The current climate on the island continued this week with several incidents of violence and general unrest. For me, I was pretty much holed up all week as a barricade in two areas persisted, and it was not practical to pass during the week. I could only get some provisions from the island’s commercial centre late Friday afternoon. Things seemed to have calmed down a little, but the tension is still palpable. All things considered, I should be able to get to my office this week.
Proving what we all learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home is an entirely viable option for knowledge work, if not for many professions. I don’t think it will ever entirely replace in-person work, but it is clearly an option for businesses that can and are able or willing to take that route. And I would add that it could enable many businesses within and outside the Caribbean to work with people in the region who are highly qualified and highly motivated to work but don’t get the opportunities due to the restrictive size of the markets here and the arcane visa rules, not to mention the dreadful transport links internally in the region. In fact, I personally know some people who work for businesses and clients outside the island, making a decent living. By living here, they become net investors in the local economy, and compared to those who are wrongly accused of contributing to the brain drain, their expertise is still available locally should the need arise. That, unfortunately, is a whole different discussion.
It won’t be easy, and it won’t necessarily be cheap for some organisations, but it does provide opportunities for workers who, for various reasons, might not be able to relocate and work in person on a larger continent.
This discussion merits much more research and analysis—something that goes beyond the throwaway half-studies—and opportunity studies that are more marketing than data —than we have previously seen. I hope to contribute to that one day.
The end of my week was taken up with a two-day conference with ARIN, the American Registry for Internet Numbers. ARIN, remember, is responsible for managing the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses we all use in North America and much of the Caribbean. I was once again a Fellow this time, my second and last time being one. I got to spend time with some of the ARIN staff to learn more about its functions and prepare for the upcoming policy discussions on the ticket during the two days, something I value and thank the ARIN staff for all their work and dedication to helping people like me get more involved.
I won’t do a conference report here just yet as I haven’t had time to consolidate and work on my notes. I have a last meeting with ARIN on Tuesday, and I’ll be writing a report for them soon. I’ll probably adapt that to include here.
I will, however, report that contrary to what you might think, policy discussion is dynamic, passionate and sometimes quite technical. There was one particular item on the list that garnered much discussion, a discussion that still hasn’t finished yet, about the initial allocation sizes of IPv4 addresses. If you want to know more, here is a link to all the information you need to read and analyse it. The TLDR is that there is currently a long waiting list for IPv4, something to the tune of 2-3 years (700+ requests), which is not viable for some businesses starting up or expanding. To deal with this, a reduced initial allocation size has been proposed in this policy amendment, with the primary aim of reducing the waiting list. As with most things in life, it isn’t quite that simple and undesirable side effects or unintended consequences may result. As such, this session was one of the most involved and animated discussions and took longer than initially allotted. A consensus will prevail eventually, but we are not there yet.
I look forward to seeing how it develops and offering comments where possible.
Source: [stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/XQ
The three preceding days were dedicated to the NANOG (North American Network Operators Group) meeting. I was working, so I didn’t get to spend much time on it, but I watched a presentation about the state of IPv6 deployment from Geoff Huston, which gave a lot of food for thought. A subsequent article in The Register summarised the talk very well. I haven’t checked to see if the slides are publicly available, so I can’t share them here until I check. It is best to look at the NANOG website to see if there are.
I’ll be spending some time watching the recordings, and I have downloaded pretty much all of the slides available during the three days.
Reading
With the workload and the current climate on the island, I haven’t had much time to read the articles in my queue. However, I have started to look at a recent (long) article called “Analog Privilege” by Maroussia Lévesque, a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School. I’m only in a few pages, and there is so much to digest. It can be found here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4528278
It’s part of a long-running theme about how the haves structure things to ensure they don’t have to follow the rules as the have-nots, particularly in the increasingly digitised world.
I’ve long written about the way online advertising is destroying lives and how SEO is essentially fraud, but it is hard to find people willing to speak up and actually show how that is. A recent blog post blew up, gaining a lot of attention on exactly this. Please read it if you are in any way using, relying on, or recommending online advertising systems from Google and Meta. It is not that long, and (unfortunately) it is written pretty much in the style that the SEO monster dictates (although I can forgive them for that).
Of note
A couple of weeks ago, I asked if there were any Fediverse instances in the Caribbean. I recently received an email from one such instance using Soapbox. Thank you for reaching out. I’m just getting my ducks in order, and I’d like to reach out for a discussion, if that is good for you? I’ll send an email soon.
I’ll be taking a break soon, and I hope to get through a lot of reading and note-taking. Forgive me if I skip a week or two over the coming weeks. Even my hyperactive brain needs a rest now and again.
⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ OH, before I forget. The ARIN elections are still on until the 1st of November. You still have time to write a quick endorsement for me here. It’s very quick and easy.
A BIG thank you to those who have submitted one 🙏
Have a great week.
