Head over to Muktware where there is there is this new interview.

ECHNOLOGY moves on and one must adapt to it. “Luddite” a word that is often used to discourage those who deviate from the norm, such as those who refuse to carry a mobile phone everywhere they go.The term Luddite in this case refers not necessarily to rejection of progress but to conformity of lack thereof.

Television is a generic term which refers to a device for remote viewing of something. Conventionally, however, we think of television as a set although some large bits of furniture or even projectors might nowadays qualify as televisions. What is common in almost all of them is that, with the exception of streaming or on-demand viewing, television is controlled by broadcasters, who have a lot of control over the viewer’s mind many hours of each day. The viewer can typically select the least undesirable channel among a finite number. Just because there are many channels these days does not mean one can watch a lot of them at once (simultaneously), so this limitation remains. The choice is elusive.

YouTube is different for several reasons as by its nature it allows anyone to broadcast and it also gives the viewer a lot more control over what is being watched. This is why I stopped watching television and eventually gave my set to a friend. The set was of no use anymore. It felt more like a device for passing commercials and clips that I did not wish to see. Sure, there were exceptions, but those were very rare. To choose a channel is still an illusion of choice as that hardly leaves much selection in the hands of the viewer. The choices are preselected by other people.

Recently I started to get more actively involved in YouTube not as a mere viewer. Back when YouTube presented statistics on how many videos a given account has watched the number 22,000 came up and since then I have watched probably about 50,000 videos on YouTube. So I pine to become part of those who contribute. In the coming weeks I will convert some older material and upload it to YouTube. It may be an interesting experience. Can a viewer engage in a two-way exchange of information? That certainly would be beneficial to society as it can weaken the power of media empires over people’s minds. It can also help promote the TechBytes show to people who never heard about it. At the very least as an experiment I shall see how it goes. This might be rethought.

LEARLY, when one writes/maintains a Web site, keeping pages up to date is a tough task and the bigger the site is, the harder it gets. Updates can be made to the appearance of pages, as well as the content. Unlike newspapers, for example, sites can be accessed 10 years down the line and not carry a timestamp to indicate that the information in them may no longer be accurate. This is fine in the case of schestowitz.com because most pages contain some sort of timestamp (most pages here are about 6 or 7 years old). Even when pages get updated if makes sense to keep the old content in tact, at least as a form of legacy. That’s what I did over the weekend with the introduction page, which someone complained about as it was about 7 years old and needed a refresh. The bottom line is, for certain types of sites, keeping them up to date is a monumental task. Webmasters do not deserve hassle for it.

hroughout my career I’ve always had many eggs in the basket. I’ve usually had multiple jobs and I was never fired; I always succeeded in job interviews (since 2003), except the ones with Google, which came to me three time (I never approached them regarding a job). One thing I’ve learned over the years is that one must choose a job one enjoys, otherwise it’s a chore. I never accepted a job that I disliked. I have been working in two jobs simultaneously several times (simultaneously as in overlapping months/years), sometimes on top of already being a full-time Ph.D. candidate/student. I still work two jobs and I very much enjoy both; it’s like leisure as there is a sense of achievement. Besides all of this, as a hobby I maintain some sites that promote freedom; I was never paid for this. This is part of my reading of material; it’s like a learning experience which also proved beneficial to many others — those who share interests with mine. Being enthusiastic about freedom comes very naturally.

After many years wanting to be running an independent business on the side I’ve decided to start creating a professional site. The original idea was to come up with a new name (and domain), but after much consideration I came to the conclusion that giving visibility to a new name and new site would be a lot of work. As this new blog post from Forbes correctly indicates, reputation matters a lot when seeking business. That’s why I decided to stick with my surname and in the coming days/weeks there will be a formal announcement regarding my third job, in which the work capacity cannot be guaranteed (depends on clients). The focus is affordable scientific computing solutions that put the client in control. In essence, it is about spreading free/open source software and charging for the scarcity, which is skill and (wo)man hours. There is nothing unethical about it.

Together with some friends (I shall add people to the appropriate pages), a new logo, CMS theme, and a soon-to-be redirection (dupe of index.htm will ensure all the older pages remain accessible), schestowitz.com will soon have a sort of relaunch. The site no longer attracts about 3,000 visitors per days like it used to (back in the days when it was regularly updated), but we shall see if it takes off not just as a personal workspace with a lot of informal pages. I remain very much committed to all my jobs; starting something as my own ‘boss’ will just be something on the side.

Propeller in 2008 (I was ranked higher at some stages)

HINK before you touch Cloud Computing. The term “Cloud Computing” is vague and broad. It refers to all sorts of things and it’s malicious in the sense that it tends to take both data and control away from the user. That’s why I call it “Fog Computing”, avoiding marketing euphemisms.

Many people gradually take their computer activities online (e.g. photo sharing, news readings) and there is always risk when there is a mediating party either between peers or between a producer and a peer. This mediator offers a so-called ‘cloud’ or a Web platform under which people engage in some activities. This gives the mediator/intermediate enormous control and makes all parties dependent upon this mediator, e.g. for advertising, lifeline, costs, features, and data.

Yesterday I received another reminder of why I must not ever trust so-called ‘clouds’ or Web platforms that store my data in some mysterious proprietary form and give me no access to this data (except data slices that are presented as Web pages, not raw data).

So, what’s it all about?

AOL has money to spare in order to buy the Microsoft-funded Arrington with his rag while at the very same time AOL betrays a vast community of existing users at Propeller (good treatment to few bloggers, but not for a site with like a million members). Well, AOL has just killed Propeller with no prior warning. I have been on this platform for over 4 years and submitted about 24,000 stories there. It all vanished overnight without warning (none that I saw), just an apology. The whole site was shut down. The Webmaster appears to have also blocked the Web Archive a couple of years ago.

Propeller shows why social networks and Fog Computing are a risk. One day you just can’t access your messages, submissions, etc. It’s just like that and it’s not a violation of the terms of service. The mediator (AOL in this case) is allowed to do this.

So yesterday I asked, “Can #identica and #twitter guarantee that they won’t just suddenly announce shutdown one day? What about #reddit #digg #facebook etc.?” I wrote this as part of my Fog Computing cautionary tale. “Has #identica yet implemented a feature for exporting one’s entire user history in a way that makes it displayable/usable? And #twitter,” I asked.

“I’m not a tech person,” replied a peer, “but would assume it should be possible to transfer into own status net app (I believe it is free/libre)”

My reply was that the “first thing I did when I joined #identica was check I could export just in case. At the time there was no such option.”

As far as I know, none of the Web platforms I’m on allows me access to my own data in a form that I can interpret without access to a server I neither own nor control. If that does not scare you, wait a few years. No Web site lives forever and life of a Web site is often just a matter of money; it doesn’t need to make sense to keep it alive, it needs to make money to keep it alive.

Shrimp-like USB drives. And who said innovation was dead?

Check out this interview with a senior figure at IBM. It reminds me a great deal of classic predictions that nothing could be invented after the 19th century. History repeats itself.

An era of inventions ended with the passing of the 20th century, says a prominent thought leader from IBM.

Remember: being adverse to common hypotheses grants attention. I believe that such statements should serve as an example. The first among these videos explains it rather well. People tend to thing that a peak has been reached at present date.

BOUT a year ago, I agreed upon a rule for myself: Read more of the technology sections in Web sites; feeds likewise. Front pages and doorway pages tend to concentrate on celebrities (sports included), sex, and death.

This disposition is a matter of personal preference, of course, but the general advice is for each person to choose feeds that intersect with and correspond to main interests. Good feeds encourage reading. Reading re-enforces knowledge and in the lack of distracting detail, the mind is better stimulated, as well as focused on consistent information.

Related item: Greedy Feeds and Generous Feeds