RE: Statements against new.net?
At 11:21 PM 3/14/2001, Vadim Antonov wrote:
And so does any web browser and even all popular e-mail software. The point is: you don't _remember_ e-mail addresses with their FQDNs, you look them up in the address book.
I remember FQDN's. I know where to email when I want to reach abuse@some.isp too. I also know how to tell someone over coffee what my address is, or my mom's email address. For that matter, she remembers my email address, FQDN and all. This is a woman who labeled every port and every cable with matching labels like "a", "b", etc, just to move her desktop to a different room in the house. Labels have an intrinsic value that goes far beyond the scope of the internet, and even beyond the scope of language. A name. What is a name? A rose by any other name... Wouldn't be a rose anymore, would it? We place immense value in names. When you are sick, the first thing you want to know is the name of the disease. When you see someone, someone that stirs the ancient hormonal need to breed, what do you want to know? A name. When something is discovered, be it molecule or star, organism or crystalline formation, what do we do to mark the occasion? We name it. And then we name the day we named it, so we can celebrate that name. Trying to divorce names from our thought processes (even if only in this one area) would be painful (if possible at all) to the general populace. Not to mention the damage it would do to marketing campaigns (print, radio, and TV).
Long-term memory is _much_ better remembering gestalts than precise ASCII strings. I'm exchanging e-mail with my colleague nearly every day, but i can't remember what exactly variant of spelling is used for his name (there's at least sixteen ways to spell his name in English, each as good as any other :).
Methinks he needs a shorter alias.
What i learned so far - if technology aims to change human nature, it fails. It is very naive to assume that brotherhood of technologists will stay cooperative when real money gets in. I do not like it any more than any other techie, but let's face reality. The control of domain name space is passing from technologists to lawyers and politicos.
Only if we bend over and lube for it.
What i am proposing is to remove the contention point. When "names" do not have intrinsic value, nobody'll fight over them. Do you see many scandals around people who own cool IP addresses? :)
No, but I bet you would see a mad dash for 123.123.123.123 and the like if your proposal were to take hold.
There's a lot of other stuff behind that, but, I think that you get the point.
The Internet is successful precisely because it is decentralized. There is absolutely no reason to make the few "natural" central points vulnerable by having them to dispense what is considered intrinsically valuable property. (Thanks God, NAT made IP address allocations somewhat less critical).
The Internet is only useful because of standardization (IP, TCP, UDP, SNMP, ICMP, the list goes on forever). Otherwise, we are left sitting in a dark room with 200 other people... all speaking different languages. Let's just ditch this whole "Internet" thing and go back to BBSes, shall we? ~Ben, blah blah speaks for himself blah not reflect blah blah employer --- Ben Browning <benb@theriver.com> The River Internet Access Co. Network Operations 1-877-88-RIVER http://www.theriver.com
On Thu, Mar 15, 2001 at 12:08:42AM -0800, Ben Browning had this to say:
point is: you don't _remember_ e-mail addresses with their FQDNs, you look them up in the address book.
[reply left in entirety for emphasis]
I remember FQDN's.
I know where to email when I want to reach abuse@some.isp too. I also know how to tell someone over coffee what my address is, or my mom's email address.
For that matter, she remembers my email address, FQDN and all. This is a woman who labeled every port and every cable with matching labels like "a", "b", etc, just to move her desktop to a different room in the house.
Labels have an intrinsic value that goes far beyond the scope of the internet, and even beyond the scope of language.
A name. What is a name? A rose by any other name... Wouldn't be a rose anymore, would it? We place immense value in names. When you are sick, the first thing you want to know is the name of the disease. When you see someone, someone that stirs the ancient hormonal need to breed, what do you want to know? A name. When something is discovered, be it molecule or star, organism or crystalline formation, what do we do to mark the occasion? We name it. And then we name the day we named it, so we can celebrate that name.
Trying to divorce names from our thought processes (even if only in this one area) would be painful (if possible at all) to the general populace. Not to mention the damage it would do to marketing campaigns (print, radio, and TV).
*APPLAUSE* this is probably the best non-technical argument for the importance of names that I've heard yet in this whole thread. Very well spoken.
Long-term memory is _much_ better remembering gestalts than precise ASCII strings. I'm exchanging e-mail with my colleague nearly every day, but i can't remember what exactly variant of spelling is used for his name (there's at least sixteen ways to spell his name in English, each as good as any other :).
Methinks he needs a shorter alias.
no kidding.
What i learned so far - if technology aims to change human nature, it fails. It is very naive to assume that brotherhood of technologists will stay cooperative when real money gets in. I do not like it any more than any other techie, but let's face reality. The control of domain name space is passing from technologists to lawyers and politicos.
Only if we bend over and lube for it.
I, for one, find that thought intensely uncomfortable. In fact, I find the idea of letting lawyers/politicos even be _involved_ loathsome; however, I _do_ realize that certain amounts of evil come with the territory.
What i am proposing is to remove the contention point. When "names" do not have intrinsic value, nobody'll fight over them. Do you see many scandals around people who own cool IP addresses? :)
No, but I bet you would see a mad dash for 123.123.123.123 and the like if your proposal were to take hold.
absolutely - it's human nature (especially for marketers) to focus on what _separates_ us from each other; what makes us different; what makes us stand out. People will grab at any straw they see to try to have _some_ way to be noticed in the crowd, without actually resorting to the merits of whatever product/service they're selling.
The Internet is successful precisely because it is decentralized. There is absolutely no reason to make the few "natural" central points vulnerable by having them to dispense what is considered intrinsically valuable property. (Thanks God, NAT made IP address allocations somewhat less critical).
The Internet is only useful because of standardization (IP, TCP, UDP, SNMP, ICMP, the list goes on forever). Otherwise, we are left sitting in a dark room with 200 other people... all speaking different languages.
Amen. And currently, there are certainly PLENTY of business interests that are more than eager to subvert any standards they can find if it will put a buck in their pockets. I _know_ you can all come up with at least a couple names immediately that fit in that category.
Let's just ditch this whole "Internet" thing and go back to BBSes, shall we?
please, no. <soapbox> To sum up: if I had a choice between an Internet that worked, that was a haven for the free exchange of information and ideas, where people were able to effectively communicate with each other; and being able to pull a fast one, stick it to the rest of the community, and make a million bucks, I think in this particular case, I'd prefer to live cheaply than to have a marketing- driven and non-functional Internet. Call me naive if you will, but I really think the early days of the Internet, with the focus on free exchange of ideas and information, before corporations, lawyers, politicos and PR departments got in and fux0red the whole thing, is something that could possibly come again. Perhaps not in the same manner (one can never really go back), but we _do_ have the power to decide where we want this thing to go, and make it happen. We don't have to just let ourselves be led around by the nose and blame "the market" or "business" or our respective sales depts. Is this really that idealistic of a stance to take, that we can still make a difference in how this Internet that we collectively operate will develop? </soapbox> I await your collective jeers at my youthful naivete. *sigh*
~Ben, blah blah speaks for himself blah not reflect blah blah employer
ditto -- Scott Francis scott@ [work:] v i r t u a l i s . c o m Systems Analyst darkuncle@ [home:] d a r k u n c l e . n e t PGP fingerprint 7ABF E2E9 CD54 A1A8 804D 179A 8802 0FBA CB33 CCA7 illum oportet crescere me autem minui
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Ben Browning -
Scott Francis