February 23rd, 2004
The funs begin today with friends started to arrive and doing the usual “Hey hi!”, “When you arrived?”, “How’s your flight” etc etc. I am also getting a lot of “Oh, how’s your baby?” :-) Spend the morning at a ad-hoc session called by Kilnam on “Native Names” which is kind of related to IDN but not really. And they really scared me when they asked me to “help out” in the effort…No, not that I don’t like the idea. But after 3 years of doing IDN, I know exactly how much resource it involve and I don’t think I have the time nor the financial resource to see this through as a volunteer.
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February 23rd, 2004
As some of you may have already know, I have been nominated as one of the candidate as the ISOC Board of Trustee. I didn’t mention this earlier because I don’t want to (and appear to) solicate comments for myself. (Comments closed two days ago :-)
I wrote a statement of why I am interested to serve as the ISOC board of Trustee. Looking back, I wish I could edit some of the things I said…but what the heck, here it is, unedited.
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February 22nd, 2004
Technically, Day 1 is yesterday but I spend most of the day with Tommy, just chatting about things. Other then the shock we have when the hotel staff informed us that the 9 hole golf game will cost us RM1,500 (400USD), nothing else happened. :-)
So, back to topic, I spend day 1 stuck in APSTAR Retreat, listening to update from the various Asia Pacific organizations. Most interesting is the one from APNIC, where Paul Wilson inform the group that their memberships actually increases (and accelerating) in 2003 after 2 years of flat membership. Since almost all AP ISPs need to become a member of APNIC to get IP addresses, this indicates we are seeing a recovery of the ISP market in Asia Pacific.
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February 22nd, 2004
One of my all time fav movie is Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind which feature a personal jet glider. I am very please to learn that OpenSky is attempting to build such a glider (via Slashdot).
They even have a movie clip of the test flight! Now, I couldn’t wait to get my hand on one…
February 21st, 2004
Just packed my luggage. Next stop is Hotel Intercontinental where I will pick up Tommy Matsumoto and then fly to Kuala Lumpur with him for APRICOT.
This is going to be an extremely busy meeting for me, attending APSTAR retreat and numerous APIA/APRICOT board and members meetings. I am also going to do presentations at the IPv6 summit and APCAUCE. On top, I will be hosting the BoF on ENUM/SIP.
Going to be exciting next few days…
February 16th, 2004
Wired ran an article about the problems Munich is facing with its migration to Linux for its 14,000 desktop. Issues cited include (a) resistance to change (b) lack of test plans and (c) lack of linux experience in local vendors.
Like it or not, Linux Desktop is about 5 to 10 years away. I wonder the wisdom of rolling out pre-matured software in such massive scale. While we gain some short-term publicity, we are likely to suffer long term backfire which will hurt OSS movement. *sigh*
February 14th, 2004
 
My first baby girl, Zee Yau, borned on 14th Feb 2004 @ 9:04pm SGT. Both Mother and baby are doing well!
Update: The Chinese name is 莊茈遙/庄茈遥 (Zhuang1 Zi3 Yao2). 茈 (Zi3) is a kind of flower which is often mention in chinese poems for its fragrance and sturdiness. 遥 (Yao2) comes from the term 逍遥 which means “carefree”. 茈美，子美也。逍遥，遥如仙。
ps: We’re considering to give her an English name: Valentine. ^_^
February 13th, 2004
Yesterday, FCC has a hearing on FWD appeal and they rule 3-2 in favour of FWD! In other words, IP-to-IP telephony is now classified as “information service” not “telecommunication service”. This means FWD and other like it, will not be subjected to telecom regulations, taxes, univeral services or E911 requirements etc etc. This is a big win!
On the other hand, I rather we overhaul the outdated “information services” vs “telecommunication service” classification. What we have here is like pointing to something that looks like a duck, quack like a duck and we decide to call it “a chicken”.
We need to fix the rule!
Yes yes, I know fixing the rule involve changing the Telecommunication Act. It is not going to be easy and would take years. Michael Powell didn’t called this “the stuff I’m excited and challenged by…What this is going to do is start weaken the foundations of the way we’ve done things for 100 years!” for no reasons :-)
February 13th, 2004
Ted Shelton done a brief analysis of the economics of starting a VOIP telco and conclude it will take only $8,000. (Via Kevin Werbach)
I made a similar rant last year arguing that people will wonder why they dont do it themselves once they discover how cheap it is.
I also believe that IP Telephony will take the same path as Email since it has similar cost basis. ie. some will setup their own server, some will run inhouse, some will outsource and the mass will subscribe to a service, e.g. hotmail.
February 12th, 2004
I just read Michael Powell speech on 8th Feburary called Preserving Internet Freedom: Guiding Principles For The Industry. It is excellent piece on giving power to the people, reduce regulation of the Internet and most of all, maintain “Internet Freedom”. I am impressed!
I mean, as the Chairman of FCC, it is easier give some bureaucratic speech, one which don’t take any side (but pissed off both equally). But he didn’t. Instead, he stood up and talk about his vision and ideology, which I am sure going to upset some (very powerful) people.
It is refreshing and very brave of him to do so. Bravo!
