O/3 Hazard to Myself. So irritating...

Hmmm, the "~" on my Nokia turned into "3"

"I can’t take the person starin’ back at me I’ma hazard to myself Don’t let me
get me I’m my own worst enemy Its bad when you annoy yourself So irritating ..." -- Pink

Most nation states are formed on the otherwise dispassionate globe in the same conflict prone manner as tectonic plates. They rub and collide causing huge disruptions, and in the global example, its going to be a while before we'll be able to do anything like predict, let alone mitigate that inevitability.

Nation states on the other hand are recently emergent behaviours and within the usual caveat about the rate of change of culture, able to be modified, or as seems to be the mode for most centrally controlled proprietary business models (for one way or another, governance and culture are business models, just not necessarily concerned only with financial results), they will fade in significance.

As always, beneficiaries of the current incumbents will blare and bray about how they, and they alone, not you mortal child, can clear-sightedly identify the problem, promulgate increasing complex processes and procedures and LO! We are saved.

The global Internet is similarly dispassionate about how we organise above its nature and infrastructure, and as part of the transition we have hooked the Internet to geography, for no other reason than administrative convenience, and we watch as the institutions of various geographic areas seek to impose their rules on citizens of other nation states.

it is as if I could erect a billboard in my back yard with a Swastika (the Nazi one) on it, which, if it could be seen in France, its judiciary would be able to invoke the NZ State to coerce me into removing it. Ah the inertia of systems, and their love of voodoo. ("Violence & Voodoo")

An alternative which occurred to me recently, ANDTOS ("and no doubt, to others sooner"), would be that using citizen managed closed networks, WASTE for example, we may be able to rebuild the global Internet village.

Of course, with the constraints of geography swept away, membership of multiple villages, and the unlimited geographical spread of citizens would be inviolate rights, though equally, and individual might choose to be a member of only a single village and not participate outside of the activities there. Mennonites.

The recreation of the small, shared-interest (even if it be only ranting and flaming each other) network should restore some of the trust that may be reduced in a network you share with everyone else in the world, but the global nature of life, the earth, the net must not be forgotten.

We have lived long with the consequences of accidents of birth, in to family, tribe, gender, culture, disability and geography, it seems the Internet will allow us to choose the virtual world(s) in which we wish to participate.

While this fragmentation may resemble various schisms, it doesn't bear the exclusionary "must make a choice" stress that may have been the cause of problems in the past. And the fragments are as fully connected as they or their members wish to be.

We have the beginnings of such multiple worlds in the sites we choose to visit today.

I'm not advocating a carve-up or Balkanisation of the Internet (CF. portals, walled-gardens, closed-shops), on the contrary, I'm suggesting that we can find such an armour of overlapping and interconnected small rings, that no adversary could penetrate, and every friend could enter.

I hope such networks begin in neighbourhoods, supporting pico-peered, IPv6, wireless clusters.

What do the iPod/Levis, Yahoo/Nokia, Google/Motorola, TV Channel(s)/Cellular deals mean?

When vendors contract to provide premium advantages to a select group of others, then both benefit in some way, but I can't help thinking these bundlings create more exclusion than value. Despite iPod having ~80% market share, that does mean for Levis, that perhaps (taking Levis market into account) they are ignoring ~20% of their customers and perhaps 20% of the percentage that own MP3 players is not a great loss. Sends me reminiscing back to the days when a website would exclude all broswers bar IE & Netscape.

Levis appear to think they'll increase their profit from the 80% iPod general market share times the percentage of jeans buyers who own a portable media player than they will lose from the affront they offer the 20% who don't.

My other puzzle is what to call it. Fragmentation is, to me, when you can see many more things through a window, what the Search/Handset TV/Cellular Operator alliances create for me, is a lot more windows with limited views through each. How many settop boxes will you need to own? For the same choice on cellular as you get from a screen/tuner/cable home combination:

http://www.technologyreview.com/player/06/01/mag_phone/1.aspx

Four subscriptions, four handsets, to get what's probably (excluding existing subscription services) in the air around you?

IE, the Entertainment Dollar fragments when there are more places to spend it, but the creation of new currencies to purchase Entertainment, does something else, or perhaps at a different level the same thing.

Outloud, your impartial (open, so far) display screen aggregates many views, your proprietary (closed) display handset disaggregates.

Optimisation of the platform for current fashion, is the bottleneck that chokes on the next advance. Until Levis optimised for iPod, their jeans could be worn with any device, the exclusion of non-iPod jean's wearers may be costly. Or perhaps Levis know the brand vs choice balance of iPod and Levis customers and are doing the "right" thing. After all, how long do jeans, iPods, or fashions last?

Frequencies and fibres however...