Friday, May 8, 2009

Media as Theater (or Theatre, depending on which side of Atlantic we're on)


I originally wrote this entry on September 28, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.













The script of any play predetermines for the large part (or at least constrains to a significant degree) the appropriate moves, phrases, tones of voice, the words used and certainly the selected scenes from the reality whose unfolding it takes to play.



I've already written briefly about the uncritical aspects of the Journalistic approach to digesting of the facts and about Lawrence Lessig' view of the state of political discourse in the U.S. Now, Lessig is writing on his weblog about another aspect of "Journalism". I'd like to call this aspect of Journalism "the media theater". In other words, knowing the role it is supposed to play, media simply plays the role it is supposed to play. Mass media attempts to become theater, and yet, it will remain less than theater because at least theatric drama (in its classical sense) has a coherent story, a thread, that goes through its scenes and holds everything together. The role of the mass media (as Hubert Dreyfus extends Soren Kierkegaard's ideas) is to level us. (I've written more on Hubert Dreyfus elsewhere.)



Trying a "Mobile" Weblog


I originally wrote this entry on September 27, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.


On my first day of owning a Sidekick II device, I've been able to start and manage a mobile weblog in less than 3 minutes, with great ease and directly from the mobile device itself. The device design and service integration are strikingly smooth. Many efficiencies are included.




Danger Gets Dangerous


I originally wrote this entry on September 27, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.















I'd been waiting for more than a couple of years to get Danger's Sidekick.


No, this is certainly not like Enkidu, the sidekick to Gilgamesh, that primordial myth-model of heroism, from Mesopotamia, a land we now know better as Iraq.


Nevertheless, every hero needs a sidekick, even if it is to be a cyber-sidekick.


Gilgamesh had Enkidu, and I got my Sidekick at the Palo Alto T-Mobile outlet on University Avenue this Sunday. If I'm satisfied (and I get 14 days to decide), I will then have to see about number portability. I'm told it now takes a very short time to install. I will write about this more in a couple of days.




My criteria for the purchase of a sidekick had been a color screen and tri-band radio capabilities. Sidekick II meets both. Not only that, I now have IMAP/SSL accounts I can set up. I haven't had time to set up an IMAP account yet but I had enough time to take a picture of Roberto Chinnici. He visited me (or was it a visit to my Sidekick II) just a few moments ago. More about Roberto later.

Should I go or should I not . . .


I originally wrote this entry on September 26, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.


I was supposed to attend (as vice chair and participant) the Open Mobile Alliance - Mobile Web Services working group meeting in Orlando early next week but Hurricane Jeanne has closed the airport until Monday afternoon, and going through 15 hours of travel and airports (not including the delays) while ending up with the opportunity to attend (possibly) less than one day of a meeting is not my idea of resourcefulness. So, I think I'm going to have to cancel this trip. This will incur Sun some cost but the savings in time, energy and individual productivity outweigh the losses. So, Sunday morning when I wake up, my first move will be to put a cancellation order in motion. Missing the meeting will unfortunately mean that I will also miss what promises to be a great presentation on Fast Web Services by Paul Sandoz. (He seems to have gotten to Orlando, from France, just before the airport closure.)


Some have expressed curiosity regarding how the OMA board could have allowed the meeting to be arranged during a hurricane-prone season in Orlando? Can Mickey Mouse really produce such an irresistible pull for our European OMA colleagues? I doubt it very much.

Boom or Bust


I originally wrote this entry on September 24, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.


Journalists are a curious bunch when it comes to booms and busts. Their whole careers move with booms and busts. When there is a boom, they are among the boomers, and when a bust, among the busters.


Of course, we have those rare occasions when a journalist actually stands out. I'm thinking of H.L. Mencken or Ambrose Bierce (yes, Ambrose Bierce of The Devil's Dictionary although many know him by Carlos Fuentes' The Old Gringo). In these cases, the journalist seems to be filling a space where the priests have vacated in certain societies. A place that demands its inhabitant to speak a truth that is actually experienced.


Well, where did I learn all that stuff . . . Let's see, I remember a certain curiosity for the kinked view of things and a certain teacher. I bought my first copy of The Devil's Dictionary when I lived in Berkeley back in the summer of 1980 although I had trouble grasping large sections making references to politicians in Washington. It all seemed a bit unreal. Later on things changed and became more apparent. Then, there was a certain teacher who introduced me to Mencken and his role in instituting a particular culture among some American journalists who continue to revere him: Tom Leonard is not only a great professor of the history of journalism, he is also a great guy. He was gentle, patient and good to all students who took his graduate courses in history of American journalism. In his class, no question was unworthy of exploration. He probably doesn't quite remember me any more. After all, I sat in his graduate seminar some 15 years ago. I was that strange fellow at the J-School who also had completed a recent Ph.D. in a branch of scientific computing and was working in the physics department to put himself through the journalism program. Given the blogs and the web, it is easy to do this sort of thing today with no eyebrows raised, but back then people were very conservative and thought of me as some sort of a case gone wild.


Another Start-up Idea! (or An Idea Whose Time Has Come! . . . . and Gone?)


I originally wrote this entry on September 23, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.


I guess since there have been many start-ups in the Silicon Valley (and elsewhere) brought to the rank of credible companies by ex-Sun employees, I need to provide my own creative contribution to this frenzy in some small way. Otherwise, I may not be worth even half a true-blooded Sun guy.


I'd given away one start-up idea earlier on this weblog, and here's another, and there may be more in the future.


Over the last four years, I have been lucky enough to see, first hand and behind the scenes, a great trend in the telecommunications market to move applications of all sorts to the J2EE platform. In fact, I have been involved in a couple of R&D projects with a focus on evolving some of our partners' service platforms to the J2EE environment. This has all been very, very exciting work and some of it has been published in JavaOne presentations. (So, I'm not giving away any trade secrets.) In fact, some of this work fed requirements that led to the advent of the J2EE Connector Architecture 1.5. (Ram Jeyaraman, the lead for that JSR is a superb engineer. We've worked together for some time, beginning with our implementation of GIOP 1.2 in RMI-IIOP, also involving Mr. Anderson.) Now, the concept of [ connectors | telecom protocol stacks ] is congruent (remember your Abstract Algebra and Category Theory?) to [ JDBC drivers | Databases ]. The point I'm trying to make is that just like some corporations started out of Sun as database connectivity companies and then realized they needed to grow in adjacent areas in order to become significant weights in the software world, other start-ups can grow as telecom protocol connectivity companies and grow into significant weights in the telecom services software world. This is particularly important because high-value services involving the web, enterprise, mobility, multi-media, identity and telecommunications are on the roll. I've been so gungho about this idea that I've even suggested (in a moment of madness, I wonder?!) to some people here that if Sun incubated a startup to do this for a live-or-die period of two years, I'll be willing to risk joining it ! ! ! However, this was several months ago . . . time is running out . . . but I don't think the idea is quite yet passe.


It'll also be cool to have some JSRs to standardize the connector APIs above the protocol adapters. (In fact, there is an engineer in Sun/IEC who may help me do this sometime soon.) Having a standardized API will create a true market in these connectors. Yes, I'm not a big risk-taker right now, and it's fun working with the people at Sun, but if you're one, you don't have to let people know where you heard the idea first. Just go ahead and do it! It'll be good for everyone else in the market. Finally, I think it'll be great to stage an open source project that actually accomplishes what I'm saying here. However, in that case, given the telecom market's penchant for standardized components, the JSR route becomes even more necessary for commercial success.


Another Start-up Idea! (or An Idea Whose Time Has Come! . . . . and Gone?)


I originally wrote this entry on September 23, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.


I guess since there have been many start-ups in the Silicon Valley (and elsewhere) brought to the rank of credible companies by ex-Sun employees, I need to provide my own creative contribution to this frenzy in some small way. Otherwise, I may not be worth even half a true-blooded Sun guy.


I'd given away one start-up idea earlier on this weblog, and here's another, and there may be more in the future.


Over the last four years, I have been lucky enough to see, first hand and behind the scenes, a great trend in the telecommunications market to move applications of all sorts to the J2EE platform. In fact, I have been involved in a couple of R&D projects with a focus on evolving some of our partners' service platforms to the J2EE environment. This has all been very, very exciting work and some of it has been published in JavaOne presentations. (So, I'm not giving away any trade secrets.) In fact, some of this work fed requirements that led to the advent of the J2EE Connector Architecture 1.5. (Ram Jeyaraman, the lead for that JSR is a superb engineer. We've worked together for some time, beginning with our implementation of GIOP 1.2 in RMI-IIOP, also involving Mr. Anderson.) Now, the concept of [ connectors | telecom protocol stacks ] is congruent (remember your Abstract Algebra and Category Theory?) to [ JDBC drivers | Databases ]. The point I'm trying to make is that just like some corporations started out of Sun as database connectivity companies and then realized they needed to grow in adjacent areas in order to become significant weights in the software world, other start-ups can grow as telecom protocol connectivity companies and grow into significant weights in the telecom services software world. This is particularly important because high-value services involving the web, enterprise, mobility, multi-media, identity and telecommunications are on the roll. I've been so gungho about this idea that I've even suggested (in a moment of madness, I wonder?!) to some people here that if Sun incubated a startup to do this for a live-or-die period of two years, I'll be willing to risk joining it ! ! ! However, this was several months ago . . . time is running out . . . but I don't think the idea is quite yet passe.


It'll also be cool to have some JSRs to standardize the connector APIs above the protocol adapters. (In fact, there is an engineer in Sun/IEC who may help me do this sometime soon.) Having a standardized API will create a true market in these connectors. Yes, I'm not a big risk-taker right now, and it's fun working with the people at Sun, but if you're one, you don't have to let people know where you heard the idea first. Just go ahead and do it! It'll be good for everyone else in the market. Finally, I think it'll be great to stage an open source project that actually accomplishes what I'm saying here. However, in that case, given the telecom market's penchant for standardized components, the JSR route becomes even more necessary for commercial success.


Global System for Mobile Communications


I originally wrote this entry on September 22, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.


Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is the grandfather of most 3G mobile network environments.


GSM's success was not so much dependent on the architectural definnitions that it put together for public land mobile networks (PLMNs). The main reason for its success has been the standard interfaces it defined which made roaming across operators easy. For a description of the interfaces, architecture and system design, I highly recommend Gunnar Heine's excellent book GSM Networks: Protocols, Terminology, and Implementation. This highly readable book (how often can you say that about a telecommunications protocols book?) was originally written in German: GSM--Signalisierung verstehen und praktisch anwenden.


Not only easier roaming was achieved by GSM . . . It also made mergers (such as the recent one between AT&T Wireless and Cingular) easier.


This morning, it looks like Cingular has finally integrated the AT&T Wireless home registries. My carrier was AT&T Wireless. I had spotty reception in certain locations which apparently were owned by Cingular but were not being shared generously before the merger. After the merger, I first noticed an improvement in signals on my phone due to better cell coverage, but a number of new problems with direct dialing of my own landline number when mobile in my own area code. When in the newly available Cingular cells, I had to dial full long-distance number of my home. This had something to do with the slow integration of home and visitor registries. Now, that the integration seems complete, this new problem has also disappread.


More cells, better reception . . . make me a happier user.


My Favorite TV Programming

I originally wrote this entry on September 19, 2004 and published it on blogs.sun.com.



My favorite English-language TV programming comes to me via Reuters.com.


It brings me large quantities of "raw" video clips, which often include the original language.


The "raw" video clips give a much better sense of the context of the news.


The Reuters TV channels can be followed through their RSS feed.