Tech Thursday: Interplanetary Internet

I have to keep this version of Tech Thursday short for two reasons. I stumbled across this Cerf interview of Cisco's Subnet editor, Julie Bort, and was fascinated that we have even been working with interplanetary protocols. These people are smart enough that it hurts my head thinking about how smart they are. "We need this new Bundle Protocol to overcome the latencies and all the disconnects that occur in space, from celestial motion [and from] orbiting satellites" Come again?

Image via DMX Zone.

Tech Thursday: The Internet is 20 Years Old

I've been absent for a while (really, I don't have an excuse, so here's some candy - tell them Scott sent you), but found this article on Wired to be rather relevant for FIWK. 20 years ago, today, Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau submitted a proposal to CERN for funding for HyperText (a.k.a. The Internet!). It's amazing to think that 20 years ago, the backbone for today's world had a $0 budget. Oh, how far we've come.

Image via Wikipedia.

Tech Thursday: The Web is Fragmented!

The Web may be Dead, but there sure are a lot of people out there vying for that "shrinking piece of the pie" - or, so says N-Map/Gizmodo. I'm again floored by the visual representation provided by this article, but the best part is playing with the interactive tool N-Map provides. Here's one fun analysis (goes to show you where our society's priorities are - eh?)

• xVideos (top porn site) is 1,440 × 1,440 pixels
• ESPN (our favorite site) is also 1,440 × 1,440

Tech Thursday: The Web is Dead

Wait. What?

My thoughts exactly. Apparently, we both fell into the "Isn't the internet the web, and vice versa?" trap. I'm here to set you straight. Well, Wired and Wikipedia are (were? see above.) here to set you straight. According to Wired, the Web is Dead (someone help me make that rhyme - it's too darn close to rhyming to not do so). Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure there's tons of goodies found in Wired's piece, but I can't get over that initial headline:

"The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet."

Nor, this very neat graph:

When reading through both sides of the debate, I personally fall into the "blame us" category. If someone had asked me 10 years ago (after, of course, explaining to me that the Web and Net were different) if I would pay a premium to some power-that-is to get what I wanted, when I wanted ("push technology"), I would have told them to bugger-off. Ask me today? I say, Yes! Yes! Yes!

Tech Thursday: The Faster Internet we Desperately Need

Gigaom reported yesterday that researchers at MIT have developed a method that could increase the speed of the internet 1,000-fold. (Wait - THAT'S A LOT! - you say? Why yes, yes it is!) Gigaom does a decent job of summarizing the original article, but if you'd like a bit more detail, and some extra commentary, you can find it at Physorg. Essentially, the team has devised a way to eliminate the need to convert optical signals into electrical signals in order to store data in short-term memory while waiting at a router. If that sounds complicated, you're probably right, and I''m not going to even try to describe how this will work. I will, however talk about why I think this is cool after the jump.

Tech Thursday: Is the Internet Good for Intelligence?

I know this debate has been probably been kicked around for a decade, but I'm bringing it up this week for 2 reasons:

1. I've read about it in 2 completely different forums this week: the Sports Guy's idiot guide to the Mutant Russian Mark Cuban (MRMC) and an interesting 2-article 'debate' from the Wall Street Journal (Dumber here and Smarter here)
2. I think that as we approach our 1-year anniversary here at FIWK, it's an apt debate since we are now a part of the debate. Does FIWK make you smarter or dumber?

Image via WSJ.

Tech Thursday: Facebook Privacy

Comic from Joy of Tech, by Nitrozac & Snaggy

Short but sweet Tech Thursday this week, filling in for the vacationing Scottie. I want to talk about privacy on Facebook.

Weekend Comedy 3/13

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Tech-Talch - Chatroulette
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Honorable Mention for this week's comedy goes to this Craigslist post, which had me cracking up

Listing the ways why this List of Lists rocks...

So, while wandering through one of the blogs on my list (look! another list!) of "blogs through which I wander" (cause, you know, it couldn't be my list of "blogs I wander through" due to that whole preposition deal...), I came across their "Top 20 Internet Lists of 2009".

To better illustrate why I am in love with this list, I will, of course, provide a list: