The father of packet switching - Mr. Baran’s invention was so far ahead of its time that in the mid-1960s, when he approached AT&T with the idea to build his proposed network, the company insisted it would not work and refused.
posted by BigHeartedGuy
on Mar 28, 2011 -
24 comments
In
Publishing: The Revolutionary Future, Jason Epstein posits "The resistance today by publishers to the onrushing digital future does not arise from fear of disruptive literacy, but from the understandable fear of their own obsolescence and the complexity of the digital transformation that awaits them... The unprecedented ability of this technology to offer a vast new multilingual marketplace a practically limitless choice of titles will displace the Gutenberg system with or without the cooperation of its current executives."
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Mar 3, 2010 -
19 comments
Booktribes is a new site from the creators of
writing site Abctales where bibliophiles can compile lists of every book they've ever read. Replete with a simple, intuitive interface, compiling your life's reading list becomes strangely addictive, and for the whole of March, the best comment of the day on this as-yet underpopulated site wins a copy of David Mitchell's
Black Swan Green, with the best comment of the month winning the entire 21 volume Sceptre Collection. And if you're worried your reading list isn't up to scratch, don't panic -
you can always cheat.
posted by RokkitNite
on Mar 3, 2007 -
20 comments
Meet Stuart, the new mySpace-like networking site for
Student
Artists created by Saatchi and Saatchi. (discovered through the
NYT).
posted by jacalata
on Dec 19, 2006 -
23 comments
What News Corp doesn't want you to know about myspace is that the much of the success of myspace was due to a large successful advertising campaign and it wasn't grass roots at all. They also don't want you to know that Tom Anderson didn't really create the site and that it is more spam 2.0 than anything else. The article is written by a 19 year old web journalist called Trent Lapinski. Has everyone just been had? Does it matter?
(via Digg and Valleywag)
posted by sien
on Sep 11, 2006 -
92 comments
Newsfilter: The US House Committee on the Judiciary today
approved the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act (
HR 5417) in a vote of 20-12, helping to improve the provision of equal network service regardless of who receives it, without added surcharges, along with other antitrust measures. Carriers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon suggest no problem exists that requires this legislative solution, despite
pushing their lobbyists hard to get Congress to enact opposing laws, and suggesting that prioritizing network traffic is required to develop newer products, such as
high-definition video. Meanwhile, the FCC continues to encourage
mergers while prices for telecommunications products continue to rise at rates
manyfold higher than inflation, despite price gouging provisions enacted in the
Telecommunications Act of 1996.
posted by Mr. Six
on May 26, 2006 -
13 comments
Networking on the Network Started over 10 years ago, long before social web apps became ubiquitous, Phil Agre's
Networking on the Network was an introduction to professional networking, using the internet, for graduate students.
The document has grown and evolved to encompass 90 pages of widely applicable advice on building professional relationships and helping others do the same. Much of what he writes is applicable to surviving in
any institution.
Reading it feels like being taken aside by an expert practitioner who tells you, "Pssst....hey buddy, here's how things
really work."
posted by mecran01
on Oct 7, 2005 -
12 comments
Roadcasting is an idea bandied about for ages: create ad-hoc low power FM networks that let you share the mp3 music you're hearing in your car with those driving around you. It's basically a blueprint for shared pirate radio as you drive, surfing the dial for a variety of music from nearby motorists. They've got
screenshots and
source code and it looks
just like the system imagined in Cory Doctorow's books. I can't wait to see where this project is headed. [via
unmediated]
posted by mathowie
on May 22, 2005 -
37 comments
[TheFaceBook]: It comes in the genre of
LiveJournal,
MySpace, and
Friendster - except with a focus on digitally connecting pre-existing friendships on college campuses rather than finding new friends worldwide. Subsequently, it has thus far avoided the stigmas I’ve seen attached to its predecessors by non-users. Its use has skyrocketed: about 15% of my campus has signed up since this past winter. All of it through word-of-mouth. One of the neat tricks it does is show a visualization of your friends on the network in a spider webbed vectored graphic connecting them based on their mutual friendships. It’s also proven very useful in tracking down those “where do I know him/her?” names through a prominently displayed list showing up to two-degrees of separation to the mystery person. Oh, and you can send text messages to cell phones through it. Did I mention it also reminds you of
birthdays?
posted by trinarian
on Mar 19, 2005 -
29 comments
iNeighbors is like groupware for neighbors. The site lets members define neighborhoods and provides tools for meeting and talking to your neighbors, like posting reviews and building a mailing list. It sounds like MeFites want to
meet people nearby, a desire this site is banking on. (via
Smart Mobs)
posted by revgeorge
on Aug 16, 2004 -
18 comments
Bay Area Link Up is a social/business networking site for professionals in the Bay Area. Some use it for business networking and getting freelance work. Others use it for other reasons. They've recently expanded to
other regions (and also added a monthly fee). I like this model better than Yahoo Groups or Usenet, simply because people create events that you can sign up for if they interest you. What online networking groups do you like to use?
posted by culberjo
on Apr 6, 2004 -
4 comments
Buddyzoo is an interesting new site that lets you see which buddies on your AIM buddy list your buddies share with you. Sort of like a six degrees of seperation kind of thing. Very neat. Go
check it out and sign up! And tell your friends!
posted by aznblader
on Apr 15, 2003 -
13 comments
I couldn't find Kevin Bacon anywhere on this list. I guess this guy prescribes to the "idle hands are the devil's workshop" world view. This bloke has apparently gone to great pains to list everyone he has ever known on his website. What a massive undertaking, as well as a complete waste of time.
posted by psmealey
on Jan 7, 2003 -
22 comments
Your house is set to become a sprawling, and cheap, computer network. Ninety technology companies — including Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc. — are part of a group that announced a major breakthrough Tuesday in the years-long push to use power lines to transmit data. As early as October, consumers in Canada and the United States will be able to use any plug in their house to connect computers to each other and to the Web. No extra wiring will be required.
posted by tranquileye
on Jun 27, 2001 -
32 comments
This is pretty damn cool:
your bookmarks, napsterized. A new app (windows only, sorry) to let you share your favorite sites with everyone and allow others to search for them. If they add a hotlist, ala napster, this could be one killer app.
posted by mathowie
on Jan 28, 2001 -
7 comments
