Owen, Excellent high-level description of IP.
I might mention that the protocol in many ways mimics what we all do when we encounter a stop sign on the roadways. No central "governor" required there either.
Grant On 9/5/11 2:19 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
Nice point. When David mentioned the stock trading, it brought to mind the Ethernet protocol. The Ethernet protocol is a low level transport that uses a peer-to-peer approach: there is no central control. Instead, when a machine wants to use the net, it senses if it is idle. If so, it attempts to use it, failing when another machine also tries to use it at the same time (within a packet transmission). In other words, Ethernet attempts to completely serialize use of the media, with cooperation when failure occurs. In addition, it uses a "back-off" algorithm where an attempt to re-use the Ethernet includes a random pause. This is a form of sharing the commons, the Ethernet being a shared "commons" which cannot be used by more than one packet at a time. In the early days, we all presumed protocols would use this form of enlightened politeness .. otherwise we are left with the tragedy of the commons. This knowledge has been lost. Few folks understand how the Ethernet protocol behaves. And if they did, I doubt traders would use such an approach. So when I heard David, I wasn't sure if he was aware of the Ethernet serialization, and similarly wasn't sure if traders could be persuaded into using a similar approach to throttle trades. -- Owen On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 10:25 AM, Victoria Hughes <victo...@toryhughes.com> wrote:I'd couple this with the Ulam talks. After further understanding the global cultural pressures we've taken on when we plunged gleefully over the edge into the digital revolution, we need to add that to the mix. Cracking up, cracking open. Our tools make our revolutions possible and increase their impact and speed. Clearly there are dangers as well as benefits to all our hyperfast, hyperconnected technology. As Krakauer ended the last talk, he pointed to the stock-trading algorithms that reacted faster than humans would have, and were a major push over the economic edge for us. His take: these were a more disturbing example of machine "intelligence" than other Doomsday machines, and are already embedded in our culture. Internally, externally. Extraordinary pressures, extraordinary opportunities. All connected. We are in midair over the waterfall. What we can do is start where we are: get honest and capable in our selves and our communities. Reach out from here. We can incorporate revolutions in governments, economics, technologies, at a pace we can manage. We have to recognize our situation more clearly first. Much bigger stakes than what passwords we should use. Tory Tory Hughes www.toryhughes.com The Creative Development manual On Sep 5, 2011, at 9:57 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: Interesting premise from Tom's latest op-ed piece: http://goo.gl/rm3Te We're going through 4 huge shifts in the world, and no one has any idea how to manage them: Quote: Now let me say that in English: the European Union is cracking up. The Arab world is cracking up. China’s growth model is under pressure and America’s credit-driven capitalist model has suffered a warning heart attack and needs a total rethink. Recasting any one of these alone would be huge. Doing all four at once — when the world has never been more interconnected — is mind-boggling. We are again “present at the creation” — but of what? The first (the EU) freaks me out most, both because it's extraordinarily difficult to manage, and because no one in the US seems to see how important it is. Worth a read. -- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
