This post is a heads up to all uber-geeks about a terrific research initiative to try to figure out causes and mitigation of name-collision risk.  There’s a $50,000 prize for the first-place paper, a $25,000 prize for the second place paper and up to five $10,000 prizes for third-place papers.  That kind of money could buy a lot of toys, my peepul.  And the presentation of those papers will be in London — my favorite town for curry this side of India.  Interested?  Read on.  Here’s a link to the research program — you can skip the rest of this post and get right to the Real Deal by clicking here:

www.NameCollisions.net

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I love toiling at the bottom of the bottom-up ICANN process.  And it’s also quite entertaining to watch senior ICANN “managers” running wild and free on the international stage. The disconnect between those two things reminds me of the gulf that usually exists between the faculty and administration in higher education institutions.  Both sides think they run the joint.  That same gulf exists in ICANN and, while I was hopeful for a while that the new guy (Fadi Chehadi) was going to grok the fullness, it’s starting to slide into the same old pattern. Continue reading →

So once upon a time I worked at a terrific ISP in St. Paul, MN.  Back then, before the “grand bargain” that led to the shared hallucination known as ICANN, there were several pretty-credible providers of DNS that later (somewhat disparagingly) became known as “alternate” root providers.

In those days, we offered our customers a choice.  You could use our “regular” DNS that pointed at what later became the ICANN-managed root, or you could use our “extended” DNS servers that added the alternates.  No big deal, you choose, your mileage may vary, if you run into trouble we’d suggest that you switch back to “regular” and see if things go better, let us know how you like it, etc.

Well.  Fast forward almost 20 years… Continue reading →

This is another scratch-pad post that’s aimed at a narrow audience —  network geeks, especially in ISPs and corporations.  The first bit is a 3-minute read, followed by a 20-minute “more detail” section.  If you’re baffled by this, but maybe a little concerned after you read it, please push this page along to your network-geek friends and colleagues and get their reaction.  Feel free to repost any/all of this.

Key points before we get started

• I don’t know what’s going to happen
• I don’t know what the impact is going to be, but in some cases it could be severe
  
• Others claim to know both of those things but I’m not convinced by their arguments right now
• Thus, I think the best thing to do is learn more, hope for the best and prepare for the worst
• My goal with this post is just to give you a heads-up

If I were you, I’d:

• Scan my private network and see if any of my names collide with the new gTLDs that are coming
  
• Check my recursive DNS server logs and see if any name collisions are appearing there
• Start thinking about remediation now
• Participate in the discussion of this topic at ICANN, especially if you foresee major impacts
• Spread the word that this is coming to friends and colleagues
  

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So here’s a new thing for me to obsess about.  The condition of the road in the summer time.  This spring was especially tough on our road because the rain. never. stopped.  So our road, which was already getting pretty ratty, turned into a nightmare this year.

Here’s a picture from last year – note the gravel-free tracks through grass.  This is not what a gravel road is supposed to look like.  It’s supposed to have gravel in it, not grass.

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Dave Winer has a cool new gizmo (Fargo) that I’ve been messing around with for the last week or so (don’t get me all wrapped up in a time warp here).

Why I loves Fargo

• I loves this gizmo because I’m addicted to outlining and I’m always on the hunt for simpler, more approachable ways to do it (and recruit other addicts). For the most part, I’ve gotten pretty solidly into the “mind mapping” groove, but that’s just a habit. When you boil my use of mind-mapping software down you find that all I’m really doing is outlining. Enough about why Fargo attracts me.

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OK, I admit it.  I’m kindof a lame car guy.  I love cars, but I am old and tired and hate being uncomfortable.  So about 5 years ago I bought a year-1 (2002) Lexus SC430 that had been rode hard and put away wet for the princely sum of $17000.  I’ve been bringing it back from an early grave ever since.  The first few years were devoted to repairing the driving stuff — replacing bent wheels, struts, etc. Continue reading →

A few photos from a “between meetings” ICANN meeting of the non-contracted parties house of the GNSO.  Click on the pictures for full-sized versions. Continue reading →

The previous post was all about self-signed certs on my Mac.  Worked fine until I tried to export the cert to my iPhone.  Then I ran into the dreaded “no valid certificates” problem when trying to authorize the profile to sign and encrypt outbound mail.  My homebrew cert worked fine for enabling s/MIME on the device, but it was crippled.  So I ran off and got me a Comodo free email cert and pounded that in. Continue reading →

This is just a scratchpad post to remind myself what I did to get a self-signed cert into Mail under OSX Mountain Lion.

This first post is all about using a self-generated cert — which will work fine unless you ALSO want to use it on an iOS device.  In which case, skip to the NEXT post, where I cracked the code of getting a Comodo cert installed on my Mac and my iPhone.  Sheesh, this is harder than it needs to be. Continue reading →

This is mostly a post that only Logic Pro music-software users will like.  But hey.

I just went through an agonized decision-making process to upgrade my MBP.  I knew that the cool new CPUs were coming this summer, but then Apple threw the “Retina” curve-ball at me.  I chewed and chewed on that and finally went with the old-style machine because:

• It’s cheaper (I saved enough to buy a Thunderbolt display)
• It’s just as fast (how fast?  see below)
• It’s got lotsa ports (btw, my Axiom Pro keyboard works fine on the USB 3.0 port)
• My aging eyes don’t benefit from the Retina display
• It’s easier to upgrade and repair

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