Flaming Mountainside

Domain Name System Complexity

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:54:00 GMT

In a 2007 article published in ACM Queue, I described the Internet Domain Name System and tried to explain why it was more complicated than it seemed. [...continued]

Why and how I make my own pizza

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:36:00 GMT

Raising four kids in a semi-rural area means buying food in bulk. Whether that bulk food is in component or finished form, there's a lot of it. It takes a truck and a lot of diesel #2 to get the bacon back to the pantry. When the sustained average cost of family pizza night went over USD 75, I did an engineering analysis on the components and processing, and quickly determined that "build" was better than "buy" for our little business unit. [...continued]

Remarks to the California Commonwealth Club on May 10, 2006

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:58:00 GMT

I was invited to address the Business and Leadership Forum of the California Commonwealth Club on May 10, 2006. I spoke of serfs and lords and explored the changing nature of property and property rights in the digital era. [...continued]

Breeding Internet Superbugs

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:40:00 GMT

In the waning days of calendar year 2004, I watched some friends as they happily killed off some "botnets", and then pondered the usefulness of this (if any). A "botnet" is a collection of stolen computers, whose owners are still using them. Botnets are useful for sending spam and receiving stolen credit card numbers and all kinds of other things a bad guy wouldn't want to get caught using his or her own computers for. So, why isn't killing "botnets" an unrestricted good idea? Here's what I said about it on 30-December-2004: [...continued]

Climate Change Hits Iberian Peninsula

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:22:00 GMT

As humanity begins to suck out the [last half of the oil] in Terra's crust, and our world becomes a greenhouse due to all of the carbon dioxide added by both man and nature to our upper atmosphere in recent centuries, I'm starting to think that the climate and weather patterns of my youth will not be the same as those my children will know. [...continued]

Foreword to Zero Configuration Networking: The Definitive Guide

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 02:58:00 GMT

When Stuart Cheshire and O'Reilly asked me to write a foreword to Zero Configuration Networking: The Definitive Guide (December 2005, ISBN 0-596-10100-7 / 978-0-59-610100-8), I happily complied. Here it is. [...continued]

Why I am participating in the ORSN project

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 06:08:00 GMT

As a long time supporter of the universal namespace operated by IANA, it may come as a surprise that I have joined the Open Root Server Network project. I'll try to explain what's going on and what it all means. [...continued]

Some Comments on Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG)

Thu, 21 Jul 2005 18:21:00 GMT

UN (United Nations) and ITU (International Telecommunications Union) commissioned a WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) which in turn commissioned a Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). Their reports published in July 2005 will be cause for controversy... [...continued]

United Parcel Service (UPS) Bad Internet Citizenship

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 04:37:00 GMT

For some years now, UPS has been sending me unsolicited bulk e-mail and ignoring my complaints. Today (May 31 2005) I've finally hit the wall and so I'm going to put this where some search engines can find it. If someone from UPS would like to discuss this, I am available. [...continued]