Tuesday, January 24, 2006

moblog


moblog
Originally uploaded by kippster.
I wanted to test this moblog thing...



This is a picture of the farm which my ancestors homesteaded back in

the day in southwest Nebraska. Picture was taken Thanksgiving 2005,

the farm house is off to the right, but the land is no longer owned

by my family (only the few acres around the house).

Game Theory

I caught a presentation from a professor (Dr. Marco Castillo) who does research in Public Policy at Georgia Tech. He recently applied game theory to model war crimes/abuses in Peru to look at the behaviors and motivations and see if he can determine the types of discrimination that took place.

Very interesting talk, both the subject and the idea of using game theory to explore the motivations and behaviors.

It got me to thinking (which is rather scary) that I could apply game theory to the development of IXPs in developing nations. If I can model the participants, their motivations and the externalities, perhaps there is a way to better model the path to moving IXP creation forward faster...

The network effect of the Internet has impact both on the usefulness and value to end users, but also on the cost/benefit for providers -- perhaps this is the area that ISP providers are not groking -- the trust issue seems to be an overriding inhibitor to interconnections even though the evidence seems clear that it is in everybody's best interest to move forward.

I need to learn more about game theory and how to apply it to such a 'coordination' game...

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Bolivia

I'm still knee deep in Africa, working through the issues regarding the regional IXP and Internet access in the region.

In fact, I spent some time on Friday talking to both Risa's and Laney's classes about the trip. Okay, I didn't gain much additional insight into IXP's, but it was fun and I was happy to be able to share some information about another part of the world to a bunch of kindergarteners and third graders. The third graders really liked the goat head story!

I have expanded my world interest and am now in a course on Latin American Democracy/Politics. Yeah, I know, Africa isn't enough, I needed another continent to worry about!

Latin America has some very interesting things going on these days. A bunch of new leaders are moving into position, and most of them are leftist leaning socialist tending folk.

Most interesting, especially today, is Bolivia. Evo Morales was inaugurated as the President of Bolivia after a rehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifsounding democratic election in which he earned some 54% of the popular vote.

A bit of information about Evo can be found all over the net...but I like wikipedia. Some great information about who attended this event on MABB's blog. A great blog with commentary/translation/dictation of the ceremony today. An additional link to a great photostream from the trip Evo made yesterday.

Amazing cast of characters, and although Castro didn't attend the event, he did send his Vice-President, Carlos Lage...

Friday, January 20, 2006

24

Okay, just a quick trip into the world of a geek...

For those of you who watch 24 (you know, the show with Jack Bauer)...well we watched the 10:00-11:00 episode for the new Day 5 season. Of course it was on Tivo, so when Jack sent an image of the terrorist to Chloe so that she could analyze the detonator on the dude's vest and reprogram Jack's phone to the detonation frequency...

Well, upon closer inspection, the email address he sent it to was co'brian@CTUGOV.net and the image was 106KB...

Not satisfied with that, I did a whois on the domain (there is no website for the domain), and found that it is registered to:



Twentieth Century Fox
21050 lassen St.
chatsworth, CA 91311
US

Domain Name: CTUGOV.NET

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Twentieth Century Fox rrgprops@yahoo.com
21050 lassen St.
chatsworth, CA 91311
US
818 717 5444

Record expires on 14-Oct-2008.
Record created on 14-Oct-2005.



I decided to play along, sent an email to Chloe and cc'd rrgprops@yahoo.com. I actually got a response:



thanks for the response, a lot more to come
Randy G.

--- Kipp Jones wrote:

> Chloe,
>
> Good work on identifying the detonator on that vest...amazing image processing on a 106KB image that Jack sent, that is some enhancement you've got going on!
>
> Kipp



Anyway, fun to play with the media interactions...thus ends your quick journey into my life!

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Mud on the Tires


Mud on the Tires
Originally uploaded by kippster.
Personally, I think it's time to trade in the TrailBlazer -- clearly we need a 4-wheel drive!

Yesterday, Pam wanted to see why one would want 4-wheel drive and tested the TrailBlazer (rather ironic name, since there was clearly no blazing going on here!) in some Georgia Clay.

Sometimes, you should just listen to music and not try to act it out :-)

Kipp

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Wireless IXP

There appears to be a dearth of information related to formulating an IXP using wireless technologies. This is not surprising given the fact that wireless technology has only recently become robust and cost effective enough to be used for local loop and backhaul activity.

There are several interesting areas around this subject in which to sink your teeth into. Wireless technology options (canopy, wimax, other), spectrum management, mast creation, salt water issues, signal propagation, privacy and security assurances, finacial models, etc.

I'll be building off of some great work that has gone on in the last 10 years regarding IXPs and extending it to include a wireless angle.

Broadcast coverage




So, the local 11Alive (WXIA-TV Atlanta, NBC) did a small piece on our Georgia Tech course and the 5 teams that traveled around the world. Donna Lowry was the reporter, we spent over 90 minutes recording the material that squashed down to the 1.5 minute piece, but I'm happy that the program got the air time.

The story is online along with the video .

Beyond the news coverage, it was great to hear the different stories from the other members of the team. Some really great stories about experiences in the various lands, the people, the technology, the issues, and the possibilities. A lot of people talked about going on to do more work in this area -- one of the key outcomes of the class if you ask me.

Sunday, January 08, 2006