Party Vibe

beware – highly technical content follows in some parts of this post. I am willing to explain to those who read this reply but do not understand parts of it though…..

surely though its also a matter of people like us taking back control?

as someone who has spent 15 years involved with IT and conventional electronics I think this dystopian scenario will only happen if we let it happen.

I can’t see the fastest comms links for the public internet becoming any more faster than a corporate LAN of a few years back (10MB/s) and this only in a few years time ; there simply isn’t the money available as yet to provide any more in the way of infrastructure; and political/physical barriers to telcos such as resistance to digging up roads or the building of antenna masts and arrays.

Further, fast broadband will not be available too far outside cities; what about Wales, Scotland or even the more remote areas of Oxfordshire? I have friends in Wiltshire who still use dial-up Internet!

Governments will also increasingly censor and nanny the public internet; but there is nothing stopping us creating networks of our own using readily available off the shelf components, and using encryption and our own common sense to protect these.

the thin client approach may work for a narrow base of corporate users who want to lock down their desktops; even so I am sceptical of its capabilities. It was tried at my employers (a major public sector organisation) and abandoned because it did not deliver the expected level of functionality or savings…

CPU power would be unlikely to drop too drastically, people will want to view or listen to locally stored multimedia so computers will need some amount of RAM, DSP and local storage.

Our saving grace is that governments are unlikely (and possibly unable) to stop the free trade of electronic components and assemblies; they are not going to shut down Maplins or ban citizens from purchasing stuff from the RS catalogue. Nor will (or can) governments or corporates make open source software, and compilers/assemblers illegal – even if they did there would be a black market in this stuff, same as with drugs today.

there will still also be all sorts of equipment discarded in skips and storerooms, decommissioned but still serviceable; and stuff from upgrades.

Half the data and voice kit in my home was recovered from party warehouses; the computer I am typing this message on is a few years old and was given to me by a relative who runs a business as she was upgrading.

if we don’t like what is on offer; we can simply build our own solutions. the problem today is people are spoonfed by all this stuff – they are frightened of learning how their computers or other equipment works.

People think its too complex/lots of numbers/you need a degree/its too boring – but if you put a bit of effort into it its simple enough and can be fascinating when you get stuff to work and/or communicate to create something.

you don’t need to sit in classrooms and read loads of books (I do not have a first degree and only have post-16 education!) – its a matter of getting together, trying things out, learning from each other and developing solutions rather than expecting to be spoon-fed by corporate applications.

for instance as fun as Google Earth is, I far prefer to get out on my bike and explore places for myself, perhaps taking along my (now rather battered GPS terminal, an old-fashioned paper Ordnance Survey map and as backup a Silva compass (it doesn’t eat batteries like my GPS set does!)

you have to spend a bit of time learning about the OS Grid system and some of the intricacies of UK Geography (our own Government admits its one of the most complex systems in the world as we keep changing boundaries and place names every so often!) but once you learn thats knowledge you have and can’t be taken from you.

the only way the system can take us over is if people let themselves be dumbed down instead of using power which is already within them.