[NNagain] Virtual mtgs and conferences vs. in-person ones (was) Re: FCC NOI due dec 1 on broadband speed standards
Jack Haverty
jack at 3kitty.org
Tue Nov 14 19:58:56 EST 2023
I agree that virtual meetings today are vastly inferior to physical
presence, but I wasn't suggesting that all meetings be made virtual.
Rather I was suggesting that orchestrating some kind of high profile
"virtual meeting", including not only engineers but also government
leaders, policy makers, and other "normal" (non-technical) people, might
be a good way to surface the issues and cross-educate the various
communities. Politicians don't understand "bufferbloat" or acronyms.
Techies don't understand why politicians don't understand.
But physical meetings also have limitations. Many people do not have
the time or money available to travel to a meeting. Encounters such as
hallway conversations are often very fruitful, but they only occur if
the people involved happen to be in the same corridor at the same time
and have time to stop and chat. Serendipity seems like an imperfect
strategy to make progress.
Internet technology today is, IMHO, a rudimentary first step toward what
could be done. Electronic mail was a start, back in the 1970s. It
didn't replace physical meetings, but it enabled a lot more progress to
happen quickly. Technology has advanced exponentially since then.
Perhaps there's now ways to use it better.
Perhaps a conferencing scheme (software, protocols, algorithms) could
facilitate virtual hallway encounters by noticing that several people
have elsewhere discussed some topic, conclude that they have a common
interest, and suggest that they get together spontaneously online for a
hallway discussion? Or perhaps you heard a hallway discussion and want
to follow up, but can't remember exactly who you were talking with.
Computers are good at keeping records and searching them for patterns
and overlaps even now. As AI further develops, they'll hopefully get
better.
In the early days of the Internet, there were research efforts exploring
how to *use* computers and networks in support of human interactions.
Some of that was technical - protocols, algorithms et al - but it also
included social, political, and other non-technical aspects. Lots of
productive discussions in the early days of networking occurred in the
hotel bar after the formal sessions -- but only if you were staying in
that hotel. Can technology, all technology not just the pieces that
move data, somehow facilitate such human interactions? That was the
focus of the research.
I probably won't see it, but I suspect that before long it will be
possible for human "meetings" using holographic displays, instead of
today's flat screens. The technology will continue to improve, not only
in the pieces that move bits around but also in the computers and
software that lives in our pockets, desks, cars, home appliances, and
whatever else you can imagine.
Long ago I was indoctrinated into Licklider's vision of a "Galactic
Network", which used the power of ubiquitous interconnected computers to
help people do everything people do. Today's Internet sure feels like
the first incarnation of that vision. Are researchers working on the next?
Even today, you can see many "talk show" TV programs where the
participants sit around a table and hold discussions, but several of
them are large computer screens, and the actual people are sometimes
continents away. Some such presentations are visibly perfect. Others
suffer from audio and video dropouts, or unexpected and embarassing
disconnects. Are they using the Internet? Maybe, I can't tell if a
packet got bloated or a stagehand tripped over a wire. Same result,
from an end user's perspective. Is it from an Internet problem? Not
enough resources, or flawed design? Is anybody investigating? Should
the government make some rules?
Still, that first Arpa principle remains and IMHO is still very valid.
Get the *users* involved, especially the non-technical ones.
Encourage, or somehow force, everyone to use what they're creating,
envision what might be possible, and make it happen.
Perhaps what we have today is simply the best that can be done. I hope
not.
Jack Haverty
On 11/14/23 12:55, David Bray, PhD via Nnagain wrote:
> Also a recent Nature study - audio conversations are better at
> creative brainstorms and ideation then audio+video (over whatever
> video platform of choice). Aside from the empirical findings, the
> proposed reason why is video has people's brains trying to make sense
> of a non-life sized images of talking heads presented to us in ways
> that our historical evolutionary experiences is going "WTF?" at the
> subconscious and unconscious levels.
>
> There's even some evidence that 2D flat videos actually have the body
> in a continuous state of alertness for a potential threat - again
> because our brains are trying to figure out whether these non-life
> sized images of talking heads are a threat or not? (Stay tuned if
> there's ever a lawsuit against an employer for forcing employees to
> endure too many streaming video meetings).
>
>
> Virtual communication curbs creative idea generation
>
>
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04643-y
>
> *In a laboratory study and a field experiment across five countries
> (in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia), we show that
> videoconferencing inhibits the production of creative ideas. *
>
> [But also]
>
> *By contrast, when it comes to selecting which idea to pursue, we find
> no evidence that videoconferencing groups are less effective (and
> preliminary evidence that they may be more effective) than in-person
> groups. *
>
> [And finally]
> *
> *
> *Specifically, using eye-gaze and recall measures, as well as latent
> semantic analysis, we demonstrate that videoconferencing hampers idea
> generation because it focuses communicators on a screen, which prompts
> a narrower cognitive focus. Our results suggest that virtual
> interaction comes with a cognitive cost for creative idea generation.*
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 3:37 PM Dick Roy via Nnagain
> <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> Stanford did a study a number of years ago on how information is
> conveyed between humans. How much of the information conveyed is
> contained in the words that are spoken??? Answer ... less than
> 20%. That alone explains why F2F is sooooooo important ...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nnagain [mailto:nnagain-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net] On
> Behalf Of David Lang via Nnagain
> Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2023 12:01 PM
> To: Sebastian Moeller via Nnagain
> Cc: David Lang
> Subject: Re: [NNagain] FCC NOI due dec 1 on broadband speed standards
>
> It's really hard to overhear a nearby conversation that catches
> your interest in
> a zoom environment compared to what happens at the 'hallway track'
> when you are
> in-person
>
> If all you are interested in is the session contents, then video
> recordings
> (possibly supplemented by the ability to ask questions) is all you
> need.
>
> but good conferences offer much more than just that.
>
> David Lang
>
>
> On Tue, 14 Nov 2023, Sebastian Moeller via Nnagain wrote:
>
> > Hi Jack,
> >
> > My argument is this is not a hard or software problem, but a
> wetware problem, hard to shake off million years of evolution. And
> IIRC during covid, didn't the IETF do online only meetings?
> >
> > I am not saying video conferencing is doomed, it came a long way
> in the covid years and is 'here to stay', but it will only replace
> face to face meetings for some conditions, is all I am saying....
> >
> > On 14 November 2023 14:27:28 GMT-05:00, Jack Haverty
> <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:
> >> In the beginning days of the Arpanet, circa early 1970s, ARPA
> made a policy decision about use of the Arpanet. First, Arpa
> Program Managers, located on the East Coast of the US, were
> assigned computer accounts on USC-ISIA, located on the West Coast
> in LA. Thus to do their work, exchanging email, editting
> documents, and such, they had to *use* the Arpanet to connect
> their terminals in Washington to the PDP-10 in California - 3000
> miles away.
> >>
> >> Second, ARPA began requiring all of their contractors
> (researchers at Universities etc.) to interact with Arpa using
> email and FTP. If your site was "on the Arpanet", you had to use
> the Arpanet. If you wanted your proposal for next year's research
> to be funded, you had to submit your proposal using the net.
> >>
> >> This policy caused a profound attention, by everyone involved,
> to making the Arpanet work and be useful as a collaboration tool.
> >>
> >> JCR Licklider (aka Lick) was my advisor at MIT, and then my
> boss when I joined the Research Staff. Lick had been at ARPA for
> a while, promoting his vision of a "Galactic Network" that
> resulted in the Arpanet as a first step. At MIT, Lick still had
> need for lots of interactions with others. My assignment was to
> build and operate the email system for Lick's group at MIT on our
> own PDP-10. Lick had a terminal in his office and was online a
> lot. If email didn't work, I heard about it. If the Arpanet
> didn't work, BBN heard about it.
> >>
> >> This pressure was part of Arpa policy. Sometimes it's referred
> to as "eating your own dog food" -- i.e., making sure your "dog"
> will get the same kind of nutrition you enjoy. IMHO, that
> pressure policy was important, perhaps crucial, to the success of
> the Arpanet.
> >>
> >> In the 70s, meetings still occurred, but a lot of progress was
> made through the use of the Arpanet. You can only do so much
> with email and file interactions. Today, the possibilities for
> far richer interactions are much more prevalent. But IMHO they
> are held back, possibly because no one is feeling the pressure to
> "make it work". Gigabit throughputs are common, but why does my
> video and audio still break up...?
> >>
> >> It's important to have face-to-face meetings, but perhaps if
> the IETF scheduled a future meeting to be online only, whatever
> needs to happen to make it work would happen? Perhaps...
> >>
> >> Even a "game" might drive progress. At Interop '92, we
> resurrected the old "MazeWars" game using computers scattered
> across the show exhibit halls. The engineers in the control room
> above the floor felt the pressure to make sure the Game continued
> to run. At the time, the Internet itself was too slow for
> enjoyable gameplay at any distance. Will the Internet 30 years
> later work?
> >>
> >> Or perhaps the IETF, or ISOC, or someone could take on a highly
> visible demo involving non-techie end users. An online meeting
> of the UN General Assembly? Or some government bodies - US
> Congress, British Parliament, etc.
> >>
> >> Such an event would surface the issues, both technical and
> policy, to the engineers, corporations, policy-makers, and others
> who might have the ability and interest to "make it work".
> >>
> >> Jack
> >>
> >>
> >> On 11/14/23 10:10, Sebastian Moeller wrote:
> >>> Hi Jack,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On Nov 14, 2023, at 13:02, Jack Haverty via
> Nnagain<nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> If video conferencing worked well enough, they would not have
> to all get together in one place and would instead hold IETF
> meetings online ...?
> >>> [SM] Turns out that humans are social creatures, and some
> things work better face-to-face and in the hallway (and if that is
> only building trust and sympathy) than over any remote technology.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Did anyone measure latency? Does anyone measure throughput
> of "useful" traffic - e.g., excluding video/audio data that didn't
> arrive in time to be actually used on the screen or speaker?
> >>> [SM] Utility is in the eye of the beholder, no?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Jack Haverty
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On 11/14/23 09:25, Vint Cerf via Nnagain wrote:
> >>>>> if they had not been all together they would have been
> consuming tons of video capacity doing video conference calls....
> >>>>>
> >>>>> :-))
> >>>>> v
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 10:46 AM Livingood, Jason via
> Nnagain<nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> >>>>> On the subject of how much bandwidth does one household
> need, here's a fun stat for you.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> At the IETF’s 118th meeting last week (Nov 4 – 10, 2023),
> there were over 1,000 engineers in attendance. At peak there were
> 870 devices connected to the WiFi network. Peak bandwidth usage:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> • Downstream peak ~750 Mbps
> >>>>> • Upstream ~250 Mbps
> >>>>> From my pre-meeting Twitter poll
> (https://twitter.com/jlivingood/status/1720060429311901873):
> >>>>>
> >>>>> <image001.png>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> Nnagain mailing list
> >>>>> Nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Please send any postal/overnight deliveries to:
> >>>>> Vint Cerf
> >>>>> Google, LLC
> >>>>> 1900 Reston Metro Plaza, 16th Floor
> >>>>> Reston, VA 20190
> >>>>> +1 (571) 213 1346
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> until further notice
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> Nnagain mailing list
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Nnagain mailing list
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> >
> >
>
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