Re: [Swprograms] RNW to end shortwave usage to North America as ofthe B-08 schedule change

["Richard Cuff" <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx>]

What is interesting is to overlay the concepts of "cloud computing"
over this development.

Cloud Computing is a term for the transfer of most computing
applications and data away from end user devices (i.e. your own PCs)
to networked computers somewhere else.

Examples include online banking, remote data backup, web-based
applications such as Google Documents, and streaming audio/video.

Cloud Computing is rapidly growing, yet introduces the paradox that
information is no longer distributed (over zillions of individual
computers), it's concentrated amongst the data centers of a few IT
service providers.

This concentration is a reversal of the principles under which ARPAnet
(the forerunner of the Internet) was originally designed.

The concepts of security or "trust" are big ones in the development
and propagation of cloud computing...and, from corporations'
perspectives, a hybrid model is likely to develop -- service providers
create isolated environments for highly sensitive data, and service
providers compete over their ability to keep this data secure.

A reversal of this trend would likely occur only if some sort of
apocalyptic event were to occur.  As was seen with the financial
industry's week-long adventure, the global economy is highly
intertwined, and any event of apocalyptic proportion would take the
developed world down with it; it is likely that governmental entities
would intervene if such an event were looming.

What is interesting is to see how the IT industry has transformed its
disaster response planning in reaction to the 9/11/2001 terrorist
attacks and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  In both instances, there were
widespread corporate disaster declarations in a specific geographic
location which required the providers of disaster recovery services to
scramble mightily to meet the recovery objectives of their clients.
As a result, most financial services firms that arranged for "shared"
disaster recovery space -- where multiple firms might buy the same
seat, figuring the odds are that only one firm would need them at any
one time -- have since changed to setting up dedicated disaster
recovery space.

I am not sure how all this directly translates to the "marketplace of
ideas", but I believe there always will be a thirst for reliable
sources of information from alternate perspectives -- and that's the
reason most of us bother with shortwave program listening nowadays.

This lamentation has nothing to do with the existence of WRMI / WMLK /
WTJC / WBCQ or other domestic religious / commercial broadcasters;
their motivations (and those of their listeners) are different.

Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 12:57 PM, Kevin Anderson <k9iua@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> It will be replaced by something not yet more technological, but the opposite, in a return to less technological means of communications, for which basic analogue radio will be well suited again.  And this will be due to other forces, also economic in nature, but driven more by resources (or I should say the lack of), rising costs, and "security."  I just hope international radio hangs on to see that day.  Otherwise a very huge vacuum will develop for the average person in getting international news and programming.
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