My leasure. And I am pleased to be able to keep up on advances in Croquet. I continue to hope that we can, through a sound technology policy and continued advancement, free human beings from the tyranny of a few by their means to control communication and information. At the same time, I am all too aware of how such technologies can become the tools of tyranny. Makes life fun, don't it.

On the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima, it is perhaps useful to think of what a complex thing atomic power and the atomic bomb are. Potential solvation of mankind by making war too terrible to contemplate and making electricity too cheap to meter. Potential death of mankind by nuclear oblivion or poisoning ourselves with waste.

As a religious man, I can't help but wonder a bit about God's parenting style. I hope, like a 17 year old with the family car, we learn to drive responsibly rather than slam into a tree or drive off the road.

Hmm. Just before I got my license, my parents got rid of our '65 Impala and '70 Chevelle, and bought a Chevette econo-box. Just in time. If I'd been driving one of those muscle cars when I ran off the road and into those trees, me and my three friends would probably be dead.

On might hope I've learned as I've aged. Maybe I'll be sufficiently cautioned by the parts I've had on my desk since '87 from the Jaguar I wrecked.

I like to think I'm cautious and conservative and responsible. But I can't ignore the evidence to the contrary.

How does any of us know?

The only answer I can think of, incomplete as it is, is make sure we keep asking the questions.

“. . . in the end they will be the mechanism by which machine intelligence becomes like electricity--that is, invisible and ubiquitous.”

Precisely. That's why we say, “I fear these things. . .”

Mesh Networks:
a friend of mine in santa cruz put together his own ad-hoc (mesh) network (the wiki wiki wan) which was my only internet connection for about six months. it worked great. it was all about line-of site from my rooftop to another participant's to another to a final wired fat pipe.

There's a project going on called the $100 laptop, which is a whole subject onto itself, but one aspect of it is to get computers with low power consumption into the hands of kids in places like Thailand and Cambodia. No wired infrastructure. Sure, satellites might work, but the idea is to not use a lot of power.

One proposed solution is something called magic dust: tiny (possibly even nano-scaled) mesh network repeaters to be scattered from airplanes over the jungle, and using photovoltaic power or charging from air-pressure changes, or some such.

Pleasant dreams, Johnny.

“But the most disruptive business impact of meshes will be this: telecommunications companies do not own them. Meshes profoundly diminish the organizations that own and manage communications backbones.”

Unfortunately economics, geography, politics and even technology will play a role in keeping them to a certain degree, part of the picture. The global Internet is still not as redundent as people suppose. Plus WiFi being unlicensed, and therefore a free-for-all will bring it's own set of problems.