Linkedin Influencers & Silent Evidence

This post will be a short one!

Many of us follow influencers on Linkedin, like CEOs of big companies such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. We follow their advice, read their "5 rules to change your life", and share their posts with our community. These people inspire us, and make us want to follow their path to replicate their success pattern in our careers. For example, I personally follow Laszlo Bock, Google's VP of Humain Resources, as I found interest in his advice around resume and job application. 

Nevertheless, following influencers to understand success is biased and can probably lead to wrong conclusions. It is the survivorship bias, or also silent evidence as called by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book Black Swan. He illustrated it by the following story:

Diagoras, a nonbeliever in the gods, was shown painted tablets bearing the portraits of some worshippers who prayed, then survived a subsequent shipwreck. The implication was that praying protects you from drowning. 

Diagoras asked, “Where are the pictures of those who prayed, then drowned?”

Do we know how much people applied the "5 rules to change your life" but failed and never made it to be Linkedin influencers? Until we do, we should stay skeptical, and do not take whatever a top influencer gives us as truth, but rather try to validate it.

CDN benchmarking

Today, when we want to compare the performance of different CDN providers in a specific region, the first reflex is to check public Real User Monitoring (RUM) data, with Cedexis being one of the most known RUM provider. RUM data is very useful, and many CDN providers buy it in order to benchmark with other competitors and continuously work on improving performance.

I will highlight in the following what exactly Community RUMs measure, so you do not jump quickly to some wrong conclusions. Let's focus on the latency performance KPI and list the different components that contribute to it:

• Last mile latency to CDN Edge, which reflects how near is it to the user from network perspective.
• Cache width latency, which is mainly due to CDN Edge not having the content locally and must go get it from somewhere (Peer Edge, Parent Caching or simply from the origin)
• Connectivity latency from CDN to Origin when there is a cache fill needed.

In general, Community RUM measurements are based on calculating the time (RTD) it takes to serve users a predefined object from CDN Edges. Since the object is the same and doesn't change, it's always cached on edges. In consequence, Community RUM solely measure first mile network latency, which reflects sufficiently the latency performance of very high popular objects in cache.

Nevertheless that's only a part of the picture. In real life, CDNs have different capabilities and strategies for storing content beyond Edges and filling it from origin:

• According to content popularity, CDN cache purge policy, disk space available (Cache Width) on the Edge and Parent Caching architecture, the request will be a cache miss or hit with impact on performance. VoD provider with large video library know very well this topic. 
• According to CDN upstream connectivity, the number of hops needed to fill from origin impacts connectivity latency. CDNs who built their own backbone benefit from a good upstream connectivity. Dynamic content is very sensitive to this aspect.

As a final word, we also need to be aware that CDNs tend to optimize their configuration used by RUM measurement for this specific use case.

Networks & economic paradigms

I will start by the above revisited version of Maslow's pyramid for human needs. It's a funny expression of how internet is now a basic need, making all of us "data" consumers. Data delivery to consumers is organized in different ways, according to different economic models. In the following I will go through these different ways and their correlation to known paradigms for organizing economy: liberalism, centrally planned economy & participatory economy.

The first paradigm is current internet decentralized organization which is based on liberalism or free trade, the dominant ideology nowadays. A user is connected to internet through eyeballs, e.g. the local ISP or mobile operator. Now eyeballs are connected to internet via different kinds of peerings:

• Directly peer with content providers such as Google, Amazon & Netflix,
• Peer with other regional eyeballs to exchange traffic directly,
• Peer with backbone providers such as Level 3 & Cogent who globally connect eyeballs together.

The dynamics driving network meshing are very interesting. An eyeball has many questions to answer in order to guarantee a good internet connectivity and a profitable business:

• Which of the above peering kinds should we build? in which breakdown?
• With which networks should we peer? what capacity? private peering or through internet exchanges?
• In which geographical locations should we peer with a considered network? in which carrier hotels?
• What is the cost of transport network to those locations?
• Should we pay for a peering or is it free?
• How should we diversify peerings to guarantee resiliency?

The main driver of building internet networks is making profit because it is managed by private sector. Meanwhile, we have witnessed competition, price compression, innovation, rise of broadband.... But making profit means only serving solvable consumers, which has lead to the below unfair image of the world in terms of network connection density.

The second paradigm is the organization of access network of a national eyeball which is based on central planning. Indeed, network expansion and deployment is planned according to usage forecasts given by marketing studies, and it's decided centrally by the eyeball in a top-down approach. The main driver of building such kind of networks depends on whether it is a public or private service, and on the telecom regulation pressure, thus leading to more or less fair network coverage.

The main advantage of this model is a more rational and efficient use of resources (network assets, people) to satisfy the present and future needs of population. On the technical plan, network is more controlled and thus potentially providing better service, for example:

• Traffic types (voice, download..) are differentiated and quality is manged from end to end.
• Traffic routing is better controlled with any chosen protocol, where on internet only BGP can be used with its limitations.
• Some specific techniques can be used to optimize the network usage, such as mutlicast for video streaming, where it's almost impossible on internet.

But on the other hand, planning cycles have important inertia and often can't cope with demand dynamics. Moreover, eyeballs are not leaders in terms of innovation, for example, the ongoing SDN/NFV revolution in networks is driven by software companies like Google.

The third paradigm is the FON model, based on participatory economy, i.e. network is crowd sourced by users themselves.

As explained in the above video, a Fonero (user participating to the FON network) shares its home WiFi connection with others in a secure way, and thus has access to others' WiFi anywhere anytime. By making use of the idle bandwidth on your internet box, you gain access to thousands of hotspots around the world for free. It's the same concept of P2P for downloading files on internet.

The main driver of such communities is making the world a better place in a bottom-up approach. Agility, innovation, open standards & free service are keywords in this model.

As a final word, I personally believe in a 4th paradigm which is a mix of the last two. I will try to develop it in a future post.

Ce qu'il cache ce burkini ...

Je vais m'en vouloir d'avoir participé à ce faux débat dans son timing, son ampleur et son champs d'analyse. Néanmoins, je vais en profiter pour revenir sur les notions théoriques de laïcité, liberté et d'égalité, pour ensuite commenter d'une façon plus pragmatique l'hypocrisie du débat ainsi que ses dessous politiques dangereux.

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La meilleure définition de la laïcité que j'ai trouvée est chez Albert Jacquard: La laïcité consiste à prendre des décisions au nom des hommes, de leurs besoins et aspirations, non pas au nom d'une révélation externe telle une directive religieuse. Elle ne signifie pas la repression des religions comme on commence à le constater en France. Elle ne se limite pas non plus à la doctrine religieuse, mais toute doctrine qui nous parait aujourd'hui sacrée telle que le capitalisme avec ses valeurs de propriété privée et de compétition entre hommes dans une logique de marché. Dans ce sens, notre société occidentale est loin d'être laïque.

La laïcité reconnait ainsi l’individu comme citoyen libre participant à la société, à son sort, et en faisant partie intégrante. Elle reconnait son identité, et l’aide à la forger. Quand l'individu se voit privé d'une réelle participation à la société, sa relation avec elle devient conflictuelle et peut finir soit par une révolte consciente, soit par une vengeance contre soi ou par une violence envers elle. Notre société occidentale avec sa démocratie délégative illusoire et la concentration du pouvoir dans les mains d'une seule classe sociale exclue des catégories entières (pauvres, femmes, immigrants...) de cette participation. Le fanatisme dans le monde entier est en partie la manifestation de cette exclusion, que ça soit religieux comme Daesh, ou politique comme l'extreme droite. En effet, c'est une recherche d'identité qui peut devenir suicidaire comme dirait Amin Maalouf, surtout en l'absence de forces révolutionnaires aiguillant la colère.

Donc la citoyenneté nécessite comme condition la liberté de l’individu, mais encore faut-il définir cette liberté. La liberté d'un individu dans une société n'a pas de sens que si elle est associée à des contraintes. Cette dynamique de liberté-contrainte nourrit la participation du citoyen à sa "cité" et lui donne du contenu, mais à condition qu'elle soit égale pour tous les citoyens. L’équilibre auquel arrive cette dynamique résulte du dialogue continuel des individus avec la société, qui est au final le synonyme de leur participation. Cet équilibre n'est pas immuable, mais évolue avec l'évolution de la société. C'est dans cette optique que je voudrais considérer le burkini. La liberté de le porter est associée à la contrainte des autres de le voir, et donc la contrainte de voir les autres aussi  exercer leur liberté de s'habiller. Je pose ainsi les questions suivantes:

• Est-ce que les femmes portant le burkini ont eu la possibilité de participer réellement à la société?
• Est-ce que leur identité forgée est le résultat d'une libre participation? d'un dialogue avec la société?
• Est-ce qu'on a considéré la dynamique liberté/contrainte de s'habiller en respectant le principe d'égalité?

Non à mes yeux. Personnellement je considère le burkini comme un syndrome de la domination masculine sur les femmes, mais je crois que le seul moyen d'en finir est d'inviter les personnes concernées à participer librement et d'une façon égale à la société. Toute attaque aux syndromes, sans considérer la maladie, ne ferait qu'aggraver la maladie.

Maintenant passons à l’aspect plus concret du débat burkini en France. Il est hypocrite parce qu'il se réclame défenseur des droits de la femme alors que c'est probablement le sujet le moins structurant dans cette thématique par rapport à d’autres sujets comme le salaire des femmes comparé à celui de l'homme, la reconnaissance de la grossesse comme travail... Il est aussi hypocrite parce qu'il se réclame défenseur de la laïcité, alors qu'on tire dessus à chaque décision prise au nom du peuple mais qui n’émane pas de celui-la, comme par exemple en utilisant l'article 49.3.

Enfin, le vrai enjeu derrière toute cette polémique est d'ordre politique afin de mobiliser les gens, de récupérer les voix et de détourner l’attention. Le danger de ce jeu c'est de pousser plus les gens dans le fanatisme et préparer les identités meurtrières de demain.

Digital detox

I belong to generation Y and I know what it means to be addicted to smartphones, to Facebook, to Whatsapp... But as Socrates said: "I know that I don't know", i.e. I am conscious about it and trying to improve how I consume digital media in order to keep my psychological health in shape. There is a lot of articles on the subject, my goal is to share some tips and tricks from my personal experience. I will not discuss the dangers of social media (use of data, manipulation...) nor how digital is disconnecting us from reality (little birds singing on trees).

So why psychological health? because it's as important as physical health but we always tend to ignore it.
The first syndrome of digital addiction is decreasing concentration. Indeed, we are continually interrupted by notifications and can rarely focus on an idea for longtime, leading us to less mental efficiency and serenity.

The second syndrome is emotional dependency on "virtual". We humain beings need to be loved, to be noticed, to be surrounded. Evolutionary psychologists believe it is the result of years of evolution where humain beings, living in tribes, could not survive alone. Being ignored in a tribe means the risk of death and not passing his genes, thus we developed a warning mechanism associated with pain. Researchers have proved that the same areas of our brain are activated when we experience rejection or physical pain. Before digital era, people counted solely on family, on partner, on friendships to satisfy this need of belongingness. Nowadays we rely a lot on virtual "likes" of almost unknown people, which can be devastating when it disappears, because its just virtual!

So how am I trying to have a better control on all of this? here are four advices I am experimenting:

• Use the right media for the right communication. For simplicity, let's consider that there are two types of communication: type A, important and need to reply or take actions rapidly, and type B the less important one. We should use an adapted channel for each type, for example type A requires a channel with instant notification, like SMS, and type B requires non instant channel like Facebook messaging. It means you should deactivate notification from Facebook, and never use it or let your contacts use it for important matters. That lets you avoid the need to check Facebook regularly for type A messages.
• Separate being informed from being entertained. It should be clear in your mind, when you are consuming digital, whether you just want to lose time or obtain information. Personally, I have created two Facebook accounts: a first one where I have fun looking to friends posts and interacting with them, and a second one with no friends, but with only subscription to theater pages, news, articles, music... 
• Put some constraints. I am testing for example the following constraints: keep the phone in your pocket hidden from your eyes, do not check your phone when in presence of others (good for respect too :)), log out each time you go to Facebook, power off phone at night, limit digital consuming time per day...
• Be conscious of your usage. The first idea is to know how much you spend on your phone during a day. I tested an app on Android called Quality Time that shows you how much you use each app. I was shocked when I discovered that I can unlock my phone screen up to 200 times a day! The second idea, a very important one, is to ask yourself each time you want to use your smartphone why I am doing this? what motivated me? what am I looking for?

To be honest, I am still far from my goals, but I am happy to be conscious about it, and that's the most important step !