Category: General

See page for RDF Seepage

Today, IE reported that my main blog page had script errors so I looked at the HTML and found that RDF fragments were causing the problem.  What the hell is RDF doing in my blog web page?  Each blog post item had this RDF fragment preceding it.

<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
 xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
 xmlns:trackback="http://madskills.com/public/xml/rss/module/trackback/">
<rdf:Description 
 rdf:about="https://blog.docuverse.com/2003/08/28.html#a845"
 dc:identifier="https://blog.docuverse.com/2003/08/28.html#a845"
 dc:title="Tim Oren on Subsidized Wi-Fi Business"
 trackback:ping=
 "http://radiocomments.userland.com/comments$trackback?u=112479&amp;p=845"
 dc:creator="Don Park"
 dc:description="Tim Oren adds a VC perspective to my Subsidized Wi-Fi AP
 idea.&amp;nbsp; He wrote: [...] the average usage per Starbucks site is
 three sessions per day."
 dc:date="2003-08-28T17:18:24-07:00" />
</rdf:RDF>

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p dir=”ltr”>Unless I am mistaken, RDF fragments are being inserted automatically by Radio Trackback script.  Yikes.

Tim Oren on Subsidized Wi-Fi Business

Tim Oren adds a VC perspective to my Subsidized Wi-Fi AP idea.  He wrote:

[…] the average usage per Starbucks site is three sessions per day. […] No one in any of those models is yet profitable, meaning that a subsidy is just a way of going further into the red.

The AP price is a factor in the initial setup of a public hotspot, but labor costs of the install likely equal or exceed it, unless the location owner is technically sophisticated. On an ongoing basis, the costs will be dominated by maintenance (truck rolls), but even more by backhaul costs.

His conclusion is:

subsidies are a weapon for carriers to buy market share in a period of fast growth. Lacking this growth, and a confidence that new sites will be profitable, a subsidy model isn't likely.

I agree that profitability is a problem.  While reading Tim's post, I thought of the vending machine business.  Where and how a vending machine is placed is similar to the problem of where and how a W-Fi AP gets installed.  No single business model will work in all situations.  Some store owners run their own vending machines, some even pay out of pocket to have them installed, some shares profit.

Thinking of the vending machine business leads naturally to the idea of vending-machines with built-in Wi-Fi AP.  Vending machines are placed where people are.  Power is needed so AP has power.  Connectivity is desirable for real-time inventory, so some aggressive players might opt for pulling DSL lines to vending machines instead of using radios.  It's a stretch, of course.

Enriching Blog Calendar

Most blogs have a calendar for navigation but not for much else.  I was thinking how nice it would be to enrich it automatically with other information like birthdays of people on blogroll, anniversaries, schedule of conferences I am planning to attend, etc.

Size of the calendar will have to get a little bigger, but mouse-over sensitive date specific details can be displayed in an area immediately below the calendar.  FOAF and iCal/vCal formats can be useful here.  Calendars are also amazing yet under-utilized advertising medium IMHO.

My First Blog Anniversary

Thanks to Dave for reminding me about my blog anniversary.

Don Park's weblog is one year old today. Here's his hello world post. Thanks Don, it's been a very interesting year.

Yes, it has been a very interesting years.  In a way, it was like mining.  Just walk up to a mountain (blogosphere) and start digging, discovering and following new ore veins every day, encountering a few rocks and toxic gas occasionally, running into and befriending an army of fellow miners.

I enjoyed it so much that I think blogging is in my blood stream now.

Bloggers are Mutants!

Hmm.  Dave is either experimenting with invisible permalinks or got a bug somewhere.

Subsidizing Wi-Fi Access Points

I was thinking about Sputnik yesterday because I talked with Dave Sifry, CTO of Sputnik, on #joiito.  I started wondering how one might raise sales of Wi-Fi access points like Sputnik AP 120 exponentially.  Weird thought for an engineer, but I have an entrepreneur's mind at the core so it's not too strange for me to wonder about the business side.

The idea of subsidized Wi-Fi is not new, but I think the idea of AP hardware vendors doing the subsidizing has some appeal.  What if Sputnik sold these devices at a fraction of the cost for joining a global commercial Wi-Fi service network?  This is how it might work:

  1. Bob, a store owner, buys Sputnik at 1/4 of the price, plugs it in at his store, and use the installation software to register the AP with Sputnik Network.
    • The AP is configured so that only Sputnik Network members can use it. 
    • Administration, security, and account management is all handled by Sputnik Network.
  2. James, a Wi-Fi user, subscribes to World-wide Sputnik Network service for $10 per month, enabling him to use any Sputnik Network AP around the world.
    • Sputnik client software running on his laptop automatically handles authentication with each AP.
  3. AP usage is metered so Bob might receive a check each month if his AP gets a lot of traffic.

It makes no sense to require Wi-Fi users and stores to deal with the hassle of paying for access or keeping track of users.  Building a membership-based Wi-Fi Network seems too problematic without the leverage of subsidized AP hardware and the absolute control it brings.  Urgh.  I better stop here before I get to T-shirts and jingles.

Virus Storms

I got pelted by about 20 SoBig.F virus laden e-mail on Friday.  This morning, I got 20 more and the storm continues where it left off Friday.  Since other people are having a much harder time than I am, I guess I am sitting in a nice quiet paranoid patch of the online social network.

Everybody will learn to live with waves of virus storms like the way they deal with real world showers and storms.  Hmm.  I wonder Yahoo will do Virus Forecasts along side Weather Forecasts?

BTW, if you sent me e-mail and I haven't replied, chance is good that it got thrown out in my daily pile of spam and virus.  As a last resort, you might try leaving me a comment to one of my recent blog posts or post a blog of your own referencing my blog so I can find it via trackback or Technorati.

Negotiation as a Game

Negotiation is a fascinating yet difficult subject.  First negotiation probably took place in the Ice Age between cavemen, but the art of negotiation hasn't advanced much since then.

While there are countless papers on negotiation theories, strategies, tactics, psychology, and even philosophy, negotiation still comes down to people talking face to face, just like the cavemen.

Ross Mayfield's Negotiation and Social Software post got me thinking about web-based negotation tools.  Ross writes:

Social software can support negotiation, at the least, by revealing what kind of argument is in play. […] There are three kinds of arguments: Fact, Value or Policy. You can argue over what is, what should be or how it should be. […] Social software can support negotiation, at the least, by revealing what kind of argument is in play.

Unless I am mistaken, Ross wants to use tools to identify and classify arguments.  Assuming Ross is thinking about using Wiki, I am not sure how effective this approach is using purely textual solutions like Wiki.  I am of the opinion that more visual approach is necessary.

Ross also touches on an important point:

Tools that allow mediators the flexibility to structure dialogue while deemphasizing personalities can accelerate constructive conversation.

Personalities and emotions are difficult to isolate and deemphasize in negotiations.  Even act of doing so can backfire.  I think a game-like interface might encourage negotiators to detach themselves emotionally from the arguments similar to the way chips in casinos detach gamblers from monetary value.

People often see negotiation as a game of sort.  Unlike games like Chess and Go, negotiation has no game board nor game pieces, just an optional table to rest hands on and mouths to create or move pieces in your opponent's head.

What would negotiation look like as a game?

Here is my Swiss Cheese answer.

Game area looks like a Crap table, a flat surface divided into two major areas: Common Areas and Player Areas.  Two-party negotiation would have one Common Area and two Player Areas.  Each area is divided into subareas representing player-specified categories.  Some area-specific effects would be interesting.

A mediator is a player with some special privileages such as ability to view hidden pieces.  More than one mediator can participate in a game.

Game pieces look like a stack of chips and can be created by any players.  When a player creates a piece, matching piece appears in each Player Area.  Height of a piece is determined by its value which is assigned by the player who owns it.  Hidden pieces are visible to all but it's content is opaque to all except the piece creator and mediators.

A Deal is a Wheel-like balance in the Common Area.  Players contribute pieces to the Deal using the pieces' value as weights.  If a Deal is balanced, it lights up in green color.

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p dir=”ltr”>Like Swiss Cheese, it has a lot of holes yet to be filled, but I like the way the issues are visualized and players become detached.  Call it work in progress. <g>

Spam Filters and Trash

I have been using SpamBayes since others have suggested it in response to my Death of E-Mail post.  SpamBayes is good, probably good enough most of the time, but not good enough for all the time.

SpamBayes is like my wife.  Since my wife pays the bills, she also does the mail.  Everyday, she checks the mail, throws out apparent junk mail, set aside bills, and brings me the rest.  With her standing there, I separate junk out so she can recognize new types of junk next time.  After ten years of this, she rarely has to bring me mail.

One key advantage my wife has over SpamBayes is that she can expect important mail like tax refund or my son's report card.  She knows ahead of time when, from where, and how (i.e. FedEx or US Postal) mail will come.  She also handles unexpected mail well.  This is why I trust her and why I don't trust SpamBayes completely.

Despite all the fancy algorithms behind today's spam filters, all they do is tossing mail into a trash can.  This is sufficient most of the time, but is prone to failure at exceptional times.

When was the last time you digged into your trash and why?  Would you do that daily?  You can't do it weekly because the pile would be way too big, even daily pile is starting to get too big.  You won't unless there are some important e-mails you have been expecting.  That leaves important yet unexpected e-mails that get thrown out every day with rest of the garbage.

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p dir=”ltr” style=”margin-right:0;”>Message to my wife: Honey, you are so much prettier than SpamBabes, er, SpamBayes.

Bindows

Erik Arvidsson, the DHTML guru behind WebBoard and WebFX, revealed what he had been working on since last year: Bindows.  Bindows is a DHTML framework that emulates Swing/WinForms UI, similar to what Convea and Oddpost.  I am not sure yet, but Bindows seems to use XML to define its GUI.  It seems pretty slow though.  I suspect that most, but not all, of the slow speed is due to the server-side misdesigns.

Asphalt Waves

Asphalt Waves

I don't know who came up with this idea, but I was impressed with it.  The waves make noticeable noise when tire goes over the center divider line.  Too bad I didn't get a chance to see the line at night to see if there are any reflective effects at night.

Update #1: Changed the title to "Asphalt Waves" from "Waves of Asphalt River".  Much better.  Thanks Jay.