| Various paradigms we need to shatter: | |
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| Rob's pet-peeve paradigms | Denise's pet-peeve paradigms |
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Indeed, why couldn't I set up a single postal address for life and let the Post Office deliver my mail to the correct physical location? I tended to whine a lot about this...
Then along came the World Wide Web. I recognized its potential -- you could open your own "vanity" domain name and from then on you'd never need to change your Internet address. You could always find someone no matter how often they moved!
Sadly, many Americans blindly follow the old paradigm: they change their Internet address every time a new service provider offers a lower rate. Even worse, many workers change their Internet address whenever they get promoted or move into a new company office. Worse still, a large number of Internet service providers right now try to gouge "visionaries" like me who want to establish lifetime Internet addresses.
These "transient Internet addresses" sometimes prove quite hilarious. Surf to the Internet UFO group home page for a perfect example -- this hotlink will tell you to surf to a different URL, which in turn tells you to surf to a third URL! (This UFO group finally colonized [pun intended] the world wide web when they purchased their own domain name.)
What if, say, the Air Force implemented a truly permanent email addressing scheme for its personnel? First they set up a bunch of email servers designed solely to forward mail. Then Capt. Tom Slick walks up to the administrative office and says, "I'd like to apply for a vanity email address."
An admin clerk types a few keys on the computer and asks, "what name would you like, sir?" You know Tom -- he'd love to get his callsign. "Can I be 'Maverick'?" The clerk types a few more keys and says, "sir, it was already taken at a bunch of name servers, but the Air Force just opened another server yesterday. You're now maverick@mail14.af.mil. I've told it to forward all email to your account here on our network."
Capt. Slick walks out feeling great. No matter where he moves from now on -- no matter what war zone he goes to -- he can advertise a single Internet email address for the rest of his Air Force career. It doesn't matter if he gets promoted or if he takes a new job or if he transfers to another squadron or if he serves a tour overseas. Every time he gets a new email account, he'll tell the admin clerk to tie it to his vanity email address. Capt. Slick updates one rolodex for everybody, instead of him telling everybody to update their own rolodexes.
Now you know why I purchased my own domain. Sure, Denise & I might switch Internet service providers ... but you'll never notice. You'll always surf to www.kumite.com and you'll always write to us@kumite.com. It's that simple.
I finally linked up with SimpleNet, a visionary in its own
right. They too want to see truly virtual, truly lifelong Internet addresses -- and they don't gouge. (Well,
okay: they gouge for HTML forms capability, but I digress.) SimpleNet confidently compares its prices against the
competition; they name their competitors so you can visit them; and SimpleNet readily points out the weak
spots in their own sales pitch. Drop by and check them out for your own needs. Tell 'em
kumite.com sent you.
The Network Strategies Office has been trying to figure out a way to implement peranent e-mail addresses since Oct 96. Individuals in PACAF were also trying to figure out a way to implement this Air Force wide as far back as Jul 95. The issues of bandwidth aggregation at the central repository site which necessitates massive size communications pipes, huge servers, and the centralized manpower intensive task of maintaining e-mail name pointers have proven to be very difficult to overcome. We are continuing to try to solve the problem. We are also looking into a service-wide e-mail address lookup capability centered on MS Exchange and DMS. If we can't center on Exchange, there are other third party applications which claim to work iwth most of the popular legacy e-mail systems which we will look at as well.At least they didn't turn down the idea itself. Rather, I simply didn't contribute anything substantial to an idea already under consideration. Great news!
However, I need to nitpick a few points. First off, PACAF couldn't do something like this USAF-wide. They can't even do it PACAF-wide. Only AFRES could establish permanent e-mail addresses at the MAJCOM level, and it too would suffer serious problems. Nope -- HQ USAF needs to implement this in order for USAF to benefit from it.
Also, let's talk a little about the "intensive task of maintaining e-mail name pointers." USAF personnel already do this. When someone moves on to a new office or a new base or gets promoted or changes last names, he or she notifies the network administrator to add/change/delete the email account appropriately. Each individual in the Air Force already accomplishes the task of changing their transient e-mail address(es) ... why not let them take on the task of changing their permanent email address too?
It wouldn't surprise me if USAF completely overlooked such an obvious answer. It sounds like they want a fully "centralized manpower intensive task of maintaining permanent e-mail name pointers" when USAF doesn't even fully centralize the process for moving personnel from one base to the next.
And I challenge the notion of a USAF-wide lookup capability for transient e-mail addresses. One could just as easily bring together all the transient base telephone books -- how much good will it do if you want to look up a phone number for SSgt Joan Smith? Whoops, she got promoted to TSgt and changed her name to Jones and moved on to Kelly AFB. Good luck finding her.
Transient e-mail addresses. How quaint! This idea might work if USAF offers in-depth details about each of its members: name, rank, social security number, previous e-mail addresses, current e-mail address, previous office phone numbers, current office phone number, previous assignment, current assignment, blah blah blah. Unfortunately, the reason for its existence would violate the Privacy Act of 1974. (Enough said.)
I can download cool audio clips, too. I can listen to Jim Phelps as he says "hide in plain sight, highest possible profile." I can listen to him shout an "abort!" command to the IMF team. All the cool movies these days operate websites where you can grab all sorts of cool multimedia stuff. The movie industry understands the world wide web -- they understand its capacity to sell a media-hungry audience on a [non-computer] product.
The music industry will soon jump on the bandwagon: David Bowie made the
first move as a major artist to release an entire CD-quality song strictly for Internet users. [I predicted Peter
Gabriel would do it first, but Bowie continues his long-standing tradition of working five years ahead of the rest
of the music industry.]
So ... why don't other major companies follow this idea? Pepsi won't let you download the famous Superbowl commercial where the Coke guy gets caught by the security camera. And why doesn't Magnavox let you download the cool robotic "Magnavox" voice they use at the end of each commercial?
Comedy Central understands the value of a website. They trumpet it with blipverts all the time on their cable channel. They offer cool audio clips, cool video clips, cool "web sites we'd like to see" graphics, you name it.
I'D KILL TO download the Magnovox voice. I specifically want it for my Win95 startup sound -- don't ask me why. (It just sounds so cool, ya know?) But Magnavox doesn't want the free publicity.
Oh well. I wonder if RC will let me download their cool "Coke/Pepsi" fishing commercial...?
(Update: Magnavox finally told me where they hide the robot voice. They don't play it by default on a web page; they don't openly offer it for download. Go figure.)
(Update: Pepsi's webmaster chimed in with this comment: "Due to licensing agreements, we can not place all of our commercials on our site." They create commercials to sell their products just like the movie studios create commercials to sell movies, but people can't see a Pepsi commercial whenever they want...)
FORGET THE MEDIA'S perpetual claim of a "downturn in new housing starts" -- new-home
builders constantly break ground for whole subdivisions of pricey homes. They attract upper-middle-class folks who
yearn to move beyond city boundaries.Phone & cable companies usually build the communications infrastructure for new subdivisions. But those two constitute monopolies and, sadly, they don't know how to quickly implement new technology. American companies still lay copper wire to homes, for example. Indeed: in the last thirty years, Ma Bell raised its home-user expectations from an average of one phone line per household to an average of ... two per household.
In thirty years, Ma Bell's expectations merely doubled. They can't even keep up with the demand for new phone numbers -- the outlying Chicago region split its area code once, then it split again. How would you like the phone company to change your area code twice in less than ten years?
My wife & I have seven phone numbers in Illinois -- and I bought two lines for a temporary stay in South Carolina. When the phone guy came to add the fourth line to our house, he used a new-fangled "splitter" to slice some bandwidth from the third line. "Waitaminit!" I exclaimed as he attached the box to my house: "I've got a six-line wire coming from the master cable. I know because your people upgraded it when I purchased the third line."
"Yeah," quipped the phone guy, "but we're completely out of lines for you at the junction box." Ma Bell can't support any more phone lines to my portion of the subdivision ... so they end up taxing the bandwidth of copper wire as more requests roll in.
Ma Bell could lay down a new master cable, but it would cost a lot of money up front. Better to spend $500 each time you need to create a new line: this way you can amortize the cost over a long period.
BUT WHAT IF new-home builders shoulder some of the cost of the communications infrastructure and pass it along to buyers? "Hey Ma Bell, you need to lay a master cable to this subdivision anyway. How much can I add to the pot so you'll go fiber-optic?"
If Ma Bell balks at the notion, the builder can offer it to the local cable monopoly. "How much extra to go fiber-optic in this subdivision?" If the cable firm balks too, our visionary builder can thumb his nose and say "a pox on both of you, I'll lay fiber-optic myself and finance an Internet company which will service this new neighborhood."
The builder purchases a Class "C" license and finances an Internet service provider to open a branch near the neighborhood. Web-savvy real estate agents highlight Internet connectivity as part of the attraction: "beautiful new three-bedroom away from the city, easy access to I-55, entire subdivision wired fiber-optic, fiber network built in, two dedicated assigned IP addresses, one year of unlimited Internet included!"
THINK ABOUT IT. Why wire individual homes for fiber-optic after the fact when you could wire an entire subdivision for fiber-optic before the fact?
Railroad companies thought this way during the 1800s. The government stole land from the Indians, gave it to the railroads, and they in turn built towns all along the tracks. They literally sold whole towns because people knew a train ran through it!
The Internet today acts much like the railroads of yesterday. You could build an entire town and people would break down your door trying to buy homes -- if they get a techno-railroad as part of the communications infrastructure.
It'd certainly attract computer-literate upscale buyers, wouldn't it? New-home builders need to start doing this.
