A Window on Westmount Ville Marie 

July 26, 2000 StarChoice's digital gamble Deal with U.S. software company paves the way for personal video recorders, but other service providers say they aren't convinced that's the route to take... the system allows viewers to activate the "live pause" and the PVR will record a portion of a program while they are out of the room. When they return, they can watch, and fast-forward through commercials, until they have caught up to the live program. A feature called instant replay allows viewers to rewind 10 seconds of a football game and watch a play again because the machine automatically records the most recent half hour of what is being watched. .. DVD recorders, for example, have been much more popular, he said. PVRs are expensive. They retail in the United States for US$500 or more, depending on the amount of memory on the machine. In some cases, subscribers must also pay a monthly fee to a company such as TiVo that provides the electronic information to the machine over a phone line. The high cost of the product has discouraged competitors. Bell ExpressVu, Canada's other large satellite provider, agrees the technology is interesting but says the price tag is a problem. [a NO GO DTN]

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 10th -- #823

Announcing a rare event -- Marc Nicholson was back for five days between the end of his semester at Berkeley and his return to London. His California experience has been wonderful and he is full of ideas and information concerning the marvels of technology. He will be returning to London Business School. 

Marc's Parents aka Diana and David Nicholson

MATCHMAKER, FIND ME AN MBA

Marc Nicholson introduced 2 film makers, Michael Kronish of Rightime Productions and Pietro L. Serapiglia of Openwheel Productions. 

Michael Judson introduced 
Anthony Layton a partner with Parkyn Wermemlinger Layton Capital Inc. in Montreal. His firm offers services in portfolio management and financial planning and is a fee-based brokerage.
In the late seventies Tony was one of the founding partners of T.E. Financial Consulants Ltd., a fee-based financial planning group with offices in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City. Tony lives with his family in Westmount. 

WEDNESDAY at the Nicholsons'
DECEMBER 10th -- #823

The introductory ‘assemblage’ of video clips set a particular tone and theme for the evening. The theme was the role of technology in our lives, especially the Internet. The tone was one of family values (for lack of a better term), set by Marc Nicholson’s return home for the holidays and David Nicholson’s inclusion of daughter Fiona’s striking photographs of tulips "from the Ottawa period". This tone permeated the discussions which vacillated between questioning the enormous possibilities of technology and considering its potential role in economic and social denigration (in Westmount in particular, of course). The discussion was highly technical and legalistic at times, yet it began on a family note and ended on the same. Perhaps one's maternal or paternal instincts are inherently ‘triggered’ by a subject that touches on both our greatest human fears and sanguine expectations: our unknowable future and that of the next generations. 

But first, will it be mediated through cyber-space?

"Cyberspace: The Final Frontier?" In one video clip an investigative reporter answered: "it is how we will conduct our lives, from doing business to ordering pizza". But as is usually the case in the salon debates, the room full of thinkers (including; economists, business men and women, film-makers, a city councilor, lawyers, and sundry academics), challenged this statement and filled it with substance… 

The first topic was the possibilities of language translation software. Jean Bourbonnais, of Alis Technologies explained the expansion of this field, and its edifying possibilities. He pointed out that it would soon be possible to send an e-mail in one language and with one click, render it automatically translated to the language of the receiver (en route to the receiver). However, it was immediately pointed out that even given the relative infancy of the field and its potential for considerable improvement, machine driven translations will never capture the nuances of language and therefore, will always be limited. In response, it was argued that the software is not meant to replace human translation, but rather has shown to be cost effective for businesses with continuous and simple translation needs.

Ah, the human factor! A number of comments at this stage. The Internet is a fine research tool, but judgement, decision-making capabilities are enhanced by - NOT replaced by - data banks. For students, the Internet offers a lot of "junky" research and cannot be equaled by the Tutorial system. Library research is a critical component of learning and offers inconspicuous benefits - visit the stacks and find all the other tomes on your subject. Even with the Internet, not much in teaching has changed. Downloading notes is a nice capability, but it takes more than that to absorb and analyse material. However, the fact that students no longer concentrate on note-taking means that they can actually listen to the professor.

It was time to kick up some dust and return to the hard questions. David asked the congregation: Is the Internet a threat to political elites? Is this greater access a positive influence on politicians? It certainly enables concerned constituents to communicate rapidly with their representatives; one can email MPs and MLAs with immediate reaction to proposed legislation, policies and debates. 

Is anyone afraid of the Web? 

The in-house doctor pointed to the immense improvements in healthcare through the new technologies, up to and including "distance diagnosis".

Simmering under the surface of some rather facile responses was the discussion waiting to happen; the Millenium discussion. 

-- getting software ready for the millennium could cost as much as $600 billion worldwide. Worse, only half of all companies will be ready. 

The business men/women: "There is a good side!". In fact, "if it [ie. Millenium crisis] didn’t exist already, it would have had to be invented!" One business leader, citing the experience of his own company suggested that the solution for many lies in replacing and upgrading the whole system rather than paying to re-program old systems. This proved to be more cost effective and led to increases in productivity, quality of customer service, etc. The businesses that don’t want to change with the times will not be able to compete anyway (one business man suggests that too many companies have their heads in the sand and some 20% will fail because of inattention to the problem). Businesses will profit from this ‘crisis’ (not to mention the business it is creating for law firms, gearing up for disaster and accident litigation….) But there is a proviso of mutual responsibility. "Businesses are not islands", the suppliers and customers for example, as well as financial bodies, have to be on solid ground too. A reasoned opinion summarized that it’s going to be a painful transition but in the long run, beneficial.

The conversation moved to the booming film industry in Montreal, with David's question "Can Montreal attract more film business?" The film makers' reply was a positive yes, that Montreal is aggressively pursuing film business which has immense direct and indirect benefits to the economy. Cameramen, technicians, film labs benefit, but so do hotels, restaurants, caterers, limousine services…. 

Next, a debate over the merits and pitfalls of fiber optics, and cable vs. satellites with regard to the speed and costs of our information superhighway. But it really started to cook over the final question David Nicholson posed:

What about pornography on the Web, what kind of controls are in order? 

Thus the discussion returned to ‘family values’…most were in favour of enabling parents to censor web exploration for children under a certain age on the home computer itself. Therefore it should not be banned on the Web but rather censored in certain sites. Overwhelmingly, the crowd agreed that in terms of censorship on the web: "I don’t want Bill Gates or the Church deciding anything for me". 

At the same time, it was agreed that porn is going to be discovered at some point in some form in a child’s life, and therefore the best course of action in terms of responsible parenting is to educate children about sex and sexuality. The aim is to instill in them values that will enable them to act responsibly using their own ‘good’ judgement. But, instilling a healthy sexuality in young ones is not so easy and furthermore does not negate the need for controls of pornography. In one extreme example, an ebullient speaker cynically pointed out the fallacious connection being made between the issue of open access to porn and good child rearing. He sarcastically commented that he does not want his young child viewing pornographic images in his absence (via unrestricted access on the web) because he would not be able to inform the child that "no, that position can be painful, try turning on your back instead"… To some extent, speaking openly about sex is a given as a necessary responsibility of parenting but it does not address the pernicious presence of porn in the home via the web, or any other source. Nor does it address the problematic industry itself.

It was pointed out that some of the really grotesque stuff, including hate incitement sites (ie. racist, etc.), are relatively difficult to find and are not quite so easy to access. It was agreed that it was easy enough. The ‘in house’ lawyer explained that while Freedom of Expression is protected under Canadian Law, we do have laws against images that appear on the Internet which are considered "violent to the public morality", but… we cannot control them yet. One reason is that images are sent from international locations, outside the remit of domestic laws. (Sweden was cited as a notable culprit in this regard).

Back to a bottom liner, a businessman expressed that ‘with all due respect’, it’s not a legal or technical problem but a moral one. The law does not make something right or wrong. Another added that computer technology/ Internet communication are in an infancy stage. The medium is comparable to writing. The only effective censorship is one's conscience.

Yet, definitional problems are classic in the legality aspects of the pornography debates. It is interesting that everyone still knows exactly what it is! It is one of the easiest things to identify. The average porn-goer does not mistakenly walk past the Pussycat Theatre and go to a Disney movie instead. 

So then, shall we take the law into our own hands??? 

Or maybe lobby our MPs via e-mail tomorrow morning before breakfast… 
by Linda Blanshay and Michael Judson 
edited by Diana Thébaud Nicholson

From: chris.goodfellow@laurentian.com (Chris Goodfellow) Subject:Speed
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 1997 18:28:21 GMT
Organization:LaurentianWeb http://www.laurentian.com 

Dear David; 

There is one hell of a lot of misconception about speed... everyone thinks if you have cable access you will be fast...not necessarily David. It all depends on the state of the overall network at any given time and how your packets are routed. If the net is busy, they might move at a snail's pace even though you have cable modem access to your ISP. What counts:- 

• your ISP's access to the net 
• the state of the net at the given instant you send your packet request. 
• the connection to the net of the server you are requesting the packet from. 
• the load that server is under the instant it receives your packet request. etc. 

There are MANY variables and dependencies...what will clearly make the net better and faster is intelligent use of the limited bandwidth. 

Satellite connections. Well in Canada you have Telsat or Cancom to work through and they are for the most part very expensive as they meter bandwidth...you pay for the KB of download. The connections they sell are for the most part unidirectional not true bi-directional service....your packet requests are handled by a landline connection to your ISP and this may or may not be slow... 

[DTN] We ar well inside the footprint of US Satelites ... are we not? 

True bi-directional Sat feeds are the answer in terms of audio/video as they need huge bandwidth....but we are a long way off...the cost is too high for consumer use. 

When I started this back in 1993 David, I offerred people local email and internet e-mail...two different systems. Until I saw them using local e-mail and mastering it, I wouldn't give them access to internet e-mail. Today anyone can call up an ISP, get an account, attach 100 megs of photos to his first e-mails to his friends in wherever and tie up the local and remote mailservers and consume huge amounts of bandwidth...we must educate first! 

Microsoft's new Outlook Express is great for mail...but do we need everyone send RTF (rich text format) e-mail...its crazy! I get e-mails from people which have both plain text format followed by the RTF format simply becasue they haven't learned or been told to switch it off...

---

them succinct! succinct=bandwidth! 

seriously... 

The number one existing problem and continuing problem for the forseeable future is bandwidth. Trunk bandwidth, Internet Service Provider (ISP) bandwidth and user bandwidth. 

The net will get a lot more clogged before it gets better...chew on this: 

Exiting aggregate demand on the internet is presently estimated at about 100 terrabytes per day for data traffic...and growing exponentially. Voice telephone traffic (if converted to data traffic) would currently approximate 4000 terrabytes per day in the U.S. (yes 40 times!) 

That should give you an idea of the state of development of the data network versus demands on the telephone network. If 10% of the voice traffic moved to voice over the net, the net would require a current capacity of 500 terrabytes per day... collapse?...don't look for reliable over the net phone service for a long, long, time. 

Moving video over the net... technically its possible to do it today but realistically it won't happen until we have voice over the net in hand. It may never happen as we currently forsee. The bandwidth requirements are so massive it may only come after deployment of many dbs satellites capable of effectively transmitting the data. 

Higher speed modems, ASDL, and cable into homes is great for communicating directly to your ISP but unless packets are moving through the net at these speeds they bring little relief...the server at the other end has to be fast enough, the server's connection to the net has to be fast enough, the trunks have to be open and not congested. 

Like any scarce resource, we must conserve bandwidth and we can do this a variety of ways: 

• ISP's should educate new users about the problem. Don't attach large files to e-mail. Mail servers and SMTP mail were not designed to be file servers as well. Teach users how to FTP file attachments at low demand periods. Set your browser's configuration properly to download only new data from a frequently visited site. 
• ISP's should set up local dial-up servers to handle the most common software downloads completely "off the net". What point is it having 50,000 people in Montreal downloading Netscape or MSIE 4.0 for 3-4 hours each over the net from Minneapolis or Seattle or whereever else? Direct dial-up facilities will reduce this demand enormously! 
• Spam and Junk mail. ISP's have to get tough. The system simply cannot handle it. 
• Interactive gaming over the net, the fastest growing segment besides email should be moved on to a parallel private network as this is a bandwidth hog and threatens the viability of the net. ISP's could set up private networks for interactive gaming in large cities that are not connected to the net but would connect thousands of users in a very satisfying way in large cities...does it really matter to play a stranger in Frankfurt or a stranger in Montreal? 
• Tighter code. A lot of html code is poorly written. Large, poorly compressed graphics are used. Often unnecessary graphics are used. Overall packet demand for webpage data could probably be reduced in half by properly designed pages. 
• The net is a co-operative resource and everyone must be conscious that their use impinges on other's use until bandwidth is limitless..... $25/month does not entitle you to unlimited use of a "public" bandwidth. If we don't conserve it, we are likely to see metered bandwidth and then the whole synergy of the net will collapse as it will become a resource available only to those who can pay.... 

December 22, 1997 Rein in the Net, Canadians say by Chris Cobb, Southam News - SOUTHAM-GLOBAL POLL -

See also please "Internet use up 78%"