fire up my iTunes and it automatically detected my “home jukebox” with my MP3s. :-)
October 16th, 2004
Can Asians Think? by Kishore Mahbubani
Kishore wrote this book when he is serving as Singapore ambassador to United Nation. While it is a bit outdated, it is an incredible book on the subtle political in the foreign policies within Asia and with the West.
For example, how (nuclear) energy plays an important political balance between Russia, China, Korea and Japan. In a way, it explains a lot of questions I have on the ACT Seminar I was invited to attend last year :- of why it is a seminar on energy and infocomm hosted by the Prime Minister Kozumi, grace by Economic Minister Takenaka, keynote by Russian Energy Minister was held (infocomm was obviously not the focus of the conference); of why the only Korean representive is a Korean businessman from United State;
And I quote: An imperfect government that commits some human rights violations is better then no government, in many societies, which is profoundly relevant wrt the situation in Iraq…
