Technology

ARPA, established in 1958, was first and only space agency at that time in United States. to this day it drives fantasies and is unequivocally identified with the emergence of the Internet, but did you know that ARPA (before it became DARPA in 1972) was responsible for underground nuclear testing (as seismology allowed to determine whether other countries somewhere on Earth were conducting their nuclear tests), guerilla warfare (ARPA reps travelled to and stayed in Vietnam, Thailand and Laos long before US under falsifed “proofs” attacked North Vietnam), or development of machine rifle that became what is today known as M-16? ...

we are herd creatures, naturally social. we have created many tools for remote communication and although the echoes of the electromagnetic wave of our radio transmissions travel fainter and farther into space, today one of the most used tools is the good old e-mail. it was born in around 1971 so already 47 years ago. contrary to the bigots shouting radical slogans louder and louder, i believe that humanity is created for an open exchange of ideas. without borders and difficulties. instead of building physical and digital walls, archaic and testifying only to a narrow mind and limited imagination, as societes we should focus on solving much simpler problems. ...

interesting blog article how to create truly free way of publishing without fear of censorship. it seems that the last reddit problem restarted discussion about free speech and crypto non-repudiation of published content. in the context of rising pressure from US to build backdoors in every equipment, maybe this is some kind of solution? if you think about it… no, actually you no longer need to do so. it was already thought out. there are people believing that bitcoin (protocol, not digital currency) will be basis of all internet communication soon enough. ...

…how tightly coupled should it be? i can’t help to think about it. i’m writing this post on construction that was defended to his last days by Steve Jobs. according to his belief, only software tightly integrated with software can be effective and predictable. independently of what Steve believed, there are other examples of such thinking in the world. let’s take for an example company i work for - Cisco. most of our solutions are based on software integrated with hardware without ability to add questionable “apps” to the mix. only then vendor can claim predictability, and so it happens across the whole market of network devices (and not only them). ...