Sorry about that, Dan. Where was I...
I'd like to address some of your points now, even if some of them are in a roundabout way, and the remainder of them briefly, tomorrow. I have no desire, and I'm sure you don't either, of making this a life's work. But we should be able to express to one another where we stand, if nothing else, once some matters of terminology are cleared up.
I must say, to begin with, that I read your post several times and that you did one heck of a job composing a position on behalf of TERN longs. Kudos to you for that. Which might give some the notion that I am a short, which I am not.
[My interests here, instead, are purely network architecture related at this time, and I will site such things as the fiber sphere from George Gilder's original works on that subject in the December of 1992 Forbes ASAP, if it gets to that in order to make some architectural points. Which I believed in then (before then, actually for many of the points contained in that work), and I continue to believe in them, today.]
But your arguments don't always directly overlap with mine, but instead seem to have only partially done so, while also being directed at various times at individuals other than myself.
Granted, a fair amount of your rebuttal was a direct hit, countering my assertions that s-cdma was not, in my eyes, worthy of the badge ascendant. And we'll sort some of those points as we move along, tomorrow, when I know for sure what the word "ascendant" actually means.
But first let me say, there are some very interesting dynamics taking place in this dialog, with a fair amount of proxy dueling taking place, by all. Let's see what we have:
I wrote a post to Curtis and this board. Pulvia "borrows" it and sends it to you on the TERN Board.
You, in turn, after some weeks of futile (you feel anyway) debate with several others on that board and elsewhere, you take it up with me as a means of getting back at not only my assertions, which I had made initially here, but also to get back at Pulvia, and in lesser fashion, at Pat M. (where you take the opportunity to render a form of apology), and with Mark L., as well (while taking the opportunity to get in a last lick from an older discussion).
Hey!! I have no problem with any of that, because I can't throw any stones here, either. For, in writing to you I will also be addressing some of my ideas to George Gilder, while I'm actually writing my words to you, since George has not gotten around to answering my request that I made to him over on the Gilder board last week to appear here, himself, to respond to the same message of mine that you are writing about.
Nevertheless, it's late for me and I shall get back to you tomorrow sometime, once I've gotten some feedback from you and some other gildertech subscribers concerning the following:
Would you and others here who are fluent in gilder-speak kindly provide this board with a definition of the term: "ascendant?" What does ascendant actually mean? Are technologies ascendant, or are companies ascendant? Or both?
Can a technology or company (dependent on your answer above) that is ascendant today become un-ascendant'ed tomorrow, or next quarter, or next year? Ever?
It has always been my understanding that the only technologies that could be considered truly ascendant were those which were truly ignitive, ones that were catalytic, and those which were singularly responsible for additional generations of newer "ascendant" technologies. Only those could ever be considered ascendant.
To be ascendant, in other words, I thought it would have to be that one path from the crossroads, the one that no one had ever taken before, the one that led you away from Atlantis when it was sinking, or led to the Northwest Passage when you didn't know there was one, or to Hollywood.
Fire. Wheel. Cement. Telegraph. Transistor. LASER. Browser? I felt like Billy Joel there, for a moment.
I'm not so sure that there are twelve new ones of these to go around each and every year. Nor should there be, in my opinion, for we should not want to dilute the value of ascendance.
Knowing what is meant by ascendant, and what is not, may assist us in rounding off this discussion concerning TERN. And TeraBeam. And NOPT. You see, a part of my confusion has been, admittedly, that I don't know if the company, TERN, or its cornerstone technology, S-CDMA, is what holds itself up, as ascendant things do.
Likewise, if a regional carrier is deemed to be ascendant because of the fiber they use, isn't it more logical to bestow the title of ascendant upon the maker of the fiber, than if would be upon the carrier (and for that reason)?
The carrier's model can be duplicated. The fiber is covered by patent. Of course, this all assumes that the fiber is worthy of holding itself up above the others for some appreciable measure of time (a month? a year? a decade? forever?), in the first place. Or, does the fiber become unascendant'ed when the competing brand becomes 67% more luminance permissive?
If we can get a clean consensus on what it is, exactly, that ascendant means, we will all be better equipped from a discussion standpoint. And if we can't, then we may just have to let this discussion hang. Thanks for weathering my moment of musing, and 'speak' with you tomorrow.
FAC |
