Go on, you've done it ... entered some crap e-mail address into a web site
so you can get at the goodies, particularly when they want you e-mail address for no particularly
good reason. It's becoming an increasing feature of news sites, and apparently the
"demographics" that they are harvesting aren't worth a hellava lot, 'cos people tell fibbers (shock, horror!).

Anyway, this fella wondered where all the bullshit e-mail went, and then he got slashdotted (is that a verb?) with lots of discussion resulting in these interesting stats:

1. foo@bar.com [google.com] - 15,800
2. someone@somewhere.com [google.com] - 4,170
3. nobody@nowhere.com [google.com] - 2,900
4. root@localhost.localdomainm [google.com] - 2,860
5. mickey@mouse.com [google.com] - 2,470
6. somebody@somewhere.com [google.com] - 2,240
7. john@doe.com [google.com] - 2,120
8. billgates@microsoft.com [google.com] - 1,790
9. me@mine.com [google.com] - 1,400
10. noone@nowhere.com [google.com] - 975
11. fake@fake.com [google.com] - 710
12. jane@doe.com [google.com] - 423

Interesting outcome is that it seems there is effectively an "official" e-mail blackhole
‹name›@example.{com,net,org}, as is prescribed in RFC 2606.

This wee demonstration in Vienna makes a bit of history.
http://optics.org/articles/news/10/8/15/1

What they are able to do (in layman's inaccurate terms) is to transmit information instantaneously without using a carrier medum (wire, fibre etc). In this case, it was the development of encryption keys at each end, which normally have to be "swapped" somehow.

The quantum cryptography system consisted of a transmitter (Alice) at Vienna's City Hall and a receiver (Bob) at the headquarters of an Austrian bank. The sites were linked by 1.45 km of singlemode optical fiber.

The team used an entangled-state quantum cryptography system that relies on entangled photon pairs. Entangled photons are unpolarized while they travel and only assume a polarization state when measured. Due to their entangled nature, a measurement of the polarization of one photon determines the polarization of the other.

According to the authors, one advantage of their system is that the key comes into existence at both Alice and Bob and does not have to be transferred between the two. With the key safely in hand, the team was able to securely wire money from the City Hall to the bank.

So by poking and prodding a trapped "entangled" photon in one location, it's partner in the entrapment reacts in a different location ... instant data transfer!

"Me-mate-Murray" is building a house for another mate.
He had a bunch of photos of the progess so far, and wanted to share them
with various interested parties (out-of-town architect, engineer etc.).
He also wanted to record some of the fancy bits & pieces of work that he
was doing before it got covered up.
Solution: Start a blog ... so http://workinprogress4u.blogspot.com/
came into existance during the last spell of wet weather.
Blogging is a natural fit as a technology for recording the progress of
a project.
UPDATE: Due to a cock-up (technical term) the new blog is at http://bromwichhouse.blogspot.com/
.. don't ask.

Susan Crawford has posted an attempt at defining some principles for guidiing the inhabitants of the "online community".

Online Principles

1. Human beings are naturally inclined towards trust and collaboration. Policies of intermediaries or governments that frustrate trust and collaboration should be viewed with suspicion.

2. The world is a complex and diverse place. Conflicting values can coexist online. Policies of intermediaries or governments that attempt to impose unitary values -- and, in particular, that attempt to build such values into low levels of the protocol stack -- should be viewed with suspicion.

3. Any group or government that attempts to impose its values online on another group or government should be viewed with suspicion.

4. As much as possible, decisions about what should happen online should be implemented at the edge of the network.

5. As much as possible, decisions about what individuals should be able to do online should be made by those individuals themselves.

6. Netizens want to widen their contacts with people who are distant from them in time and space. Policies of intermediaries or governments that frustrate this contact should be viewed with suspicion.

7. Any machine or device should be allowed to connect to the internet as long as it respects basic protocols. Policies of intermediaries or governments that frustrate this connection should be viewed with suspicion.

8. Online access should not be conditioned on provision of government-mandated identifying information.

9. Individuals should have a choice of modes of online access available to them, at reasonable prices. One of those choices must allow individuals to host content themselves.

10. Individuals who subscribe to these principles should be ready to act collectively when necessary.

The concepts of de-centralisation, suspicion of imposed authority, and valuing diversity of opinion and values is laudable, but I think some focus needs to be placed on the commercial imperitive which increasingly controls the ability of the individuals to access the online community.

I see in this article that Optus is considering the installation of a DSL based video-on-demand delivery network, because the incumbent, Telstra, is not moving along.
This sort of pressure on the roll-out of services can only happen with an unbundled local loop!
It's taking the newcomers a little while to get up and running, but it shows the lie of the NZ Telecom argument that unbundling doesn't add much in the way of choice. ("Only a small percentage of lines are affected").
It obviously adds competition, and even if Optus don't go ahead, the threat will be enough to get Telstra moving.

After reading about the "Ticketek PR Disaster" at half-pie I decided to check out my traffic trackers, but blogspot doesn't offer such information
... So I got me one from statcounter.com/
I think it pokes a cookie a you, but you don't have to eat it.
It'll be interesting to see how (if) it works.

This chart over at juliusblog displays what the cynics amongst us have suspected for some time.

The Unbundled Bit Stream service being offered by Telecom (instead of
Local Loop Unbundling) is *not* going to provide anything to anybody except further
revenue to their off-short shareholders. It certainly doesn't provide
the country with an adequate platform for the future of the access network.

I have been spending some time reading various papers for the ${EMPLOYER}
on broadband access and its possible evolution .
One of the more significant themes is the obvious need for access
providers to supply an wide menu of options.
The picture is one of increased pressure to supply more that *just* high
speed internet access as has been the case to date.
This pressure is coming from areas like VoIP, Television broadcast to
Set-top boxes, Video on Demand, Gaming and comsumer appliances such as
digital cameras and music players.
Many of these technologies are also challenging the current focus on
assymetric delivery (dictated by ADSL's dominance of the market).

So we are starting to see a service requirement to be in various tiers
of service:

1      1.5 Mb
2      3.5 Mb
3      5.5 Mb
4      7.5 Mb
5      10 Mb
6      15 Mb

This particular range (from Alcatel) is based on a basic data service of
1.5 Mb with multiples of asymmetric video streams delivered to the home.
(The 2Mb per video stream is based on the arguable premise that video
compression will eventually deliver adequate quality over that
bandwidth).
From that, discussion is on how this may be delivered to customers at
some distance from the exchange.

Now compare that with the current NZ offering.
Commissioner "Turnaround" Webb and Telecom are trying to convince us that 128k bits is *broadband*. This doesn't even qualify as high-speed internet in many
3rd world countries.
They are basically feeding crumbs of access to competitors, in order to
maintain control over the copper, thus preventing wholesale roll-out of
(particularly) VoIP. This is the real disturber technology which will
kill their very lucrative voice transmission market.
At least Telecom are now talking about running fibre to the roadside
cabinets and putting the DSLAMs out there. This will enable a wider
spread of higher speed access ... but not till 2006!

So basically we can expect no on-line video downloads & no video telephony etc.
or any of the developing *wow* technologies, for quite a few years.
Associated with all this entertainment based development comes the
stuff of that mythical beast, the "Knowledge Economy".
It just leaves NZ so much further behind the play!
We are indeed in a sad state until Telecom is *forced* to provide the services
it should over the monopoly controlled copper.
(Otherwise the socialists should nationalise it; like the railways!)

It sad, but this article suggests that the honeymoon is over for blogspot
(and possibly others) as the porno merchants move in and start using the
toys for something else.
I liked the innocent charm of the blogspot philosophy (and then becoming
a sub-set of the google-world).
Poor old Google is going to have to get its (now) unruly child under
control, and I expect we'll see added restrictions in the near future.
But I guess that's the price of growing up.

internesia : When you can't remember what web site you saw something on ...

This story is a warning to be careful about choosing a geeky personalised number plate.
(So I wonder what wild-card our local ticket dispensers use).