School - I026: II - 2 examples of IT history which started before 1990 - one still existing, one dead.

This time the school session focuses on the internet history, where it started and where it has ended up to by now. We need to gather two examples of the internet history before 1990 and describe which one lives also today and which one has gone extinct.

Internet in early days

In the 1970 there where at many of different internet networks available: ARPANet, PRNET, Ethernet, AlohaNET, and according to name, my favorite, SatNET. Most of them where started and controlled by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), agency which was created after Soviets launched Sputnik.

There was a successful TCP protocol test over those networks on 1977.

ARPANet

As you know then ARPANet is basically today's internet forefather. All what we are using now for World Wide Web has evolved from this. There is not much to talk about it or speculate around it. It is constantly improving and evolving. Besides of traditional visible internet we have a lot of invisible internet and black internet.

Visible is all what we see when we enter some URL on the address bar. Web browser renders us a page and there we have it, some media, some text, some links, all for information. Invisible is the rest of it, all what you cannot see and it contains most of it. That is also not interesting, this can be read upon Wikipedia and rest of places. The interesting part which came from ARPANet is actually DarkWeb (dark net, deep web). A place where the actual life begins. Trades with crypto currency and kind of illegal services has made a perfect combination for criminals and people with shady deals. 

Anonymous Web

I believe that this is what is real future for ARPANet, moving to deep web. Future where we can claim back  anonymity of our identities, trade goods with people you don't know, have currency which is not under any government control, be a single nation in this world, not just people in some country. I am counting on that future.

SkyNet SatNet

Coming back to SatNet, then actually I kind of hope that it was bases of the Terminator and SkyNet story. Sounds about similar. Communication network which uses satellites to translate data between computers. The Terminator, movie from the 1984, where there was a self conscious neural network which found out that humanity is the greatest threat for the existence and  started to produce terminators to wipe out whom ever was left over from the nuclear attack. Awesome movie franchise. 

But talking about SatNet, it really didn't get the attention it could have got, I believe that there were a lot of technical issues to provide it word wide, starting from the maintenance fees of the satellites ending from latency issues which it would take to broadcast a signal to the space and back to the server and round tripping the data back. Unfortunately there isn't a lot of data available about it, at least I didn't find it in the future ARPANet, but if you have something, please post some links into comments.

Summary

Ah, yes, regarding to topic, summary: ARPANet -> Internet; SatNet ->Didn't end up being SkyNet, so for me, it is dead (although it can be operational for very limited brand of people).

School - I026: I - 3 unsuccessful projects in the history of IT

It's been a while when I posted here, didn't have any good challenges to write about, but I guess I've taken up one of the major one now - started school again. Target - get into Tallinn University of Technology masters program and learn cyber security. Before this I need to finalize my bachelors degree.

We have one topic called I026 which translates into Social, Ethical and Professional Issues in IT. In here we need to publish posts every week about different topics. Today's topic is to write down, in my opinion, 3 unsuccessful projects in the history of IT.

#1 Downfall of Nokia N9

I think that the major failure was discontinuing Nokia N9 mobile phone. This phone had everything what a proper smartphone needs: Slim design, custom built operating system (MeeGo OS, v1.2 Harmattan), OLED display which reduced power consumption, quite open platform with big online forum support. The team behind it started their own company called Jolla and the operating system Sailfish. This company hasn't really kicked off in the scale as I have hoped, but that is another topic.

Coming back to Nokia N9 and MeeGo OS then it was truly good achievement, the platform was quite open and perfect tool to play around. People even hacked Debian to be ran there in virtual machine. I also made it to work in my N9. After that things got really interesting when, following many tutorials, I installed 6 different operating systems. My phone had hexaboot. Nokia made a big mistake for killing this project. I really hope that they are coming back to senses and reboot the efforts. World needs another good mobile operating system, which can also handle natively different mobile platform applications. Sailfish is trying but they don't have hardware to support the efforts.

#2 Nasa Challenger Disaster

What can be worse - exploding space shuttle with astronauts on live TV. The reasons why it happened is actually not very IT related, rather than mathematics and physics, but I believe that with proper analysis tools and computing power, it could have been prevented. Namely, nobody thought that weather on that day is colder than in the days when they did test runs. I even don't know if people today calculate weather factors in complex mathematical and physical models. I mean, we have the power to calculate, we have computers linked in to major GRID system we have the possibility to harvest community and get the calculations done, but why not? It is costly and somebody needs to drive it.

Imagine if we could give to community that please review our materials, review our mathematical models, we pay you when you find out what can be wrong, what may fail and prove it. Simple as that. I bet if they could have done it in 1986 then most likely somebody had come to that that O-rings  may fail due misuse of the materials. What prevented them? I could think only the cold war. Fear of sharing knowledge to the world. FEAR costed 7 lives, impacted thousands, or even millions. Why are we scared to share secrets?

#3 Car tax policies

Governments are looking different ways how to get more taxes from people and they have implemented in many places car taxes, either from emitted carbon dioxide or what is worse - power of the car. If you have more KW that some X amount, you need to pay higher tax to the government. Reason is simple - you use more fuel, you pollute the environment more, you pay for the luxury.

What actually happens is that car producers will not limit the KW with engine build, but they are doing it via programming car chip to give less fuel to the pistons. Engine is the same, pollution levels are higher. Is the environment really cleaner? I don't think so, we only fake it to cut down the costs of making cars and still sell it. Car tax policy in the name of cleaner environment has failed big time, since we have smarter cars than few decades ago and we can use programmatic way to show the numbers which are required to avoid unnecessary taxes.

Teh Event - Lets get this show on the road. I gotta suit up.

Alarm clock wakes me up at 6:25 in the morning. I've got some time to drive 40 km to the event. Feeling is great, driving my bumer, getting closer but still cutting on time. 7:40 I was at registration, people where already doing some warmup swim, I still needed to put away my gear. What I saw was a brand new thing, apparently everybody had something called triathlon belt. 

Ok, I got some pins for my number. Sun was up, wind started to get winding up a bit.There were some instructions how to make my swimming laps. namely 2 laps. I had my number on my cheeks and go myself to my wetsuit, got my swimming hat on, tight fit and got my swimming glasses. Still no adrenaline.

Start, people were running into the lake Tanmemäe, I also with them, and finally, my feet didn't reach to the ground anymore. I was in the competition, my longest swimming distance ever. After 300 meters my swimming hat gave up and my hair got loose. Hair everywhere, it was disaster, no way to contain it.

Kept going, 500 meters in and my goggles went blurry, got to get rid of them also. Ok, only wetsuit now holds, which is nice, so happy to have heard, that you have managed one of fourth in the distance, kept going, there it was, looked around and somehow I was on the last position, no worries, I had time but the exhaustment came on me. Should have had a snack in the morning but in the rush I didn't really have good opportunity for that.

As the swim went longer than I expected I get thinking how awesome friends do I have. 4 of my friends decided 2 am on Saturday that at 4 am they will come and see how I will do. I love my friends. That was the sweetest things and of course my lovely girlfriend stood by me.

1500 meters more less by and I heard a sound, Sound of something terrible, some guys had swam already managed to have swim 3500 meters. Mind blown, No worries, they are pro swimmers. I've got time.

Managed to cover first round, managed to cover 1900 meters. My longest swim ever, body told me, no more, I told to the body, shut up you, it is not up to you, it is up to all of me. There is no person who forfeits to some voice in my head. Turning it off. Good bye. I did it with 70 minutes. Good. I was on schedule. Kept going.

Went forward, around 2400 meters away i got first cramps on my legs. What is going on, cramp, go away, you will not take me, go away. Managed to loose some minutes to get rid of them and got already 3000 meters. What am I doing, expanding my longest swim and still going. No sign of additional cramps, but how did they came? I have had lots of magnesium and stuff. Really got me puzzled for a time, but no time to think, time to action. Going, I am going, but pace was down. Turns out my swimming skills got really bad once my hair started to bug me everywhere. At least the lake water was almost drinkable, most likely had a liter or so. I really don't want to know how much useful bacteria I had.

I see it, the finish, 200 meters to go, easy I think, easy, I can do it, I have around 7 minutes to spare but my body thought something else.....

At the moment all of my body hurts, I really can't walk or even lift my arms, At least I can sit down. My wetsuit got me nasty burn marks on my neck and back of my knees. It really hurts, now I know why some guys had some lotion with them and they put it under theirs. 

So 200 meters to go and then it hit me. Double cramps on both of my calfs. They were like bricks. Finish ahead, got time, in pain, in really serious pain. Thinking, my life means more now than finish, looking around, shore, 100 meters. God damn, I can do it, trying, but my body it not cooperating. Shore it is, and I am not dissapointed.

I got to the shore and I even couldn't sit down, so much pain. Why, cramps why, at least my muscles are awesome, never seen them so big, so much potential. Got almost rid of the cramps, went BACK. NOT GIVING UP. Swam 20 meters and the cramps got bigger and heavier. No way, body, why, no way, had to turn back to the shore and there it was, swimming end signal.

I am not mad, I am happy, I am happy that I did my longest swim ever. I am happy that I saw that I could do the swim part, I am happy that I didn't give up. I am happy that I saw my girlfriend who was so positive and my friends who supported me. 

Walked the rest of 200 meters to finish, if you can call it a walk, I would have preferred to roll my self, 0 legs.

Ok, what happened and what I learnt:

1. I can do it.
2. It is easy
3. I need to learn some swimming techniques
4. I need to get full wetsuit, most likely cramps were due I my knees where in the cold water and blood vessels where shrieked.
5. I need to lotion myself for burns
6. I need to get bigger swimming hat to avoid it getting wild.
7. I need to get my hair done so they will not attack my face

Around half hours later I could stand up and had small cramps coming from time to time, this is not how I can cycle. Even now when I am publishing this, my walk ability is close to zero and having still small cramps, funny.

Some pictures from my friends:

Here I did some training at 3 am on Friday. Easy.

Got my costume on. GO!

That is my go from my friends perpective:

And this is my legcamps. LOVELY!

Thank you for sticking my by for this event. I will REPEAT. (Live, Die, Repeat).

Most likely I will now look for some other events which would be good for practice. You don't know what is living when you haven't pushed yourself to the limit and faced some PAIN.

Cheers,

Taivo

 

3 days left - does my bike fit to my car's trunk?

Seems sketchy that if it would fit there. And I still need to find a way how to attach some phone to my bike. I need to track my heart rate.

Next update will come on Sunday, I am out now with meditation and locking my mindset into correct place.
Some reading about marathon setup:
http://triathlonestonia.ee/voistleja-meelespea/
http://triathlonestonia.ee/juhend/
http://triathlonestonia.ee/programm/
http://triathlonestonia.ee/raja-kirjeldus/

Taivo

Event starts in 6 days - got a bike which I can use for cycling

Weekend passed like a snap and didn't feel like swimming during it, actually I tried to figure out my eating schedule and what to consume during the event.
There are many theories that you shouldn't eat fast carbohydrates and you should be on a diet until the competition. Anyways, I guess that I will make Nutella and Krakow sausage sandwiches. Actually I got hungry now.

On the other aspect, I changed my bikes tires and still I messed up with inner tubes. Not so easy to change them. I went through many Youtube videos and still no good. Anyways on the bright side I got my brothers awesome bike. I just need to fit it somehow to my Bumer. Also some configuration of the bike is needed. Did a trip to office Today and it felt good, nothing bad to say.

My friend also managed to make a picture of it:

9 Days left - How to swim

So I've got some nice links about swimming. How to last in the water. Perpetual Motion swimming. Legs needs rest and body needs also rest. So theoretical lessons are ongoing and maybe tomorrow I will master the skill of that swimming, seems easy and logical . I am gonna nail that.

Let's see what  I will pick up. So many days left...

etc.

10 Days Left - fixed my bike.

So I fixed my bike in order to have some kilometers over the weekend before competition.
Got new tires, installed them. It took some time, blew some inner tubes. Got CO2 pump.
I was lucky that I also removed the front tire. The inner-tube was covered with sand and somehow it was put there folded. Seems like person who installed it, didn't know what he was doing. I was lucky that it didn't blow.