Bill Wishon’s News and Views

For a long time, our team (not to mention a bunch of other folks at university research groups, legal academics, network technology researchers, etc.) have urged the media industry and communications companies to stop fighting technologies such as P2P or BitTorrent and look at them as potentially useful tools in the evolution of digital media distribution. It would appear (the link will take you to a Verizon press release that includes a link to a video, among other things) that Verizon went out and did what few other ISPs would do: worked with a vendor (in this case, Pando Networks) that developed a system based on P2P technologies that would actually improve the performance of moving large video or audio files across its networks. (We should note that NBC is using Pando’s technology for its NBC Direct content download service.)

The result of the test? Verizon’s engineers noted that the field test found that Verizon broadband consumers were seeing a 40% improvement (over traditional client/server content delivery models) in the downloading of rich-media files and that the network operator was seeing a 50% reduction in network operations cost. In fact, an engineer featured in the Verizon PR video noted that P2P solutions, such as Pando’s, were approaching “carrier grade.” I don’t think carrier engineers throw around that term lightly.

Then again, apparently some ISPs are still conflicted about P2P and BitTorrent technologies. I think it would be mean-spirited to laugh out loud when reading this story detailing the “dysfunctional” relationship between BitTorrent Inc. and Comcast, after reading the Verizon press release.

“The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.”

Now that HD DVD is dead and Sony’s Blu-ray has apparently won the HD media war, why aren’t we seeing Blu-ray drives available as a factory option, at least, for Macintosh computers? I think Steve Jobs is deliberately holding back in a high-stakes gamble for control of HD video distribution.

Apple has been a member of [...]

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”

“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.”

Pando Networks is a New York City-based P2P service provider and software developer that Pete first covered all the way back in late 2005. If you remember them for anything, it’s probably for their large file sending utility “Pando for the People…

Why is it so hard to say no? Why the heck do I find myself doing things I don’t really want to do?

In the newsroom where I ostensibly work, I sit right next to that table - the one the people from other publications call “the table of perpetual indulgence.” It usually features baked goods and junk food - great vats of candy, tubs of animal crackers, a living sea of bite-sized 3 Musketeers and Special Dark bars. It is, put simply, bad for me to be sitting here. I’m always walking off to the printer then realizing that somehow I’ve wound up in the opposite direction, lifting syrup-filled brownies toward my mouth. Well, I think I just found out the reason why.

Canadian researchers Michael Inzlicht and Jennifer N. Gutsell recently published a study about self-control in the journal Psychological Science. They hooked 40 people up to EEGs and had them watch animal snuff films - “a disturbing wildlife documentary” is how that summary puts it. Half of them were asked not to show any emotion, while the other half weren’t given any instructions. They just had to watch.

Then, both groups were given a fast-paced color-matching test - one that depended on a certain level of willpower to complete. The emotionally suppressed group flunked. Whatever kind of fuel willpower burns, they’d run out of it.

The researchers conclude: “People have a limited amount of self-control, and tasks requiring controlled, willful action quickly deplete this central resource. Exerting self-control on one task impairs performance on subsequent tasks requiring the same resource.”

So if I want to get anything done, I’d better marshal my reserves carefully. There’s a more cheerful note, however. You can get more self-control by practicing, and by thinking things through.

As summarized in that article….

Setting specific self-control goals also works the control muscle.

Small goals, I guess. I suppose even reading these words right here is a step in the right direction.

If you’ve got academic access, here’s the full text of the study “Running on Empty: Neural Signals for Self-Control Failure”.