"Vernor Vinge - Fast Times at Fairmont High" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vinge Vernor)

networks have been around since forever. What gives us
flexibility are the network nodes that are scattered all through
the environment. See, look around you!тАЭ Bertie must have
pinged on the sites nearest Juan: There were suddenly
dozens of virtual gleams, in the rocks by the road, in the cars
as they passed closest to him, on Juan's own clothing.
Bertie gestured again, and the hills were alive with
thousands of gleams, nodes that were two or three
forwarding hops away. тАЬOkay, Bertie! Yes, the local nets are
important.тАЭ
But Bertie was on a roll. тАЬDarn right they are. Thumb-sized
gadgets with very-low power wireless, just enough to
establish locationтАФand then even lower power shortrange
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by Vernor Vinge


lasers, steered exactly on to the targeted receivers.
Nowadays, it's all so slick that unless you look closeтАФor have
a network snifferтАФyou almost can't even see that it's going
on. How many free-standing nodes do you think there are in
an improved part of town, Juan?тАЭ
That sort of question had a concrete answer. тАЬWell, right
now, the front lawn of Fairmont schools has ... 247 loose
ones.тАЭ
тАЬRight,тАЭ said Bertie. тАЬAnd what's the most expensive thing
about that?тАЭ
Juan laughed. тАЬCleaning up the network trash, of course!тАЭ
The gadgets broke, or wore out, or they didn't get enough
light to keep their batteries going. They were cheap; setting
out new ones was easy. But if that's all you did, after a few
months you'd have metallic garbageтАФhard, ugly, and
generally toxicтАФall over the place.
Juan abruptly stopped laughing тАЬWow, Bertie. That's the
project? Bio-degradable network nodes? That's off-scale!тАЭ
тАЬYup! Any progress toward organic nodes would be worth
an A. And we might luck out. I'm plugged into all the right
groups. Kistler at MIT, he doesn't know it, but one of his
graduate students is actually a committeeтАФand I'm on the
committee.тАЭ The Kistler people were cutting edge in organic
substitution research, but just now they were stalled. The
other relevant pieces involved idea markets in India, and
some Siberian guys who hardly talked to anyone.
Juan thought a moment. тАЬHey, Bertie, I bet that literature
survey I did for you last month might really help on this!тАЭ
Bertie looked blank. тАЬYou remember, all my analysis on
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 Fast Times at Fairmont High
by Vernor Vinge