If there's hope for humanity it's in software

Copyright (c) Max K. Goff 1998-2001 all rights reserved

01 Aug. 2001, 00:00 PDT - page 2
 
 

For one thing, there's the "radio" efforts, which I was inspired to add to the site. While I can hardly claim that my work here constitutes anything resembling a real radio station, the fact remains that I am now hosting audio files (mp3) that I've put together from recordings of various live presentations I've made over the past few years, which I can now make available to a theoretical global audience. In some ways, that's a lot more powerful than a real radio station. And while my wife happens to be an audio professional, I've tried to not trouble her too much in putting this together (aside from my constant need for her constant approval), electing instead to use free or really cheap audio production software on my laptop. The kind of work that needed to be done to prune, cut-and-paste, record and then produce even the modest efforts represented here would not have been possible without a major recording facility just a decade ago. But given my laptop, an internet connection, and knowledge gleaned from an audio professional, not only can I now produce audio; I can also distribute it. Globally. How much would it have cost, just 15 years ago, to equal such possibilities?

In addition to fixing the ol' web site, I've also been working on a presentation for the upcoming Sun Tech Days season, which begins in September in Stockholm. I'm beginning my sixth year as a Technology Evangelist. I remember a manager early on who made the statement (presumably due to the sometimes excessive travel requirements), "The 'shelf life' for an evangelist is two years." That was at least four years ago. That manager left Sun some time back...and I'm still an evangelist...

Liz and I have also been packing...we'll be moving within hours of this posting. We've ordered a fractional T-1 product for our new home - 1.1Mbs, which should satiate our bandwidth addiction for the moment...I've been reading about Internet 2 recently, though. A hundred times the bandwidth would yield possibilities too legion - to travel without moving. To move by just thinking. Would 100Mb/sec per person be enough? Would the Matrix then be within our reach? Certainly Tele-immersion is possible...

Tele-immersion enables users at geographically distributed sites to collaborate in real time in a shared, simulated, hybrid environment as if they were in the same physical room - the ultimate "actual virtual reality." Imagine a sythesis of 3D environment scanning, projective and display technologies, tracking and audio technologies, and robotics and haptics, along with pipes fat enough to carry all those data-intensive streams at light-speed latency. That's just one of the applications demonstrated within the realm of Internet 2...

I'm still an evangelist... sometimes I'm not sure if it's the Peter Principle  in action, or if I have simply found my purpose -- but then, upon reflection, I realize that it's probably both. :)

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