Aaron Huslage

I’m here at the Pangea Day screening at MSStudios’ Studio C. We’re awaiting the start of the event. The folks in LA just recorded the intro for the one-hour summary show and the set looks AMAZING. I’ll be updating this post periodically with my thoughts about the event.

If you aren’t at a screening, I hope that you will check out the streaming feeds on pangeaday.org and get around the “global campfire”

[11:06AM PDT]

It amazes me that this whole thing came out of a TED talk. The cynicism of the world, especially my little geek world, forgets the power of people so often. This event will no doubt be panned by skeptics and cynics alike, but the importance of things like this should not be questioned.

[12:00PM PDT]

The first hour of the show was absolutely stunning. The organizers of this event have done an amazing job finding films that really do get to the heart of the human spirit. From Carl Sagan’s wonderful story “Pale Blue Dot” to a film about soccer balls made from condoms. They have focused on “human universals” — emotions that we all share the world around like Love, Hope and Sorrow. Helping regain perspective and see the world as it is.

[1:00PM PDT]

This hour was much more intense. It started with a montage of people all over the world talking about their dreams and was followed by Gilberto Gil singing. After that, things were about identification of differences and why we might open our minds to ignoring differences.

Then we saw an amazing film from a soldier who simply told a story about a car accident in Iraq. It was simply a sequence of renactment photos with his voice, but the power of his words was unquestionable. We are all capable of feeling for those that we imagine are our enemies. We are all the same and there are no “accidents” in war.

Every few months there are bloggers out there who seem to completely miss the point and see something of a power grab by our friends at O’Reilly Media. Daya Baran of Bay Area WebGuild penned the latest piece of incendiary nonsense. His post is a rant about how O’Reilly strongarmed WebGuild’s apparent sugardaddy Google into dropping their support for their upcoming event entitled “Web 2.0 Conference & Expo”.

He quotes an email from Google that explains the situation and why they cancelled their sponsorship, notably this sentence: “I asked you three times to change the name of this weeks event in order to maintain the relationship and since you did not budge we will no longer support Webguild.” This says it all to me. Google made a decision not to piss off a strong ally in O’Reilly. That’s it. Baran’s claims to the contrary are patently ridiculous.

Baran says “O’Reilly contacted these old-timers and asked them to demand that WebGuild change the name of our event and conference and to cease supporting WebGuild.” This is probably not the case. Even if it were, it was more than likely in deference to the work of WebGuild that it would have happened. Keeping things under the radar and avoiding the PR flack it got the last time they tried to enforce their intellectual property rights would be in their best interest, after all. Instead of suing WebGuild for using their trademark, they may have just decided to take control of things from the back-end and get the event cancelled. This course of action would not be ideal, but certainly more gentle than previously.

The big deal behind all of this is not O’Reilly’s “model which is based on withholding knowledge and gouging attendees, companies, and sponsors,” as Baran puts it. They are obligated by trademark law to enforce their trademarks. Trademarks become null and void as soon as they are ignored and try as they might, opponents of the “Web 2.0″ trademark will never stop O’Reilly from doing this. The company is a business and as such is required to do what’s in the best interest of its shareholders, not what’s in the best interest of the community at large. If O’Reilly’s intellectual property becomes worthless, that would be one of the worst things possible for the company and its shareholders.

One final note. Baran chose to get personal with my friend Tim O’Reilly. He said, “Presently, O’Reilly is promoting keynote speaker Saul Griffith calling him a “genius” and “a scientist and engineering polymath” without disclosing the fact that he is his son-in-law. When I met him, I cordially introduced myself, however, O’Reilly was a despicable individual. He is a dinosaur whose time has past.” This is completely useless and poor behavior. I wish that Baran would retract this statement and issue an apology. I understand that he is angry over the situation, but this action by Google, and possibly O’Reilly at some low-level, was most certainly not personally targeted against Daya Baran or any of the folks at WebGuild. O’Reilly is nothing if not a professionally run organization with very smart people who don’t deserve that kind of treatment.

“O’Reilly Hate” is nothing new to the company. Any company with a measure of success is bound to have similar issues, but this is getting ridiculous. They are a company and do what’s best for them. Sometimes that means being completely open and sometimes that means they have to make hard decisions. O’Reilly has been great at building community and they will continue to, but people shouldn’t take that as owning a piece of the company or even having a say in what they do.

You may have read my earlier piece on Clearwire’s strange bandwidth management practices. Shortly after I wrote it, a representative from the company called me to see what they could do to make my life better. I informed him that I needed better data regarding what they saw as my overuse of bandwidth such as usage figures, time of day, etc. I also told this gentleman that I would have preferred a phone call or email prior to their intervention. He agreed to “look into it with engineering.”The following day, he called me back and basically told me the same thing that the Level-2 technician had said earlier that week: Clearwire couldn’t give out “proprietary usage information” to me - even though it was my account I wanted usage for. He also said that he noted my account so that prior to intervention I would be notified and given a chance to more closely monitor traffic.As a carrot to them, I offered to closely monitor my traffic for the following month and send them the data for comparison with what their systems saw. He didn’t really seem to understand this, but said he’d call me back in a month for an update.I received a second email from Clearwire today:

A message from Clearwire - Immediate Response Required: Second Email 555335

Mr. Aaron Huslage, We have recently notified you regarding an issue with your account.  An excessive amount of Internet traffic on your Clearwire connection is negatively impacting other Clearwire customers in your area.  These issues can be caused by a virus or spyware on your computer, by having a wireless router with no password set or by using peer to peer/file-sharing and FTP programs.

Until the issue is resolved, we have modified your connection to the network.  Please contact us at 888-657-1456 as soon as possible so we can assist you in resolving the issue.

I haven’t gotten a phone call or email from the gentleman who called me, level-2 support or engineering at Clearwire, but my account has once again been throttled. This isn’t unusual in this day and age, since good customer service is more often than not just placating the customer and moving on with business as usual, but my situation is particularly interesting.

You see, shortly after my second phone conversation I unplugged my router from the Clearwire modem and switched back to Comcast until my DSL line is installed tomorrow. I left the modem on, but disconnected all ethernet from it. There is simply no way that I can be sending any traffic on this link. No bandwidth should be being used at all!

I was mistaken. Apparently at some point during all of these fits of changing things around, I switched back to the Clearwire modem. My opinion of the company has still not changed, but in all fairness I am using the bandwidth.

Indeed this is a conundrum and I hope that someone from Clearwire will see fit to refund the money I’ve spent over the past two months and cancel my account. I’m not particularly angry or surprised over this, but my bandwidth needs are such that I cannot handle incompetence from my provider or inconsistency such as Clearwire has shown over the past 9 months I’ve been a customer of theirs.

Wireless technology is great, but the wireless ISPs out there need to step up and play the same game as others in their industry or they will continue to fall like flies.

Comcast, one of the US’s largest broadband providers, issued a press release today in which it said it would “undertake a collaborative effort” with BitTorrent  ”to more effectively address issues associated with rich media content and network capacity management”. This is in response to their recently being caught with their ”hand in the cookie jar” of bandwidth management with the BitTorrent and eDonkey file sharing protocols. They have said that they will work to find new ways of managing bandwidth (while still creating an obviously tiered network).

Comcast has done a clever thing with this press release that I have yet to see anyone chime in on. The company has effectively shifted the focus of the debate on bandwidth management away from the core issue of network investment and on to the overlayed problem of file sharing as the source of their woes.  The real issue is that they won’t upgrade the network, not that people are sharing files.

Comcast refuses to upgrade its network to meet the needs of its customers. This is the ultimate in turning “no press is bad press” into reality for Comcast. They have effectively said “we’re not the bad guys here, those file sharers are making you all pay” and put the onus on their own customers to change their behaviors. The customer is never right in this day and age with broadband service. The customer pays Comcast, but Comcast is apparently ceding it’s responsibility to give good service. In lieu of that they punish their customers for using what they pay for.

Where are the customer advocates? Who is yelling about this instead of regurgitating the press release and saying what good boys and girls these people are?

Start a company that buys electrical generating equipment, installs it on or near customers and then sells them the energy that you produce. SunEdison has done this. Great idea. There should be hundreds of these companies.

I just received this lovely email from Clearwire, my current main broadband provider:

Dear Mr. Huslage,
 
While monitoring our network, we noticed that an excessive amount of internet traffic from your Clearwire connection is negatively impacting other Clearwire customers in your area.  These issues can be caused by a virus or spyware on your computer, by having a wireless router with no password set or by using peer to peer/file-sharing and FTP programs.
To prevent further strain on Clearwire’s network resources we are actively managing your connection per our terms of service.  Please contact us as soon as possible at 888-253-2794 so we can help resolve the problem.
 
For more information on Clearwire’s Acceptable Use Policy, please follow this link:
https://www.clearwire.com/company/legal/aup.htm
 
Thank you for your prompt attention.

This is enough to chill my bones and make me think about going back to dialup. I called the number, gave my account info and the tier 1 person sent me on to the 2nd line person to be dealt with. The 2nd line person said that my bandwidth had been degraded to aid other users in my area and I was emailed to see what I might be doing on my link. He said that engineering had been looking at my neighborhood and noticed a “large continuous upload use over the past 5 days.” I haven’t been running Bittorrent, a big server or any large file transfers over the past 5 days. I have Macs at home, not prone to the usual virii or trojan horses that might occur on an open link.  My wife plays World of Warcraft, but that’s hardly a big bandwidth hog. I informed the gentleman of these things and he promptly “fixed my modem to the Clear Premium bandwidth level” from what he called dial-up speeds. On top of this, he said that per the Acceptible Use Policy I could “do this” 3 times, but that I was okay because this was the first time.

I pay Clearwire $50 a month for the privilege of getting a 2Mbps wireless link, but I can reasonably expect to see the same modem speeds that I got in 1993 on average. Clearwire turns around and tells me that I use the thing too much and they are really turning the screws to make me feel the burn and stop using what I pay for. They try to appeal to the needs of my “neighbors” on the network. Then they have the hubris to threaten me. Forget you. I pay for service at a certain level which you never actually deliver on a consistent basis.

This sort of behavior has become commonplace in the ISP world and is very disconcerting. Back in 1993 when I helped found a large-ish ISP in North Carolina, we always strived to have the customary 20% overhead in Internet network bandwidth while maintaining at least a 30% oversubscription rate. Today’s ISPs seem to be running at somewhere greater than 100% oversubscription with no overhead in Internet network bandwidth (this is anecdotal, I have no clue what the real numbers are).

What has changed to make this happen? Bandwidth is cheaper than in 1993. Infrastructure is cheaper than in 1993. The wireless access points that Clearwire uses are even cheaper than when they started 3 years ago. The consumer has to pay the price for poor node distribution, low Internet network bandwidth and lack of infrastructure in general. The customer’s needs require them to utilize their connections fully, often through much of the day yet ISPs continue to fight to not do the investments necessary to insure customer service levels.

I sure am happy that I ordered the ADSL2 line from my friends at ISOMEDIA today. I hope they have more sense than Clearwire, who is clearly treating the customer as a liability.

I live in one of the most well connected communities in the United States. Redmond, WA is home to my employer Microsoft and countless other large bandwidth-hogging companies. One would think that with all of these high-tech workers in the city of 51,000 it would be pretty easy to get good, reliable broadband at my house. It isn’t.

It appears that in this place, with these consumers and this large number of smart and affluent people that I live in a broadband wasteland. I have had Comcast cable modem since moving here in the middle of last year, and it has been sub-par at best. The quality of the link is good (as measured by upstream signal-to-noise ratio of 34db) and the bandwidth averages about 3mbits down and 256k up at non-peak times, but during peak times it slows to a crawl of less than 1mbit down and 56k up. This sort of service level is intolerable for someone who uses their connection as heavily as I do. I have asked Comcast for different service tiers, had their service tech come out and replace my cable line and even said a prayer over the cable modem. Nothing I have done has had any measurable effect and short of contacting the local authoroties I don’t see what else there is.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to try using our local wireless provider Clearwire, which has been getting good press in the area. I went to Best Buy, bought a modem and hooked it up straight to my laptop. After opening my browser, filling out the signup form and giving away the keys to my bank account I was allowed to use my precious Internet. The link has been solid, if a little pokey for my tastes, at about 2mbits down and 256k up. The fact that the service is wireless means that latency can spike from 50ms to 200ms on a simple ping test over a period of 5 minutes. This spikey behavior can cause havoc on streaming video and large file transfers. I’ve had a few problems, but it’s overall just OK in my opinion.

I’m off to try other options. Over the next few months I hope to try out ADSL2 service from both Verizon and Covad. This should give me the full gamut of what’s available in the area without moving house. I’m not sure what else to check out, considering my upcoming optional accessory and his financial responsibilities. I’m happy to listen to ideas, and stay tuned for your man-on-the-street opinion.

I’m looking to get hold of some OLPC XO laptops for prototyping ideas. If anyone knows of a person who could facilitate this within their organization it would be much appreciated.

Tune in to CNN on Saturday or Sunday or almost any other afternoon for that matter and you’ll see Ballot Bowl, which CNN describes thusly:

CNN Ballot Bowl: CNN brings viewers rare, in-depth access to the people, places and events impacting our world and our lives.

To the naked eye this sounds pretty cool. You get to hear the candidates “Live and unfiltered” and commentary from “The Best Political Team on TV” to boot. Wow. Nice, huh? CNN has taken time out of its busy schedule to show you all the candidates’ stump speeches and press conferences without bothering to edit them. CNN is also letting you hear the latest polls and what “Ordinary Americans” think from their Election Express bus. They must be giving you more information, right? Wrong.

Stump speeches aren’t supposed to give their viewers information. They are designed to excite the audience into action. They are speeches that have been honed and sculpted to get the audience to go out and canvass or give money or evangelize the candidate. They are the ultimate in preaching to the choir. There is no new information given in the typical speech given by any candidate.

The simple act of CNN giving the candidates access to the national TV audience has changed what the stump speech used to be. They still don’t usually convey anything new, but they do speak to a larger audience than those gathered in the room to hear it. Candidates have recently come to “respond” to what the issues of the day are, because they have a national audience in what is essentially an intimate and local affair. This is the case of the Uncertainty Principle in action every day.

I don’t really think this is bad per se, but I do think that it further dilutes the messages of the candidates and contributes to fatigue in the electorate. The US voter is already tired of the elections, and now CNN is helping to make it worse. They aren’t helping people make a better decision for their favorite candidate. They aren’t letting the viewer know any more about what the candidate stands for. They are misrepresenting what they are doing as journalism and informative. The typical US voter doesn’t care about the election until they walk in to the voting booth. They don’t even really make up their mind until their finger is on the button. So piping rhetoric into these addled brains is not really helping much.

This idea about how Obama has no platform to run on and is just spouting hope for hope’s sake is a perfect example of what happens when people hear the same stuff over and over. Obama has all of his position papers and white papers posted handily at his website, the same as all the other candidates. The reason this incorrect rumor persists, I think, is because people hear McCain and Clinton talking about it all day every day on shows like Ballot Bowl.

This just proves to me that TV won’t really set you free. If you’re a voter in the US you have an obligation to vote not only with your heart, but with your mind. You should know who you are voting for and educate yourself independently of any media sources. In the hour you sit down to watch Ballot Bowl, you could read papers on all 3 of the big player’s web sites about an issue that you care about. You could actually know more about these people and what they say. You would be less ignorant and susceptible to rumors like the Obama one and make up your own mind. Go read and understand. Here are the links:

• Barack Obama
• Hillary Clinton
• John McCain

Enjoy yourself!

I am continually amazed at the inability to add basic things to the UIs of media players. I’ll confess to being a mac head and as such iTunes is my preferred program for listening, but I like to play the field once in a while to help remind me why it is so good.

My employer’s operating system comes with what is billed as their best media player ever, and indeed it does work well for playing media, but it should also do a few other things. A good media player organizes your songs intuitively and also allows you to save off frequently listened to tracks and streams. Windows Media Player seems to fall down in the library arena. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to save the stream for KEXP Radio as a favorite. Here’s the UI as it’s playing:

There are no options evident. Even right-clicking shows me a little menu with nothing obvious to add this stream to my library or save it as a favorite.

 With iTunes, however, things are quite different. Here’s the UI:

Here we see a convenient listing of radio stations and all I need to do to allow iTunes to remember it is drag the track to the Music tab on the left. It’s now saved forever. Anything that is playing can be done this way. Dragging the stream to “Library” on Windows Media Player doesn’t do anything obvious for me.

I could go on and on about the hideous UI tragedy that is Windows Media Player. Microsoft keeps wondering why it’s not “winning” at stuff and often overlooks what’s right under its nose. Users hate interfaces that make no sense and don’t do what they want out of the box. You can study this stuff in a vacuum all you want, but the real test is comparative/competitive testing with real-world scenarios. Fear not your competition, but learn from them and make something even better.